[00:00:09.11] - Gordon
Hello.

[00:00:09.22] - Taylor
Hello.

[00:00:10.00] - Gordon
My name's Gordon from Drayson Design.

[00:00:12.02] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:00:14.01] - Gordon
And welcome to "This Week With Taylor and Gordon," a weekly podcast and vidcast, where we talk about things that have affected our businesses over the last seven days. And Happy New Year to you.

[00:00:25.10] - Taylor
Happy New Year.

[00:00:26.05] - Gordon
We hope you all had a lovely break. You did have a break, didn't you? You weren't working all the way through. I hope you had a lovely Christmas. Here we are in the new year, ready and raring to go with new projects, new all sorts of things in your business. Did you have a nice time over the period, Taylor?

[00:00:50.09] - Taylor
Yeah, I got to spend a bit of time off and just relax, which was nice.

[00:00:56.07] - Gordon
We actually went to a Formula One exhibition in London at Excel this week, in fact. It was a Christmas present, and that's why I've got my Coca-Cola racing top on. It's the closest I've got to Formula One as far as clothing goes. And we had a good time there, didn't we?

[00:01:15.17] - Taylor
We did.

[00:01:16.09] - Gordon
Yeah, it's on for a little while longer. So if you're a Formula One fan, I recommend it. It's good fun. We got to do our fastest lap on the simulator as well, which was an added extra, which we chose to do. Well, we didn't choose to do it. It was part of the Christmas present. So that was really good. We also went and saw "Guys and Dolls" at the theatre. That was really good as well. I'd heard lots of really good things about it before we went. So I'm really glad I managed to see it before it closed because it closes now. I think now is the last performance. I think tomorrow is the last day or something. So yes, we had a great time. Let's get straight into our topics. Would you like to go first or shall I?

[00:02:03.15] - Taylor
I'll go first this week.

[00:02:04.12] - Gordon
All right, off you go.

[00:02:05.22] - Taylor
So for Christmas, I got an Oura ring.

[00:02:09.13] - Gordon
Oooh.

[00:02:10.27] - Taylor
So, an Oura ring is a ring that has electronic components in it and is a bit like an Apple Watch or any sort of smartwatch. And it allows me to track things like my fitness, my heart rate, monitor my sleep. I think it can try and be able to guess when you might be getting ill, and also stress as well, so obviously the heart rate and things like that. It's just another monitor that is in a ring form, essentially. I have on at the moment the sizing kit. So when you buy the Oura ring, they then send you a sizing kit first. You then can test to see which size you need, which one fits the best, which one will touch all of the sensors properly. And then once you've tested it, you can then tell them on the website and then they will then ship out the size for the version that you ordered. So that should be arriving soon. But it's really interesting because it's different to the Apple Watch because it has some slightly different features. But also it'll be good to see how the data changes or differs between the Apple Watch and the ring. And the other thing is that if I, for example, forget to charge my watch and I have to charge it overnight, I'll still be able to track on my ring and vice versa. If the the ring is dead, I can still track and get the metrics from the other device.

[00:03:40.29] - Gordon
Can I ask you a question? If you've got your watch and your ring all collecting data, sending it to Apple Health, how does Apple Health know that it's the same data but from two different devices?

[00:03:52.16] - Taylor
Because it will be all timestamped, so they'll only ever choose one timestamp. And you can I think you can set which one has priority. So, for example, your phone can track your sleep when you're awake and when you're sleeping. But if you have an Apple Watch, your Apple Watch will take precedence most of the time because that's what it defaults to setting. However, obviously, if your Apple Watch is charging, it will then fall back to the phone's sleep data. So, you basically just choose which one you want to prioritise and which one you want to use as the primary. Obviously, if that data doesn't exist, then it falls back to a different one.

[00:04:31.07] - Gordon
So it's capturing the data from both devices if they're both sending data, and then it will filter out one of the sets of data when it's showing you your... Otherwise, you could end up sleeping for longer than 24 hours. You could have 16 hours from two different devices and sleep for 32 hours in that period of time, which is obviously not correct. Okay, that's very good. And it's got an API, hasn't it? So if you wanted to, you could probably get data from it and put it into your website.

[00:05:06.20] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:05:07.15] - Gordon
Which is another really good thing. And again, being a data nerd as you are, this feeds into everything that you really like and enjoy.

[00:05:17.23] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:05:18.21] - Gordon
Plus, you get all your data from your walks and everything else. Talking of walks and everything else, your 75-day challenge, how are you getting on with that?

[00:05:29.05] - Taylor
Yeah, I'm right at the end. So it should be, I think today is the last day.

[00:05:36.04] - Gordon
Okay. So maybe we'll talk about that next week and we'll discover what you found out about yourself during that time, and maybe you'll talk to us about that next time.

[00:05:50.06] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:05:50.23] - Gordon
Okay. Anything else you want to say about the Oura Ring? You know about this because one of our friends, Marc Summers, has an Oura Ring. And they've got a new version out as well. They got a generation four, which has just been released, but you're getting the generation three, aren't you?

[00:06:07.17] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:06:08.00] - Gordon
Yeah. Okay. So what prompted you to want to ask for this?

[00:06:15.01] - Taylor
I've always liked the idea of wearing a ring, but I've never... I think just for the sake of it, I think is a bit pointless. And so it gave me a reason that worked for me because it was all data stuff, and that's kind of why I liked it. Yeah, it's just something different, I think. It would be interesting to compare the data that I, like I said, get from one device to another and how accurate it is and things like that.

[00:06:42.29] - Gordon
Okay, so maybe we'll check back with you in a little while once you've had it and used it for a little while and see how you're getting on with it.

[00:06:51.10] - Taylor
Yeah, sounds good.

[00:06:52.11] - Gordon
Very good. So brand new year, and this is typically the time when people make New Year's resolutions. Now, I don't normally make New Year's resolutions because I don't think that changing your habits or promising to do things in January is any different from any other time of the year. If you're going to do something, don't wait till January. Just set a time and do it. Having said that, I'm going to make a real effort this year to finish things off that I've had already started. So I've got a few things that I've been doing, and life gets in the way, things change, and they're sitting there waiting. Now, a lot of them are personal projects, things like building wooden laser-cut items that I enjoy doing. And I've got several of those that are sitting waiting to be done. I have a DeLorean Lego model that needs to be made, which I would love to make. Again, it's sitting there. It's been waiting for quite a long time now, and I'd like to get that done.

[00:08:07.15] - Gordon
Again, these are all personal things. For me, it's finding, not finding, making time to do these things. Not just sitting watching YouTube videos all the time, which is what I tend to do in my spare time. It would be nice to actually finish off a few things that I've already started. I've also got a lot of books. So reading those books or at least making a start on them is something that I would like to do this year. And now that I've got some glasses, because my eyesight was getting to the point when I needed reading glasses and I did something about that. So now I've got that, I should really take advantage of that. And again, it's finding the time to do it. You'll come back to this next week with your challenge because that was one of the bits of your challenge, wasn't it? To do some reading. As far as my business goes, one of the things I do, again, it's not a money-making exercise, but it's a marketing exercise, is I do something called FACE: The Podcast, which is where I talk to family and children's entertainers and I interview them and I collect all this video footage together, and then I have to edit it and then I have to release it, and that's the bit that takes the time. The actual recording of the interviews is maybe an hour and a half, two hours. That's it. But then the editing and everything else takes much longer. And I've had two that I've had recorded for a while now. And so, in the time between Christmas and New Year, I decided to do one of them, and it took me about two days in total to do it, and I managed to get that out. It's a YouTube video, but I've got the website - very similar to This Week With. If you've seen This Week With, you'll recognise facethepodcast.com because the style and the layout and everything is very similar. And that's because it works. We like what we did with This Week With; so why reinvent the wheel? Just change the graphics, change the colouring, change some of the functionality, but keep the basis the same. And so I managed to get one of those out, which is great. As I said, it's not money making. I'm not monetised on YouTube, but the reason for doing it is to try and elevate my status into that of an expert. So, what do I mean by that? I want people to see me as somebody who knows what they're talking about; in this particular instance children and family entertainers. And this will then mean that when I'm vying for gigs, it's something that I could mention and it might sway somebody to book me. More importantly, it's getting more well known in the industry as somebody who understands the industry and knows what they're talking about and is an expert. And so by having all this content out there and people listening to me or watching my videos means that they will consider me for anything that they think I might be able to help them with. That might be hiring me to consult for something. Maybe they're putting a show together and they think maybe my expertise will help with that. It might be that they've got a gig and they think they can't do it or they don't want to do it, and maybe it's the sort of thing that I would like to do. So again, it's just all these different leads that might come in from it that is really difficult to quantify. You can't quantify it at all easily, unless it's someone I really don't know, and they just out of the blue come to me and say, "I really enjoyed your podcast. I wonder if you can help me," or "I wonder if you can do this job," then obviously I'll know. But by positioning yourself as the expert, you can command higher fees, you can get booked to go to do talks for other organisations, other magic clubs, and that sort of thing. And it's something I can do on my own. I don't need someone else to help me with this. All I need is the goodwill of people who are willing to allow me to interview them. So far, everyone I've asked has said yes, which has been great. So that was out. I've got another one to do. Again, I just need to schedule in time for it. Life does get busy, but priorities is the way to go for me. If I prioritise things and set myself a deadline, because I find that deadlines work really well for me, then that will help, definitely. The last thing I want to say is if you are in the Croydon area and you are listening or watching this before the 11th to 18th of January, I'm in pantomime. I have been rehearsing for the last three months and I am the dame, which is a fantastic character to be. It's one of the best characters in pantomime, I believe, in my opinion. And we are doing "Robin Hood" and you can get tickets from www.sdclub.org.uk. We'll put a link in the show notes for you. So please come along and watch if you get a chance. It's great fun. Pantomime always is fun. And if you do come, then send a message backstage and I'll come and say hello to you. It'll be lovely to meet you. I think that's everything for the moment. I think in a couple of weeks time when panto's all finished, what I'll do is I'll recap on that and again explain why I do pantomime, because again, there's no money involved. It's an amateur production, but it's very professionally done, I think is probably a good way of saying it.

[00:14:29.11] - Taylor
Yeah.

[00:14:29.23] - Gordon
I think that's everything I wanted to say. Happy New Year. Anything you want to add?

[00:14:36.01] - Taylor
I don't think so.

[00:14:37.06] - Gordon
Thank you so much for joining us. As always, we can be found on YouTube. Please like, share, and subscribe.

[00:14:44.20] - Taylor
You can also go to our website thisweekwith.co.uk to find all of our past episodes.

[00:14:49.04] - Gordon
If you would prefer to listen to us, we have our podcast on all the major platforms, and you can listen to the episodes instead of watching them while you're in the car; while you're on a run; while you're at the gym because you've said to yourself that this year you're going to get fit, and January is the busiest time for gyms. So listen to us while you're on that treadmill. We'll be with you next week on Friday at 1pm. Until then, my name is Gordon, and I'm from Drayson Design.

[00:15:18.05] - Taylor
And I'm Taylor from The Creative Tinker.

[00:15:20.16] - Gordon
Goodbye.

[00:15:20.23] - Taylor
Bye.

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