Jordan Schmidt Interview: Australian Survivor

0:00 Welcome back to the nullified tank where we've got the tnt takes for you on australian survivor blood versus water i am joined today by one of the original blood members of the season jordan in fact you were only on the blood tribe throughout this whole season do you feel like you missed out not being able to jump onto the water tripe and getting that blue buff or was it red all the way no i was i was very happy to stay red man it was red all the way red all day red all the way you know i was happy to stay there i don't it's be like moving house i everyone hates moving houses so the fact that i got to you know keep my bed at the blood tribe and which is just the sand by the way but the fact that i got to stay there and chill and not have to move everything my backpack and barely any clothes so that was good that was good now it's good to stay in the in the red tribe where was the merge camp was it in the exact same spot that you were at the whole time were you there the whole time while you were out there did you guys actually move camp locations yeah so the where i was i was at the red camp for majority of the game and then where the merge camp was the blue camp so water so it actually worked perfectly you know i got to spend majority of my days at red and then got to change scenery towards the end

1:21 Which one of the two games did you prefer was there one that was better than the other one in your mind was pretty much the same it's like when you're sleeping in the dirt you're sleeping in the dirt right ah well it's i like the water was better at the red cab because it was deeper so you could swim a little bit more but you know the blue camp was a lot more logistically was a lot better you know you can move around a lot easier and towards the end of the game when you're tired you don't want to really be doing too much or exerting too much energy so the blue camp at the end was pretty cool oh that's cool so when you said logistically was it just getting into challenges and back like the distance or going to tribal council i know these are the things that normally don't make the tv show but fans of the show they normally like hearing some of these behind the scenes stuff if you can talk to that like logistically when you say that is it or does it have to do with being able to like go and have conversations separately and not being followed as easily what do you mean by logistically it was more just where the it was more just where everything was so like where the water where the well was wasn't too far away so it was easy to get there you know you could walk off and find leaves for your food like that was all close and the water was literally you could just roll out of your bed or wherever you're laying straight into the water so everything was just a lot tighter more compact i know that sounds lazy but

2:41 When you're 40 something days in the game you know you've got you've got no energy so we're with the red camp you know you're walking there you're doing a full trick to go to go to the toilet or you're doing a massive tractor just to get water so no it's good that was nice and close nice well i had a chat with josh obviously previously as well and he's someone that i rated very highly this season so i really enjoyed having a chat with him and he mentioned to me that he was the one that was first approached to go on the show and then he mentioned it to you and you're very excited about it i'm sort of curious to know were you a fan of survivor beforehand did you know about the show what was your sort of expectations i guess going into this thing and how was it different because i can only imagine it's very different from what you when you get that first call to say hey there's the show survivor we might be able to go and play on it yeah so i was a huge fan of the australian survivor you know i've been honest i watched a little bit of the american but i was a really big fan of the australian survivor you know i watched all the way from season one and yeah just to just to have the opportunity when they asked you know when they asked josh and then josh came to me and he's like would you be ready to go and you know it's an opportunity that you know once in a lifetime you know you're not guaranteed to play again either so yeah as soon as you said would you ready to go we've got a short turnaround we've got about six days

4:01 I was like yeah 100 like let's get it done like let's go after it and i knew what it was i knew what i was getting myself into straight away like i've watched the show i've watched how physical especially other survivors around the world i'd say the australian one is generally the most physical i believe and i knew for me i was like you know the physical side will be you know we can lock that away like me and josh are both physical people but i was more i wanted to see what sort of i wanted to see how my mental side would hold up in the game and i really wanted to test myself so yeah i'll grab the opportunity with both hands and i was like let's have a crack so you mentioned that it was quite short notice there was a lot of talk and obviously a little bit of focus on you doing a very heavy gym routine you know lifting weights getting in physical good shape going into the show i don't know how much of that was put on for the cameras and it wasn't what would you do differently in preparation now i guess because you've been out there and you've played for quite a long time what would be your biggest you know i guess tip for people that want to go in there and prepare themselves for the show and do you feel like you had enough time to prepare yourself oh it's i think josh and myself are very fortunate you know we try to stay in shape all year round you know just be always be prepared but yeah you could definitely if we had more

5:21 Preparation time you can definitely do things differently but with survivor it's one of those things where you can you can prepare as much as you want but once you're out there you get hit with challenges you can't prepare for if that makes sense so the only advice the main advice i'd have would be to go on with more weight to be honest you know i lost i lost ridiculous amounts of weight that i didn't think was possible and you know if i was to go again i'd take more weight in there for sure and that's just extra fat stores i'd go in a bit bigger probably just focus more on strength really can like you know i'd i think the best advice i'd have was take weight but also focus on the areas you're going to be strong at you know i'm not going to be standing up on a pole for you know hours like someone like jordy or shay but you know i could probably keep my arms locked over my head a bit longer than other people and i'd probably focus on areas that i might think's coming up if that makes sense yeah 100 and try and stick with those yeah because i was going to say you know being someone is a bit of a gym rat yourself and being a fitness instructor i'm assuming you're used to eating a lot of meals throughout the day smaller portions so your metabolism is just firing at all times how difficult was it to adapt to being out there

6:41 And switching to i guess like a cup of rice a day or whatever you guys were living on out there what is that like how long does it take your body to get used to i guess that deprivation of food and does it ever get used to it out there oh it's it was actually it was a bit of a shock to the system you know we you know a basic day for me just for just for maintenance you know i'd have to eat around three and a half thousand like calories and you know you go in there and you're lucky to get six probably the range of six to eight hundred calories a day so you feel it straight away but your body's so smart that you know you do adapt like you know that you know that you're gonna be hungry and your body your body naturally like starts to you know you can feel yourself getting hungry but you just know that you're you know you're in for the long haul so mentally that's where the mental side kicks in so i was we were definitely starving but everyone was you know and yeah i was definitely it was definitely a shock to the system i think one of the best things i did this is actually another bit of advice i reckon if you love coffee yeah you need to weed that out fast because yeah that's a big problem for me yeah i love my caffeine you know so was it headaches and things like that what's the what's the worst that happens when you get cut off from the caffeine well we were very lucky

8:01 Because we're not lucky but we had to quarantine before we went on the show so i actually i waited off the coffee in the quarantine so we had to quarantine in two weeks so for two weeks this was when everything was like sort of locked down so we had to go into another state quarantined for two weeks in hotel quarantine so in that hotel quarantine was the best opportunity you know because you can't go anywhere you can't do anything and i love i love strong arm and latte so there's three shots in those and i drink like two to three of them a day so that's like nine shots like that's a lot so once we got a total quarantine i just went cold turkey and the first time the first five days i was getting huge headaches like i was it was actually interesting to see i was getting massive headaches and then by the time we got into the show i felt pretty good yeah i think that's you know you're kind of hurting things it's almost like you're giving me advice here if i was able to go out there and play the game because i love my coffees i love my food i'm always actively busy so those types of things is interesting to me and i'm sure there's a lot of other people out there that are thinking of playing the game that are thinking okay how do i prepare what is that period that i need to do things differently leading into a show such as this and that's interesting to me but going back to the beginning of the show here you know your it there were

9:21 Certain times where you were very prominent on the show there were certain times where you disappeared a little bit and we didn't get to see a lot of what you were up to so we're going to touch on a few things i guess throughout the season here one of the most visible parts was at the start when you formed a bit of a close bond with the guys like ben and croc and it looked like sophie was a part of that as well do you feel like that wasn't an accurate sort of showing of who you were aligned with and working with here in the early stages of the game or were the other people that you also had some strong relationships with but that probably didn't feature as much i think part of it is you know part of that is right you know we i was very i was very wary before going into the game you know we i was always going to be noticed as like not to sound like a dick or away or anything like that but i was always going to be noticed as a physical threat instantly like just the way survivor works so i sort of wanted to try and stay away from that but you know as soon as i saw a croc and ben you know i was like all right sweet you know there's a couple other big boys here so you know we should probably stick together because the big guys generally turn on each other and you know pick each other off in seasons gone by so i was like you know maybe we should stay tight and then with sophie i was like oh well it'd be good to work with you know a strong female so i was like you know sophie would be good you know then she told me about the clue she found for the first tribal

10:42 In with the idol we won the chrissy found so i was like all right sweet so obviously she obviously trusts me so he trusts each other so it'll be good to have a strong female two other alpha male guys as well but what they didn't really show much of is i was actually extremely tight with sam and jesse as well so sam jesse and amy at that stage you know so i actually i actually found myself in a great position early because you know i had croc and ben who were you know they were walking in the camp doing a lot of stuff sort of standing out as the alpha males i was seen as one but i was in the middle if that makes sense so the two boys were there i was with sophie and then also sam amy and jesse here so i actually found myself in a great position early it's interesting you mentioned that because i remember that scene where for me as a viewer it was quite confusing when you went to go tell amy information and she ended up ratting you out immediately back to jesse and to sam but if you were working in a in a foursome with those guys it kind of makes sense that she may have not ratted you out as much as you guys were all working together but it's something that we as viewers potentially didn't understand early on when you when you gave her a heads up that she might be copping votes well it's a bit of a it was a bit of a paranoia

12:02 There that kicked in the way the way i looked at that was at that point in time you know croc bend and stuff will go on pretty hard for amy and jay at that point that's after sophie got voted out and they sort of thought those two were the linchpins so they were going hard for them so me and jesse actually came up with the play to try and majority of the votes were gonna fall on amy so we came up with the plan to sort of get her to i was like well we should get her to flush her idol so we're sure we should get it a player idol save her build even more trust because we weren't sure when trump's what was around the corner so for us we're like khan's a pretty strong player from what we can see so you know we can be an idol you know we'll end up on the and we potentially end up swapping sides ending up with khan as well you know we've got to double it automatically so that's where the game that's good that's what we're thinking if that makes any sense that definitely it definitely does make sense so interesting at that point that sophie was the one that was being seen as this massive target obviously she gets voted out quite early on and then you have that very awkward scene where she does catch up with you guys trying to find out what went wrong

13:22 And you're trying to get distance at this point how difficult was it to navigate sophie because she seemed to be a bull in a china shop out there you know just really trying to bulldoze her way back in there and i felt for you because you were in the wrong side of the numbers leading into that vote so it wasn't much you could have done really about the fact that she got voted out well yeah that's the thing like it wasn't for us we were we had no idea that was coming as you've seen so she's been completely blindsided and obviously there was numbers from our majority that were in there because it was only us three boys that sort of stayed true so at that at that at that point in time was like you know there was a there was two ways to go there you know you either bloody fold and allow the majority to pick you off or we try and get into it into a position so for me from that point onwards one so if you got voted out you know to cut tires fast so that's why i sort of just said you know you're in the blue tribe now you gotta go that way because you've obviously been blindsided i don't know how or why but you have been blindsided but yeah or sorry sort of new one but you know at that point in time it's like that launch is gone like we now need to we need to make sure we save ourselves over here so i just went into like full attack mode

14:42 From that point and just started trying to rebuild all the relations pull people back in you know started reworking with sam jesse and amy and then the boys as well so try and take majority back but sophie just didn't understand she didn't understand why we weren't speaking to her so i think that's why she came in pretty hot and she's like you know why are you talking to me and i'm like it's not that i don't want to talk to you it's just you know you've obviously been blindsided and we're on the wrong side of the numbers so you know i've got to make sure you know i need to make sure that i've i just have to go this way like it's nothing against you i just got to go this way yeah she took it personally where for you it was all game related you're like listen i've got to think about it there's a half a million dollars at stake here if i get seen talking to someone on the outside i might be next well it's all [Music] you're like well gamepl next here that throws us into a it sort of you know threw us into an awkward position it's like you know we can they can either turn on us and us three boys that you know are in trouble so i was like alright well let's just go this way and distance ourselves so yeah for me it's automatic like just turn into you know just gameplay yeah now before we

16:02 Go to the tribe swap here and go into the new blood and new water tribes you obviously got to compete quite a lot with your cousin josh here in the early stages and it looked like for the most part you had the upper hand on the one-on-ones that you guys went head-to-head and the team challenges against each other is there one that stands out that you still sort of bring up whenever you guys have a have a conversation and hanging out you know is there a bragging rights out there at the moment for you and some of those challenges no we sort of we're pretty good about it you know we i thought there might be it's more of our mates to give a about it like we're like josh and myself we you know we it was we knew we were going to go against each other and like we knew we were about to go hard so like it was hard for us to do that to each other on tv and then you know yeah so but we do you both take a moment to shine right because in the in the team portions you kind of i felt like at the upper hand on him and then he had a really good run as an individual person later on in the individual immunities right so you both had your had your moments in the season now it was good like i think we it's good to see i think i thought we were very well like well-rounded players like that's what i liked that's just that's from my point of view and i don't know how everyone else will take it but you know i thought me and josh were pretty good we're very good socially strategically

17:22 And i think we're good physically as well you know but yeah we definitely had a good run you know the start of the season was a lot of rugby stuff a lot of wrestling and i was like oh yeah here we go this is good stuff and then yeah towards the end you know josh is he's a beast with puzzles so you know he that he was always going to dominate that i had no doubt in my mind that he was going to get it done with puzzles and then obviously being locked overhead against geordie you know that was a good great moment for me to get a necklace as well that was a huge bucket list item for me just the basic stuff but no i think it's i think we can be proud of how we were physically in there like it's not easy to win challenges or compete in these things and just to get a few necklaces is unreal yeah what was it like competing against someone you looked up to i would assume being a big rugby league fan growing up it's rugby league that cropped it right oh yeah what was it like going up against croc you know when you guys had to go head-to-head that was unreal we you know we you know there was a huge amount of respect there you know when josh and myself played juniors at melbourne storm growing up and when we were there when i was there as a 17 year old croc was playing first grade so it was actually pretty crazy it was full circle so when i was a 17 year old playing juniors and josh

18:42 Was there as well croc was actually in their premiership winning storm team so yeah it was actually pretty surreal and then being on the tribe with him as well and you know getting to know him personally was unreal like we were yeah really close in the game yeah i was going to ask how much did it i guess i know you ended up meeting up with josh which would have been something you would have been very happy about at that stage in the game i assume you would have been happy to lock back with him as a tribe and sort of form with his alliance a very strong bond with the guys she had on that side but how did it feel sort of losing i guess croc and ben here prior to the merge were they a part of your personal plans and would you have liked to have seen one of the two guys make it through there so you could use them as an additional number yeah it was you know i was close with both those boys you know and it was you know with the with the tribe swap i thought that i landed on my feet big time with that like you know we all throughout the game we made it clear that like you know josh myself tried to work with people that we thought each other might be working with on the other side if that makes sense and makes sense yeah so tribespot was an absolute blessing really like we i got to play with josh had this really strong majority but also i'd been working with the loved ones a lot

20:02 Of people in that blue tribe anyway so i felt like i had automatic relationships like i was tired with sam mark was there i was tired with jesse jordy was there you know and i felt like i'd already sort of cemented my spot in the majority straight away and then i had i had dave and amy as well you know who i was working with but yeah going towards merge like i really wish croc you know made it through i just thought that you know chris you josh and myself you know we would have been extremely tied for and you know we could have you know could have done some damage and you know the hardest part about the merge was navigating those idles so yeah we could have used we could have used another steady couple what was it like dealing with someone i know you're not a big usa survivor fan but clearly you know sandra comes into this game two-time winner you're probably well aware now that most people have her and the top four players to ever play this game in any version of the show she's seen as a legend what was it like to go up against someone like that head to head and to have her in your tribe in both tribes it was actually pretty good you know with sandra as you know she was always like all right do we get rid of her early she's extremely smart or sort of use her as a shield or

21:22 I actually really got along with sanjo like she was actually really cool really down to earth very smart you know you can't you can't not pick you can't not pick up some tricks and tips if you don't play if you play this game that much yeah i feel like after playing at once i'd play completely different you know so playing it four times winning it twice is unbelievable or six times or something crazy yeah but she was just really calm really cool calm collected like she knew what she was up to you know i actually learned a lot from her especially in the in the tribal council she was an operator very smooth operator like she knew how to cover herself she knew how to deflect questions she knew how to do everything like it was actually it was actually unreal to watch nice and how was it dealing with i guess nina and their tribe and do you think that you know if she wasn't to go out at that specific spot it looked like she had a very close relationship with josh as well that she would have formed a part of your plans moving forward was it mainly josh and her having this bond or were you also able to break in and get close to nina out there in the game did you have plans to have her as a part of that alliance oh josh and nina were extremely tired you know coming in to that relationship but you know i didn't bother me because i knew that once i got there you know josh me and josh would be automatic so whatever whoever he was working with you know i knew that

22:42 It would be you know i'd get in with them as well you know i developed a good working relationship with nina as well she was a she was actually a huge loss to both to josh and my game you know she was very smart very good player you know she would have done some damage she got very far but she was she was like the perfect blend you know she was physical she was very smart very strategic she was ruthless as well but she was also like very she's very good at reading people and getting good information so you know she'd get great information for both of us to use and but also she was very good like she was very trustworthy as well josh mentioned that if nina remained in the game he said he doesn't know you know it's hard to tell now in hindsight but at that moment he would have been open to potentially considering a blind side against mark and nina was looking at mark very closely during this period of the game and obviously trying to push her agenda where were you sitting in that were you sort of you know you obviously got along with mark really well how difficult is it to turn against someone that you respect and just get along with like mark this early in the game before you're going to emerge would that have been on your radar how would you have felt about a potential blind side i guess if nina didn't leave the game and she was sort of an additional vote for you guys oh i would have been open to

24:02 It you know like with we were speaking about it there was just so many other things up in the air though you know with the mark you know he's such an honest guy you know and whatever you get like whatever he says you get so he was so trustworthy and you know he was we're in great shape to work together to get to merge you know that's what you want to do when you're getting to merge you know and you've got jordy who's out here you don't know what he's talking about half the time like he's just spinning yarns everywhere but yeah i definitely would have if nina was still in the game you know we probably could have moved on mark a bit earlier yeah but once we lost her we just didn't have that the best thing about nina is we had a strong number but not a strong number we had a strong player with us so you know very smart very calculated and we just needed that you know once we lost nina we didn't have anyone else that could move against mark you know geordi is very flaky in the air you know shea as well when nina was solid like nina was a lot like me and josh where you know we could make a decision to move on it yeah where you know the other guys are sort of you know flaky you're not sure if you tell them something they're going to go on you know blurted out where nina was you know would have made us a very strong three and you know obviously what happened in the in the game you know probably been smart to move on

25:22 Mark earlier but also we just at that point in time you can only go the information you have and you know you've got you got geordi floating around causing chaos and you know shea is not sure where she stands maybe amy turned against you so you didn't even have another option there potentially that you could have worked with would that have been another person if she didn't do that you could have maybe pull her in somehow or bring her with the alliance well i felt that very i found that was very strange from amy she was obviously trying to break up me and josh but you know i did sorry oh that's right i early starts man sorry brother i did you know i had we had plans to for amy to work with us and i told her that from the get-go once we got to once we got to the new tribe obviously we were in the minority but i was in the majority because of josh and then you know i'd always already built those relationships and then we spoke about out of the red people who can we work with and i'm like well you know dave's made it through the fire he just wants to become part of the majority so you know i've got dave and i've got a good working relationship with amy so you know we can work with these guys and ultimately you know get all the way through to merge so and i said to amy i said stick with us like you're part of the group and then yeah she turned on

26:42 Me it's interesting it's almost like all these players were imploding around you which left you with the stable option of mark which was the only option really with people turning against you or trying to make big game moves or add to their resume i'm quite interested to know as you go to the merge section of the game here obviously you meet up again with sam and jesse sam becomes a part of the majority alliance through mark and you mentioned that you played with both sam and jesse and the you know prior to that first swab how did they change from the beginning of the game towards later in the game because obviously jesse ends up getting voted out and sam was being portrayed at times as being very paranoid on the tv show was that kind of accurate that was there a change in her demeanor and how she was dealing with you as someone that's worked with her before oh she was i found she was definitely a lot calmer in the red tribe but that's the start of the game you know and then sam was actually pretty consistent jesse jess had a bit of a change i think because he made a couple of good moves you know he felt a bit of that power but you know that the thing was you know we spoke to geordi heading into merge and we're like because jordy told us he's like you know mark i think mark's got an idol so that's a huge problem for such a very good player as mark taverner so yeah i was like well let's get to chrissy

28:02 Let's get to jesse and then yeah maybe we should try and like think about potentially like making a move let's see what happens so we spoke to the boys because we were like you know we need to sort of protect ourselves here because he's a he's a very smart player he's got something and we'll sort of we'll iron it up then and this is where you just said like the imploding stuff too obviously they imploded and they started they just tried to take a swing at josh so this is where mark showed how stable he is again with his trust and he said listen we're gonna we're gonna side with you boys and you know we're gonna make the move so we left our game in mark's hands and you know and he comes through yeah so we're going to fast forward slightly here there's definitely a few questions i still want to ask you i don't know how much time you have but i'll try and make it close to say 30 or 40 minutes and i'll have you out of here because i know you're quite busy today as well one of the questions i had for you was that you know we ended up going to final six and you were there with i guess sam and mark both in the final six both having idols yourself and josh chrissy and dave at that point and then you had players coming back in the game firstly how did you feel about the redemption twist and having plays come back because you were one of the players that really got screwed i mean if you look at survivor wiki i think it's got you as ninth place which you should have been top sex

29:23 Right at that point how do you feel about this twist of players coming back in the game oh mate it's i made but i made my piece with it until it came back out you know it is survivor so people are going to come back in but you know to the amount of energy it takes to dispatch of three people and then for four people sorry and then three of them come back yeah i found that pretty ridiculous so i'll be honest like that's and i come from a sporting background you know in any other sport you know once you lose you lose like you're gone it's funny you mentioned that because i feel like you know i could feel that from mark i could feel that from josh as well with having to get these players coming back and then myself similar to you having done sports my whole life like i've also got that mentality that if you win you win if you lose you lose i don't even like draws this one i'm not a big football fan but i can respect the yeah that goes into we're talking about football over in the uk that goes into premiership and all that but you know draws as well it always feels strange having a draw right oh man it's just it was hard to cop because you know it took a lot of energy to get them and you know for them to go like when you're in top six that's such an achievement you know people can people can sit back and go you know the majority is boring but you know to hold a majority that strong for that long is

30:43 Actually harder to do you know you saw the people employed and they all got voted out you know i had a different approach to that by the way i definitely think the fact that you had i know a lot of people online some you know the problem is it depends on who you listen to like sometimes the noisiest fans are the major is actually the minority it's like similar to when you work in customer service you know google reviews normally have more bad reviews than good reviews most people are probably really happy with how it played out and you'll get the very noisy ones online people saying okay well there's all guys alliance we don't want to see it but for me as a guy it's quite inspiring to see guys being able to work together because i feel like we all fight and there's always this male ego and muchoness about it but that was all put aside you guys were all very competitive but you found a way to work together and not let the competitiveness take over which i think people underestimate how hard that is to do for guys that's why it doesn't happen every single season exactly well that's the thing it's like you watch every season and the guys pick each other off and then that's why they don't get to the end because they pick each other off and then they leave too many you know too many other people around them and then they get picked off so we're like well why don't we just stay together and then compete against each other like and then may the best person win you know and that's what we were that was our that was the whole logic behind that but also

32:04 We really liked each other so that's like if you want to if you want to go down to the to the to what it really was we all got along like mates like we're all right rugby players too so like yeah i was like there's like being a partner one cyclist right and one cyclist yeah juicy dave wasn't he's more into cycling right oh juicy well you see the all the ones that imploded with the individual athletes so the things the team athletes they stuck to the calls you know where yeah all the individuals folded so that's fair i don't want to ask you so obviously they come back in the game right and kj gets this advantage which is ultimately how you're going to go out of it now i respect the move i think it's a great move i think kj played it perfectly for her situation from what i see as an audience member there may be some things i don't know from conversations that happen behind the scenes but for you being on the other side of that getting voted out by people being removed from the tribe you've got people coming in like there was very little you could do in regards to defending yourself there the only thing that you had was trying to get sam out the next round which people were a little bit critical of you sort of pointing towards sam when you were part of the jury you know how can you talk us through i guess the whole feelings that you had in

33:24 That moment i know it's probably you've moved on like you've said you've tried to like make peace with people coming back in the game but just the whole craziness of getting kj coming back and having this advantage and then you know what happened on the jury when you were sort of trying to signal to josh and joshua said that didn't influence this decision in any case but can you talk us through that a little bit because some die hard fans believe that the jury shouldn't get involved when it comes to what's happening in the actual game right yeah oh it's with so what happened when i got voted out as well you know it's it was it was hard to watch because we know we had we had we needed dave to stay tight for one more move because we really need to get rid of geordie because you know geordi sits in those final three seats against anyone else you know he makes it a battle so we knew that like we just needed to get rid of geordie and then dave stays tight with us we've got dave chrissy josh myself we then take majority and we get rid of one of those idols yeah so we needed dave to hold strong just so we can finally you know get geordi out and then take out one of those idols so we were looking at blindside mark after that just to get rid of an idol and then obviously we'd have sam by herself you know and she and then we could have gone for her but you know sam played it

34:44 Up well she said she's got the idol with her which spooked them yeah i honestly still would have read the bluff and maybe try to split it on both of us but that's just the way like that's just the way they went and you know it was a good move it was hard for me and josh because you know we josh had the necklace and we didn't even think to pass it to each other you know in that when you're in that when you're that tired and you haven't eaten or anything like that your mind's not exactly the sharpest you're not really thinking but yeah can you talk to the jury can you talk to the jury part of this as well because that makes 100 sense to me is there rules that you guys as jury members get going into the jury when you sit there do they tell you oh you're not allowed to make facial gestures or is there any kind of rule that is put by production there or is it just literally you just can't you just can't speak okay so that's the only clear rule is don't speak no chatting or anything like that you know i got into the you know i got into the jury and then found out that there was two idols and pretty much all i really did was just look pissed off and then like chris noticed it too because i was i was actually fuming like i was yeah you know i felt like i'd been sort of betrayed i felt like i went i didn't sleep that night because i was like you know i've been

36:04 You know i can take a lot of things like you know i'll take a lot of things just from sport you know to get done by returning players and an advantage and i was pretty filthy yeah and then you know sam did well to you know bluff that she had an idol so that was actually good play from her i then found out she had the idol from jesse when i went into the villa which is obviously you can't say that but you know when you get out but i sort of just sat there and i was more pissed off and you know josh sort of looked at me and he just saw he's like you know jordan's fuming but in terms of gestures and looks you know everyone looks and does gestures you know it's blood versus water like you got you got a loved one in there like did anyone blatantly do anything no but you know you can sort of if i if josh was sitting there and i looked at him i'd be able to read him straight away if that makes sense yeah and again the reason i asked you about the rules is because if you played within the rules you play within the rules said i more if that is something that production thought was a problem they would change that in the future and there would be different rules around that if there is a problem but i can't blame you for playing the game the way that it's in front of you right like you can't blame someone and then obviously the edit also focuses on certain aspects more than others they can make things look a lot more hyped up for the camera so that there is more drama so all of that needs to be taken into consideration

37:24 As well one of the interesting things here is that you mentioned is that you know obviously there was a big blow but i guess blowback when sam came into jury villa it was pretty heated for her a lot of people needed to talk to her and that how do you think she would have done if she actually did make a final do you think there would have been a world where she could have explained some of those lies that she had out there or do you think it would have in the moment it would have just been too fresh for a lot of people in the jury to respect that as a as a move oh it's just this is where it gets interesting like you know it's a game of survivor you're not it's going to sound harsh i'm sorry if you're a big fan or anything like that but you're not you're not you're not on me you're not in the game to impress the public unfortunately that's what i learned the people that are voting for you are in the game so yeah you know what i mean like at the end of the day it's you know it is you got to make moves you know you got to build a resume on some of that but you got to they've got people got to like you like that's just that's let's be honest like you can you can get votes by being social or being the person you are you know i think sam played an amazing game don't get me wrong she played a great game if she was sitting there in those seats you know she would have been her case would have been unreal like she's been a lawyer before as well so and she definitely you know she had

38:44 Some great moves to her name too you know but she rubbed a few people up the wrong way but that's a part of the game and you know she would have had to do have to do some huge convincing there but she definitely had a shot to win i reckon but she like i said you gotta respect game like i respect how she played like regardless of some of the stuff she did she played a great game but i think anyone in that top six could have put a case together yeah top six but yeah it's yeah well i get you i get you on that because you know i've been a fan long enough i've watched over 60 seasons of survivor of all survival i've got the buffs here in the background it'll be a little bit blurred that i'm starting to collect this i'm a real fan that's it's there in the background you can't see all of them very clearly at the moment yeah so i'm a fan like i'm a real fan you know when it comes to it but i've had my favorite voted out so many times it's part of the beauty off the show you know you're like oh i think this person's going to win they get to the end they either get voted out or they don't end up like this season for instance i was a massive josh fan i loved i could see through everything that was happening i thought josh would have had a great case if he went up against anyone even mark but then again i don't even understand all of the interpersonal relationships because i wasn't out there i'm watching an edited show talking about an edit you know your edit at some points went

40:04 A bit missing what is it that you sort of wish that they showed more of you know for you of the journey because obviously there's two journeys there's the journey you had out there you know the whole truth of what happened and what your experience was and then there's the second journey of what actually made the tv show yeah i think it was you know you gotta you know we were we were prepared for this you know they've got full you know edit you however you want you know i think i was on a good path at the start you know i thought i was getting built pretty well and showing who i really like who i was and then you know i was disappointed towards the end to sort of just sort of fade out a little bit which i've come to terms to come to peace with as well you know you know we actually did a lot more work in there than we then were shown to do like you can't get that far without you know playing the game you know what i mean like i made it 40 out of 47 days and that was interesting for me like that at sort of they sort of made me go a little bit quiet yeah it was hard it was hard to watch towards the end because you know we were doing a lot more work than they were showing and you know a lot of a lot of players were getting a lot of limelight that weren't really doing much but you know i'm not being sold to anything like that but it was it was hard because you know they didn't really show who i was towards the end yeah i was a lot louder in there you know i joked around a lot that's what i've been told by everybody's told me

41:25 You think jordy is a character you should have seen jordan he's a big character as well so but it's interesting you've gone through this experience you've been out there for 40 something days out of the 47 and there's big chunks of your game that wasn't shown which just you know might be a good thing as well for you if you ever were to return in the future because a lot of people won't know what your actual game is and how you can adapt it in the future if the call comes for you to pick up your torch again and head back out maybe hopefully this time to a better location out in the fiji or something like that it's not as brutal as being out there in the outback would you consider doing this in the future again oh you have to it's you know it's definitely been mentally taxing physically taxing but you know it's also you get the opportunity to play for you know 500k you know and you've got you can do it in two months and it's also what you learn from your experience you can adapt like you know i'd adapt a lot of different things i'd play a different game i'd actually play similar but a little i'd obviously add little things in there but no definitely you know like we said this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity so you know regardless of how the body is or how you're feeling you know you've got to get up for it if they give you another chance to do it and you've also got a you know your respect to people

42:45 That have applied and applied and applied and applied and then they watch the show and they love the show and it's like you know if you get asked to do something like this when people would give anything to do it you gotta respect them and you gotta do it as well but also i'm a competitor you know i've always competed my whole life so i have i know for a fact you know you know you can't really oh bob i'm proud of myself those also to get to merge like me and josh off that notice to get there is insane like and you know that's awesome to get into the top ten even you know that's unreal so yeah if they said jordan you're gone again you know i'd be like all right well let's go yeah and exciting well i was gonna ask you do you have you ever watched the show called the challenge or do you know about the challenge at all yeah i've heard about the challenge all right all right so i'd normally like to ask this to the more sporty athletic personalities the challenge is currently looking for australian contestants to participate in the first the challenge australia you know if the if the call was out there you know is that something that you would consider i know obviously if there is any casting calls going out you probably can't talk about it in any case but you know is that the type of thing that you would even like to be sort of in because that is all purely

44:05 Based on competition and if you get voted out you actually go into the arena and you go head-to-head with another person to fight for your survival in the game so you always have an opportunity to stay in the game even if you're outside of the numbers if that makes sense i don't know how much you know about it but it's all competition based i've seen it's pretty loud i've seen the american ones pretty funny like it's a lot of i honestly think to me like anything that i would like to do next you know i wanted to align with who i am yeah you know i don't want to you know that's why i really love survivor because you know you know you can't you can't hide you can't hide in survivor you know you and everyone that went out there you know went on self just went on a self-discovery journey or you know they had it within them or you know they're all hard everyone did that everyone got to the end and did well and everyone had a crack you know you know where these dating shows all that stuff no i'm not interested in that at all like obviously i've got a missus but i'm not interested in stuff that's you know not doesn't align with me like with my morals and who i am so you know something like the challenge could be like fun that'd be awesome because you're competing but you know even something like sas could be yeah unreal like you know i would just like to you know i'm not going to go out there and jump on a million shows but you know if the call was if i was asked to go on shows that i felt were good for me

45:25 And good for what i'm trying to achieve and my brand yeah i'll definitely give them a crack you know i'll definitely want stuff that requires you know a bit of hard work and skill some form of skill you know like not going and sitting in a villa for two months and just sinking beers but i'm good at singing beers but yeah it's funny it's funny you mentioned it because the challenge has got so many like they've gone through a real like the old school seasons were very different from the new school seasons which is more now it's kind of slated as the fifth american sport and they've got like for instance workout videos that's coming out now with personal trainers that are in the current cast and there's a whole sort of metamorphosis happening there so maybe check that out in the future but you know now that you're in the reality tv world i'm sure there is going to be other interests or calls in the future that is going to come for you to investigate i think sas is another really good one to get involved and i think we had just our first survivor player doing it this season as well yeah lockheed was in there so there's an opportunity for you to go and check that out you've talked a lot about what's next for you and your brand and what you're doing what is it that you're wanting to do next is there anything that people that are listening to this podcast and the audio version or even checking out it on youtube is there anything that they

46:45 Can go and follow or support and what's happening next for you yeah got quite a bit on at the moment which is good you know trying to trying to stay busy and really get back into normal life and just make sure because we're survivor you know that's five seconds of your life really and you know you don't know what's going to come from it you know you had your life before your family and your friends and your businesses that you need to look after because that's at the end of the day what's going to be going to be there for you so now i've got a couple of different businesses i'm wearing my hoodie now so this is a clothing brand that we're working on at the moment it's called the so you know this is coming soon so you know jump onto my instagram and you know have a look guys is there significance to the name kanji or is that just the something you came up with by yourself so my business partner plays rugby professionally in japan so kanji in japanese means good vibes good life so you know so we're really trying to get that across and you know really just push out some really good vibes and be really positive and then yeah i'm currently working on with two of my other two of my other mates who are smc coaches so they're both you know we're working on a online platform called you know modern mentality

48:05 So that's based around what we saw in the show you know it's about that's about the modern man you know about the mind the body you know relationships career anything any issues they might be facing you know we want to create a training program for everything and obviously a community for guys to you know to reach out and you know a safe place for us to speak and you know become better become better humans really so you know that's a few months you know we're working really working on that and you know i believe that's you know that's a purpose that i found in survival so i believe i found that in survivor you know survivor brought a lot of values to the surface and it also made you real re-focus on what you need to do and what your purpose might be so yeah we're working on that at the moment so what i mean i watch the space guys so give us a follow and have a look yeah definitely if you can send me the links for this afterwards via chat by dmo make sure to put it in the links when i put this up and also put it in the audio versions as well for anybody listening to this or watching it i really enjoy what you're working on it's inspirational stuff and i think that we need more of that out there in the world like the positive vibe so you know definitely i'll check it out myself as well i'll probably become a supporter of it myself and like i said i took out the positive side of seeing a bunch of lads working together

49:26 Not going after each other i understand that for fans they want to see it season and season out but we haven't seen this in a forever so it was really positive to see and with all the time that you have out there like you mentioned it's such a small part of your life i'm sure you would have had a lot of down time to think about what's next for you so i'm really excited to see what that is about and thank you so much for your time today i really appreciate it