Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - Brett Campbell, Serial Entrepreneur

Episode Date: May 30, 2018

This week’s conversation is with Brett Campbell, a serial entrepreneur.He’s currently the CEO of Harvey Partners, focused on assisting new innovative businesses move from startup to business ready.Brett knew he wanted to run his own business from an early age and this conversation sheds light on his experiences along the way: from learning the ropes working for his uncle, going out on his own, selling his first business, and mentoring others, Brett has seen it all. Today, Brett has a reached a level of financial security where he need not work another day, but he loves what he does and can’t envision himself waking up without heading into the office.At one point in the conversation I asked Brett what advice he would give someone considering starting their own business.He said: “I get a lot of people coming to me saying, ‘Hey look I’ve got this really good idea and hey here’s an MVP but would you invest in this? I’ve only got part time because I’m still working. I don’t really want to…’ That’s when I turn away. If you’re not totally invested in this, how can I invest in this?” What I loved about that is it’s the exact same thing Alex Fiance, managing partner at Kairos said on our new audio series, “The Process.”Pretty cool. One who’s much further along his journey, another at the beginning yet both seeing things the same way.If you haven’t had a chance, I hope you’ll check out The Process. We recently released episode 3 and it’s been such a fun learning experience for me._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Seattle Seahawks. So the idea behind this podcast, these conversations is to go out and learn from people who are on the path of mastery. And we want to understand what they're searching for, their psychological framework, how they see the world, themselves in it, and the mental skills that they've used to build and refine their craft. Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive boardrooms, one thing holds true. Meaningful relationships are at the center of sustained success. And building those relationships, it takes more than effort. It takes a real caring about your people. It takes the right tools,

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not just for strength, but for energy and focus, recovery, for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value, and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash findingmastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Okay. This week's conversation is with Brett Campbell and Brett is not globally known. So you're not going to be able to say, Oh, I recognize Brett's name, but Brett is a successful

serial entrepreneur. And I want to learn about it. I want to learn from people who have cracked it, who understand it, who've got real thoughts about entrepreneurship, are in the trenches, and also guiding people. So he's currently the CEO of Harvey Partners, and that's his new firm that he's got. And they're focused on assisting new innovative businesses move from the startup to business ready. So Brett knew he wanted to run his own business from an early age. And this conversation sheds light on his experience along the way and everything from learning the ropes, working from his uncle to going out on his own, to selling his first business and mentoring others. Brett's seen it all. So this is a nice arc on entrepreneurship.

And then if you're saying to yourself, well, I'm not interested in entrepreneurship. Think about what entrepreneurship really is about. It's about having an idea, building your team around that idea, taking risks, laying bets, backing yourself, backing others, backing the idea, and then really figuring out how to do something that maybe others haven't done. So in this space of entrepreneurship and progression and mindset, I think that there's a lot to learn from those who have been in the amphitheater where there was real risk and they're laying real bets on themselves and their future. And so that's one of the reasons I think you'll find this conversation interesting. And then on top of that, Brett's reached a level of financial security

where he doesn't need to work anymore, but he loves what he does. And according to him, he can't envision himself waking up and not going and doing something where he's making a difference. So at one point in this conversation, I asked Brett, what advice would he give somebody considering starting their own business? And if you've ever had that thought, here's his response to it. He says, I get a lot of people coming to me saying, Hey, I've got this really good idea and I've got a minimal viable product. Would you have interest in investing in this? And I'm only doing it part-time because I'm working and I don't really want to. And then that's where he just cuts him off. And he's like, if you're not investing your time and energy full on in the product or the service,

how can he invest in it? And I think that that's true for everything that we want in life. If we're not fully investing in the man or the woman we want to become, why would anyone else care? Like really, we're going to let other people dictate our experience or our potential? No. I mean, that's such a lazy way to think about it. We have to invest. We dictate our experience in life and we do co-create it with other people, but it's the first and foremost self-investment or product or service investment if you're the entrepreneurship model. So an early stage startup. He's got the same thought. It's really cool that both of them are seeing that in the same way. And what he's basically said is that he's not gonna,

his firm, his venture capital firm is not about to mentor anybody unless they've got a product and at the same time, they're fully in. So if you haven't had the chance to check out the process, please do so. We recently released episode three and it's been really fun learning from early stage startups. So this is an extension of that conversation. And with that, let's jump right into this week's

conversation with Brett Campbell. Brett, what's up? Mate, I'm just glad to meet you in person. Yeah, it's so good. Yeah, I've had fun getting to know you over the phone and having conversations there. And I was for sure looking forward to this conversation so here's here's where my head's at right now is you've cracked serial entrepreneurship does that seem fair yes yeah like you understand how to have an idea move the idea from concept to pilot, if you will, and then how to pivot that pilot to success. And I'm sure there's steps and iterations in the model that you've worked. But I just want to better understand serial entrepreneurship.

I want to understand the path that you've taken to turn businesses into businesses. Turn ideas into businesses. So before we get into that, how do you describe what you do? So the way I describe what I do now is really taking my 28 years of learnings and goods, bads and indifference and kind of giving them to kids that haven't seen the real world. They've been in college, but they haven't had the ability to kind of have deal negotiations or a sale go wrong so I don't get paid. I've been helping kids and the people

that are leading our companies understand what a good profitable business needs to be, which is leadership, don't be afraid to fail, but also you can't get offended because you know you've got the best product okay so go back go back go back in so you've got you your the way you think about your craft is that you help position other people for success by showing them or teaching them how to build business is that right yeah to build business so you think about an entrepreneur which is subject matter

expert for our fit code business. Unbelievable fashion. I have no relevance and no experience in fashion myself, but the frameworks and the structures to actually run a business from the angel phase to let's say a series C is a range of things you need to do that we kind of provide CXO as a service. So if you think of chief executive officer, chief financial officer, chief operations officer, our company Harvey Partners is built to give these entrepreneurs

that CX level as they get through this first two to three years. Yeah. Okay, good. And then so FitCode. Yeah. That's one of your companies. Yes.

So FitCode takes, you do a better job. So we take the process of women shopping online to find denim, the best fit. I didn't understand what the problem was when I first met the founder because I think every time I put on a pair of jeans, they fit me perfect. They don't look good, but they fit me perfect. But what they showed me was it's not about size. It's about fit. So the big challenges for retailers and brands today is that

women don't have confidence shopping online they will i don't i don't why is this a woman thing i don't like when i look at something online i have no idea if it's going to fit me and so i have to order it yeah and then if if it fits i send it back that's a pain in the butt you know like and then i have to find like i i have have that same challenge. Yeah. So getting right back to what we do well or what I do well, let's focus on one thing. Okay. So you start with a narrow scope, right, from the business sides. A narrow scope, a simple problem that you're trying to solve. Is that how most of your businesses work?

Yeah. Simple problem or simple outcomes. So 30, 60, 90 day plans and measurable. So things that we can actually measure. In other words, number of users that have filled in a fit code, number of sales that have been happening from a partner based on a fit code sale. Okay. Go back, go back to the concept of fit code so that you're trying to solve fit for denims for females. Yes. Okay. And then instead of sizes, you're doing fits. We're're doing fits so we ask you five

questions it's a really easy unintrusive way says does your butt look like this does your legs look like this and your hip to waist ratio and then we run our algorithm and we give you a code that code will then follow you around when you're shopping and recommend that's your best fit gene plus the three more that you've probably never used before which could be not a hudson gene but a page gene or a citizens of humanity gene because those genes tend to cut be cut in a favorable way correct or the stretch of the denim may suit that body better than whatever okay all right there you go and then okay so we dropped right into the concept of fit code but how how many businesses have you built and what does that tracker profile look like for you?

Yeah, so at the moment I'm in my third software business and now Harvey Partners is investing in other businesses. So FitCode itself, now that started off as in we invested $48,000 to do a proof of concept in using video and imagery to find out the best size. What we found was women and men don't like to use that technology. It's very intrusive to them to send a photo. To see a photo of themselves and say, oh, well, your hips look like this and you should have this code.

Correct. Okay. So we found that we had to pivot that business straight away, and we had a lot more uptake when it was more image-focused and graphics more than asking for sizes and sending in photos. So then we took that for the next six months, went out to, what, I think 23,000 users, and we had a 98% take-up rate of the quiz being completed. And then we had 92% of people saying, this is the best thing that I've seen for denim ever online.

So that's when we went, okay. Then we grabbed that and went, how do you put a business model around that? The innovation is good and the software is great, but how do you make money? Or what I say, how do I turn relationships into revenue? Right? That's a big one. So relationships are revenue. Yeah. Because this is a big one where we want to do business with people and how do we take the business model? So we're actually making money and they're seeing value from that. So then we went out to our

partners, which is our genes and brands. And then we said to them, look, how do you, how do you see this? Is it reducing returns? Is it increasing sales? Or is it making better decisions for your merchandisers? And they said, all three. So we said, okay, so what about if we did a revenue share model that allowed you to see the increase in sales and that will then pay for the data points. But then you've got all these other data points around reduced returns and merchandising decisions that you've never had before okay all right cool yeah all right so i feel like um we jumped right into your latest project and i want to go back and understand you know some home stuff to give some context and then i want to understand how you got into

your first technology company and what like how you what you learn from that and then essentially what is your model moving forward for startup moving from relationship to revenue so first like what part of Australia are you from so from Melbourne Australia so the rainy city of Australia so that's why I moved to Seattle I'm just I didn't get to out of my comfort zone but grew up in Melbourne 30 minutes south of the central district there. Two sisters, mum and dad still alive. They're all back in Australia. But I was kind of,

I knew I wanted to run a business from when I was 11 years old. I used to do a paper round and my dad was a bricklayer. His two brothers started their own business in a jewelry fashion accessories out of the back of their car. So these were two gentlemen that I'd respected. Plus, I also had my dad, who was the hardworking builder.

And I was very lucky enough to have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with all of them. So we've got a close family network. And in leaving school, I wanted to, I love numbers. So I wanted to be an accountant about a year before i left school my dad said hey i think i've got a job opportunity for you i said okay this is before you left before i left high school okay right because he could see that i really wanted to work and that education wasn't my best thing i'd cruise along with the seas and that's okay but i really wanted to get into the numbers game so he said look this company will hire you if you do your night school and do your college degree in accounting but you have to agree on both points i got interviewed by a recruitment firm

and it was actually recruiting for my uncle's company which i didn't know about so your uncle's company was successful successful so they grow like. So they'd grown it to a $200 million company, 200 stores around Australia, franchised it. And I was all part of that. So I was 18 and I had to make a decision. Do I go and do college or do I go and work and do college? So six months in, I decided, yep, I love this. So I was the, one of the things I really found hard was when you go into a family business, everybody thinks that you're working for the family. So in an environment of 130 people in head office, I used to walk into the lunchroom, people will not talk. I'd have to sit by myself and I'd just sit there eating my lunch. I went, this isn't going to work for me. My personality is not like this. I had to work on how do I get a rapport with people,

right, that think I'm working for the man, but I'm not. I'm just them. So 12 months later, you know, I'd been working hard. I'd had a lot of friends in there and I'd got to a point where people trusted me for what I did, not for who I was. That was a big opening up for me because it was like, hang on, I need to change the way I kind of think about things. So relationships are important to you? Very important. Yeah. Is that part of where your, I don't know, your orientation in life begins? Is it around relationships? I think so. Yeah. My father taught me, you know, treat everybody as you want to be treated. But also relationships are important, but they have to be deep. Deep. Yeah. Okay. So how many, like, what does your relationship life look like?

I don't want to lead the question. So I split my relationship. So I actually have a PowerPoint deck that I run every quarter. And I split my life into three separate areas, which is personal, work, and relationships. Personal is all around what am I doing for my health, my spirituality, my well-being, how am I being a father, those type of things. Work is what am I doing to make this planet a better place when I leave. And then the relationship side interacts with both of those and my biggest problem is I cross-pollinate those way too much. So I really don't see that I've got

a relationship outside of work or I see them all the same. All the same, okay. And that's why I'd probably say my work relationships are really good and that's why I'm a divorced father of two. So some of them, there's a trade-off, right? And things you neglect on the personal side come up in work and things that you really focus on in work,

usually there's some sort of ramification on the personal side so yeah you know I get that in a really rich way because that's one of the reasons I fired up these conversations to try to learn better to have more diversification how best in the world manage life and because I get asked all the time in my life, as a high performance psychologist, like, hey, I'm looking for balance. Okay, hold on, you're the best in the world. Like, like, what do you mean by that? Well, I'm just my personal life is a mess, or I'm over indexed in work, or I'm under indexed in work right now, because my family life is, you know, is really challenged me other ways. So I don't know how to teach it. I don't know how to teach balance. And so I always have

to defer. And that was one of the reasons to fire this up, like to ask this question, do you have balance in your life? I believe I have balance. I probably don't have a balance of where people think that I need a personal relationship to be happy. I'm really happy with my two kids, myself, we spend a lot of time together. So I have a lot of balance there. Do I want an intimate relationship? Maybe, maybe not. That's the thing that I trade off at the moment. So I look at a personal deep relationship very different than an intimate relationship. Personal deep is different than intimate, meaning that you can have many personal deep relationships, but more limited intimacy.

Yes. Is that the way but more limited intimacy? Yes. Is that the way you go with that? Yeah. Okay. And then how did you, what led to the divorce? Working, traveling the world up to nine months of the year, building the software business. So if you think of coming out of Australia, we're down in the time zone, which is totally opposite to the major markets.

So I would work during the day from nine to five in our consulting business. And in 2004, we kicked off our software business. What were the names of these companies? So OBS, which was Optimum Business Solutions, that was a consulting company with 200 people driving Microsoft consulting services. And what does Microsoft consulting services mean? So we installed email systems and intranets for big corporates. So we'd walk into a big mining company in Australia. They've got 15,000 employees.

We would put in their HR modules, their file shares, their public drives, and their email system. So you were the, what do they call it now, like SharePoint? Yeah. Were you a SharePoint before there was SharePoint for Microsoft or iCloud before there was iCloud? Yeah, so we were the first Microsoft gold partner in Australia. What is a gold partner? A gold partner, we have certain certifications and certain customers that have said that we are the best at what we do.

They submit that into Microsoft, and we became the first gold partner in Microsoft back in 2001. And you were solving what challenge for them? Solving business-to-employee and workplace intranets. So in other words, where am I still in this? Are you saying inter or intra? Intra. So behind the firewall, business to employee. Okay.

So in other words, anybody that is authenticated to the business. So in other words, you have email, then you'll have file shares, and then you'll have collaboration in a range of either ERP systems or CRM. We used to integrate all them into the Microsoft SharePoint platform and make it one single source of how you get into the business. How did you know how to do this? We had a lot of help from Microsoft, but Brian Cook and myself who started OBS and the Nintex business, we just love collaboration and love the world of email and online file systems.

I know that gets a bit dorky, but that's... Yeah, it is really dorky, but you don't strike me as being dorky no no right like like I don't know what really dorky means other than if you look up what it actually means it's quite a compliment so I think I think the passion for us was we thought that the Microsoft infrastructure worldwide was in the enterprise and so when we're down in Australia, we went to do a bid for the Department of Education. 487,000 email accounts and 128,000 teacher email accounts.

We built that for the Department of Victoria, just the two of us. So we love the way that Microsoft kind of embeds itself. And we took that on board where we went against HP, Digital at the time, PwC, and won against those guys. Those are big firms. And we actually didn't know that we weren't allowed to do that. Oh, yeah. Like ignorance is worst type of thing.

That kind of stuff. So we had a good connection in with the key stakeholders. One of our biggest mistakes was when we won the bid, they came back to us and said, look, we really want to talk to you about the structure and the finances because you're $12 million cheaper than everyone else. And we went, okay. Now, we believe this is when the time was disrupting in the way computers, cloud and all that were coming out because we actually put 300 on top of what we'd already estimated just to kind of get it up there and we were still 12 million dollars cheaper than everyone else yeah which is something that didn't feel right because what are we billing for well you were 12 million dollars cheaper because you were licking stamps and your your your mate was

doing finances and then you were solving computer yeah i'm joking but like yeah okay all right so okay one of my friends just lost uh i think it was like a four million dollar bid because uh it was in a travel um logistics company and he lost the bid because he was four million under and everyone else and the competitors the kind of alpha competitors in the space he was coming in to be disruptive the alpha competitor said why do you think they're four million under they don't know what they're doing you know so he lost that bid yeah and so some there's a case to be made for sometimes being expensive but sometimes knowing what the market value is and having a competitive plan around that as opposed to just being cheaper yeah right yeah okay that's interesting okay i call them strategic accidents which what is the

accident the accident is we could have known how to either build better or know what the price was and we've done it before where you know companies expect I think a lot more when they're paying with the big four right if you think PWC KPMG Ern Ernest & Young, the old days, if you weren't part of their relating scope of your work, it wasn't going to be successful. What we found was if you're open, honest, transparent, times and materials against fixed price or value-based pricing against non-value-based pricing, the customers really took onto that because we're both in it

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just to wind down. And when I'm locked into deep work, they also help me stay focused for longer without digital fatigue creeping in. Plus, they look great. Clean, clear, no funky color distortion. Just good design, great science. And if you're ready to feel the difference for yourself, Felix Gray is offering all Finding Mastery listeners 20% off. Just head to felixgray.com and use the code findingmasterY20 at checkout. Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. So let's go even before that. You did really well with your family business. And did you make enough money to spend out and start a company?

How did that transition go from – walk me through that because I don't see the gap very easily between the company business and your first startup. And so I don't know if you had family wealth that said, hey, go do whatever you want, Brett. Like we've got your back or you were more scrappy about it. Like, walk me through. I think if we will, I'll go through the story. I think scrappy is probably the better way than more. So we went well off. You know, my father lived paycheck to paycheck.

I was paying rent when I was 14 to the house just to kind of give a bit back. Yeah, I call that scrappy. Yeah, just a little bit scrappy. I was also, at the age of 16, I was playing Australian rules football for a team and I was getting paid $250 a game. And that was all going back into the family as well. But it helped me then save for a car and those type of things. But getting back to the original point of, I was working for my uncles. Right.

And I'd worked for them for seven years. And one of the things that I'd learned, which I didn't know at the time, we had in the 1992 mark, I'd been with them for four years, the retail industry in Australia just took a big dive. So they had to terminate 42% of head office staff the week before Christmas. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Okay. Okay. I've asked this question a lot to people and it's a make-believe scenario. And for me to try to get to understand how they make decisions, were you part of that decision-making? I was. Okay. So can I ask you the question I ask? Okay. If you were running a company and you had to fire 25% of your company the week before Christmas. How do you do it? So it was, it was easy for me because I didn't know any better.

My uncles came to me and said, look, we trust you. You're part of the family. All these executives are leaving. All these people are leaving. Here's a script. We really want you to still be here. If you don't want to do it, that's okay. But it'd really help us out to get through this hard time. Oh, so you were more of the, uh, the lynchman rather than the decision maker. I wouldn't, yeah, I was part of the meetings, but I was the executor in the end. Yeah. Okay. So, so let's go back though. Like how, if you were to have that scenario again, how would you not just, not just execute, which is hard enough? Yeah. But how would

you make the decision of who to let go? Yeah, I think look, there's a range of things, I would look at them on, you know, a performance and numbers base, a personality base, and also the potential of that person learning from you or from the business. And I'd probably put into a three and rank them and put into a spreadsheet and see if that worked. I don't think we're not a Microsoft or an Amazon that rank their 10 in the last 10%. If you don't get that one or a five, you're out. I think it's got to be the personality traits, the potential, the numbers and metrics, and just also the performance they've done. What if they're right on the bubble of those three? And these are the bubble of those three?

These are the tough ones, right? They're not clearly defined. It's kind of that gray area. And then how do you account for if they have kids? Say they've got four kids and we're heading right into Christmas and you're about to kind of blow up the family financial structure. Would you choose, and this is unfair, but I think it's really tough decision making that is the mark of people that know how to build something. Would you have chosen to keep that family hired over somebody that was a better potential, better metric, better personality fit? Or would you have let that family go because they didn't quite have the other variables. I think I would turn, if it got to a point where we're looking at, you know, the in or the out or above the line, below the line, I'd have to remove the names, you know, and just hide the names to make sure it's a business decision. There you go.

And that's one thing that I always, when I'm terminating someone, which is probably the worst feeling you're ever doing in the world, you've got to go in knowing it's a business decision and that everybody else that's sitting out in the office will respect that you're making the decision for the business. The amount of times where you've held on to somebody, kept them there because of their personalities and they don't make their numbers or there's causes and then you terminate them or get rid of them. It's amazing how many people come back and, I'm so glad you did that. It's made the office a lot better. That's the thing where I go, okay, make sure it's a business decision,

not a personal decision. And I always have three points that I focus on business when I'm terminating somebody so we can get part of what we call the icky part and just either move on and understand that you have a reference or if it hasn't been a good environment, leave as quickly as possible. So what are the three points? So there's always three points. It could be around performance, but I keep it to three sections.

Don't go over three. Keep it very clear. The meeting should be less than 15 minutes. Deliver your message and move out. It's a real business thing. I never think of it as personal, though I'm very personable when I'm working with people. But in a scenario like that, that's all business.

And look, I learned that I was 21. I had, after that termination run, so I had to let go of 32 people myself and they'd walk in one door, I'd take their keys and their access card and they'd go out that door to a taxi. Radical. Crazy.

And I didn't realize what I was doing. I mean, I was doing it because I loved my family and making sure that's what they needed. Taking it seven years later, so this is probably getting back to the story where I could see that I'd done everything in that business. So I was 24. I was running the accounting division, the franchising division, the IT department, and I had about 32 reports under me, all older than me. But I had to be a manager and I'd never managed before in my life. I was a good leader. I was a football captain in elementary school. I was a coach when I was 16, coaching under nine.

So I knew I was a good leader, but it really showed me on what I'd done. So I'd seven years with this company and my catalyst was I could see my cousins, who I love dearly and one of them's here working for me now, were coming up and they're the sons and the daughters of my two uncles. Now I know if that was me, my sons are coming and I'm going to give them the best opportunity. So I said to my two uncles, I said, look, I can see what's coming. I want to do what you've done and I'm going to leave and just go and see if I can take all the tools you've taught me and see if I can get into the computer business. So I pretty much packed my bags. They said to me, we'll see you back in here in three weeks.

And they said, see you, Brett, but you've always got a spot here. So that gave me a bit of comfort. But, you know, it was more the I need to get out there. I had a resume, which people didn't believe. I was this young kid, no degree because I didn't finish it because they wanted me to work. So I didn't finish my college degree. I had the – a Nobel engineer because I learned how to build a TCPIP network based on them asking me to do it. What is that? That's the old – how the communication network of putting up an old LAN.

So connecting computers back in 1992. Okay. That's what TCPIP was. Okay. Right. So I said – I see that on like modem stuff, right? Yeah. TCPIP. TCPIP. Okay. Right. So I said, I see that on like modem stuff, right? Yeah.

Yeah. And so that was really around, I'd learn all those things. So then I hit the streets in Melbourne and I literally went to every recruiting office and said, here's my resume. Give me a call. And I had three calls back within two days,

went in and had to do interviews, but I was really after computers. So I actually had to go and read and build computers in an interview, which I'd never done before. Well, I'd never been formally trained. So, you know, I'm there building computers in front of people. They're like, yeah, okay, you get up. That's fine. So I got a job with the ANZ bank and the ANZ bank, there's only four banks in Australia. What is that bank? ANZ bank. ANZ? Yeah. So there's only four major banks. This was one of the top banks. And I was asked to go in and support the trading room in the network language that I knew. So I went in there the first day, really enjoyed it because it was all of a sudden

it was me by myself. And I'm out there and I've proven that I've done it before and I've got another job. And they pulled me in about lunchtime and said, we've got another job for you. I've either done really bad or I've done something wrong. They said, look, here's a disc. And it was what they called at the time, it was the first internet provider CD in Australia. And this was 1995. So the internet wasn't around.

No one was using emails back then. And they said, we want you to tell us what the internet can do for the bank over the next 12 months and just report back every week. I'm like, so go explore. Go explore. In other words, we know what you can do. We know you can talk to people. So you go and see the executives and see what they say.

But I was reporting back every week the status of what I found on the internet. Now, if you go back to 1994, 95 on what was in the internet, credit card makers, right? You can make your own credit cards and just buy anything online. Lots of explicit content that was never covered. And then really just a matter of internet

and old army guys talking on the internet. So my job was then to tell them, look, we can use this for, you know, maybe internet banking or this for connecting to our customers. And that's what I did for 12 months. Then I got poached out of there to a big mining company in Melbourne, because they'd heard about this guy that was kind of, you know, he knew how to talk business. He knows a bit of technology, but he's good at both and he can talk to all the executives. So then I got thrown into the executive support team of a big mining company and supported the CX levels of that mining company on their email. So I was a 24 by 7 support for all the executives. So they're traveling around the world in mining sites and they'd bring me and say,

hey, I've got two of these modem cards. Plus I've got this dial in. How do I do it? And I'd be supporting them. Very cool. Yeah. Okay. So you're right at the beginning of connectivity.

Connectivity. Yeah. Early on. Okay. Then you did that for long enough that you said, I'm going to go do this on my own. So I met, uh,

Brian cook at BHP. So I walked in as the microsoft you know the bill gates guy with the color screen and he's sitting next to me with this old compact digital green screen and i went yeah that looks pretty cool but you know it's kind of dead technology and he was offended so we actually met and didn't get along that well right we used to say we tell this story where we didn't really connect as friends, but we connected in business. So he would do all the back-end support for me so I could go and sell to all the executives on how I got to use it. Then we had one night where, you know, I believe red wine and serviettes are the best way to start a business plan.

What's a serviette? Like a napkin. Okay. So we were sitting around and we said, look, we should really go and do this because now we can see big companies are ripping off companies like this. They're not getting the output. If we go and find really good guys that believe in us as well, bring them on board, pay them well, and then charge half of what these bigger companies, we can still make money. Okay. Go back and say that again.

There's an opportunity waiting. Yep. And if we can find people that would believe in our vision, us in our vision, pay them really well, and then slash prices. Slash prices from the world of where people didn't know what they were buying when they were buying from CSC or IBM or digital. Like we were pretty open with, hey, it's just software and hardware. Like we configure it this way, it's going to do this. Not we need to spend 12 months scoping it out. So we went and said, are people here to really help this business or they just want to charge hours? So we had these interview questions around how do you think about this?

What would you do in this scenario? We grew the company, what, within three months to about 40 people. And they're all billing out at $180 an hour. We're paying them around $80,000 a year. It worked out we're probably getting about 200% return on every hour billed. That's okay. We actually didn't know you could actually make money out of a business if you grew it in enterprise value.

We just thought we were changing the world and helping Microsoft. Did you ever have gone to debt every day in the every day for the first five years I can read I can remember not paying home loans I remember not paying tax bills to keep the payroll going so if you're making two hundred percent well how'd you find yourself in debt investing in those people early on in training and the you know that you're gonna have mistakes around is that scope creep is it this we're investing a lot more in people so we'd have great kind of cultural sessions do you do the same thing now invest in people yeah or do you invest in proving the concept because it sounded like with your um oh what's it called the fit code that you invested in concept

proof of concept first and then maybe you invest in people. So what have you learned now? Well, I think still the people bit is that Ryan, who's the CEO of Fit Code, I invested in her. And then she had the idea. So I think it still came from a person. What is the thing that makes you special in business? I believe it's mixing the business side with a technology platform and understanding the people component of that the business technology and the

relationships of people how they fit in it okay so you see it yeah so I'd say I'm a conjoint between business and technology and people okay what does before we get into how you made that first couple businesses successful what is the future of technology, business, and people look like for the next 10 years? So I truly believe that the technology limitations have now gone. If you looked at the last 10 years, it was always like, we may not have budget or we don't have the right people setting it up. Those limits are gone now with cloud, AI, all these different things that are happening in the world, right? So there's no more, we don't have enough power, or we don't have

enough, you know, we don't have enough capacity. That's Amazon, Microsoft, Google, they've fixed that problem for us all. So I believe technology is not going to be the barrier. The problem I see right now is how do you fix the real business problem? I know that I want to go and, you know, let's say with FitCode, we want to go and make sure retailers understand if they don't get online quick enough to see what Amazon and Alibaba are doing Nordstrom Macy's Bloomingdale's we're seeing in the papers now their online business isn't growing and they need to do that so I don't I think the big block is going to be business actually acumen

and understanding on how technology can do it and have you got the right people to actually get there. Because developers are not the key anymore. It's the people around data scientists, the people that are actually interpreting the data properly. The developer for us has now kind of become a commodity in a way because everything's kind of mix and match you've got components you can install you and i can go on we can go and start

a website today in three hours i've got a photo of you you've got a photo of me we can have a responsive mobile enabled site done so i think that's it's going to be the what is going to be the pressure points of a business to move to the technology. Insurance companies haven't really taken advantage of it yet. They're getting there, right? This is, you know, medical has, the FDA is getting there, but these industries that just really haven't accepted it, like retail, because it's bricks and mortar, they have to have an omni-channel to make sure bricks and mortar

and the online all kind of focus on selling to the customer. And I'm really concerned. I shouldn't be so concerned. I look at companies like amazon you know you can get everything from amazon now yeah them and exxon the way that their network of uh supply chain is unbelievable for two powerhouse companies and amazon is wonderfully scary you know like i love i it. I absolutely love it. And they're just getting bigger and stronger in the acquisition they've had on Whole Foods

and the airplanes, right? Yeah. I think if you think about it, 10 years ago, 1,000 people. Today, 400,000 worldwide with 30,000 new jobs just in Seattle alone. And I know in Australia, there's 14,000 open heads coming up

in the next two and a half years. Because a lot of the people haven't seen Amazon apart from AWS, which is their cloud service. No one knows about their distribution apart from Americans. And so it's really interesting to see how that's going to evolve. Do you think it's one of the top five

most significant companies in our world today? Yes. Yeah. By far. By far. Me too. Yeah. What do I know? But I mean, it seems that way. Yeah. Okay. Your superpower is that you understand business technology and how people fit in it to be successful. Then how do you take a concept? Well, how did you take your first concept and then scale it? So from that consulting business, we learn a lot. So we're out with, you know, 100 of the top customers in Australia looking at different technology, how they were using it. And so that was OBS, the consulting business that was growing at around 30% per year, making, you know, 10 to 15% profit after about 2005. What we didn didn't what we always said was we wanted to

have a great consulting company but we wanted to make money while we were asleep because in australia you're out of the time zone so we had to build a product and the product was a an output of all the different consulting gigs we've done and we said okay what's everybody saying right sharepoint's this um we don't we can find our documents, we can't seem to restore them, we can't audit them and there's no compliance. So we took those four components, we built a product and we sold it through the Microsoft channel. So in 2004, April 14th, we'd built a product, we'd worked with Microsoft on the product, which would enhance the SharePoint platform, which back in those days was not very well respected until 2007 when it came in. So we got Microsoft to present this at a big conference.

We had 300 downloads in the first three days. And the funny thing is the product wasn't ready. It didn't actually work. So I didn't find out about this until people started to ring from Stanley Tools, Kraft, Pfizer, Merck, Schlumberger, all around the world saying, hey, we've got your product. We really like it, but there seems to be some glitches and we can't install it. But this to me, I looked at it as an opportunity going, okay, so they've downloaded it.

They're installing it. They want to use it. We then put, I think, a dev team on as an opportunity going, okay, so they've downloaded it, they're installing it, they want to use it. We then put, I think, a dev team on it for three weeks and got it back up and running to a certain point. And we were cash flow positive in that business within four and a half weeks. So it wasn't small companies either. So if you think about how enterprise companies work, they buy big software businesses from either IBM or Google or Microsoft or Apple. And then there's a range of what we call an ISV,

which we were an ISV, an independent software vendor that builds an add-on on top of a platform. And that company was called Nintex. And our first product was called Smart Library because we believed that the SharePoint libraries weren't that smart and that the customers were asking for these other components and we actually delivered those components

and then that product lasted for about three and a half years. Now, working with Microsoft, we had to be very cautious because the next release of their product, they had an underleap, which was our recycle bin. They had an audit trail and they had an underleaf, which was our recycle bin. They had an audit trail, and they had a graphical workflow designer, which we did.

Now, what was happening here is in the market. So they took what was working with your product? And decided to put it into their product. Okay. Which is, this is where partnerships need, you've got to have a lot of trust. Now, we knew this coming in around 12 months beforehand. They said to us, hey, listen, you should probably start looking at designing something like this for our new platform because we're going to innovate and take up your stuff. You need to then jump

in front of us and start innovating more. So it was a really good relationship. That's where a lot of people didn't understand that, hey, just because we're feeding back to them doesn't mean they're going to try and take us out of the market. They said, we're going to build this, but you can go and do this, this, and this. Nowadays, would they have bought you instead of trying to create their own? Or is that a case sometimes they'll just build their own? In some cases, they build their own. You look at that model of build, buy, or partner. They decided to partner with us because they weren't going to sell any more of their product

if they either bought us or not bought us or we were there. We were just making their product better. So it stayed inside the customer longer. So their renewals were always getting done and they were always keeping up to date with us. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how I show up the next day for myself, my family, and our team here at Finding Mastery. It's become part

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I've been using Caldera Lab for years now. And what keeps me coming back, it's really simple. Their products are simple and they reflect the kind of intentional living that I want to build into every part of my day. And they make my morning routine really easy. They've got some great new products I think you'll be interested in. A shampoo, conditioner, and a hair serum. With Caldera Lab, it's not about adding more. It's about choosing better. And when your day demands clarity and energy and presence, the way you prepare for it matters. If you're looking for high-quality personal care products

that elevate your routine without complicating it, I'd love for you to check them out. Head to calderalab.com slash findingmastery and use the code findingmastery at checkout for 20% off your first order. So how did you pivot when you know that your company, the product that your company was profitable from was now being, has just become obsolete? So it's, I think you're taking two ways you can either just you know lay down and die and go into a new business or we said no look we see the we see the potential in sharepoint wasn't just from 2001 to 2007 it's still one of the largest products today so we saw a potential of in back in 2006, when we made that decision, we could see a 10-year

roadmap where we could still build products that they would not be able to get in time with us. So we went, okay, that's good. Now we had meetings with Bill Gates and Steve Barber and asked them questions around, hey, if we did this, would you do that? No, I wouldn't do that. Maybe you should look at this. And that's good to coming from the executives. What were they like in meetings? Bill was very articulate, very thoughtful, and very ruthless in negotiations around pricing and how do we get the most out of a customer. Steve was more, you must, as a partner of ours, keep in front of us or you will die.

Don't just rely on your laurels, which we took. I remember that every day in one meeting that he said that to us. Yeah. Oh rely on your laurels, which we took. I remember that every day in one meeting that he said that to us. So yeah. Yeah. Oh, very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Brilliant. Okay. So then what makes in your mind a successful business? And then I'm going to ask what makes for, what are the qualities of a successful businessman or woman? So I think successful business is definitely, you have to have a revenue model. You have to have good people and you have to have great leaders that are all aligned. Alignment is one word that gets lost.

Alignment of, you know, your partners against your customers, against your internal management team. If everybody's not aligned, what that message is, the business is not, you know, singing from the same hymn book and they need to. So I think alignment, revenue models and good people would be my three top. Revenue, models, and people. People. Of those three. Yeah. So then what does a model mean to you?

So we have different models where we may be a direct selling model, which is I'm selling a piece of software to a customer that they're going to have a renewal every three years or another business model is I'm going to charge you a subscription per month that's different business what is your favorite model I would say back in the day the perpetual licenses on-premise being able to control it so you as a customer can actually control your own destiny now with cloud and everybody's paying as they go we can't control it anymore you have to be per month per subscription per user or per control your own destiny now with cloud and everybody's paying as they go we can't control it anymore you have to be per month per subscription per user or per something where you're both invested in your successful outcome yeah it feels like it's the right way to do it

and look we learned so much so i sat on the microsoft advisory council for 12 years which means we got special insights into how the business has ran. And then moving from their on-premise Windows business, you know, servers, Office, to the cloud started nearly 11 years ago. Wow, because it's obvious now, right? It's obvious now, and a lot of people think, you know, Satya's come in and changed the world because he's just such a good product guy. This thing was, you know thing started just before Gates left and Barmer took in.

They were already thinking about, man, is Windows going to be free in 10 years because we need to get offers to a subscription because Google's going to have this? They already knew that. It's just, how do you execute on a company that's that big? Yeah. I think it's great being nimble and fun i'm one of the guys that you know if it gets to a point where the processes are making me feel icky it's time for me to go and start another business okay so it's not a financial exit you're looking for it's like is does it stop being fun but it's there's got to be money in there somewhere there's always money in there somewhere i think this is the whole thing of remember that movie trading places Places with Eddie Murphy, Dan Aykroyd? They're sitting on the boat

at the end. He's like, yep, congratulations. Brian and I, when we brought in our management team, we said, we want everybody to have their own boat around that island. We know if they're focused on that, we're going to be okay. Okay, cool. That's our whole sense of how we manage our teams and motivate our teams as well. So what thoughts would you give entrepreneurs if they want to take a shot and they've got an idea, they've got even an MVP, a minimally viable product, how would you suggest them to grow properly so that they can, in your words, I loved how you expressed it, like to change the world or add to the world or do good for the world, something along those lines. So if the product feels that close to that spirit, they've got a basic product and they're ready to step on the gas but not sure how, how would you suggest that? So it's a really good question because I get a lot of these opportunities come along now.

How you've done it before, how does it look? Growing up in Australia, it was – so we were in our consulting business and a consultant came in and when you've got a consultant coming in to tell you how to run your business, you must think you're really successful. That's the way we thought about it. You know what my definition of a consultant is? Is he asked to borrow your watch to tell you what time it're really successful. That's the way we thought about it. You know what my definition of a consultant is? Is he asked to borrow your watch to tell you what time it is. Correct.

Yeah. So this consultant said, and I still remember this. We were there and we're showing him what we do. And he's like amazing. He's like, so what's your exit strategy? This was 1998, maybe 99. What's your exit strategy? And I went, I just wanted to, I just went, yeah, yeah, we've got one.

It's cool. I ran out of that meeting, went straight to the internet, which wasn't Google I went, I just wanted to, I just went, yeah, yeah, we've got one. It's cool. I ran out of that meeting, went straight to the internet, which wasn't Google back then, but it was like, exit strategy. What is that? And it was like all this thing. All of a sudden I went, oh, we can sell this business? We were coming from, we're making companies, you know, their IT spend a quarter.

You can see them getting results really quickly. So things were fast moving. It wasn't about an enterprise value or, you know, their IT spend a quarter. You can see them getting results really quickly because things were fast moving. It wasn't about an enterprise value or, you know, what's this. So in Australia, we grew up saying you have to have profit and you reinvest that the next year and your company will grow. That's how we grew up. When I came to the US, which I was, and this was back in 2008, March the 1st, I arrived here. In 2009, we started to shop around the business and we had companies coming up to us saying, you're not spending enough money because we had profit margins of 47% net margin. And they're like, yeah, but you're, and I said, yeah, but our partner channel is our sales force, so we don't need to pay for people. So that's good to have profit.

We can reinvest it. Yeah, but that's not the way the markets work. And it's like, I'm like, okay. So you're sitting on piles of money. Sitting on piles of money. We didn't need money, but we knew that we wanted to, we could exit and actually get money, you know, take it off the table and still keep on doing what we love. But we didn't realize that the way the world was thinking is, no, you've got a great idea. Go and find somebody else's money and then have a really good plan

to see if you can spend it for growth and hopefully it may happen. And the valley is going through this now where it's not happening. And my biggest thing is with all good businesses is get a profit model happening. And if you don't want to invest your own money, like I always think no one was there for me when I'm paying my home loan three months late or the tax department's calling me. If I've got a great idea and I want to go and deliver this, I can mortgage my house. There's friends and families. There's other ways you can get money. But a lot of people don't want to put that risk on them. I get a lot of people coming to me saying, hey, look, I've got this really good idea

and here's a MVP, but would you invest in this? And I've only got part-time because I'm still working. I don't really want to, and that's why I turn away straight away. So if you're not totally invested in this, how can I get invested in it? Yeah, there you go. So that's the big thing. And this is where we've been working with our startups saying you've got to get a profit model happening. Because if you don't, then you can't hire better people next year. You know, that's all good. We can go and we can go and

raise bad money. But you'll dilute, you won't have any control, all those things that you wanted to do as an entrepreneur will be gone if you go that route. So that's, you know, we keep like, profits king, you can say we keep like profits king. You can say cash is king at the moment. I'm really interested to see what's going to happen with companies like GoPro, Uber, all these things that are just falling away. Tesla, Tesla even.

Yeah. And I think that's the thing around people. I mean, we're seeing it in Uber now, right? Have they got the right people? Yeah. Right? No, I don't think they have. But also these inflated valuations, I mean then people go in for their big stock price.

You know, people are leaving GoPro at the moment in drones because it was valued at $14 billion in 2013 and now it's valued at $6 billion. Yeah. So, you know, I'm always like, let's get a profit model in. You know, let's understand what our cost is, but we don't have to go and raise money and dilute. Let's go and find a way to raise money ourselves from a great product or a great go-to market. Okay, so where are you on a, I don't know, financial security or wealth, freedom from needing to work?

Not that you won't want to work, because obviously, you know, you're really busy and working hard, but where are you on that scale? And there's the Bill Gates ridiculous part of the scale, and then there's other variations of it. So I'm asking a sensitive question. What I really want to know is, I'm not asking how much is in your bank account, but I want to know at what point did you find financial freedom?

So the, I can give you the exact date. Yeah, that's good. I want to know, at what point did you find financial freedom? I can give you the exact date. Yeah, that's good. We exited the software business, and it's all publicly so I can share with you this information. We exited that business at a $225 million exit. A company out of Boston called TA Associates invested $225 million to buy me and Brian out of control, which means we all got a lump sum each. The funny thing is, I thought, okay, there's the line in the sand. I'm done.

It's perfect. I actually got divorced the following day because I wanted to make sure the property settlement and all that worked properly, cut it in half, and I was happy with that. Okay. cut it in half and I was happy with that because that was my prerogative that I knew is a financial line in the sand is that what I say success I would have said that back then

then I took three months and I said right I'm going to go and get my golf handicap down and see if I can retire within six weeks I'd found a new business I just could not stop working and it's just it's not about like I don't have to work I just love to work but I love building things right so now it's I do it because I love it I

mean I'm here eight to five every day but it's only because I know that if I'm here leading by example everybody else else is here. Yeah, cool. Yeah, it's an interesting one on, I thought I might be able to like do a semi-retirement or something like that. Opportunities just come your way. How do you make yourself better? What do you do to grow?

So I kind of, I take, this is what I do on a weekly basis. Sunday nights, so I have my kids 50% of the time, so we kind of structure a two-week program. Sunday nights is when I kind of sit down and reflect on – and I run myself through my personal – it's called a dreams and goals PowerPoint presentation. You call it a drawl? It's a drawl.

It's kind of like a drawl, but it's very similar. Can I show you just so you can see this? You call it a drawl? It's a drawl. It's kind of like a drawl, but it's very similar. Can I show you just so you can see this? I mean, it's probably not good for a podcast, but I'm just saying this is. So I do this every quarter, but every Sunday night I am reflecting on. Every Sunday night? Sunday night. Okay.

Yeah. And I'll be looking at things like this. I have a set of guiding principles, and I've had these since. They've changed a bit. My son was diagnosed at 25 months with type 1 diabetes, so that became the priority of how can I help. I've always wanted to be a business-led philanthropist, stay healthy and fit, live each day and choose love.

Live each day to me as today can be the worst day of your life and tomorrow is going to be the best, or it could be another worst day, but every day is different. You know, you can't kind of reflect on the past too much. Just keep on pushing forward. So I go by these guiding principles. Can we go through them? Yeah. Each one.

Okay. So influence the goal to cure type one diabetes. Yes. Be a business leader and philanthropist yeah philanthropist stay healthy and fit live each day and choose love why love so i think there's two things in the world this is like as a male our brains can't take too much so you've got two things you either choose love or you choose fear and choose love is you know respect everybody compassion being able to treat people as yourself fear is jealousy aggression and we should never do that so always think choose love even when

i'm in meetings and i'm not getting my stats i still choose love and i tell my sales people when they lose a deal choose love it's okay how do you get more connected to that even in moments of fear and moments of intensity how do you how have you primed we call it front loading yeah so the concept that i spent a lot of time with people is that there's only three things you can train as a human okay everything falls in these three buckets you can train your craft you can train your body you can train your mind i'll put an asterisk next to train your spirit and the reason that there's an asterisk is because the ancient traditions would say oh yeah you to train your spirit. And the reason that there's an asterisk is because the ancient traditions would say,

oh yeah, you can train your spirit. And I'm just not sure exactly what that means, but I want to understand it better. But right now, three things for sure you can train. Yeah. And so then the concept is how do we front load our training? How do we get ahead of the training curve so that when we meet moments of intensity or demand or ruggedness or hostility, that the training of mind, body, and craft show up in a way that we can eloquently and seamlessly adjust to

the unpredictable and unfolding unknown. And so that's where, for me, mindset and mental skills training is all about. Front load it, get ahead of it in calm moments, and then progressively increase all the way up to hostile moments to train your mind. So how do you, with that frame that I just shared with you, how do you train for love? So really by spending time by myself. So I've now, kind of time management wise, I usually spend around 45 minutes to two hours per day either walking my dog and thinking about the day or actually thinking about my health and fitness. My two big things, and when you run through this presentation, is I'm all about business leader, live each day for work, but I don't apply it to my personal well-being enough.

I always prioritize. I can see it in this whole deck so you so the way you do it it sounds like you've got a you've got a hybrid of fitness and movement for contemplative observatory processing of how you're thinking and doing right so that walk is really almost like a contemplative mindfulness yeah right are you critical in nature during that time or just observing your thoughts and your behaviors? Totally analytical and critical of myself and everybody else is doing the best thing they can, which is really weird. Sounds awful. I know. Yeah, it does sound awful. And it really comes back to the

yoga business that I invested in. J-O-G-A. So yoga for jocks. But the CEO and founder is very spiritual, come back from that. And I said, I'll invest in this if you can help me with these personal components. Oh, good. So I'm working with her on another level. Yeah. So maybe you and I can sharpen up some of the, if you're interested in sharpen up, like more of a mindful way of doing the walking as opposed to only being analytical and critical yeah like there's no nothing wrong with the analytics there's lots wrong with criticalness

you know i can talk for end on that but let's go back to your model continue to grow and learn every day brilliant proud be proud and humble that's definitely the australian part in you yeah and then on this planet be on this planet to make a positive impact and so every sunday you check in you do like a mirror check i check in and i think there's there's kind of components here where i kind of check in to go how are we doing like i've got investments in a few type 1 diabetes companies so i'll probably go and look at their latest news articles to make sure that's going well this year i know i do this every day the leader philanthropist yeah to stay healthy and fit i'll probably sit there and well, I really should get out and walk the dog because

I didn't do that today because I spent it with the kids. So I might do things like that. But I run through and I break this down into simple terms for me, which are these areas. And so here are my dreams and then here are my goals. What's the difference between, so one of the dreams you have is stay healthy and fit. That's not a goal. I would say this is these dreams. So if I was in my enterprise world, this would say strategy.

Okay. And that would say objective. Okay. So my strategy is I want to stay healthy and fit. My goal is work on the hygiene and health. And there's a hygiene plan later on in this. Keep focused on that. So I always think strategy against goals and execution.

Hygiene plan of health and well-being. So not brushing your teeth, but moving. No. Well,iene plan of health and well-being. So not brushing your teeth, but moving. No. Yeah. That's like being fit. Being fit, but also your spiritual hygiene, your physical hygiene. Okay. There you go. Yeah. So that's the stay healthy piece. Yeah. Okay. So build relationships that are meaningful and deep, be the best parent I can, live a legacy that has a positive impact on the world, and do good. So that's kind of breaking it down into things. And this is where I show this to people that are my managers, that are managers in our business, leaders, but also people that I want to have personal relationships with. If we get to a chat and I start talking this and I might go off on a

tangent, I'll bring this up and go, no, this is what I was talking about. So this is, yeah, this is your personal development model. Correct. Right. So this is how you'll measure personal success. Correct. Because there's nothing financial about here. No.

Right? Nothing financial. Yeah. Now, as we drop through these, and I won't go through all these, but there's a whole thing around. Is it because you want me to read them? Well, no, no, no. I'm joking.

Yeah. I just thought there's some stuff here on how I really measure myself. So I put some focus areas around it all okay and then i put some traits which this is you got the five f's yeah you're missing one you got fitness frugal family fun and focus there was there was one in there that you know as an aussie i'd probably say it a little bit outrageous, but, you know, it could have been more intimate. I was thinking ferocity. I don't know where you're thinking. Okay, good.

Fitness, frugal. Frugal, huh? So you're not a big spender. So I'm saying that I've done a lot of philanthropic things over the last four years since I've sold the business. We've raised over $3 million for Cure for Type 1. $3 million? Yeah.

My ex-wife and I started a foundation here and worked with the Benaroya family. Are you guys partners in other ways? Not anymore. No.

But like we're, I mean, we're very amicable. We're friendly. We're not friends, but the kids are having a great time and, you know,

life's better than it was. Okay. But I think the main thing is for here is that I get into certain areas, but this is where I want to get to is this is where the rubber hits the road. So you've got some really clear tactics that you've broken out for those five goals that we talked about earlier across the year. Yeah. And this is what I look at on a Sunday night. Okay. So for example, for health, you're looking at how much the output, like what do I weigh?

Yeah. So I'm sitting here. I know I'm at 182 and that's not bad for me. Yeah. Right now you're saying? Yeah. I was 205 back in June, 2014. Okay.

Got it. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I mean, look, 2014. Okay. Got it. Yeah. Yeah. So I think, I mean, look, that's the health and wellness stuff. You know, it's really around, I want more golf. Golf makes me a lot more relaxed. I've found if I get into a good golf scenario, that means I've got to be relaxed. I don't have to think about work.

So I put that in my health and wellbeing, which is really cool for me. Yeah. I don't have to think about work. So I put that in my health and well-being, which is really cool for me. Yeah, I love it. So you basically almost created a paradise plan for activities that map onto your goals. And you've done this across the year. I love that you've scheduled sleep for October and December. Well, see, so this is one of them. How is that not in every, how is that tactic not in every one? It's really interesting, right?

So back in, so starting the businesses, I used to average three hours a night because people didn't understand that, okay, you're running an international business. I said, yeah, but that's 24 by 7 global support. So I would go and run the business nine to six in the day, go home, have a shower, come back into the office at 11 and leave at 7 and hopefully get some sleep. The science right now would say, you know, that's bad. That's really not good for a lot of reasons, including thinking nimbly and clearly and creatively. And, you know, part of the research that we've learned is that people that are on average, most people on average, when they sleep five hours or less for five days, if you test their cognition and focus and reaction time and those skills, that they are equivalent to a drunk person that could not pass, uh,

the drunk driving test in America at 0.08. I don't know what the drunk driving limits in Australia are. I'm sure it's not. It's a lot. Is that a dig? No, no, it's really tough in Australia,

which is weird. I've got some more stories that we can't say on because we grew up with you cannot drink and drive at all so we're here yeah yeah where it's double zero and we have what they have um so police what they call booze buses so with breathalyzers on every corner on a friday night no one drives anyway. So you just go, you walk to, if you want to have a glass or a beer or whatever, you walk to it? Taxis. Yeah.

You also don't have guns? We do not have guns. We have a lot of knives, but we don't have guns. Got it, okay. And I think that's an interesting, it's always a great conversation here because this is something that, you know, we all look the same, but the way we grow up in different countries,

we're so different and our foundations are just... How has the tall poppy syndrome affected you? Look, it's been interesting. I think moving to the US just before we got really successful or everybody knew what was going on, I was glad I was out of Australia. Yeah, because the tall poppy syndrome is that idea that if you pop your head up, you get whacked off. So don't shout and don't even proclaim success like be careful right and so fit in be part of it

you know as opposed to say man i've done something special and it's really that's a really good point because it aligns with what happened when we moved here so yeah the tall poppy syndrome is don't exceed your peers or you'll be pulled under. Now, when you come across to the U.S. And America has a very different model, which is squeaky wheel gets the oil. Yes. You know, which is like, make noise. Yeah.

And we saw that in business across where the people that invest in our company were like amazed that they'd never heard of us before. And we're like, well, you don't need to hear about us. Like, I mean, our proof's in the pudding. And you just bought us for $225 million. So we're pretty happy that no one knows about us. Now, they've done an amazing thing to kind of get the company known. But it's a thing around why does every NBA team have an Australian? NBA? Every NBA team has an Australian player in it.

I didn't know that. National basketball league. We're saying the same thing, right? Yeah. So the last four, I think, championships, there's been an Australian in the team. And there's a great article around this, is that we're under the radar. We'll fight to the death. But you won't know about us until you're pretty much laying flat out in the alley because we've actually controlled you.

But there's a really interesting thing around this. So great teammate in that way, right? And tell me if this is maybe folklore or real, is that that tall poppy syndrome mixed with being a bloke, right? And being able to be one of the guys. Like you guys are great at mixing it up over a couple of drinks and just being one of the guys, right? Part of the tall poppy thing and that is that is it true that that is part of the tactic for sas your special forces

and you might not know that because you're not involved no but like just be part of the the community yeah and then all of a sudden you get people to talk you get people like they're disarmed in some ways correct and you get i mean australians are world class at being great blokes yeah yeah and i think it's something that we're i don't know if it's just our attitude or we don't in some ways. Correct. And you get, I mean, Australians are world class at being great blokes. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's something that we're, I don't know if it's just our attitude or we don't get offended or we just want to get involved with people. I had the same relationship with Steve Bummer. So I played golf with him every fourth Sunday for two years because we enjoyed talking to

each other. He could, what we'd say, I'd be a bit self-deprecating, and he'd like that because he'd be like, Americans, you know, against Australians, and I'd go, yeah, that's good. But the good thing about it is we broke down all our barriers where we didn't talk work, and we just talked about, you know, how did you do that with your son,

or how did you do this? It became a relationship more than just a business relationship. Okay, yeah. I think we're really good at mixing, you know, we work hard, we play hard. And that's how I've always kind of taken on it. Except you weren't sleeping hard for a long time. No.

Yeah. Okay. So what I'm struck by in the model that you're sharing here is how much goes into your personal wellness, right? And so there's lots of business tactics that you could focus on. Yeah. And so there's lots of business tactics that you could focus on. And what percentage of your mind is taken up about personal wellness as opposed to business wellness? Yeah, those two. If those two were competing. Because you said work and personal are the two Venn diagram with relationships being the crossover. So what percentage of your mind is occupied by each? Yeah, I think as I've kind of, I think as I've evolved as a person or as I've become

a good dad or a good leader, that the work bit comes easy. So the work to me is, you know, looking at, you know, projections or a go-to-market or a marketing diagram, all that stuff comes pretty easy to me to not overthink it too much. And I've also got really good people around me that are making those decisions. I've just got to give them direction or approval. The personal stuff is the hard one for me because that's something where I've got to actually step out of my comfort zone. So that's why you do the work. Yeah.

That's why you plan it out, lay it out. Yeah. Okay. And I know then if my personal, you know, if I love myself and I've chosen love and I've been healthy, my day just becomes a lot better. Okay. So then you have your model about growth is not to take your strength and amplify it, but your model is to shore up the weaknesses, shore up the parts that are not exceptional. Yeah. And so there's no, the weaker link is stronger. Yeah. Is that how you? Correct. exceptional. Yeah. And so there's no, the weaker link is stronger. Yeah.

Is that how you? Correct. Okay. Yeah. And then do you do the same in businesses or do you double down and double index on an entrepreneur's strength or do you help them be better at their weakness?

Help them be better at their weakness because I think an entrepreneur or leader has to know all the facets of a business. They may know good product management or good product for that particular thing, but how do I close a sale? How do I get money from people that aren't paying me? What happens if I have a HR violation?

Those type of things. They need to know all those things. Okay. So I try and teach those the things you don't learn at Harvard. Yeah, right. For sure. All right, brilliant.

So I've got some deeper questions I want to get to about mastery and how you understand it. And so I think you've laid out a brilliant model about what success looks like, personal and work-based, as well as your approach to building people and resources around it. Okay. So do you have any daily routines that have been important to you? I am up at 5.30 every day. And it doesn't matter what day it is, but I'm up at 5.30. It doesn't matter if I've been out until, let's say, 11 o'clock at night, or it could be 2 a.m., but I'm always up at 5.30.

And I take my dog for a walk, and I listen to the latest podcast that I've been listening to. Finding Mastery. Finding Mastery. I think that was on this morning. Yeah, good. Just after The Al that I've been listening to. Finding Mastery. Finding Mastery. I think that was on this morning. Yeah, good. Just after The Alchemist I was listening to. My personal got a drive.

Okay. So that was one thing that I never got into until I realized that I need to get my personal health better to make my life better. Do you have a philosophy that guides you? I don't think so. I think if my guiding, as my guiding principles, I don't think, I mean, my philosophy is live each day. That's the number one I've had. I've got a tattoo on my hip that means that. So my uncle, one of my uncles that was in that business, that was his motto. And then he passed away in 1997.

And so that kind of, that was the one that really kind of sat with me is like you can always have you know good or bad days but when you say philosophy i'd probably say as a simple guy i always think of live each day and i can get into a better mode in my mind is there a word that cuts to the center of what you understand most I don't... Man, I was thinking that it might look like I was going to have this profound answer, but I don't think so. I think there's... The main thing is people have said to me,

we can't understand how you get so many components, and you might be able to find a word for this, but you simplify them down so we can understand them on so many components, and you might be able to find a word for this, but you simplify them down so we can understand them on so many levels. I look at it as in I've never been afraid to fail. That's been the number one. I didn't realize failure was a word. It was more like an experience. It didn't feel good.

I didn't think people get affected by failure. They just get back up and keep on going. Okay, brilliant. What is it that you are afraid of? Am I allowed to swear? Oh, yeah. No. Not fucking up my kids.

Yeah. That's a big one. For someone that's grown up with not a silver spoon, and my kids now have access to way too many things that I've even provided to them as well, that's the big one is how do we keep them? I think authentic, real,

and just respectful. Yeah, I, I really hear that as well. I came from a humble beginnings as well. And there's an athlete that I work with that he came from the bottoms and, um, nameless and you won't figure out who he is, right?

And so we're applying my craft with him, sports psych, if you will. And so I asked him what he's most afraid of, and he said, you know, I'm not sure, but I do know this, is I think about it every day, that the thing that I had that made me successful was nothing. I had nothing. I didn't have the greatest shoes. I didn't have, I didn't have access to the camps, but I had a fire, right? And I was going to compete

to figure out how good I can get. And what I'm giving my son is everything. He's got the best shoes, the best camps, the best coaches, you know, and he's private education. I had nothing. Now he has everything. What am I doing? And so I hear it. It's a big one, isn't it? Because this is the one around, I was in an interview the other day around what was, you know, what was the defining moment for us to kind of, you know, either not pay a bill or not pay this. It was the motive. There is nothing else apart from you need to succeed. was so desperate or there was so many things sorry how do i put this the desperation was there was no other option other than to

succeed it was nothing you'd failed so what you got to so many points where it's like we just have to do this well you know it's a grind but in fair in fairness to that like you could have drank more and moved 20 blocks in from the ocean you know australia doesn't go that deep from the ocean right you know 100 blocks into the ocean or whatever and and had marginal rent and kind of done the average thing like how come you didn't choose that i just yeah i didn't i didn't think that was an option it was but it was it was an option but i didn't think about it like that it It was more like, no, we need to go and succeed. We put together, I put together, when I was 14, I put together a goals list from my uncle. I should explain this. So I had the two uncles. One was a financial genius

and one was a creative genius. And I learned from both of them. The creative genius got me aside when I was around 14 or 15 he could see the spark in your eye and he said you need to set goals he sent me on a Tony Robbins course walking on fire I was 15 we went down to the degree of he was so impassioned about how he set goals he made me write out my goals and then made me detail them and work backwards. What would I do tomorrow to start that goal off? I had 131 of them when I was 17. You wrote 131 goals? 131 goals, which was I wanted to live in this location and drive into work every day.

I wanted a mobile phone. I wanted to do this. When I was 29, I went through my, i think you know i think there's a 29 year revolution you know our world changes every 29 years if you read the stars some girl probably chatted me up about that so i believed it and um but around that around that 29 or 30 i went back and reviewed them and i'd hit 127 of the 131 stop it no and then you only would have known to make big goals at that point so the funny thing was one of them joking did you make big goals like were they audacious um so the i wanted a company i want one of my company that i started on the building that was a goal it's funny

when i was like um i think i was probably like 22. I had that same thought. And now I think about it. I'm like, that is ridiculous. I don't know if you feel good about it or not. But like, I had the same thought. Well, that was one that I didn't achieve in that period. Yeah. But the business that we brought to the US now has. Yeah. But the funny thing is, and this is where I could be a bit of a perfectionist which not many people call me but it's at the bottom of the building not the top of the building so i didn't really have to go oh so you didn't mark that one no no no that's good awesome okay um where does pressure come from for you

i think pressure comes from, I think the, the frustration I get when I haven't been able to kind of really spend time with people that I'm trying to build. In other words, I get frustrated. It's like, do you don't know what I mean? And then that puts pressure back on me where I'll just say,

okay, let's go and do it. I'll go and do it with you where I should let them fail sometimes. And I feel pressure. That's where as a now investor, go entrepreneur where you think you can do it all yourself but you need these people to grow. I find pressure on people that aren't up to the standard I'm thinking they're at and then I feel pressure if I haven't trained them enough.

Okay. Okay. How motivated are you by external stuff? Money, attention, whatever. I think the money, the external stuff is, I would say the external stuff before I had kids was really up there because I've changed the way I actually think about my personal life. In other words, once you turn 40 and 45, you go, I don't know how much more time you've

got left. So you might as well look after the bitch you can. Okay. What is the internal rewards for you? What are those being able to spend time by myself with my kids um being able to have my kids 12th birthday the other day and host 10 kids at go-karting laser tag and a sleepover that was the best day i'd had all year so it's about connection to others is that the internal yeah okay so uh last big banger here is like how do you define or think about the concept of mastery?

It's a really good question because I actually looked at this and thought, well, you know, what is mastery to me? And I think it's, you know, are you successful in what you think is success, right? So I look at someone like a Jordan Spieth. Is he defining mastery on the golf course? Yes. He's 24. Has he gone through all the things that a normal 24-year-old go through? Probably not, but he's going to go through heartache and all those type of things.

Can he handle that? Defining mastery for me would be, I think it's really around, am I happy with myself? Am I happy with my kids? Then if I've done those two things correctly, I'll be a master at anything that I try. So mastery of self comes before mastery of craft. Correct. Yeah. So self, then relationships, and then extension would be craft. Yeah.

Yeah. And, you know, I don't know about Australia, but for sure the model in America is the doing is more important than the being. Yeah do more to be more and it's broken the idea is we need to be more to do more and to allow the the the doing to flow from the being and that's what you just that's what i just heard yeah right is like okay i need to be connected to myself then connected to others and then whatever happens if i can master those two things then the craft part is easy. Correct. I always say to our team is like, I can teach you anything in the craft. I can't teach you how to have a personality. I mean, that's why I say to all my team, it's like, this is up to you.

I think that's the way I kind of live life. That's great. Okay, where can people follow along or be connected to what you're doing? Is there any social media stuff? I kind of doubt it, but do you have social media handles? We've got social media handles across the businesses. Yeah, you're going there. I mean, by all means.

I mean, I'm on Facebook and I'm on Instagram at Brett O'Campbell. At Brett O'Campbell, that's what it is. But, you know, really for- B-R-E-T-T? T-O-C-A-M-P-B-E-L-L. But I think if you kind of look at the world of this, I think Twitter, which is Nintex B-A-C, you'll see a lot more of the business side of me as well in that.

But it's really around I'm out promoting my businesses, not myself. Yeah. Because all those leaders are really good self-promoters. Yeah. And so I feel embarrassed when they say, hey, I've got 40,000 followers. I'm like, I've got 12, and it's my mom and my auntie. Okay, so Joga.

Yep. What are some other ones? Joga and also ABC Creators. Okay. Overload Golf, Fitcode, and Nintex are all part of the things that I have passion about for work right now. And as I start to step out of that Nintex business, I'll get more focus around some of the other businesses. Yeah, cool.

Awesome. Brett, thank you for sharing and teaching and being authentic and letting you come through this conversation. So thank you for your time, seriously. I feel really a bit humbled to be here as well. And I learned a lot today as well. Yeah, good. Thanks, Mike.

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