Shaun Newman Podcast - Ep. 181 - Brett Wilson

Episode Date: June 14, 2021

Businessman, investment banker & philanthropist Brett Wilson has done a lot over his career whether we are talking about being on Dragons' Den, owning part of the Nashville Predators or being one of the most recognized voices in Western Canada. We discuss growing up in small town Saskatchewan, how using mentors/coaches have continued to help his career & stupid ideas.  Let me know what you think Text me 587-217-8500 

This is Glenn Healing. Hi, this is Braden Holby. This is Daryl Sutterin. Hi, this is Brian Burke. This is Jordan Tutu. This is Keith Morrison. This is Kelly Rudy. Hi, this is Scott Hartnell.

Hey, everybody. My name is Steele-Fer. This is Tim McAuliffe of SportsNet, and you're listening to the Sean Newman podcast. Welcome to the podcast, folks. Happy Monday. Hope everybody had a great weekend. I myself, the family and I went to Jackfish, North Battleford, Provincial Park. It was fantastic.

Weather was great. I mean, it absolutely downpored Thursday night, but after that, the weather was great. Their campground there is just gorgeous. If you've never been to jackfish, I mean, you've got to check it out. Like, provincial park there. Probably anyone listening, you know,

closer to North Battleford knows all about it. But for some reason, that little spot I've never gone to. And since working over there with the Seraphina boys, I've obviously noticed it. And so now we've gone there a couple times, and it's become a favorite of ours to spend a few days over there. And like I say, if you've never been, treat yourself, go to Jackfish for the Provincial Park for a weekend

and see what I'm talking about, because it's got a little bit of everything there, and beautiful setup, and the campsites are just top-notch. I can't speak highly enough about it. We had a great weekend, and I hope you guys got to go and do something, Have a little bit of fun. Hopefully the sun was shining wherever you were at.

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Trophy Gallery. Downtown Lloydminster, stop in and see Clint in the team. My buddy Clint down at Trophy Gallery. He is Canada supplier for Glass and Crystal Awards. Of course, if you're a business owner, this is the perfect way for you to give appreciation to your staff. Clint

engraves all these awards right in the and he has the ability to customize it to your logo, your style, everything. He can do whatever you want. He's super talented. And I'm just case and point on the bike trip to Tufnalen back, I brought everybody an SMP travel mug that Clint did up. And now I'm getting hit up from everybody going, well, how do I get one of those? Well, I tell you what, you start by going to trophy gallery because Clint is the man who can design just about anything.

and they look sharp. Honestly, they look sharp. So stop in at Trophy Gallery or hit them up online, trophygallery.ca. Jen Gilbert and team for over 45 years since 1976, the dedicated realtors of Coldwell Banker, Cityside Realty have served Lloyd Minster in the surrounding area. They offer Star Power,

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And if you're heading into any of these businesses, let them know. You heard about them from the podcast, right? Now let's get on to that T-Barr-1, tale of the tape. Originally from North Battleford, Saskatchewan, he holds a civil engineering degree and a master's in business.

In 1993, he co-founded First Energy Capital Corp, a Canadian stock brokerage firm that provides investment banking. He's now since retired from that in 2008. In 1997, he was in Canada's top 40 under 40, and in 2007, Calgary's Person of the Year. He was once one of the Dragons on the hit show Dragons Den, and now, of course, he owns part of the Nashville Predators. I'm talking about Brett Wilson. So buckle up. Here we go. This is Brett Wilson, and welcome to the Sharons.

John Newman of Lloyd Minster, Saskatchewan podcast. Welcome to the Sean Newman podcast. First, I'm joined by Brett Wilson, man. This has been a long time in the works. I'm very pleased to have you hop on here and sit and have a little session with me. Well, it's always a pleasure when you get invited to talk about the homeland. So that's happy to be a part of this. Well, I got to say, so you're asking, where am I based?

I'm based at a Lloydminster. And you're getting me off of very little sleep. We did a bike to Tufnal, Saskatchewan over the weekend. So from Friday at 5 p.m. for 41 straight hours, a group of 10 of us drove and then biked, pedal biked. There met with a guy named Quick Dick McDick and podcast with him and turned around and biked all the way back. So we raised $270,000 and I'm kind of, well, here I sit.

So I appreciate you dealing with my brain this morning. Well, no, that's a great way to spend a weekend in terms of community. And Quick Dick McDick is going to be one of the great voices in terms of reason and rational thought coming out of the West. So I'm a fan of every piece of your weekend. Well, let's talk a little bit about you, you being from a North Battleford boy. You know, you sir have had just a marvelous career. Like you've been, I don't know, there's not too many things. things you can't check off your box, whether it's top 40 in Canada, whether it's Dragonsden,

whether it's, you know, the mass of wealth that you've amassed. And then just, you know, in my world in hockey, right, like being part of Nashville, like it just seems like success oozes out of you. But I'm curious, when you look back at it, and I know you're not at the end by any stretch, but when you look back at it, what was maybe, you know, like one of the, enjoyable parts where you're like, man, that was, that was a lot of fun or maybe still is a lot of fun. Well, let's just comment on the overall career. I grew up on the prairies, as we talked about. And then the prairies, you have trains and the trains run on fairly flat tracks. Unfortunately, my life's been a roller coaster. And as a prairie boy, sometimes that the hills and

hills and valleys can be quite a challenge. And there's certainly been some highs. It's certainly been some lows, challenges with mental health, challenges with cancer, challenges with business, not every business has gone according to the plan but having said that you know partnered with some fabulous people my first real big business first energy when maybe that's the pivotal moment was with murray edwards out of regina rick grafton out of um out of moose jaw and a guy named jimmy davidson whose mother hails from wilkie saskatchewan he grew up in Toronto, but we always say that he was conceived in Saskatchewan, so that counts in terms of the four Prairie boys that came together. And really first energy back in 1993, we opened the firm

and had a relatively successful run with that shop. It wasn't without its moments, wasn't without its challenges, but incredible partnership and an incredible run. And that really created the platform for other wealth in terms of what I accumulated and certainly some of what I gave away as along the way. Well, I'm glad you bring up Murray Edwards because in your book, you talked about him being, he'll go down as one of the greatest Canadian entrepreneurs of all time. And I was curious, well, you working beside him along with him, you got to see it first time. What was so special about Murray Edwards? Let's talk first about the big picture, which is Murray and I met when student politics at the University of Saskatchewan. And,

I was in my second year of university before I discovered that you actually have a choice of universities. I thought you went to the closest to everything, just assumed that that was, I didn't realize that a choice. Now, not sure I could have got in anywhere else, but University of Saskatchewan, great engineering program, but more importantly, and this is the platform in terms of your question, you know, my graduating class virtually all landed in Alberta. There was foreign students that went home, but virtually everybody else, whether it was civil or mechanical or chemical or electrical engineering landed in Alberta and mostly Calgary. And the same thing came from the law students.

It came from the commerce students. The engine of growth for Canada was truly the oil and gas industry. And as much as it was spread across BC, Alberta and Saskatchewan, it was headquartered ultimately in Calgary. And that was really how we all came together. And Murray Edwards and I really started our careers in Calgary about the same time. He was a lawyer with a student or a commerce background, and I was an engineer with a business degree and combined the two.

And ultimately we partnered. I started a brokerage firm, a smaller shop called Wilson Mackey. We brokered oil and gas properties. And I remember asking Murray if he'd be interested in investing. And the terms he proposed were so onerous. I just said, mm, not going to happen. And figured it out myself. Having said that, a year and a half later, Murray and I are chatting.

We talked about growing the firm, turning it into a full-service brokerage firm, and that's really how First Energy came to be. But Murray, at the same time that he had First Energy as a partnership, he was building a drilling contractor, a couple of oil and gas companies, a mining company, and an aerospace company. And his attention to detail, his attention to process the discipline that First Energy had because every Tuesday, pardon me, every Wednesday at 3 o'clock was our partners meeting. Murray would walk in. And if we weren't in the room, the goal was to close the door if you hadn't made it into the room and covered off. So Murray, fabulous partner, fabulous entrepreneur, certainly had his own roller coasters of the life experiences.

But someone I'm very proud to say is a great partner. I would assume you talk about your life being a roller coaster and not the train track. But I would assume with the roller coaster, I don't know, that means you're putting yourself into uncomfortable positions and learning a lot all the time because you get to the peak and you think you maybe got it figured out and then all of a sudden, well, the legs you go up, Monria and down you go again. But those are great times to kind of pick yourself up and figure it back out again. You know, over the years and thanks to first energy in the deal flow, I ended up investing in literally four or 500 different early stage investments. But we also keep track. My son works for me full time now.

And when he joined the firm, he saw that on there was a four or five page document that tracks the investments from farmland restaurants, whatever. But there's also two, maybe it's three pages now listing all of the things that we've written off. So there's a series of mistakes embedded in that. But I celebrate many of those mistakes because they were learning moments. And as I got to understand, I invest in people, people who understand their businesses. I don't try and second guess their knowledge of the business. I happen to be. If I'm happy that they understand the business we're investing in, it's game on.

Let's go. And I have some fabulous partners, whether it's Bruce Chernoff right now with a power plant that we're building, or guy named Matt Blanchfield, who's running a rooftop restaurant, one of the biggest enterprises, or pardon me, and venues, I'll just call it, for entertainment in downtown Calgary. We've got a huge patio that we're setting up. But it's really for me about the partners. It's less about the end game, but the partners that I'm working with in each of these

situations. And I absolutely love the partnerships I've developed over time. It comes with trust, comes where a value of a handshake, something I learned in small town Saskatchewan. I still remember my dad hanging up the phone at night and saying, got it. And what did he have? He was a car salesman. He had finished a car sale over the phone. It was a handshake. As far as he was concerned, the paperwork was to follow, but the deal was done. And that's really where I began to value the handshake. And that's what I call my Saskatchewan roots. Is that, is that, is that, disappearing the handshake? Like out here we do handshakes still all the time, but I don't know, you're on a different scale than I am for sure. You know what? The people I deal with, if they're not

interested in a handshake, you know, one of my partners, again, Chernoff says, let's throw the paperwork away. We'll get beer and pizza and lock the door and we'll sit down and figure it out. If we have a difference, if we'd have a difference of opinion. And it's really at this level. It doesn't matter what the size of the deals are, it's really about partnerships and trust. And so, yes, I think the handshake is still, for me, it's the paramount way of going about doing business. If you have to have a signed document that you can then hold in someone's face and say, see, see, that's not a partnership. That's not a business. That's not a relationship. And I'm not there. I, I, uh, I know what you mean. Um, dealing with people or, uh,

as we all do in different walks of life, every shape and form. Dealing with people no matter how great an idea is, at the end of the day, people can either make it great or self-imploded awfully quick. And dealing with those people is where all your time and energy, at least from my eyes, that's where a ton of time and energy gets sunk into.

You know, Sean, every business plan is wrong within 24 hours. So the question is, what do you do with the partnership that's embedded on the business plan? You know, there's so many times people talk about having to pivot and take a fork to the left or fork to the right. You know what?

I wish it was a fork. It's often a T intersection. And you know what those are in Saskatchewan. A T intersection means you grind to a halt and you go to the right or you go to the left. But you've got a big decision to make. And that's where the partnership is so important, the people that you're working with. That's funny. I'm laughing over here because on the weekend, we got this plan, right?

We're going to, we got a charter bus that's driving in front of us so we can all stay in this thing, right? There's 10 of us biking and turns. And at 4 a.m., what would that be? A little, it would be a little 11 hours in at 4 a.m. Oh my. The charter bus craps out. Done. Transmission.

Boom. Done. New plan. New plan because we're, what, like a quarter of the way. of the trip it's four in the morning how do you figure out how to get a hold to anyone at four in the morning right but those in saying that those moments when you overcome them are your proudest times not the uh i'm i mean the end is great too but those moments where you find out what you're made of and find out how a group is going to function and deal with everybody's personalities that's

what you look back on with fondness i think oh absolutely the roller coaster you know and it's Sometimes it's about how you hang on as you're rolling down. And we've certainly had, I mean, in my own family, there's been, you know, mental health issues. My daughter's been very public about her challenge with, with an eating disorder. And one of the pivotal great moments was standing on stage with Kelly Rudy. And both our daughters told their stories. His daughter told about anxiety and the challenges she faces.

And then my daughter went up and talked about the roller coaster that her life had been as she was suffering with an eating disorder. then Kelly Rudy and I get up on stage and a couple of macho guys. We look at each other and we both start crying. That's a roller coaster that I'm proud of. You know, we've really, again, being open, being transparent, being shameless. I often say, and I talk about if someone judges me for my challenges, mistakes or, you know, mental health issues, the shame is on them because I'm not feeling it. I really don't care.

I don't live for the judgment of others. I do live for the friendships. I do live for the trust that I enjoy with my partners. my family, my staff, but I just, just don't care about being judged. Go ahead. Well, I, I've had Kelly on here several times now. And one of the things that, when you watch successful people, and I'm talking about yourself, I'm certainly talking about Kelly Rudy.

Absolutely. You watch, you go, they haven't made. They probably have no issues in life. Like, what a, what a life they must lead, right? living with the rich and famous and everything else, right? And just like the struggles that maybe people in different situations, they look at that. I certainly have.

And then you follow along and you go, nope, because I've read this not only in your book, but in several, like money just doesn't solve things, right? Like it creates new different problems. And listen to Kelly, have a guy playing in the best league on the planet, breaking down while playing with the greatest player to maybe ever play in the L.A. King. and hear that story and still today to see him talk about it and to get emotional about it

is like, huh, like you got to really take pause on that and think about it, right? You're just talking about mental health and everything else. I mean, you're a guy who got, I mean, I don't want to go down too far. Well, I'll let you decide, but you know. Dig away. Dig away. There's no topic off limits here, Sean. Let's go. Okay. Well, you're a guy in the podcast. I'm speaking about myself right here. I push this thing as hard as it can go. Plus I work a full-time job. Plus, I got three kids under five, plus a wife, right? Like, and I had a moment. And then plus I do things like I just did on the weekend, right? Like, I love making sure our community is, has got some positive stuff, some positive energy in it, right? Because that stuff spreads fast.

And but a guy has to be very careful and happens to me every once in a while where you, The word always comes up. It's balance. It's like, ooh, I'm, I'm, you know, I'm not seeing my family enough. And so you got to pull back and you got to reevaluate that balance. I look at the roller coaster you're on and I'm sure balance is a word that certainly you could recognize back in the day was out of whack. Because you talked about working like seven days a week and not being around your family and getting cancer. And like, I mean, like the list of stuff you went through is almost endless.

honest, honestly, when you, when you read it, how do you, how do you, how do you, like, is it saying no to things? Because I know you're a guy, like, look, we're how many months past me, me asking and you're still, hey, you're on. I'm like, wow, that's really cool, right? But you could have just said no one, like, I just don't have got time for these things. Yeah, but you're from Saskatchewan. You were in the Saskatchewan side of Lloyd Winster. Of course you, you, I'm assuming you're on the Saskatchewan side, but that's close enough, either way. Uh, no, it's, I mean, it's, I mean, I mean, the homeland and helping each other out. I mean, that's really what the partnership and friendships of Saskatchewan are all about.

But, you know, I'm bouncing around a little bit here. You know, we're talking about the definition of success. My own book is called Redefining Success. And it really came from an early conversation with some of my family. But the original title for the book was redefining success in a wealth-obsessed world. Because that's the ultimate arbiter of success is people's perceptions. And the general perception is going to be about how big is their boat, how big is their car, how big is their house, how much money do they have, much power do they have?

And that's the conventional definition of success. And some people will backpedal and say, no, no, no, there's more to it. But that's the first impression. 99% of people will have as success begets the big house or whenever. And it was one of my daughters who said, why can't we define success by the size of the smile and really the happiness quotient that's embedded. One of my brother-in-law's once said in a Christmas card, and it really resonated for me.

He said, our needs are few, they're easily met, we're very happy. And I looked at my own life at that time. My needs were not few. They weren't easily met, and I wasn't happy. So who was doing it right and who was doing it wrong? Well, certainly it comes down to an alignment around what you're capable of doing, what you want to do, what you really need. And I will simply say that the time with family goes so fast and it's over and all of a sudden they're onto their own lives.

And as much as you want more time, suddenly, and you know this with three kids under five, it takes a bunch of time. And your first priority is no longer running to your parents, but it's running to the kids and trying to keep their needs met. So it's not, life's not without challenges, but at the end of the day and it's embedded somewhere in my book, it really comes down to prioritizing. and until I stopped to prioritize. And again, go back in time when the definition of success was wealth, if you'd asked me what my priorities were, I would have said work and art and travel and adventure. But I wouldn't have even added my own health or my family to that list

because I took those for granted. Well, of course I'm doing those. But when you say that in a very pandering kind of way, you realize that it was a gap in your life. And it was a gap in my life. And certainly at the time of my divorce, I ended up with my kids 50-50. And that was a big change in my life and trying to be home for supper every night. Suddenly, and I shouldn't say trying. I was absolutely strict about being home to be with my kids because I realized that the gap I'd created in my life was in fact the gap between them and me. And I wanted to solve that.

So big picture, a whole lot happier now. But that's because relationships that matter are intact. I have three kids. They have three husbands and I'm absolutely delighted with all six, so to speak. They even have good dogs and cats. I mean, everything's good. You,

it was, I got to be honest. Like, obviously I followed you. I think it was hard if you're in Canada not to follow, uh, when you're on TV and things like that and to understand you're, you're from so close to where we're from.

But in picking up your book and reading it, I was caught off guard by exactly what you just talked about because it's one of the things. I've said this recently. Like, if I lost my family, I would be rudderless, like, essentially, right? Like, that's, uh, that's the cornerstone of where I'm at in life. That's, uh, that's a tough block, uh, to lose. Um, so I, I, uh, it's interesting to hear you talk about it. And, uh, and I'm really, uh, happy for you that you're in a place now that is obviously good, Brett, like to be where, you know, families, you've, like, prioritize that. I think prioritized is a good word for anyone listening, right? Like, to just, like, take a step back and look at what

really matters. Because if you're happy, good things happen. Like, I mean, honestly, good things happen when you got a smile on your face and, and, like, look at me. I got, I get it. I got a missing tooth. You realize I put out a, uh, uh, I put out a Instagram post about getting my tooth fixed. I haven't had a tooth since I was 19 years old, got knocked out by a slap shot. And I was sitting in the dentist chair with a guy who wrote with me this weekend. And he said, oh, man, everybody's going to be wanting you to get your teeth fixed. And I'm like, I don't know. And everybody says, no, don't do it.

Because they tell me it's an iconic smile, Brett. I don't know about that. But I do know I smile an awful lot. And I'm not ashamed that I got a missing tooth or anything else. It's just like, you just got to try and spread some positivity in the world. So, yeah, those who judge you don't love you. those who love you, don't judge you, and everyone else just doesn't matter. It really, it takes a while though. And I mean, someone, you know, the other day I wrote an op-ed that said, let's cut Kenny some slack.

And I, you know, it's just saying enough of the whining on both ends of the equation here. We got the anti-lockdown, the pro lockdown. And Kenny's trying to walk the middle with lives and livelihoods. Anyway, the comment I had made was that just about nobody, nobody can understand the challenges that they're facing in the middle of the, um, middle of the pandemic. And so cutting everyone some slack was important. So I wrote the op-ed and I submitted it to the Calgary Herald and they came back and

said, not sure we can publish this because you've got a very notorious, and that's their word, notorious Twitter account. And I went, yeah. And so I wrote back and said, you know, my Twitter account is notorious because I'm I'm willing to take on absolutely anybody. And I don't bother spending any time on the haters, the trolls and the morons, the keyboard warriors,

the cave dwellers. There's a whole lot of those on social media. And I don't spend any time on them. I just don't care. I just don't care. And ultimately, as I said to the Calgary Herald, if you only know me for my Twitter account, you haven't thought about my role in adolescent mental health,

veterans causes prostate cancer. I mean, I have a relatively high profile leadership position in all of those things. So if you just want to judge me from a cancel culture perspective, and I was challenging the Calgary Herald about this, and they came back a day later and said, okay, well, if you can change this one sentence, we'll publish your op-ed. And the one sentence that they wanted to change improved it. It wasn't that well written.

It was just, I mean, you want to play with the grammar? Go ahead. So ultimately, again, this notorious Twitter account that they were challenging me with became sort of a pivot point, pivot point for me in terms of saying, yeah, it's notorious, but let's go forward, not backwards, and certainly not sideways. You know, you've rattled off a lot of things there, a lot of different things that you're involved in. And I actually really wanted to know this from you. How do you decide what you get involved and how do you decide with what you're just like, you know what, I just don't have time or energy or maybe it doesn't align with who I am?

I'm like, how do you decide, you know, yes and no, not today? You know, it's been easier with time. Ten years ago, it was kind of what's next and whatever came across the transom. We'd kind of look at and say, yeah, we could do one of those, one of those. But today we're focused on cannabis and technology and my son leads to charge in those spaces. Hockey, as you point out, I had the privilege of sitting at a dinner party in Nashville, Tennessee, the first night I was ever in Nashville. And I had been in discussions about buying a piece of the flames before they lock out in 2004.

And anyway, I met a dinner party 2007 and get talking hockey, which is inevitable with a group of strangers and I'm the one from Canada. And anyway, the guy made some comment about, well, would you still be interested in buying into a hockey team? Because I made the flippin comment, always wanted to own a piece of a team. And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, my family's part of the new ownership group. We lost someone this morning. I hadn't been in Nashville four hours when I had the opportunity to buy into the hockey team. I said yes, because I knew how rare that opportunity was.

Farmland in Saskatchewan, when they changed the laws in terms of who could own land, unfortunately at one time it was that elephant in the room, but the only people buying farmland in blocks were the hutterites and some of the corporate farms. And the price of farmland in Saskatchewan was a third of what it was in Alberta for the same input cost. and the same output revenues. Made no sense at all. No sense at all. So I stepped in when they changed the law in Saskatchewan.

So sometimes it's opportunistic looking at things that I think are going to unfold. Cannabis was that. Hockey was that. Farmland was that. And now real estate, I'm working on a power plant in northern Alberta that I'm expanding with a partner of mine in a public company called Maxim. So there's a variety of things that catch my interest. And the fun one, which probably eight five times as much of my time as it should have,

was building a restaurant in downtown Calgary, this entertainment complex. And so it kind of now draws me, it's, sorry, the backward side. What draws me is the fun stuff, the interesting stuff, the learning curve stuff. So real estate, we're just not wandering into too many new areas anymore. And there's lots of opportunities, but I just, it's time-based. That's really the biggest issue is just trying to minimize the amount of time that goes into each new project. Well, I'm just watching the clock here, Brett.

I don't want to keep you too long. I know you got people waiting. I truly have appreciate you hopping on. I think I got you for about five more minutes. So, well, I hate, someday I hope to maybe cornering you in Calgary. And we can actually sit down and have it in person. And that way, maybe I can just block you off for a time period where you don't have to watch the clock. It's always better when you don't have to watch the clock.

because as I sit here, I split my brain because I'm like, well, don't want to keep the guy too long, right? Because you're a busy man. It's Monday morning and I know what happens after weekend. The phone is doing what it's doing on me. It's been buzzing the entire time. So I'm interested to see what's said when I pick it up.

But in saying that with the time crunch on, I want to just slide into the crewmaster final five. It's just five quick questions. You can go as long or as short as you want. And once again, thanks for hopping on. It's been, this has been one I've been waiting for.

and honestly, it's really cool to have a guy from, grew up from North Battleford, hop back on the, or come on the show and talk a little about his career. So with that being said, the first one I always ask of new guests is if you could do this with somebody and sit down and pick their brain,

who would you want to sit down with? There's a guy named Peter Diamandis, who's behind a business, a social enterprise called the XPRIZE. And I've spent a little bit of time with him. I find him to be an absolutely, iconic. He will be proven to be an iconic person in terms of viewing the future and the things that are changing rapidly in terms of coming towards us. And whether it's carbon capture or travel

to the moon, it's absolutely fascinating. So Peter Diamondis, the XPRIZE. One conversation you would love to be a fly on the wall for. Gary Bettman and Canadian government talking about cross-border COVID quarantine right now. You know, we obviously just got permission, but I can only imagine how that conversation went down. And we're seeing social media haters going, hockey players don't deserve to be outside of quarantine. Well, they've got their own bubble that they're creating.

Anyway, the back and forth in that conversation would have been absolutely fascinating because I have no respect whatsoever for our federal government's approach to COVID-mean. whether it's quarantine or lockdowns or flights or especially the vaccines. And yet, and I greatly admire what Gary Batman has done. I mean,

the longest serving commissioner, more than all the other leagues combined. We got Gary Batman. So Gary Batman, federal government, how'd that go? I'd love to have heard that conversation. I tell you what,

Gary Batman has got to be one of the most hated men in the NHL. And yet, if you take a step back and look what he's done for the NHL in his tenure, you're like, that's a pretty cool guy and i'm and i'm sat with brian burke and bryn't what was the story he told walked in and gary betman's cleaning the toilets and i'm like so that that that listen to me that that doesn't happen that is a unique characteristic of a guy who's at the top willing to do the bottoms work right like that is and i've had rome mclean on here talk about bobby or when he's

getting stitches and he needs a towel and can i get a towel and the guy's like no bobby you're all clean He's like, no, no, I need a towel. And so they give him a towel. And then he proceeds to mop the blood all the way back out to the ice surface because he's bloodied there. And I'm like, that's the best player possibly ever. Like those two don't align all the time. Like, and so Gary Batman would be fantastic. When I was buying into the predators, I was advised through the league that I had to meet with Batman.

And what they proposed was 20 minutes in New York City. Of course, I live in Calgary. 20 minutes in New York City is kind of a big effort. Anyway, we book 915 on a Tuesday morning. I fly down on Monday. I stay overnight. I show up at the NHL's offices at 9 o'clock. I wait for the 915.

You know, I left there at noon. Betman had the whole morning for me. We just kept going and going and going. I could not admire a leader more. And of course, it's the same thing when I talked about Kenny, getting berated. He gets booed when he goes into an arena. But if people stopped and thought about the expansion of the league,

the fact that we've improved the ownership groups, the viewing the hockey, the TV rights, what he's accomplished is nothing short of extraordinary. And I struggle with the boo factor wrapped around him. So, yes, I'm a big fan of Gary Batman. We obviously I started this off with that we'd biked 41 hours. I called it my stupid idea because, I mean, it was a stupid idea, doesn't mean that it can't be successful.

It was. So I was curious. Does Brett Wilson have a stupid idea that he would like to put into motion and then has never yet? Or maybe is it something that you've toyed with and just it hasn't happened yet? Well, one of my stupid ideas that I did follow through on was swimming across Jackfish Lake when I was about 17 years old. It was four and a half miles.

And I swam with my sister, who was ultimately one of the top swimmers in Canada, when she was only 12. And my sister did the swim in three hours. I did it in four and a half hours. And it was the longest four and a half hours of my life. That's one stupid idea. A second stupid idea was climbing Kilimanjero for the second time. I climbed it once to prove to myself and a few friends that cancer hadn't knocked me off

the saddle. But the second time climbing it, I got to tell you, I was looking around going to been here, done that. And it's not easy when you've got an eight hours. overnight hike. You leave at midnight and you try and get to the top by 8 a.m. And in terms of stupid ideas, oh, there's so many. That's just the ones I've done.

I'm sure there's more to come. I'm going to jackfish this weekend to go camping. I will not be, I will not be swimming across it. Our family cabin was a little place called Miota. Yeah. And absolutely, every property I own. And Miota, as you may know, is a bastard.

of a cre word that stands for a good place to camp. So every property I own is called Miota something. And Miota, Nashville, Meota, Windemir, Meota, whatever. So I'm very proud of my Miota roots. That's a really cool story. I work with an oil company. I work for Baker Hughes, but my customer is Seraphina. And all their plants are Miota, while there's Miota West, there's a Miota West too.

Yes. And it's all in that area. So I've literally looked at property in Miota because I'm like, I should just live over here. They got a beautiful lake. Like it's a good spot. I didn't realize that was the definition of it. Absolutely.

Keith Hannah. I heard that, well, actually, I probably read it too, but then my brother's best friend had brought it up. He followed your career and Mike Cropper. I'll throw a shout out to him. He said, Why is coaching so important? Because you're a guy that's way up at the top.

And yet you've dealt with coaches and mentors and everything else. Why have, what is it? I don't know, why isn't so important? You know, I met Keith Hanna a decade just over 12, probably 12 years ago right now. And I had worked with a handful of other coaches. First energy, we were always very open to the fact that our partnership would be stronger when we got coached. And lots of very unique.

very powerful personalities and coaching was helpful to us. But it was never did we have a coach that lasted more than a few months. They'd come in sort of one off, help and then move on. In the case of Hannah, it was the first time I'd run into someone who, and I think the first morning we met, we both were uncertain as to whether or not we wanted to see each other again because it was a tough conversation. But out of that, we both reflected on it overnight

and ended up with a 10 or 12 year relationship in terms of coaching. And I sometimes get people poking saying, well, why would you need a coach? And I remind them that Phil Mickelson probably has a diet coach, a focus coach, a running coach, a sleep coach. He's probably got a putting coach. He's probably got a chipping coach. He's probably got a what the hell coach. And all of those are to make you as good tomorrow as you were today and maybe better, maybe better. And that's really the game plan.

So Keith Hanna has been pivotal in terms of helping me with thinking through, you know, some of my important relationships in business, some of my important relationships in staff and certainly at times with my own family. Your final one then is what's one entrepreneur or idea that came across your plate and was great but never panned out? Oh, there'd be more than a few. It'll have some fun. Small town Saskatchewan, a place called, uh, Swift Current and Cora, Corla, had a business called Snappy Sox. And what was it? It was socks that would snap together so that when a parent threw socks, tons of socks,

kid socks in a washing machine, they came out together. They came out of the dryer together. They came out of the washing machine together. And that was one of my Dragon's Den businesses. I ultimately had five from Saskatchewan out of the 30 that I closed on. And the two best ones are Hilberg and Burke out of Regina and a group called 320 out of Saskatoon. But Corla had a business out of Swift Current. And again, it was snappy socks.

And they just didn't quite cross the threshold between novelty and a mainstream product. But just putting two snaps together on a pair of socks, even Quick Dick, McDick would appreciate the benefits of snappy socks. We both know Quick Dick McDick is listening to this. And I'm sure he would very much appreciate that. Here's a fun story for you about Quick Dick before I let you go. So we bike, what would have been, like 24 hours to get to, just under 24 hours to get to Tufnal. And he meets us in Foam Lake.

And he's out there and I've never met him in person. We've done, like, I'd say it's the weird thing about COVID where you meet people like this and you build like a relationship, right? So that's where the idea started for this bike trip. We'll bike and then we'll get to actually meet. So we did our podcast in the Tufnel Rec Center with the old ladies making us progis and sausage. just spoiling with us.

Well, Quick Dick meets us in Foam Lake and he's got his beard flapping and he's biking with us. We're having a great time. We get to Tufnell and he disappears into the woods. And he's like, just wait a second. And he disappears in the woods.

And we're all thinking like, what the heck is this guy doing? Like, is he going to come out in like a suit or like, what is he doing? He comes out with a bag full of great Western beer and throws us all a beer and we all sit underneath the Tuffnell,

welcome to Tuffnell sign and drink a cold. old great Western beer. I don't know if a beer has ever tasted that good in my entire life. Yeah, just a crazy little thing. And Quick Dick is, well, look at it. He's made it across your desk. He's made it across Western Canada's desk at this point. He's been a fantastic guy for not only Saskatchewan, but the Western world. Well, speaking of Great Western beer brewery out of Saskatoon, I certainly know most of the owners, great group. and we serve their beer at my garden party every summer. And so the Great Western product. You serve Great Western at the garden party?

Downtown Calgary. We love it. Absolutely. That's awesome. Well, thanks, Brett, for hopping on. Just appreciate you taking some time out of your busy schedule to do this. Well, if we start booking our next chat, we might get on tune for maybe this time next summer. So let's go again.

All right. Sounds good. We'll do. Thanks, Sean. Hey, folks. Thanks for joining us. today. If you just stumbled on the show, please click subscribe. Then, scroll to the bottom and rate and leave a review. I promise it helps. Remember, every Monday and Wednesday, we will have a new guest

sitting down to share their story. The Sean Newman podcast available for free on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, and wherever else you get your podcast fix. Until next time. Hey, Keeners. Mr. Brett Wilson, I hope you enjoyed that. You know, that took probably a year. or darn close to a year to get him on. And I really appreciate him coming. Like, the guy's busy and you get it. But they sent me a message that we can do it Monday morning. And I'm like, oh, my God, do I say no to Brett Wilson?

Like, we're going to be getting back off of a bike. My brain is going to be fried. How do you say no to Brett Wilson? Like, no, you say yes. Yeah, yeah, I'll totally do it. And I re-listened the part of it. I was like, oh, man, my brain just was, I don't know. It was good. But I could tell that I just finished biking 41 hours straight and an extra sleep probably would have helped. But I mean, when he comes knocking, you answer the door and you go to work, right? So I hope you enjoyed it. I hope you enjoyed, oh man, just the journey this has been. Every once in a while you get a random email that says Brett Wilson's willing to come on. And it's like, where the heck that come out of? Right? Like that's a long time.

time of the make it. So hopefully we get a few more of those as we roll along. They seem to slowly trickle in, don't they? And when you get them, they're a lot of fun. And I am, you know, just checking names off the box, so to speak. So we'll see who the next big name is to come through. I mean, whether they're big or small, every second I stand behind this mic has been a ton of fun. And I hope you guys are enjoying the ride as much as I am. Anyways, we'll leave you alone for Monday. up to you guys Wednesday. If you're the champ, he looks like he's almost ready to start swinging the clubs. Hey, I'm just saying, I'm ready and waiting anytime you're ready, champ, all right? Now, you guys go have a great Monday, kick it in the ass, and we'll catch you

Wednesday. All right, talk to you then.