Unveiling the Truth Behind Fame and Criminal Fascination

Join the riveting conversation as we host Scott Cundill, the South African tech entrepreneur whose expertise in CRM and marketing is only matched by his remarkable achievements in freediving and Kung Fu. With Scott's wealth of experience in business networking and his dual life as an engaging author and speaker, we traverse a landscape of high-stakes human stories and complex ethical questions. The discussion takes an unexpected turn when we delve into the controversial case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard, whose post-prison social media fame poses challenging questions about our collective fascination with notoriety and the shifting sands of public perception.

Scott Cundill

• Email: scott@mymosttrusted.net
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottcundill/
• Website: http://www.mymosttrusted.net/

Our dialogue further intensifies as we examine the dangerous allure of celebrating criminal figures, questioning the moral implications of such reverence. With Tanya's background in criminal forensics and medical legal death investigation, we dissect the psychological intricacies and ethical dilemmas inherent in cases like Munchausen by proxy, while Scott offers a thought-provoking perspective on the societal obsession with wealth and power. The episode culminates by championing the undeniable impact of authenticity in building a thriving referral-based business community, presenting a compelling case for genuine connections as the cornerstone of professional success. Tune in to "Friends from Wild Places" with Shireen and Tanya for these engaging insights and more.

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Transcript

Voiceover: 0:03

Tales from the Wild, stories from the Heart. A journey into the mind and soul of fired-up business professionals, where they share their vision for the future and hear from a different non-profit organization every month as they create awareness of their goals and their needs. Dive into a world of untamed passion. As we join our host, Shireen Botha, for this month's episode of Friends from Wild Places.

Shireen Botha: 0:37

Alright, welcome, Shireen here I'm your virtual boutique bookkeeper and QuickBooks advisor. Take a break, have a KitKat and listen up. Bookkeeping is not just about keeping track of expenses. It's also about identifying opportunities for growth. To do this, you need to look at the bigger picture, and to do that, you need a bigger picture to look at. Having accurate and clean financial records is your bigger picture. To find those growth opportunities, call Shireen's Bookkeeping Services today and let's grow together. If you want to know more, go check me out at www. shireensbookkeeping. com and allow me to keep your books clean so you don't have too. Welcome. Welcome back. You are listening to Friends from Wild Places, with myself, Shireen, and my close friend and co-host, Tanya Scotese. How are things going at the mortuary school?

Tanya Scotece: 1:35

Everyone behaving, Everyone's behaving. Yes, it's quite exciting. A lot of changes going on, so quite a big undertaking at the moment.

Shireen Botha: 1:45

Right, right. Well, we're so excited to introduce our guest this morning. This is Scott Cundill. He is zooming in from Aruba right now, but he is actually a fellow South African, so I'm excited to have him on board with us. He is the man who created your most trusted network on LinkedIn, which we will talk about that later and get into that if you're not sure what that is. He has 30 years of experience in the CRM and marketing industry, alongside being a successful tech entrepreneur, sales professional and published author. He made a thousand and 24 business referrals in 2023, and his goal is to hit another thousand referrals in 2024. Youses, he also loves freediving and he has two bronze medals at Kung Fu World Championships in China. He made a mark in local media and speaker circuits, including a TEDx talk. He is a regular guest on TV and a published author of multiple books, including the captivating one liner and how not to start and run your own business. Welcome, Scott, it's so good to have you here.

Scott Cundill: 3:06

Thanks, Shireen, thanks Tanya, good to be here.

Tanya Scotece: 3:09

Yes, nice to meet you. I'm so excited to learn more about you. And what a history, what a history. And we want to hear about the future too. So I'm sure Shireen will keep us on task.

Shireen Botha: 3:20

Absolutely yeah. So all right. So let's get into it. I have something for us to chat about. I know Tanya and I are very interested in true crime. That's one of our favorite things that we enjoy chatting about.

Shireen Botha: 3:36

Quite recently and I'm not sure how much you know of the case of Gypsy Rose Blanchard. This is the case where her mother had what is that? By proxy. What is that, tanya? Munchausen by proxy. Munchausen by proxy is the disease that the mother had, and so she was treated, as she was very sick, in a wheelchair, when she actually was not sick. And I'm talking about little Gypsy Rose. At the time, she was just a young teen. She got her boyfriend to murder her mother, so that's why she's behind bars. She recently got released and let me tell you something the type behind her release from jail she literally went to about 2 million to 3 million followers on Instagram immediately on the day that she was released. I, you know, I've been watching this whole hype up right, and she's been doing interview after interview with her now husband. She's, you know, released another documentary, and the same people that put her on that high pedestal is the same people that are now turning against her. From a very recent interview that she had.

Shireen Botha: 5:03

I would love to know your thoughts on this whole case. I really was a little concerned at the beginning when this started, because this woman, she must have some real life, childhood trauma that she has had to deal with and maybe not fully grasped or dealt with. And to give someone like that such a big platform, I feel is a little scary and I'm not sure if that was such a wise thing to do, because I feel like something is going to happen and by watching it, I feel like it's actually already started to happen. People are picking a part now, and so I want to hear your thoughts. What do you think about the case? You know? What are your views on it? You know, what do you think is going to be the end finale on this whole thing? You know, let me know.

Scott Cundill: 6:01

Well, I think that because society celebrates and venerates criminals so much that I mean, I think Jeffrey Epstein will be so annoyed that he killed himself because he would probably be president by now. So it's just ridiculous. And we say, where she was given a platform, she happily received that platform, she became super famous, she was handed it all on a platter and there it is. So, honestly, it's a whole ridiculous situation from day one. The fact that society just venerates criminals so much is just atrocious. So, yeah, I mean, she's got a Netflix deal. It's ridiculous. It's just a completely utterly ridiculous situation.

Scott Cundill: 6:45

So from my perspective, I just kind of tune out to those kind of things.

Scott Cundill: 6:48

I mean, I think the original story is interesting from a true crime perspective, but to actually turn these people into absolute martyrs and absolute Basically heroes I know you say they're getting picked apart, but I mean the heart, the high you are, the quicker you fall yeah, I think it's definitely unfair from her and I can hear in your voice that you kind of think that this is somebody that needed to be rehabilitated and needed a lot more kind of time and care and love and gentleness and just really like really a lot of help around her, but instead now she's been thrust into the limelight, so she's basically screwed.

Scott Cundill: 7:25

The only way she can get out of it is to turn everything off and go live in a little village in the middle of nowhere somewhere. That's honestly what she should do. So, yeah, that's my take a bit. I'm actually so sick and tired of watching, honestly, just criminals just have so many followers and people just venerating and celebrating them, so, quite frankly, it's your own fault if you're one of those people. So, yeah, might sound a little harsh, but yeah, that's my opinion.

Tanya Scotece: 7:56

Thank you for your perspective. So my background actually is in criminal forensics so I actually did medical legal death investigation. I actually have done a couple of papers on Munchausen and Munchausen by proxy. So for our listeners I just kind of wanna enlighten what the two differences are. So Munchausen by itself is usually, when one person feigns illnesses or makes themselves sick, very bizarre to the common person. For example, like putting fish tank water into an open wound causing multiple microorganisms to grow, like bizarre types of things much more gruesome than I'm just describing here.

Tanya Scotece: 8:42

Munchausen by proxy traditionally is the primary caregiver, which in most cases is the mother who is quote unquote making their child sick to the point of near death and then bringing them to a hospital for medical care. The history with it is a lot of these moms or primary caregivers. They will frequent upwards of 60 to 80 different hospitals all throughout different parts, and I'm speaking specifically for the United States and the surgeries that a lot of these youngsters have is upwards of a hundred surgeries. So we're not talking like just having something wrong, you go to the doctor. So it's kind of like in and out of medical institutions, in and out of doctor's offices and what makes it hard to quote unquote track is they switch hospitals, they switch doctors, so there's not really a record. You know, socialized medicine is not really common in the United States, so and then again, to accuse somebody of it is another whole podcast, right, I mean to accuse somebody of it, and there's actually a case in Florida right now that the hospital actually accused the mom and the mom actually took her own life, and now that's under investigation.

Tanya Scotece: 10:00

So back to the Gypsy Rose circumstance. You know I followed that case from its inception and it was heartbreaking to see somebody on a feeding tube that doesn't need a feeding tube, somebody that's having surgeries that doesn't need surgery, somebody that's in a wheelchair that doesn't need to be confined to a wheelchair. So what she was put through as far as psychological, physical and emotional trauma, from my perspective, is one case. What ended up happening was, you know, a co-conspiracy with a homicide, which puts it to a completely different level. Now it's an actual crime, which she was, you know, quote unquote served her time.

Tanya Scotece: 10:39

But I agree with you, scott, because so many criminals, you know they write books. You know, charlie Manson, I don't think ever suffered for a date. I mean, a lot of these people get a big draw when they're behind bars in many different arenas and capacities. So, as far as from the emotional perspective, you know, munchausen by proxy is a real thing. It's rare, but if you Google it, research it, you know, check out the cases historically, it is a real disease. I think, however, the act of homicide is a completely different conversation. So that's my take on it.

Shireen Botha: 11:15

And that's why I brought this topic up.

Scott Cundill: 11:19

Yeah, just you know, individuals obviously need a specific type of care. What blows me away? So I know how much healthcare costs in America. So how on earth does somebody afford all these surgeries and who actually performs them and to what grounds? Because it just makes absolutely no sense. I mean, it's just financially, it's a huge undertaking. There's that word again On this whole process. So, yeah, I just think it's ridiculous. But we've got it. We as a society have just got to stop putting these people up on pedestals, honestly, giving them these platforms. It's just, it's mind-blowing.

Shireen Botha: 11:48

Just don't understand it.

Scott Cundill: 11:51

And I know this is a contentious issue as well but I really struggle to understand, for example, that kings inauguration in the UK, like hundreds of thousands of people flying flags to this guy in a golden carriage that represents an institution that has just plundered for centuries. Understand. They do a lot of charity work and all this kind of things, but they literally represent opulence. They are the figureheads of opulence, and I think opulence is one of the biggest problems we have in the world right now. There's completely ridiculous notion that one individual or one family can have just so much extraordinary wealth. It's diabolical. So, yeah, so it's not that I'm against the crown and want to bring them down or anything. Not at all. Everybody's got their own free will choice and I've got lots of friends who are royalists. I just sometimes think that this desire to follow and be so obsessed with somebody else's life, especially when those individuals are not intrinsically good people, even if there's a medical reason for them doing what they're doing- yeah, no, I get it.

Shireen Botha: 13:05

I get it, follow good people guys.

Scott Cundill: 13:07

There's so many good people out there.

Voiceover: 13:09

Follow them learn from them.

Scott Cundill: 13:11

Those are the people you want to get in, you know. Anyway, that's for me.

Shireen Botha: 13:15

No, no, no. What you're saying is true. It is what you are Very true. Thank you, Tanya, for educating us on the disease a little bit more than what we know. I think it is not a very known disease, so thank you for just getting a little bit more into that with us. But yes, I agree with you, Scott. You know I'm there. I do love true crime. I just am interested to see how this ends. I don't think it's gonna go well. I just, you know, with mental trauma like that, I think they needed to take a lot more care of her after she was released, as opposed to putting on her platform.

Scott Cundill: 13:58

Absolutely. I think, if any good comes out of this, it's also really starting to understand, I mean, the issues surrounding mental health, which is obviously becoming an epidemic of problem of epidemic proportions. It's only gonna get worse because of this crazy, ludicrous society that we live in at the moment is just perpetuating madness away from community, real, authentic human connections, real care, into a false, synthesized, synthetic version of what it means to pretend to care. And social media is the antithesis of this. Patting people on the bat, liking their LinkedIn profiles you don't even read them, liking the post, sharing a post you don't even know what it even said, all because you want to look good and show the other person that you think you care. You know, we've all fallen into that.

Scott Cundill: 14:42

The beautification filters, this ludicrous stuff that the young people are getting on now with. I think it's connected to TikTok, where they make these little videos and they go um um um. Oh, that's delicious, give me a candy bar, um um. And then people buy these little false things, these little fake little emoji things. They buy them with money and then they start feeding people and you start making money by making. It's just lost its mind. So we have a serious problem there, and I think if anything good comes out of it, it's addressing these issues.

Shireen Botha: 15:10

Right now. I'm with you 100%, so let's get straight into why you're here, so that you can actually talk a little bit with us about this trusted network on LinkedIn. So Scott Cundle has come up with a quote. It's called referral is the highest form of flattery. That is, referral is the highest form of flattery. So that is the quote of the day for us.

Scott Cundill: 15:38

So, scott, if you don't mind just taking a moment to letting us know what that quote means to you, so the best way that I could flatter you, Shireen, in business, is to introduce you to someone that needs a bookkeeper and say Shereen is amazing, you need to talk to her. It's the best thing that I could possibly do for you in business. It's gonna make you feel amazing, it's gonna give you business, it's good for revenue, it's good for our relationship, it's good for everything. So that's what I mean by referral is the highest form of flattery. I didn't have to piss off 19 people or 20 people or 100 people by spamming them in order to get that referral for you. It just came naturally and it's just a simple, natural, wonderful way of doing business.

Scott Cundill: 16:23

So this kind of concept of spamming and irritating and irritating and annoying so many people 0.1% of people that see a billboard even want that bigging home loan that it's advertising. So we live in this complete world of absolute waste. So that's what I mean about it. It goes back to what I mentioned earlier about human to human relationships. That's what referral is. The highest form of flattery is about. Giving a referral is good for everybody.

Shireen Botha: 16:52

Okay. Well then I'm gonna go straight into it. Please just tell us what is my most trusted network.

Scott Cundill: 17:01

It's exactly as we've been. From a hard perspective, it's exactly what we've described. It's getting away from the falseness, the spam, and creating a network where everybody's real. There are no fake people. In other words, like on LinkedIn, about a third of all LinkedIn profiles are fake. A third of all social media is fake. Probably about two thirds of all internet traffic is fake. Nobody wants to kind of discuss it. It's all bot driven. It's just become a content. It's a diabolical content festival.

Scott Cundill: 17:30

Now, even if you go onto YouTube I don't know if you've noticed, but you'll find that I would say probably about one in four or one in five videos that you served is a bot that created that video. It's literally it's all bot created, and I mean completely automated. So, for example, if I like rugby, being a South African, there's these videos with these really great, catchy titles. So and so the greatest tri in the world da, da, da, da da. What they've done is the bots have gone and searched a whole bunch of news articles. It's summarized them, it's created an AI synthesized voice. It's put that around, whatever the rugby issue happens to be. It's then got AI to generate a couple of images and it's created a video. So and then it's created a title and it's put all those tags and then it appears on my YouTube and I think, wow, this is something I wanna watch. I click on it. Obviously I get served the ad first.

Scott Cundill: 18:19

I have to sit through that for 15, 20 seconds and then I realize that this is all just fake. It's very good fake, but it's crap. It's not actually a real live podcast like we're doing now and this is happening exponentially, guys. And the same with the LinkedIn spam, the messages we're getting every day, the hard sales pitches what I call intelligent spam where it's read your LinkedIn profile, it's read your social media, it knows what you likes and emails you in a tone that it believes your personality is well suited to. This is all real, it's all happening. It's only gonna get worse. So my most trusted is the counter culture revolution to that specific problem. Every single person we've got almost 30,000 people now is a real individual. You cannot reach out to that person cold. You have to go via a referral and a real human introduction. So it's bringing back authenticity to business and if you understand and you've got the mindset of giving as well as receiving, you can get in front of people you would never, ever ever ordinarily get in front of.

Tanya Scotece: 19:23

Tune in next week for part two from Friends from Wild Places.

Voiceover: 19:29

You've been listening to Friends from Wild Places with Shireen Botha. Be sure to subscribe to the podcast from the links to catch every episode and unleash your passion.