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BACK YOURSELF The uncomfortable, occasionally chaotic, surprisingly instructive story of how two ordinary people built something extraordinary

Most people are waiting.

Waiting until they're more experienced. Better funded. More certain. More ready. Waiting for the right moment, the right resources, or the right person to tell them they're allowed to begin.

Steve Holloway and Seamus Marten got tired of waiting.

In 2019, with no budget, no industry connections, and no plan beyond genuine curiosity, they started a podcast in Steve's garage. Six years later, Between Two Beers is New Zealand's most popular podcast - millions of downloads, 250+ episodes, and a business built entirely on one counterintuitive bet: that being completely, uncomfortably honest was more powerful than being polished.

They were right. And the journey to finding that out is one of the most entertaining, honest, and unexpectedly useful hours you'll spend this year.

This isn't a talk about podcasting

Podcasting is the proof. The talk is about the thing holding most people - and most organisations - back from building something they're genuinely proud of.

It's about what happens when you start before you're ready. When you back your instincts before the evidence supports them. When you're honest about the journey instead of performing the highlight reel. And when you treat vulnerability - real, public, on-the-record vulnerability - not as a weakness to manage but as the thing that makes people trust you completely.

In a world where audiences are drowning in content but starving for something real, Steve and Seamus proved that authenticity isn't a brand value you put on a wall. It's a competitive advantage you earn by having the courage to actually mean it.

That principle doesn't just build podcasts. It builds cultures, careers, and organisations that people genuinely want to be part of.

The story nobody else can tell

What makes this talk completely unlike anything else on the circuit is the story at its centre - a real friendship, tested in public, over six years, through success, setbacks, and the kind of honesty most professional relationships never survive.

Including Seamus quitting drinking. Publicly. In the middle of a show called Between Two Beers.

That moment - and the decision to be transparent about it rather than quietly manage it - became one of the most powerful things the show ever did. The audience didn't pull back. They leaned in. Trust didn't erode. It deepened.

That's not just a personal story. It's the clearest possible demonstration of what this talk is really about: that the most powerful thing you can offer - in business, in leadership, in any relationship that matters - is the courage to be exactly who you are.

What your audience will leave with

• Why starting before you're ready isn't reckless - it's the only way anything real ever gets built

• How radical honesty became their greatest competitive advantage - and what that means for your brand, your culture, and your leadership

• The real story of a partnership built on trust, tested by success, and stronger for everything it survived

• Why vulnerability, handled with courage, creates more loyalty and trust than any polished personal brand ever could

• Permission - genuine, hard-won, practical permission - to back yourself and begin

What to expect

Funny. Warm. Occasionally uncomfortable. And more useful than it has any right to be.

Steve and Seamus don't do polished. They do real - behind the mic stories, honest reflections on what worked and what didn't, and the unfiltered account of what it actually takes to build something worth building.

Your audience will laugh. They'll recognise themselves in the journey. And they'll leave the room believing - not in Steve and Seamus, but in their own capacity to back themselves, start before they're ready, and build something people genuinely give a damn about.

That's a feeling worth booking.

Best for: Business conferences · Entrepreneurship events · Leadership offsites · Sales kick-offs · Culture days · Any room full of people who are waiting for permission they're never going to get from anyone but themselves