Transcribed using Descript
[00:00:00] DANNY : DE HEK: Are you a Ponzi scheme victim? Are you contemplating suicide? That question has proven to be a lifesaver. If you have a friend or a family member who may be isolated, who you know that is involved in crypto opportunities, the best question you could ask them right now with all the doom and gloom that’s going on in the crypto.
[00:00:29] DANNY : DE HEK: Is, are you contemplating suicide? What do you do if somebody comes back and says, Yes, I am today’s Tube Cast and podcast. I have a guest speaker by the name of Michael Hempseed, and he talks about his experience in helping people who have mental illness. He’s an author of a book called Being a True Hero, Understanding and Preventing Suicide in our Community.
[00:01:01] DANNY : DE HEK: He’s also a 10 x speaker and he’s willing to help people over Zoom who reach out to him, and he will give you some practical advice that you may be able to give to a friend or reach out to him if you do have those thoughts. He’s willing to help. There’s so many pyramid schemes, multi-level marketing opportunities, Ponzi schemes, and online scam.
[00:01:27] DANNY : DE HEK: Going around at the moment and people around the globe are getting scammed out of billions of dollars. Have you ever thought about where that money is actually coming from? The demographics of people that are being scammed is actually 50 and above going by my research. They get involved in these Zoom meetings.
[00:01:51] DANNY : DE HEK: They listen to people’s stories who are investing hundreds of thousands of dollars. And telling people how wonderful it is and how they’re getting their return on their investment. They’re preaching a message of doom and gloom, telling people that pensions are not safe. I have personally interviewed two people that have taken all of their pension funds out and put it into HyperVerse being told that within 600 days they’re going to get three times their.
[00:02:24] DANNY : DE HEK: When I first started doing these videos exposing Ponzi schemes, I thought people were greedy. I thought, Did you really think that people were gonna get three or four times their return on their investment in such a short period of time? But when I interviewed these people that were about to retire and they tell me their stories, I realised that.
[00:02:52] DANNY : DE HEK: Had been fooled. If so, if you are a victim, don’t feel that you were silly. A lot of people will not talk to me about their losing their them losing their investment. In fact, they clamber, they keep it to themselves. They isolate themselves. Often they’re widowed or widowers, and they’ve literally lost their life savings.
[00:03:20] DANNY : DE HEK: They are home alone. And that’s why we need to, as a community, reach out to these people and maybe ask them that very question, Are you contemplating suicide? I have asked multiple people that question, and it has always turned out for the better. No one has ever told me off for asking such a personal question.
[00:03:44] DANNY : DE HEK: I’ve had two people in my immediate family commit. I was part of a religious cult. I was a Jehovah’s Witness. My stepfather when I was nine years of age, took his own life and my sister, who was two years older than me, took her own life on the same day that my stepfather took his own life at the same age many years later, they couldn’t live up to the expectations that the Jehovah’s Witness Organisation put on.
[00:04:17] DANNY : DE HEK: I have had suicidal thoughts. These crypto opportunities often wrap around you, a community. The community are there. They’re often the ones taking your money and they’re trying to wrap you around a community saying that it’s caring and they really care about you. But when you start questioning the.
[00:04:42] DANNY : DE HEK: Where’s my money? How do I get my money out? They throw you out of the communities just like they did when I was involved in the religious cult. So don’t think that you were stupid. Don’t think that you didn’t know what you were thinking, and you can’t understand how you made such a decision to take out your money and invest it in a get rich.
[00:05:04] DANNY : DE HEK: Opportunity. The guys and the girls that are in these Zoom meetings are trained professionals. Many of them have NLP training, and a lot of them have been multi-level marketers for many years. They know how to overcome those obstacles and those people that are negative, like they say I am, so there is help out there.
[00:05:30] DANNY : DE HEK: There. A future out there, even if you’ve lost all your money to a Ponzi scheme. Money is not the key to happiness. In fact, it’s just about the love of money is the root of all evilness. Michael Hempseed, as I said, is a good friend of mine. He’s wrote a book. I’m not trying to push his book. We will have links to his website.
[00:05:56] DANNY : DE HEK: You can go there and read some chapters of his books, but more importantly, he gets the juices flowing. He’s talking about yes, the elephant in the room, and we all should be talking about the elephant in the room. Let’s not ignore. That these bands have come out here and coerced people into a doom and gloo message and convince people to put their life savings into a get rich quick crypto opportunity.
[00:06:25] DANNY : DE HEK: And then just push those people to the side. And then often you’ll see the same people when one Ponzi scheme falls. There was a Ponzi scheme called stable fund.app, and that has just frozen everyone’s withdrawals, and now they say that they are going to give one times return for everyone that’s invested, and they’re also starting up a new platform version to where people can use their.
[00:06:53] DANNY : DE HEK: Dead money to go into the new Ponzi scheme. Same has happened with HyperVerse. Right now, HyperVerse, they tell us their own statistics that 1.6 million people had signed up for HyperVerse. That means that the minimum investment was $300 or 300 U S D T, which makes. On the minimum, a $4 billion scam. People at the top made a whole lot of money, and these are the ones that you may have seen in the Zoom meetings coaching you to put your life savings in there, preaching a message that it’s doom and gloom in the world and that your only savior is to take out.
[00:07:34] DANNY : DE HEK: Safe Ponzi money in your retirement fund and put it into a Ponzi scheme. It’s terrible. These guys are now starting off promoting other Ponzi schemes. It’s rampant out there. There’s a real scam demo. I really need your support. I need to hit the thumbs up, share these videos, comment on these videos, and subscribe to my YouTube channel.
[00:07:55] DANNY : DE HEK: Hit the bell and you’ll be notified when new videos come out. Hopefully next week, I’ll have an article in the New York. I’ve been interviewed four times by the New York Times, and the article should be coming out next week, which I’m really excited about. It talks about the parallels of religion and Ponzi schemes and also my journey as a dyslexic person.
[00:08:17] DANNY : DE HEK: Now why? What is the parallel? I’ve noticed that a lot of people believe in the blockchain. They believe in the technology, they, they trust in crypto that is practically the same. As saying to people they believe in the Bible and the truths that the elders from the church preach, very similar parallels.
[00:08:41] DANNY : DE HEK: Then what underneath that is the communities, the brotherhood, and often they merged in the two together. In your head, if you’re a religious person, which is the ones they target you can see there’s being part of a community. I personally know what it was like to be kicked out of the Jehovah’s Witness.
[00:08:59] DANNY : DE HEK: Faith at the time. I’m glad now, but it took me years to actually form my own community of friends and family, and I value that so much today. Very similar. The demographics of people that they’re targeting in these Ponzi schemes are people who are about to retire, people that are being widows or I’ve forgotten the you know, lost their loved ones, living home alone, lonely people, and they’ve enjoyed being part of the community.
[00:09:27] DANNY : DE HEK: Now, these same people, Have found out they’ve lost their money and they’ve been kicked out of the community. I can appreciate what that does to us. And that’s why I’ve asked Michael Hempseed to come on to my Tube cast or my podcast and talk about some practical things that we can do to help mental illness.
[00:09:48] DANNY : DE HEK: It’s nothing to be ashamed of what’s happened to you, but the future is bright. So let’s listen to what Michael has to offer. And let’s see what we can gleam from his words of wisdom. All Michael’s contact details will be in the description below. And remember, Michael is willing to talk to you over Zoom if you want to reach out to him.
[00:10:09] DANNY : DE HEK: Good morning. Welcome along. This is the Danny De Heck YouTube. What’s Ucast Tube cast? I forget. It’s a podcast. It’s everything. It’s my YouTube channel. Do what you like. So they tell me, Hey, today I’ve got a valued guest with me, Michael Hempseed. I’ve known Michael for quite a few years now, and I think you’re actually responsible for actually getting me into podcasting.
[00:10:31] DANNY : DE HEK: Did you know that?
[00:10:33] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: I didn’t know that. That’s something interesting. Yep. So that all the family out there, I’m sorry, it’s my fault.
[00:10:38] DANNY : DE HEK: Yes, it is. The radio the, the Lighthouse
[00:10:42] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: was that Lighthouse Hope? Yes. It was a radio show I had for a while.
[00:10:46] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. That was awesome. And you asked me to come along as a, a speaker and I’ve got to know you quite, Oh, we must have known each other at least for about 10 years maybe.
[00:10:54] DANNY : DE HEK: Are we getting there? That sounds about right. Yeah. Yeah. So why I asked Michael to come on to my YouTube channel and discuss things what do you specialize in, Michael?
[00:11:07] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So I’m the director of a specialist mental health service called Frontiers of Hope, and one of my key things that I’m particularly interested and passionate about is suicide prevention.
[00:11:17] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: I wrote a book on prevention called Being a true Hero, Understanding and Preventing Suicide in your Community. And it’s been quite widely used throughout New Zealand, say New Zealand police have used it, New Zealand aed. So I’m very passionate about suicide.
[00:11:32] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah, and you’ve given me some tips that I’ve actually employed quite a few times, and to my surprise the response that I’ve had is just exactly in line with the research that you said.
[00:11:43] DANNY : DE HEK: The one I will share is if you are talking to somebody and you think that this guy’s not, well, this lady’s not the right frame of mind, you ask them point blank, Are you contemplating suicide? Which seems like a really personal questions, but to my surprise, quite a few times people have. Said, Yes I am.
[00:12:01] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. And then what would you recommend you do when somebody actually acknowledges they are contemplating suicide? Yeah,
[00:12:08] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: the first thing is, you know, not being afraid of asking that question. Sometimes people think, Oh, that’s a bit personal, or I shouldn’t ask that. You could save someone’s life by asking that.
[00:12:17] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So never be afraid to ask even if you feel a bit uncomfortable. And then the big thing is if someone says they’re suicidal or they have an active plan, stay with them and get them some help. If you’re not sure where to take someone, a GP is a really good place to take someone. Hopefully you can see a GP much faster than you can see a counselor.
[00:12:35] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So taking them to a GP or if it’s a significant issue the emergency department at a hospital would basically stay with the person. And get them some help. And then once they’ve got more help, then you can leave them alone after
[00:12:47] DANNY : DE HEK: that. So you don’t just tell them a few jokes and tell them to cheer up and change their diet.
[00:12:53] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: No. If someone’s got the point of suicide, there’s a good reason why they’ve got there. So always take it seriously and also remember what they’ve told you may not be the full story. So it may sound to you like they’re getting upset over something really small, but there could be a big part of the story that you don’t know.
[00:13:12] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah, no, it’s good stuff. And I’ve literally probably said that to well over 10 people anyway. And I’ve never had someone tell me off for asking that very question. In fact, they’re actually quite pleased that I’ve actually showed an interest in them taking the time out to actually be insured of enough to actually notice that something’s not right.
[00:13:32] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah,
[00:13:33] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: yeah. And even if you do offend them, it doesn’t. You know, someone’s life is more important than whether they’re offended or not. So even if you do offend the person, doesn’t matter. Saving their life is more important,
[00:13:45] DANNY : DE HEK: right? And is it true that no one’s ever died of embarrassment? Why is that wrong?
[00:13:50] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Don’t think so.
[00:13:51] DANNY : DE HEK: No. But yeah, so that’s cool. All right, so the reason why I wanted you to come on is because I’ve been getting involved. You know, busting these Ponzi schemes. And I’ve started interviewing quite a few people that have lost a lot of money. And two of the people that I have actually asked, I’ve employed that question, Do they feel suicidal?
[00:14:11] DANNY : DE HEK: And I’ve actually said, yes, I have had suicidal thoughts and I, because I’m doing it over Zoom and there are in other countries, I feel like I’m a little bit help. And also, you know, staying in touch with everyone is quite hard work. So I thought I’d bring you on because a lot of people, what I’ve noticed, have been hot.
[00:14:30] DANNY : DE HEK: They don’t want to come on Zoom and they don’t wanna broadcast for the world. They’re embarrassed, they’ve lost their money and all different other reasons. So I thought if people are watching this video and they have lost their money and they are feeling really low, then I’d like to be able to give them some advice, or I want you to give them some advice of things they could practically do and maybe the mentality behind people that get involved in these get rich quick opportunities.
[00:14:58] DANNY : DE HEK: Because money is a, is a thing that we all strive after. And when we have it taken away from us in a hurry it can obviously get those thoughts working negative.
[00:15:07] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, should we start with that perhaps that I think a lot of people don’t realize that, say, losing a large sum of money that could make someone suicidal.
[00:15:16] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: I think a lot of people think that someone will only contemplate suicide after a long history of depression. Maybe they’ve had depression for five or 10 years and a lot of people are really surprised to learn that. Suddenly losing a lot of money can be a trigger for suicidal thoughts. But many people have seen the film.
[00:15:33] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: It’s a wonderful. It’s about a man that owns a loan company and then one day he loses in today’s money what’s the equivalent of a hundred thousand dollars, and he thinks about suicide. And in the morning he was perfectly fine. He was perfectly happy. He had a lot to live for. And then suddenly when he was faced with such an overwhelming loss, he thought about suicide.
[00:15:54] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And that doesn’t just happen in movies as you’ve said, and I’ve experienced too with many people, suddenly losing a lot of money, unfortunately, can trigger suicidal thoughts in people. So we need to be aware that this is a risk factor.
[00:16:06] DANNY : DE HEK: Hmm. One, the patent there I’ve noticed of, these people who they have Zoom meetings, and I’ve literally been in these Zoom meetings where they have nearly just under 2000 people in these Zoom meetings, and they’re getting preached due by the people who are running the Zoom meetings.
[00:16:21] DANNY : DE HEK: And there’s a community that’s all staged. And they come on. And it’s kind of like these people that are new in here, they think, Oh, I’m part of a community, you know? And they’re sort of pushed or coached. Getting involved with these things. So not only do they just, they realize they’ve been scammed. They also, the community that they’re a part of, doesn’t want anything to do with them.
[00:16:42] DANNY : DE HEK: When they realize that they’ve lost their money and they ditched them, so they lose not just money, they lose the community unity. .
[00:16:49] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So one of the things I’d say to that is sometimes people feel really pressured to invest in something. They have people say to them, If you miss this opportunity, you will miss the best opportunity of your life.
[00:17:01] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And people feel like there’s a lot of pressure. What I’d say to that is, There’s always another opportunity going to come along. So the world is full of opportunities. There’s no shortage of opportunities, so don’t feel that, you know, oh, if I don’t invest in this thing right now because this person’s telling me I’ve only got one hour to invest in it, we’ll just stop and think about that for a moment.
[00:17:22] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: If you miss out on this opportunity, there will be plenty more in the future. A really good idea is maybe if you are thinking about investing in something, maybe talk about it, trust it with. Talk about this with a trusted family member or a friend offline. I think sometimes people put a lot of weight on the advice they get on internet forms and things like that, but you don’t know who these people are.
[00:17:43] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: You might not have met them. So I’d really encourage you to talk to a trusted friend or family member. Some of that you actually know, some of it’s in real life and try and get a bit of advice from them and that try and takes away some of the pressure. And it also try and takes away some of the impulsive thinking.
[00:17:59] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So pauses, consult someone else and really think about it. Mm,
[00:18:05] DANNY : DE HEK: I noticed. Also they paint a picture of wealth and rich. I mean, most of the promotional stuff I see they’re on a yacht somewhere. You know, like just recently I had to find another place to rent because I’ve lost we had to move outta our house and then I the guy that was badger me online was picking on the suit.
[00:18:20] DANNY : DE HEK: I was wearing and the fact that I had to get my rent money together. Yeah. And I’m going, Why do you think people. Have this, I’ll be happy when I’m rich. Yeah. Mentality like some people travel around the world on a shoestring because they love to travel and they don’t have any wealth. I mean, does they A lot happier than a lot of people who might be the richest people in the world.
[00:18:45] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, it’s really interesting. If you go back to the sixties and you asked young people, What do you want out of life? The number one thing they said was friendships. Today, if you ask young people what do they want out of life either the top or the second thing they say is either money or fame. And so we’ve had this, we’ve had a significant shift in what our values are.
[00:19:06] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So what we often think is that, yeah, if we get rich, that will solve all our problems. And what we often don’t realize is the problems tend to follow us. Being rich doesn’t necessarily solve problems. I’ve worked with some incredibly wealthy individuals over the years. And one of the things I’ve learned about mental health is it doesn’t discriminate.
[00:19:24] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: You could be incredibly. And you can be incredibly rich and these things can hit you equally. What I would say is that does make life worth living is meaningful. Relationships, you know, friendships, connections challenging yourself, learning. These are all things that really make your life worth living.
[00:19:40] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Unfortunately, what we know about wealth is it actually tends to diminish. So a lot of people think, say if I was a millionaire then I’d be happy. But a lot of people get to that million point and then they think, Oh no, I’ve only got a million dollars. That’s nowhere near enough. I need 10 million. I need a hundred million.
[00:19:58] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And so actually they become less satisfied with what they have. The other thing we know about, say if your dream is to own a Ferrari, we know that buying a Ferrari makes you feel ecstatic for about a. And then unfortunately that’s feeling starts to wear off. So if you’re trying to build your happiness on things like that in terms of rewards it’s not very long lasting and it doesn’t actually work very well.
[00:20:22] DANNY : DE HEK: The interesting one for me, I got to speak to a class full of children, about 60 of them once, and it was about dyslexia at the time, and I asked them, Who wants to be. And they all put their hand up. And I said, Well, how rich do you wanna be? How much money? A million dollars, $2 million. Keep your hand up.
[00:20:40] DANNY : DE HEK: And then I asked them, What are you gonna do with the money? Yeah. And no one had an answer. And I said, So if you don’t have a purpose for the money, then what’s so used to striving after something that you have no purpose for?
[00:20:54] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Just one other thing I’ll mention. Lots of studies show that volunteering so helping people in need actually probably makes you feel far better than winning or earning a lot of money.
[00:21:03] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So there’s things like this that you can do that can actually build your happiness, your self worth and meaning in life than just about money.
[00:21:12] DANNY : DE HEK: The, The timing of these scams and the desperation of people has really been amplified by covid 19. I mean, people are now ofa, been on Zoom and talking and doing videos.
[00:21:25] DANNY : DE HEK: A lot of meetings are all done over Zoom and everyone’s quite happy about that. But it’s also the isolation and the loneliness and then be able to have a window into the world has certainly made. Really easy for these scammers to actually get into people’s homes. But I think isolation and loneliness is something that, you know, I’ve had a lot to do with the loneliness side of my social groups.
[00:21:46] DANNY : DE HEK: I mean, what’s some, what’s some practical things that people could do? Cause as I said earlier, you know, we’ve got these community, they wanna be part of the community. I mean, how do you find. Good communities like volunteering. It sounds like a great old way to find a community.
[00:22:01] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, so most cities have got an organization in Christchurch.
[00:22:05] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: There’s Volcan volunteering Canterbury that lists a whole lot of different options to volunteer with, but there’s lots of opportunities no matter where you live in the world. Trying to find things like that. There’s also the great website meetup.com. And there’s groups for everything. You know, there’s walking groups, there’s quiz night groups, if you like playing sport for fun.
[00:22:24] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Some groups just have a meal for the sake of it. So trying to find things like that can be really helpful.
[00:22:31] DANNY : DE HEK: I’ve always had a saying, becoming a better version of yourself. And often when I give out more, I do actually feel like I’m, you know, like you said, you know, by helping others. It certainly does make you.
[00:22:43] DANNY : DE HEK: It gives you more confidence. What about other
[00:22:46] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: thing, One other point. Can I raise one other point here? Yep. One other thing to know a lot of people think how do millionaires live? And a lot of people think that millionaires, they drive a Ferrari. They wear Rolex watches or things like that.
[00:22:59] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: There’s a fascinating book called The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas Stanley, and he interviewed a whole lot of genuine millionaires, so not people that just on Facebook attend to millionaires. These are actual millionaires. And what he found was that most millionaires. Do not drive ferari. They do not wear Rolex watches.
[00:23:18] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: They do not go on expensive holidays. They’re actually really careful with their money, and so sometimes challenging the idea of what a millionaire actually looks like can also be really helpful.
[00:23:29] DANNY : DE HEK: Did you come along to my think tank meeting when we had the cookie time guy? Were Did you go to
[00:23:34] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: that one? No, I didn’t.
[00:23:35] DANNY : DE HEK: Didn’t come to that one though. Yeah, it was, He was quite cool. Couple of things I got from him coming along. He said that you’ve gotta have your failures in business because they are the compost for your next opportu business opportunity., but I asked him what he drove and he’s a aire and he said he, he’s got a, this Nissan Leaf and it cost him, you’ve got a secondhand one 17,000 at the time.
[00:23:58] DANNY : DE HEK: But he said he used to have a $250,000 Porsche. Yeah. And he said he got sick of driving up. He loved the car, but he said he just, he is killing the planet. So he got rid of it. Yeah. His friends for what? What are you doing? You know, so, yeah. What is going on in people’s heads when they are feeling suicidal?
[00:24:18] DANNY : DE HEK: What’s the, I know, I know. It’s a chemistry thing with some people. It can be a, a weak moment in time. Yeah. Hasty decisions.
[00:24:27] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, I think maybe just we take a step back and look at say if someone does invest in a Ponzi scheme or something like that, and if suddenly lose a lot of money. Probably what attracted to it in the first place was significant returns.
[00:24:41] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So people are told, you know, you’re gonna be rich, you’re gonna be a millionaire. Invest a couple of thousand dollars and then in six months you can, you know, be rich. So one of the things that can be really challenging for people is to realize how much of a mistake they’ve made or to realize how stupid they’ve been.
[00:24:59] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And really what it comes down to is humility. Sometimes people think, you know, how could I have been that stupid? How could I have made this mistake? Certainly with my mental health work over the years, I’ve realized that some very intelligent people fall for some really dumb scams. So it’s not as if it’s only people that are stupid or something like that.
[00:25:18] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: There’s actually a lot of people that can fall for this. And I think one of the things where it can start to spiral outta control for people is when people start beating themselves. When they start to say, I’m such a loser, I’m such an idiot. And it’s when people have thoughts like this that I think that can be the start of suicidal thoughts.
[00:25:36] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So try and have a realistic view of this and say, you know, I made a mistake. I got this wrong. But also other people have for, for this. What I really like about your podcast is that you’re trying to get people to open up about this. Mm. I think there’s a tremendous shame in falling for something like this.
[00:25:53] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And if people feel like they’re the only one they feel, you know, isolated, that makes things much worse. But if they actually hear, well, there’s lots of people out there that have been through this that can be helpful. I think when it comes to suicide, one of the things that can happen is people catastrophize things.
[00:26:10] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So people think, I’ve lost all this money. I’m never going to be able to recover this, or I’m never gonna be able to get through this. As I said before, it’s important to know that there’s a lot of opportunities in life. Sometimes people think so if they lost a lot of money at 50, well that would mean their life is over.
[00:26:27] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: They can’t possibly recover that. But Colonel Sanders, who founded kfc, he actually made most of his money after age 60. Warren Buffet, one of the richest men in the world. He also made, I think, like 99% of his wealth after age 60. So some people worry that, you know, if they lose money late in. It’s too late to do anything about it.
[00:26:47] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: That’s not necessarily true. So if you do feel really shocked about this, try and find examples of people that did make money later in life. Studies of millionaires also suggest that most millionaires go bankrupt three times in their life. So this is part of the journey for some people.
[00:27:04] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So as difficult as it can be, if people try not to catastrophize as things, and people try and understand that, well, yes, this is a part of life. Sometimes things like this can happen.
[00:27:13] DANNY : DE HEK: One guy was telling me he didn’t wanna tell his wife that he’d lost his money and then he, he told her that he lost money, but he still isn’t told her how much.
[00:27:20] DANNY : DE HEK: And it’s, it’s $700. Okay. So it’s not a lot, but he is still trust. And I think I would hurry up and tell your wife because yeah, I might be thinking a lot more than $700, even though that might be, A lot to them at the moment.
[00:27:33] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah. I think the sooner that you talk to someone about it and even if it’s an anonymous help hotline or something like that to start off with, if you have to tell someone to the courage a little bit.
[00:27:44] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: But I think do tell someone. I think one of the most dangerous things that can happen and where people really end up as in trouble is when they isolate themselves, when they think, I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to have involvement. I think as soon as you tell someone else, there is a bit of relief there.
[00:28:01] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: You know, as soon as you can. Let someone else know what’s happened after that can actually start to bring some healing to what’s happened.
[00:28:08] DANNY : DE HEK: I often bring this into my podcast and you won’t know, but often people fail to talk about the elephant in the room. Yeah. I think the, the main point there is what overwhelms me sometimes is fact that people don’t wanna talk about it and are too embarrassed.
[00:28:24] DANNY : DE HEK: So I think, yeah. You know, and I, the breaking that down is like I, people think I’m quite open and I don’t have a private life where I do, but I also are very open and I found every time I talk about something, how I’m thinking, whether it’s negative, positive, even, it really is good therapy for Danny. So, I mean, where do you find.
[00:28:43] DANNY : DE HEK: Someone to talk to. If you are like, the two people I’m thinking of that I interviewed were retired at 55. One South African guy, he was now 57, so he is been retired and then another guy was 61 hoping to retire when he was 62 and he was on a a benefit disability. Fun pension, which they have in America.
[00:29:03] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. And both of them had just about retired and they lived the single, the home alone. Yeah. And you know, a friend down the road had introduced them into it, who they’ve no longer talking to them anymore, you know, So sort of. I think there’s a real niche out there. I think when I used to run the social groups, I used to find that a lot of the people that come along to my social group didn’t help themselves.
[00:29:24] DANNY : DE HEK: You know, they would go along to a dinner and then they would complain about something silly. Like the food wasn’t up to, you know, five star standards or that person over there. I know them from, you know, how do we get on with it and how do we not be so judgmental of people? Or why can we not say I made silly mistake?
[00:29:43] DANNY : DE HEK: What? What’s the mentality behind.
[00:29:47] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So one of the things that I’ve spent a lot of time working on with people is around the concept of failure and being open and honest about failure. About 10 years ago I tried going on Britain Scott talent and it did not planet all. Yeah, I humiliated myself had 3000 people in the audience yelling off, off, off at me.
[00:30:06] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And then this was broadcasted in front of 12 million people and I started sharing this with people. The surprising reaction that I got was people said that just me sharing my story was inspiring. And at first I thought these people were just trying to make me feel better about this, and they didn’t really mean this.
[00:30:23] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: But then suddenly I started to realize that these people did actually find this inspiring. And it took me a long time to understand why. But we are not open and honest about how failures. So sometimes if we share what’s happened to us it really does break that mold because a lot of people. Everyone has a failure.
[00:30:39] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Everyone does something stupid. Everyone’s gonna make some really, really dumb decision in their life. There will not be one person on the planet that doesn’t do this. Yeah. When we try and pretend that, Oh no, this would never happen to me. Well, that’s when we’re not being realistic. So we need to actually be quite open and honest and say, Yep, look, I stuffed up.
[00:30:58] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: You know, maybe someone loses money in a Ponzi scam. Maybe someone goes on national TV and humiliates themselves. But sooner or later, every single person in their life is gonna stuff up spectacularly.
[00:31:10] DANNY : DE HEK: You went back onto America’s Got
[00:31:12] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Talent, didn’t you? New. New Zealand’s got talented that also didn’t go to plan.
[00:31:16] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So No. Do I stuff up once? I stuffed up twice?
[00:31:19] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. And you, I think 140 countries you rattle off 140 countries black. Yeah, they got stuff I thought did come into mind then that I was thinking of, but it’s gone straight at my head now. I, I was gonna ask you, have you ever invested in a Ponzi scheme?
[00:31:32] DANNY : DE HEK: But I’m pretty sure I know the answer to that.
[00:31:34] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: I mean, I’m, I’m quite able to as far as I know, I’ve never invested in one. So One of the things that I try and do is before I invest in something I try and to stop and think about it. And sometimes I take quite a bit of time, sometimes a few months to think about things.
[00:31:47] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Mm. So sometimes we live in this really fast-paced world that says, You’ve got to act now. You know this close at five o’clock, and if you don’t sign on the do. And we seem to in just this massive rush, and I constantly get emails from people saying, I emailed you a while ago and I haven’t received a. I know and look when the last email came, and it was two or three hours ago.
[00:32:07] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yep. Goodness sake. So just slow down. Hey, the Jill. So that’s one of ways I don’t think I would, Ponzi scheme is I do try and think about things quite carefully.
[00:32:17] DANNY : DE HEK: Mm-hmm., I, I know what I was gonna say earlier on. I were talking to a friend On Facebook Messenger with a video and an email come in saying, I need to pay my car registration.
[00:32:26] DANNY : DE HEK: And I’m continuously telling people about, you know, checking things and it was a scam. Had to cancel my credit card. It got jammed and I’m thinking, oh my goodness, how embarrassing. I’m, I’m a scam buster. And, and here I am getting scammed myself while I’m talking to my mate about.
[00:32:42] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, it happens everyone.
[00:32:43] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: What can, what can happen? It’s when people in a hurry, when people are tired. This is when things can go wrong. So maybe a lesson from there is try and pay your bills maybe early in the morning when you’re awake or when you feel a bit of time. And really do try and pause and think about this. got an invoice yesterday for something.
[00:33:02] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: and it looked really legitimate. And then I started to think about this for a while and I thought the amount of this invoice just doesn’t sound right, and then eventually realized, looked careful at the email and it wasn’t from the company. So. The big thing is poor or stop and think. If you’re not sure, check it out.
[00:33:21] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah, I got one from PayPal, which I’m gonna do a video on, and it’s actually come from PayPal. It’s $1,500, and if I don’t do something fast and hurry along, they’re gonna automatically take the money outta my account. But the reply email address is actually legit. And then I thought, well, they must have logged into PayPal, created an account and sent a money request to.
[00:33:41] DANNY : DE HEK: And that’s why it looks legit. And they gave me a phone number to ring which was Australian. Cause they think Australian, New Zealand the same. So I rang the guy about 15 times and said some very nice things to him, but he got sick of me at the end. But I had a lot of fun doing it., I had different voices and.
[00:33:56] DANNY : DE HEK: I was ringing up as an old lady and every time you’d get like five minutes into the conversation, you’d realize it’s the same guy, . But it’s just so rampant at the moment. And I, I think, you know, like I’m trying to educate people just to be more savvy. And I think what you just said makes a lot of sense is why do we have to do things with, We are doing so much, there’s so many transactions.
[00:34:16] DANNY : DE HEK: I mean, I think I’ve heard you talk about how many calculations the brain does every.
[00:34:23] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So we, we, we do quite a, we think of a fair bit. There’s a lot that happens in the brain. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just something else to consider is that, let’s say you get an email from a bank saying, you know, if you don’t pay a thousand dollars by midnight tonight, we will repossess your house.
[00:34:41] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Well, let’s stop bank for a minute. Cause banks don’t send letters like that. Especially in a country like New Zealand. You know, if you miss one mortgage payment, a bank is not gonna repossess your house. So I think a lot of scammers used panic at dicks. Again, slow down was if it says it’s urgent, it probably.
[00:35:00] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. No, it’s good. Well, I don’t wanna go on too long, but I think the purpose, What is the purpose of us getting together and actually doing this YouTube, ucast I call them now, or podcast? What, what, what are we trying to accomplish by you and I getting together? What, who are we trying to help? Are, are we, There’s two people I can.
[00:35:21] DANNY : DE HEK: Obviously the victims and obviously Yeah. People who have, are listening to these friends that are coming to them and saying, Look, I’ve heard this great opportunity. I, I should this, What do you say? I mean, should we break that into two parts? How, how can we help the victim? How can we help the people that wanna save the people who are about to be victimized?
[00:35:40] DANNY : DE HEK: Is that the right word?
[00:35:41] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah. So in terms of, how do you say, the people that want to be victimized all the things that we’ve talked about today in terms of, you know, getting people to try and think critically sometimes Googling the scan or Googling the investment saying, you know, what do other people think about this?
[00:35:56] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And sometimes just be aware. If it’s a good scam, sometimes the top results on Google the first page, they do look legitimate. Sometimes going down to page three or four and trying to dig a little bit deeper can be really helpful. And also trying to educate people about what a genuine investment looks like.
[00:36:12] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So, you know, there should be information about, you know, who is this company? You know, are these returns realistic? So if you invest in the stock market, for example I think the average return is about 12% over the last 30. So that would sort of be a good investment if someone’s telling you that you can get 10 times your money in a month, well, a legitimate investment wouldn’t probably focus on something like that.
[00:36:35] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So these are all things that you can do to try and get people to look at now what’s, what does a real investment look like and what does a fake investment look like? In terms of how do you help someone? I think it’s really important to know that sometimes, like you said, $700, now many people, maybe $700 isn’t a lot of money.
[00:36:52] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: You don’t know to that person. Maybe that’s a huge amount of money. Someone once rang me and said I owe a telephone, a telecommunications company $4,000 I want to kill. He thought it was this insurmountable debt. He thought he was never gonna be able to pay it off. We’ve sort it out eventually, but sometimes, even if it does seem small to us, you never know.
[00:37:12] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: It could be really big to the person to take it seriously. Mm-hmm. . I think trying to get people out, you know, volunteering, go for a walk or something like that take their mind off it. Sometimes the people stay at home and just think over this again and again. That can be really important to do.
[00:37:31] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: If you believe that someone is at risk of suicide, do you know, take them to a doctor, take them to a mental health professional if you think, you know, they’re in a seriously bad way and they’re not thinking clearly. Particularly if say someone’s drunk, you know, say someone lost a whole lot of money they’ve started drinking heavily.
[00:37:47] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: And if you think that this person is not thinking clearly, they’re a danger to themselves you need to get outside help and keep them.
[00:37:54] DANNY : DE HEK: Mm. What about I got myself, I lost my love dog. I had a dog for 11 years and he passed away quite suddenly. And then we found that we weren’t going out for our walks anymore, so we’ve got a new puppy now.
[00:38:06] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. But I think what’s just quickly really what the, you know, like people try to, what I’m trying to say, Mental illness. I’ve had two people in my li life commit suicide to my immediate family. Right. And one was my sister was into drugs and she was depressed, bulimic, andex. And my stepfather was probably Adhd, kind of like bipolar maybe.
[00:38:33] DANNY : DE HEK: Now I look back, I don’t think, you know, by, I, I don’t think I could have applied any ointment to fix their thinking. Yeah. But does getting outside, you know, when I used to run the social groups and take people hiking, I used to find that used to release good endorphins. So by doing physical exercise and getting outside the house, even if you aren’t very mobile, just going for a simple walk, not running a marathon, does that literally make a difference to people that are suffering with their mental.
[00:39:05] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: It certainly can, It won’t work for everyone, but it certainly can help a lot of people. And what I say is find what works for you. For example, there’s some people that might really enjoy walking and other people might just enjoy having a bath to calm down and relax. Other people might enjoy going out with friends, so there’s no sort of right way to manage.
[00:39:24] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: There’s lots of different things that you can do and if it works well for you, if you’re the sort of person that feels like, you know, going for a walk that helps you, then absolutely, you should try and do that. Mm.
[00:39:35] DANNY : DE HEK: Now good stuff. I, I’m pretty, pretty sure that’s gonna help quite a few people. Now I’m going to put links below.
[00:39:40] DANNY : DE HEK: I’m gonna put a link to your book, I presume, is that, Have you got Naught ear book yet, mate? You’re not dyslexic,,
[00:39:45] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Not yet. But so I’ve got my book website is being a true hero.com, and you can learn and there’s. Information on there under chapters, free chapters. If you’re concern that someone’s suicidal, there’s a li list of what to do to help someone.
[00:40:01] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So that’s available on there if you need it.
[00:40:03] DANNY : DE HEK: That’s brilliant. And honestly, that, that asking people point blank question, are you contemplating suicide? Has never backfired. And it is, yeah. One of the best bit of advice I think I’ve ever had from you, because I’m around a lot of people and you know, like I’ve had two people that have taken their own lives in my social groups, and I think one of them took two weeks before somebody found them.
[00:40:26] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. And that highlighted the fact to me that people are lonely and they don’t have anywhere to turn, and they are, And with Covid and everything, you’d be a busy man at the moment, wouldn’t you?
[00:40:37] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Unfortunately, Yes. Very busy. Yeah.
[00:40:41] DANNY : DE HEK: So, yep. So I really appreciate you coming along. Have you got anything else you’d like to share?
[00:40:48] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: What I’d say is that a lot of people talk to me about my job and when I tell them I work with people that are suicidal, they think I must have the worst job in the entire world. They think this must be the most sad, depressing, and miserable job that you could ever have. It’s actually the most joyful job I’ve ever had, right?
[00:41:08] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Cause yes, some days I work with people and what is the absolute worst day of their entire. But the amazing thing is I can catch up with these people, say a year later or 18 months later, and many of these people told me my life cannot be good again. There is no possible way that I can be happy. And yet the amazing thing is that 12 months, 18 months later, if I catch up with these people, they often say to me things like, I cannot believe that I was that low.
[00:41:36] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: I cannot believe that person that was so depressed and so miserable was actually me. Wow. So as bad as some of these things that working in the space is an incredibly joyful space because you actually get to see tremendous.
[00:41:49] DANNY : DE HEK: Mm. I think what I would get if I put myself in your shoes, cause I, I know your brain is pretty full on, full on, but I, I’ve always loved the psychology of humans and the understanding why we act and do things in a certain way.
[00:42:07] DANNY : DE HEK: And I mean, we’ve touched on it a bit, but people feel ashamed because they made a mistake and they’ve got involved in a Ponzi scheme. Yeah. But the psychology. Can be broken down and why do we act? You know what, you know, like if somebody said to you, Green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, green, 10 times, and you walk into a dairy and bought a drink and you come out with a green bottle,, then you can see that, you know, the psych.
[00:42:37] DANNY : DE HEK: If why I started that? Because I’m thinking what I’ve been doing busting all these Ponzi schemes, I’ve been listening to these Zoom meetings and I’m around all these people. trying to find happiness and greed, and I actually have found it quite emotional, a negative. It’s a lot to take on, even just being an outsider and I’m thinking, Well, you are what you eat, and I’m thinking that sometimes it’s a good idea just to walk away.
[00:43:04] DANNY : DE HEK: From these opportunities and go like, I’m all about people having a product or a service, and I’m all about people building a business up. But I think the negativeness that you’re around the wrong type of people can actually be causing you grief.
[00:43:21] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah, I think try and look for positive examples. Something I’ve learned a lot about recently with quite a few younger people is who do they follow in terms of influences?
[00:43:31] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Do they follow influences that moan and complain about everything and really bring you down? Or do you actually follow people that you feel uplifted afterwards? Don’t
[00:43:40] DANNY : DE HEK: worry about that. Well, what are influences? That’s, that’s a whole topic in itself. Are they ERs? I call them ERs. Do you know what I mean by that?
[00:43:53] DANNY : DE HEK: Michael’s frozen. Come on, Michael, come back to me.
[00:44:00] DANNY : DE HEK: You’ve frozen, Michael. Whoop,
[00:44:04] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: you’re back up. Yeah, we broke up there
[00:44:05] DANNY : DE HEK: for a second. That’s good. I made fun of you while you was frozen. It was good. Yeah. . What Did you get that last bit? Oh, what I was talking about Influences? Yeah. When I call them veneers, Did you get that?
[00:44:16] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah. I think that’s something that, Yeah, we need to, you know, we really look at who do we follow?
[00:44:23] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: Yeah.
[00:44:24] DANNY : DE HEK: Who you hang around, isn’t it? Well, thank you Michael. I really appreciate you taking some of your time outta your day on a Friday Friday in the morning in New Zealand, and it’s nice to be able, I think we’ve done this probably a few times now, but you’re responsible for me getting in front of a microphone and becoming a podcaster.
[00:44:41] DANNY : DE HEK: You’re solely accountable.
[00:44:43] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: So I take no responsibility for anything that may have happened. .
[00:44:49] DANNY : DE HEK: Yeah. So you’ve been listening to the WHAT : DE HEK Podcast and TubeCast, so this will be a video on my YouTube channel. Please do tune in, have a look, make sure you subscribe and hit the bell, and then you’ll get my latest videos.
[00:45:00] DANNY : DE HEK: And once again, Michael, thank you very much for your time. It’s been a pleasure. Great. Happy to
[00:45:06] MICHAEL HEMPSEED: be.
[00:45:27] DANNY : DE HEK: Being a true hero,
[00:45:33] DANNY : DE HEK: are you contemplating? Pick song. I’m recording. Yay. You got to be on the video. Can you say Tube cast? Tube Cast tube cast? Today’s guest on my YouTube cast today in my tube cast, or my Ponzi. Ah. You Tube cast. I can never get that word right. Tube cast or Ponzi Cast. Ponzi cast. What the hell is a Ponzi cast?
[00:46:08] DANNY : DE HEK: No one’s talking about the elephant in the room.
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