Episode 107 Podcast Transcript
Speaker 1 (00:00:00):
So they seemed unsurmountable. How the hell are we going to pay for this? But slowly through making those small steps, it relinquished more time for me, more space for me to become a better, A, most importantly, better dad and a better husband. And then B, more time into the business in the areas that needed improving rather than been doing the whole time.
Speaker 2 (00:00:29):
Good everyone. Rob Kropp and Dan Stones here from Pravar Group, and welcome back to another episode of The Trade Den. Good to have you back, Dan. How are you?
Speaker 3 (00:00:37):
Good to be back, Rob. Feeling really good. Excited for today. We’ve been waiting for this episode for a while, so really looking forward to this special guest feature.
Speaker 2 (00:00:45):
Yeah, client features are always a hit for us, and I know it’s a hit for our listeners. And a big warm welcome to Dave Wilcox from Common Ground Trails. Big, warm welcome to you, Dave.
Speaker 1 (00:00:55):
Thanks guys. Great to be coming over from East Africa as the team call it.
Speaker 3 (00:01:01):
I like it. We’re on video these days. The background you’ve got there looks amazing. It looks beautiful.
Speaker 1 (00:01:07):
Yeah, we’ve just got a new house down where we live in the southwest of Australia, and this is the view. It’s sort of 180 degree views from the ocean across to the river in a beautiful little hometown. So yeah, really fortunitate to have picked it up.
Speaker 2 (00:01:20):
Yeah. And this has been a real milestone for you. No doubt we’ll get into it today, but this has been something you’ve been working towards ever since Dan and I’ve known you this whole time in coaching hey.
Speaker 1 (00:01:30):
Yeah. You probably remember, Rob, it was only four years ago we bought our first house. So yeah, we’re pretty late in the life doing that. So to be getting something like this is … Yeah, we’re really fortunate and very, very happy with what we’ve got.
Speaker 3 (00:01:47):
Terrific. Dave, we’re going to start out. I mean, this journey, let’s put this in context.You’ve been around the Prava traps for a while now. I think we’re coming up to seven years in the seventh year now. So it’s been a while. So a lot of ground to cover. We want to really focus on some of the key elements we see in you today. But going back seven years ago, obviously the world was very different. We’re going to sort of contrast that starting point where we go from to where we are today. But before we even do that, let’s start off just getting to know you a little bit, where you grew up, what sort of kid you were, family, school. Just give us a bit of background into Dave the junior.
Speaker 1 (00:02:23):
Yeah. So I grew up in a town called Margaret River in the Southwest of Western Australia. So we’re right down on the southwest tip. All the boys at Pravar call it East Africa because I’m always on the calls early in the morning and sun’s coming up. But beautiful place to grow up. I’m really fortunate to have grown up on a bit of a farm. We didn’t farm anything, but mom and dad had a couple hundred acres when we were young. Really beautiful, tall carry trees, really big river going through the middle of it and backing onto pretty much the national park and a couple of Ks down to the ocean. So sort of really fell in love with nature on that property. At school, I was sort of probably similar to now, pretty awkward person, pretty awkward kid. And so enjoyed school, had a pretty rough patch through high school, like lots of people do.
(00:03:17):
I’m not a small person, as you guys know. I’m a pretty big bloke, so sort of attracted people and that kind of thing. But yeah, generally just sort of enjoyed family and growing up with my siblings and got a brother and sister and really close type family and still is.
Speaker 3 (00:03:35):
Nice. I love it. With all that land and stuff and getting in touch with nature, and obviously there’s a huge love for nature now, what were the days, the afternoons, after schools like for you?
Speaker 1 (00:03:46):
Oh, it was funny. It was either on the computer playing games or out the back in the river. And you’d go down on the weekends, we might paddle down in the river down to the ocean or we’d go into the paddocks and play mud fights or get the paddy melons and throw them at each other and make glove guns or just on the motorbike, on the mountain bike. We were sort of just sort of roam free. It’s different to our kids growing up these days and I’d love to get them out on something like that in the future. But yeah, it was an awesome opportunity to grow up like that.
Speaker 3 (00:04:22):
Yeah, sounds so cool. I love it. Dave, early days of business, we’ll go forward a little bit here, but growing up, your business that you’re in now, let’s just talk through the business that you’re in now without getting into too much detail. I’m keen to know though because that business wouldn’t have existed when you were a kid. And so thinking back in terms of what you wanted to be when you grew up, how did you view going into the workforce, all of those sort of things? Because I’m interested to see how you make that transition from it didn’t exist to now it exists now. I’ve built it and how you sort of traversed that.
Speaker 1 (00:04:54):
Yeah. Growing up, I think I wanted to follow my father’s footsteps and do architecture. And I did end up helping out in his business for quite a few years, but yet certainly we now build mountain bike trails, walk trails, and sort of pump tracks and jump tracks, and that kind of thing wasn’t what didn’t exist back then. We were doing it. I remember dad whinging quite often about hitting a jump in a paddock on the tractor and nearly flipping himself off. So we were doing it on the property and building in little nature reserves and stuff as teenagers in town and when I was at uni doing that at the hospital and that kind of thing. But yeah, definitely didn’t exist as an industry when I was young and really mountain biking was only just emerging when I was young. So it’s been on a huge growth trajectory through the ’90s, which was when I was involved in it as an activity.
(00:05:51):
And then I got into the workforce, followed a different career trajectory and then ended up falling back in love with mountain biking later in life and decided that I wanted to pursue it as, I guess, an activity and a career.
Speaker 3 (00:06:08):
Yeah, amazing. The working with your dad, that was architecture, right? And then you had this other creative endeavour in the middle, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1 (00:06:17):
Yeah, that’s right. People sort of ask how did you get into mountain biking? And it’s really different, but I see quite similar as I’m quite a creative person. And so I studied multimedia at university and then out of uni started my own business doing websites and graphic design. That led into fashion design. And then the fashion design was going well. We had our own business and that kind of thing, but I sort of fell out of love with it and ended up dad needed help in his business. It was just a two person practise at that stage. And so I joined that practise and came in and we grew that over about three, seven or eight years from two people to about 20 architects. And that was a really great business, but I got pretty burnt out during that. And we went through the global financial crisis together and worked turned down.
(00:07:15):
The family had a lot of development interests and they all went pretty bad. And yeah, I got quite depressed through all that and ended up wanting to make a change in my life. And I was enjoying being in the outdoors. And I sort of made the decision and sort of told dad and the family, look, I’m going to break away from the family business. And got into, just wanted to go out and build trails, use my hands and sort of rather than sit behind a computer all day, wanted to get out in the bush and do something which I loved.
Speaker 3 (00:07:43):
So was that the driving force to just get out into nature, get away from the stuff that was obviously the accumulated debt, the pain and all the stuff that went with it to get back out into nature? Or was it to go out and start your own business? Like what was the drive? Was it purely the drive of outdoors?
Speaker 1 (00:07:59):
No, it was the drive of being outdoors and connecting with nature because I guess it’s a long story and we won’t go into it in detail, but we were trying to do a lot of sustainable architecture and we were successfully doing that and developing some phenomenal civic projects like cave entrances and that kind of thing. But we’re finding that sustainability bent was always the thing that got cut out when they didn’t meet budgets. And I sort of had this realisation that people didn’t connect with nature or value it enough. And that’s why they weren’t investing in these sustainable practises that we’re hoping. And so they had this realisation that I could bring my passion together with my passion and purpose together with what I was doing for business and get people outside into nature and have value for it and therefore want to do things that, whether it was in their home or in their business, were having a good outcome in the environment, I guess.
Speaker 3 (00:09:00):
So were those early days then building pump tracks and the trails and stuff you’re doing now, or was it something else to begin with and you gradually niched into that?
Speaker 1 (00:09:09):
Yeah, it was super different in the start. The business now, I had no idea. You have a vision when you start something, but you have no idea where it’s possible or capable of going. And yeah, I was volunteering for a number of years doing volunteer trail building and then a mate or who become a mate was working for the architecture practise and other architect and he was riding to mountain biking. And I’d stop mountain biking at that stage for a couple of years as a lot of people do go in and out of activities. And we travelled over to New Zealand and I saw what was happening in New Zealand. I was like, “Hey, I want to do this as a career.” I didn’t even know you could really do it as a career and just thought I’m going to go out and do it.
(00:09:53):
And there was one other guy in Western Australia doing it just by himself, but yeah, it didn’t really exist.
Speaker 2 (00:10:01):
What I love about the success of Common Ground is it’s really embedded in this real deep sense of purpose from you around … And that’s when Dan, we see successful businesses. The owner has a real deep sense of purpose, which drives that business forward. And for you, Dave, it’s common ground success has come from your purpose of really wanting to connect with nature, get in the outdoors and experience the outdoors like you did as a kid.That’s a real deep driver for you, isn’t it?
Speaker 1 (00:10:30):
Yeah, exactly right. And when we have our quarterly, actually next week we’ve got our quarterly state of the company and we always restate our mission, our company mission at those quarterly meetings. And everyone in the business knows that everyone in the business understands that our mission is to reshape the world, to create the next generation of outdoor enthusiasts. And so yeah, you’re 100% right, Rob, that stemmed from me growing up in a spot like I did and being able to connect with nature where most people aren’t as fortunate as I was and living in bigger cities and don’t have those facilities or those experiences close by. And so you really need to almost force them to have that connection. And so that’s what we’re trying to create these days is that ability for them to get out safely and do that.
Speaker 2 (00:11:17):
We’re going to talk a lot more about it today in this whole leadership journey that you’ve gone on, but we always say in coaching a lot that success leaves clues. And the big clue around your success, Dave, is to be a strong leader, you’ve got to have a good strong sense of purpose around who you are, what drives you, what motivates you, and have a strong mission around this business. And if you look at any business that’s gone on to achieve amazing things, there’s always a deep sense of purpose behind the leader and the business around what they’re doing. And it just shows that even a trade style business can have a sense of purpose around it that, Dave, that’s come from you and your upbringing and that’s a part of your culture. And I love that you do that on your quarterly updates. You always go back to who are we, who’s common ground, why do we exist?
(00:12:05):
What’s our sense of mission and what are we doing here as part of this movement? It’s obviously a big part of your success as a leader. And we’re going to talk a lot more about this today, but I love that you do that, mate. It’s a big part of your success as a leader and the part of the success of the business as well.
Speaker 1 (00:12:20):
And it’s interesting. A lot of it is post-rationalization because you go into something with passion and you know you want to do it, but you don’t understand that you’re the motivators. And it’s only been through some of the work we’ve done, Rob, through the coaching for years and the values factor and really diving deep and understanding the reasons why we’ve made these decisions in life and then being able to project those out. And then it’s only when you can properly project them out beyond yourself, not just internalise them that others understand. And once others understand, then you’re able to, I guess, convince them that there’s a reason behind it and the whole business has a bigger purpose than just the director doing it.
Speaker 2 (00:13:01):
Correct. And I know we, even at Pravar Group, we’re all about transforming businesses and reconnecting families. And even the word Pravar means breed life back into the family. And that’s come from the pain and the void of my upbringing of my dad who busted his ass and was never really around for me as a young fella. And when I share that story to clients that they go, “Well, Rob, that’s easy for you. You run a coaching business. But Dave, your proof that you can even have it as a business in the trades and professional service sector.” We’ve got another client, Drew, for example, who his upbringing, he had a lot of problems around asthma and mould in his house. And so therefore he’s gone on to have a business that solves that problem around ventilation and solving the problem around mould and ventilation within housing.
(00:13:53):
So it just shows, Dan, that strong leadership is off the back of the strong purpose. And to be able to succeed over the long period of time in a sustainable manner, as a leader, you’ve really got to find that sense of purpose, don’t you?
Speaker 3 (00:14:06):
Yeah, absolutely. I think it’s underplayed a lot in terms of … And Dave, you can talk to this. I mean, your passion has been there from day dot. We’ve just established that, right? There’s a link that goes all the way back to being a kid with this passion and drive. The skills, even the industry didn’t exist. You knew how to swing stuff around and you could see the vision of what you wanted to design, but you didn’t have all the skills in the world to be able to go, “I can run this business.” But you had passion, you had vision to start with. Guys that come out of their trades, for instance, they’ve been an apprentice, they’ve learnt the skills, they’ve got an abundance of skill there, and then there’s still some gaps there in terms of how to run a business. But that vision that sort of sustained you, how did you go in terms of not having the skills?
(00:14:48):
Was it immediately you trying to figure out, I need to learn all of this stuff or was it, I need to stay true to the mission and the vision and I will fill in those gaps with other people? How big was your concept of the team required to do this early days?
Speaker 1 (00:15:01):
It started with just me for a number of years, just me. And so I needed to do everything. And that was as diverse as doing CAD drawings for designs on the ground with my physical hands and in excavators, building trails. But the one I like to reference is the state strategies that we write. I failed English at school. I’m not dumb, but I’m not great at English and I still struggle with it, but I’m articulate, but I’m not great at probably some of the core skills of English, I guess is a better way of putting it. But for me, I ended up writing state strategies for state government. And so these huge hundred page documents, I’m writing them early in my career because I had the passion to document what I thought should be happening and that what we then documented transformed actually into the physical work being done.
(00:15:54):
And so it just goes to show you don’t actually have to be capable of, or think you’re capable of doing it out of necessity and through drive, you can actually find the ability to do these things.
Speaker 3 (00:16:06):
And how much did confidence play into that? I mean, it’s hard to be … This is another big lesson for people as you get into this sort of stuff is because confidence is great and can take you so far, but so can passion, vision, and mission can take you so far. How was your level of confidence in this? I can hear people saying, “Geez, Dave, you must have been so confident in yourself.” Are you kidding me? This sounds like an almost insurmountable task. How confident were you to think you could pull this off?
Speaker 1 (00:16:31):
So I guess the confidence thing, I’m not the most confident person. I think I project out well that I’m confident, but I do question myself a lot internally. And that can be difficult to manage. And I guess through coaching and through other mechanisms, I’ve really learned that there is a way to follow your passion and have that understanding that you will eventually get there if you just keep focusing and following what your end goals are.
Speaker 3 (00:16:57):
Yeah. I love that. And I think this whole first section is about no excuses. And I think when I think of you, there’s never an excuse. There’s always an awareness, there’s always a realisation, it’s always something to learn. So I think the first or the second probably big clue, Rob, is the idea that there is no excuses. You use these things as fuel and you keep moving forward, but you don’t let them hinder you. Even to Dave’s point about not being good at written English, it never sort of got in the way of like, “Well, I better not do that. ” He didn’t shy away from it. He ran towards the challenge, which we talk about all the time.
Speaker 2 (00:17:26):
Yeah. Wherever there’s a will, there’s a way. And if you want it bad enough, you’ll find a way to make it happen. And no doubt now, Dave, you don’t write those tender documents, you’ve got someone else to do it. But at the start, when you’re getting a business out of the ground, you literally have to do everything. And even the things that you suck at and hate doing, you’ve got to do it to the point where the business is big enough to be able to afford your layers of leverage that you build over time.
Speaker 1 (00:17:50):
I was talking to, we had our quarterly strategy meeting on Wednesday, so two days ago, and I was talking to the team, I was just expressing to them how grateful I was because they don’t understand that I’ve never been in a big business before. This is the first time that I’ve run a business as it is. And so I lack confidence in doing that. And I’ve gained that confidence through, I guess, you guys and through Pravar. But I didn’t have any experience in my trade and I had to learn that myself. And that wasn’t just a trade. It was learning how to build trails, learning how to build pump tracks, learning how to design trails, learning how to design pump tracks, learning how to write strategies, writing strategies. And so not only that, then there comes the business side. And so it’s learning HR from my HR manager, learning finance from my finance manager, learning operations and project management from the professionals I’ve employed, learning, estimating, learning pre-contract sales.
(00:18:51):
I’ve had to surround myself with people over time that whether it’s through coaching or through employees, there’s a lot of people that know a lot more than me in their specialised fields, but I guess what I’ve got good at is being a generalist that can pull all that together and keep everyone on a tangent or a direct line towards our vision and passion.
Speaker 2 (00:19:12):
And that’s leadership, right? Leader doesn’t have to know everything. Leader just needs to know they need to hold the vision, recruit the right people, relinquish control, delegate well, and hold people accountable to do what they say they’re meant to be getting done in their roles that they’re employed for. And that’s just the mark of a good leader. And this is where a lot of leaders fails because they stick to their strengths of the technical aspect of the job. But Dave, what you’ve done so well over all these years is you’ve always looked at being able to take a hat off and put an expert in there, someone who’s better than you. And you’ve had the maturity and to put the ego aside to be able to go, “You know what? I know I’m good at it, but there’s someone out there better than me. ” And that’s been your real secret in leadership, hasn’t it?
Speaker 1 (00:19:56):
Well, I appreciate the compliment. I’m not sure that I was that confident in that though early on because I remember back, well, seven years ago now, when I first started in launch or whatever it was called, was it launch called then or whatever it was called, leverage back then. But yeah, so long ago I’ve forgotten. But I remember the coach saying, “Hey, you’re going to need to get someone else to design this stuff for you. ” And I was like, “There’s no way. There’s no one in Australia that knows it. No one else has an architecture background, has done CAD. No one else can physically do this. ” And he’s like, “Mate, you know how to do it. You’re just going to have to lead someone else. So you need to find someone that has a similar skillset.” And then lo and behold, found a guy and he ended up being with us for five years and designed some of the most amazing facilities in the world.
(00:20:48):
Now, I had to lead him the whole time, but me thinking that I was the only one capable of doing it, it was just a fallacy that I’d put in my head and that was back when I wasn’t a confident leader and through coaching, through learning, you learn how to lead other people and show them the way of doing that. And you work out that, “Hey, other people can do this and I don’t have to be the most knowledgeable in that area. I can use my skillset to guide them, but they use their skillset to do the doing.”
Speaker 2 (00:21:19):
Let’s go back to that moment seven years ago and let’s paint a picture of how far you’ve come in your journey because you step into coaching, you just stepped off a plane from following your passion, which is hiking through Mongolia and you’re doing coaching and came to your first event off the plane of a hike that you’d been on. And so mate, paint a picture of what business looked like in terms of size, team you had around you, your role in the business. And also back then, what was life like because you were doing a lot of travel back then. So step us through, paint a real picture because it’s going to give the listener a real understanding of how far you’ve come and how much you’ve grown as a leader in this time.
Speaker 1 (00:22:03):
Yeah, it was a really hard time. My wife and I, we had a three-year-old and a newborn, and there was probably like five or six people working for us. We had an ops manager who was really project managing and a few guys on the ground, and that’s all we had. And yeah, it was tough. We had a lot of work over East and we might talk about where we operate these days, but we had work in Western Australia, work over East, and I was working huge hours every night until after midnight. Jazz and I were getting further and further apart. And I was spending probably six months of the year on the road just trying to make a living to support the family in a time when we were struggling to make payroll each fortnight and getting stupid loans to make payroll. And it was bloody tough times.
(00:23:02):
And I remember Jazz, my wife was in labour and still trying to run payroll just so we could get it out before. She’s like, “I just need to run payroll before I go into hospital.” And so it was bloody tens times and that was exacerbated even further. And I guess that’s how we got in touch while I reached out is I just got back and I remember my ops manager had been on maternity leave and so I’d been filling her role and she got back and the day she got back, she let me know that she’d resigned in four weeks she was going to work one of our direct competitors and that just left me with a huge hole in where I just feeling emotionally absolutely sapped. And I think that’s the day I reached out and we had that one-on-one conversation. I remember where we had it and I remember the emotion behind it.
(00:23:57):
Yeah, it was very, very tough times.
Speaker 3 (00:24:00):
When you got into coaching then, Dave, what was your initial sort of perception of that? Was it something that you latched onto straight away as this is the way forward? Or were you one of the ones that sort of like I’ll dip a toe or were you sort of actively, “I don’t know if this is going to work.”
Speaker 1 (00:24:16):
It’s a long time ago. I don’t really remember. Rob might remember better than I do, but I remember just needing something to change and I think the first week we did the Howling Wolf exercise and I was like, “Yeah, there’s so much pain here and I’m just sitting on it and not changing and I need to really start changing and start listening and taking advice.” And the ops manager that left, the reason she left is because I wasn’t reshaping the business in the way that she could see that need to be reshaped. I was just trying to do everything myself, not putting … She wanted to put a job management system in and I was like, “We don’t have the money to do it. ” And I thought by working harder and by me doing more, I would achieve more and create a better business.
(00:25:04):
But yeah, so I was just latching on, I just latched onto whatever I was told to do. And I think we say now these days, follow the script, follow the script of coaching and you’ll be fine. But back then there was a big question mark around it. I didn’t know, but I think I latched on pretty hard.
Speaker 2 (00:25:22):
Yeah, you did. You had no … And that’s what I liked about your early phase of your journey. It was probably coming from a place of, well, this is my role to dice something has to change and I’ve got something like you’re in that much pain, but we find the guys who kill it in coaching and do really well and growing their business like yourself is they just get, they don’t dip their toe. They just do whatever they’re meant to be able to get done. And sometimes that’s coming from a place of pain or they just have that much trust. And it’s like, I’m just going to listen and learn and implement. And you’re definitely one of those guys where you just execute like a champion and you haven’t looked back since.
Speaker 1 (00:25:58):
Yeah. No, the organisation’s so different.
Speaker 3 (00:26:01):
Yeah, absolutely. It’s been a huge journey in that sense. And I’m keen to sort of paint this picture because a lot of people then start to think, well, now you’re on a roll. You got into coaching and it all just took off and life was great. But there was so many ups and downs here. And I actually went back and went to your very first lifestyle Monday morning momentum that we do, your first post into the group, the Hi, I’m Dave Post, right? And if I went through it, it was really interesting because you had a solid amount of wins. You were talking about, we’re a relatively small business, currently turning over 1.5, about eight permanent. So that was the starting point in lifestyle. Some good wins, but listen to these challenges that you came out with, very first one. Our cashflow’s terrible, had to draw down on the home loan.
(00:26:45):
I’m not going to read the full paragraph, but got sacked from one project while I was away for non-delivery, had to pull an all night a Thursday night to compete a panel tender. While I love my girls, I’m really struggling with sleep went home. Travel for work continues to be difficult. Work productivity last week wasn’t great. This is the real situation that you were in at the time.
Speaker 1 (00:27:05):
That summed it up pretty well, didn’t it, wasn’t it? Is that cut? We’re done?
Speaker 3 (00:27:09):
Yeah. I was like, “Hi, I’m Dave. This is the shit that’s going on. ” But it’s so important to not lose sight of … And everyone talks about their war stories and how tough it is and everyone’s got those wake you up in the middle of the night payroll stories, but this was just business as usual as you were doing it as best you could at the time.
Speaker 1 (00:27:27):
Yeah, we were struggling. They talk about fight and flight mode. I was on flights all the time, but we were in fight mode every day, just trying to make it work. Yeah. It’s actually really, really interesting. Sorry, Dan. It’s actually really interesting looking back on it, how far we’ve come. You don’t really recognise it until you stop and hear something like that. You’re like, “Tick, yep, fix that, tick. Yep, I fixed that. Yep, tick, fix that.”
Speaker 3 (00:27:59):
Yeah, it’s amazing. And you’ll see now as we sort of take you through this, it is pretty huge and epic journey. As that was going on, passion’s still there, Tick. You as a leader and as a person, I think that was always there and probably was still there, your desire to lead whoever it was that was showing up at the time and whatever you were through, you never stood back from that. What sort of manager were you at those times? And did you see a distinction between leadership and management back then, or were you just trying to cram it all into the one thing, if I show up like this, it’ll be okay?
Speaker 1 (00:28:30):
I had no idea and I still probably don’t. But I think back then, we talk about whether you’re a manager or a mate, and I was definitely in that mate category. I thought I had to lead by doing and working harder and showing the guys, “This is how you work and this is how you work hard,” rather than by delegating and finding people to do things. So yeah, I was definitely back then, I don’t think I was a good leader. I think people were, I was probably a good natural leader and people were happy to sort of follow and they believed in me as an individual. I have I think a very good sense of morals and people trust me and want to follow naturally. So the difference between that as leadership and management, I think poor manager and probably still am, but good leader.
(00:29:33):
And that’s why the business now has so many managers and people that take over that role from me where I can be in that leadership position and others are doing that management and holding people accountable more so than I am.
Speaker 3 (00:29:45):
I absolutely agree. And I think that’s been a real strength of yours to realise that and play to your strengths all the way through. So play the hand you dealt, but play it as best as you can and fill in the gaps where you can from that point forward. What levels of frustration are you mentioned this before, you couldn’t afford a JMS, you couldn’t afford a management team. There was no one coming.
Speaker 1 (00:30:03):
I couldn’t afford to make payroll.
Speaker 3 (00:30:05):
Yeah, exactly. I understand the logic and the steps, but there’s a pretty big gap in there in terms of, well, I can’t afford any of that. I know I need it. What did you do? When you were staring through that, was it just pure frustration? Did you turn on yourself? What was the go?
Speaker 1 (00:30:23):
Yeah, it got dark for me. It got really dark. And I’ve talked about that with the group and how I got really depressed and it was hard. I guess through coaching though, I learned the small steps we needed to take just to start getting your head above water. And I think step one for us was putting someone else in to help in the admin side. And we brought one of our friends on Jay, who was our first person that helped with admin and payroll and invoicing and that kind of thing. And then we got the designer on board. But all those little things at the time were, they seemed unsurmountable of just putting another person on three days a week. How the hell are we going to pay for this? But slowly through making those small steps, it relinquished more time for me, more space for me to become a better, A, most importantly, a better dad and a better husband.
(00:31:21):
And then B, more time into the business in the areas that needed improving rather than being doing the whole time. And so each time we did that, it released more and each time we still do that, it releases more.
Speaker 3 (00:31:33):
Did you recognise that in the moment or did you just … Is the depression and just the darkness still there? Again, I’m trying to paint this picture that it’s not all just you pull one lever and the whole world falls into place for you.
Speaker 1 (00:31:47):
No. And still, some stuff’s happened this week and it’s like, oh, that’s hard. The challenges never go away, hey, Dan and Rob, they just never go away. There’s always challenges there, but it’s how you face them, how you learn to face them. And I can go into it, but I used to get really affected by things that happened and those challenges that faced up and the issues. And I’d go into a depressed state where I found it hard to get out of bed for weeks because of things that have happened, whether it was losing a really important job or losing a really key team member or not delivering something to the standard that I wanted to deliver. And those things still affect me. But I guess back then they almost immobilised me completely.
Speaker 2 (00:32:39):
I think this is the unspoken thing around, and I really appreciate your honesty and truth around that is this is the unspoken stories of business ownership. If you look online, it looks glamorous and people are off doing this and building this, and everyone just looks at all the great things of all the reward of building a business. But very few people talk around the truth of what it actually takes. And it’s fucking hard. It’s challenging. And every day, it’s like you’re going to war every day where you’re getting punched in the face from something. And I really like that you said there that the challenges don’t go away. You just get better at dealing with those challenges. And that’s so true. And because if business owners are listening to this, they’re like, “Yeah, I’ve felt depressed before. I’ve had mental health issues. I’ve had to do this because of that situation.” But the guys who rise above that, they’ve got the ability to work on themselves and change their relationship with challenge and improve their management capability, develop their leadership skills and learn how to face up to these situations and challenges that they face on a daily, weekly basis rather than let those moments define them.
(00:33:51):
So I’m glad you spoke around that truth, Dave, because it’s refreshing because not a lot of business owners talk about the punches they get. They want to think that they’re alone and they’re the only one facing it, but every business owner goes through those challenges all the time, don’t they?
Speaker 1 (00:34:08):
Yeah. And I mean, it was only last week, Rob, that with my bid managers away and he does all our quoting and he’s been away on paternity leave and I’ve been working my ring out absolutely. It feels like, and even Jazz has said this, it feels like I’ve gone back to five, six, seven years ago. And I said to you guys, “Hey, I had to work to 4:00 AM.” I said to Rob and Nathan Wilson, another guy was like, “I had to work before AM the other day.” It’s back to the old times. And actually I enjoyed it because it was a bit of a thrill, but at the same time, I was so grateful that I don’t have to do it day in, day out anymore. And Rob, you said this is what it takes. This is what it takes when shit goes sideways or someone’s on leave or something gets thrown at you, you’ve got to jump in.
(00:34:56):
The challenges don’t stop. You can’t shy away from them. You can take a moment to pause and go, “Ooh, this is hard and I’m questioning things and that’s okay. You’re going to cop the punches.” And it’s okay to step back and go, “Hey, I’m not sure I’m capable of doing this, ” but then you got to drop it down to gear, get into gear and just keep pushing through.
Speaker 3 (00:35:15):
Was it all pushing though, Dave? I mean, you were surrounded, one, you had coaching, two, you had the community, you had all those sort of things. And without leading you anywhere, was it you facing these depressions and just waiting for them to pass or was it still, did you just muscle your way through it or was there elements beyond that that someone listening can sort of hear from you that was like the critical thing, yes, I have to do all of that, but there was also?
Speaker 1 (00:35:38):
Yeah there was a lot of pulling, not just pushing. So one of the things I decided to do when I was in the lifestyle was start seeing a psychologist and I must have done over a hundred sessions with a psychologist over about probably four years and I’m not seeing them anymore and I feel like that’s actually another good win that you don’t really reflect on, but I don’t have to do that anymore because I’ve got the tools now where I can face those things myself. Some days it doesn’t feel like you can, but I’m getting through things. So yeah, 50, 100 probably, probably a hundred sessions with a psychologist every two weeks for a number of years. The coaching, fronting up daily to Steve during lifestyle. And as Wilson said yesterday, unloading your wheelbarrow under the table of what your issues are and then sifting through them and going, “Okay, this is the one we can focus on this week.” And so there’s a lot of help, people guiding you through all this.
(00:36:39):
And there’s no way … Rob, I remember getting back from Mongolia and saying, “I know I can be a $10 million business.” And this is when I was turning over Bugger All. And I knew that and I knew I was capable of doing it, but I knew I needed help. And so coaching psychologists, seeing doctors all the time, getting health issues fixed, taking on PT, every element of those, the four legacies that we talk about, you need help with, like I need help with, and I’m happy to admit that. No one else has taught me, so I need to have someone teach me. And definitely can’t just go and muscle through these things. I think even most good leaders in the world have mentors. And so why wouldn’t someone that’s running a small business?
Speaker 2 (00:37:26):
And that’s the thing that you did really well, Dave, and you haven’t shied away from is Dave working on Dave. And that’s been your … The reason why your business is growing into the juggernaut that it is today is because we say in coaching all the time that your business will never outgrow as you as a leader. And that’s one thing that you’ve done exceptionally well over this time is you’ve doubled down on you, developing your leadership skills, developing your management skills. You’ve gone and got external help through coaching, psychology. You’ve worked on your relationship with your wife, jazz and your girls. You’ve had PT, you’ve worked on you all these years. And I don’t think you realise it, mate, but you’ve worked on yourself harder than most people do work on themselves in coaching, but there’s not a lot of people who have the leadership and management structure and the size of the business across the national, across the whole of Australia, like you do out there in the marketplace.You’re a one percenter and that’s because you’ve done the work of a one percenter and as a result, you’ve built a 1% of business.
(00:38:33):
And so there’s the clue there. If you want to build something great, you’ve got to be great as a leader and you’ve got to be willing to go on that journey to develop yourself into that person who’s got the ability to build that business.
Speaker 1 (00:38:45):
And the work doesn’t stop, eh? It’s like you get to another level and you’ve got to … Okay, the next jobs come up next. Okay. Now we’re at the next level. It’s like, what’s the next thing I need to work on on myself? Because you reach a level and you’re like, okay, you’re comfortable on that level, but then you sniff at the next level and you’re like, okay, we can take this a little bit further as a business. And that means that as the individual, you need to rise a little bit further and learn a little bit more.
Speaker 3 (00:39:11):
Yeah. You’ve earned that next challenge. You’ve earned that next level. Going back to your gaming days, you have to work hard to get to that next level. And then you get there and you get to play a whole new game. It’s the same thing happening in business. You earn that next level. Dave, I’ve got one more question on this. And just with your experience and what we’re talking about, what’s harder in your mind? And again, for the person listening, is the hard part asking for that help or is it actually showing up once you’ve asked for it? And what I’m trying to get to is people struggle to show up and they’re like, “I can’t show up. I’m going to stay hidden. I’m not going to show up. I can’t do it today. It’s not the day for it. ” Not showing up versus putting your hand up, what’s in your opinion, the harder thing to do or what’s your experience with those two elements?
Speaker 1 (00:39:54):
It’s a good question. I think you guys know this, but I’m a very open person. I’m happy to be open. And I think that’s one of my strong points of my leadership style is that I’m open and honest. And so therefore people see integrity, but I think the reality is they’re probably both hard. Both being honest and acknowledging that you need help is hard and it’s a big step to get through that, but then also showing up and being committed to the trudgery of doing the things like, for example, my morning walks. I mean, like you have days, like this week I’ve hardly done a walk because I’ve been flogged, but my routine is I know I need to go for a walk every morning because if I don’t, I go batch you crazy. And so yeah, I find there’s a struggle behind both, Dan, to be honest.
(00:40:55):
It’s not like one’s easier than the other. It’s difficult to both show up and it’s difficult to acknowledge that you need to show up.
Speaker 3 (00:41:01):
Yeah, I get that. That’s an interesting answer. I think the thing that sits behind it and your word that you used before about yourself is probably the one that I think of is vulnerability, the willingness to be vulnerable, either side of that. If you’re going into it going, “Well, I better put my hand up, that’s vulnerable.” If I’m going to show up letting people know that I am wounded and this is the real me, that’s also vulnerability. So in your world, I think what’s your take on it being vulnerability that you’re willing to show?
Speaker 1 (00:41:28):
Yeah. I remember, Dan, that we were doing, I’m not sure if it’s the right place to talk about it, but we were doing that what are the key aspects of a good leader? And we were doing that at one of the Pravar weekends at Hamilton Island. And I remember you asking and a whole group was going around and I was like, “Well, what about vulnerability?” I feel like vulnerability is a really key part of leadership. And you click the slide and you’re like, vulnerability. That’s one of the key elements of being a leader. And so I find that that’s one of the things that I just naturally am good at. I’m an open, as Gav, my current coach says, you wear your heart and your sleeve. And because of that, I guess I am vulnerable, but I’m also both happy to be vulnerable, but also vulnerable to things happening to me.
(00:42:14):
So it can be a bit of a double-edged sword for me, but it’s not, without seeing that you need help and understanding that you need help and reaching out for help, you can’t change yourself. You just get stuck in the tudery cycle of just letting what is be, I guess, which isn’t the right way of doing things. You can always fix yourself. You can always get out there and do more and achieve more or change the situation in, change your family environment, be a better person, but you’re not always going to get 100% perfect the first time either or the second time or the hundredth time. It’s a continual growth journey.
Speaker 3 (00:42:50):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think this deals into the next thing I wanted to talk to you about today, which is expectations and how do you deal with expectations? As someone who optimises and looks to there’s better is always possible is something that I live by. And you live with that weight of expectation at all times. I think you’ve got an element of that within yourself. There’s always better. There’s always the next track. There’s always the next project, the next document, there’s always a chance to be better, but that comes with expectation. How do you deal with expectations and what’s that done and how has it changed in your world as the business has developed?
Speaker 1 (00:43:22):
I guess there’s two elements of expectation. There’s both the internalised element of expectation, personal expectation, and then there’s the external. One of the things that I suffered on really early in the business was the external expectations from we’re delivering stuff for a community of users and their expectation on what we can do is often very high. And I struggled with that a lot early on. And like a lot of that was around the issues I was having with mental health and people saying we’re doing crap work. It’s not often you put up on a pedestal and you looked at, and we have that a lot in our business. People really judge the work we do. And so I struggle with that external expectation a lot and have worked on that a lot, but that pales in significance into the internal expectations I put on myself.
(00:44:14):
And so yeah, you’re right, Dan. I’m great at what I do, but I still question that and I still think we should be doing everything better. And I look at a project and think, “Oh, we’ve done a good job there, but there’s always a butt behind things.” And I think that’s part of why I am successful is because I have that drive and behind myself. So again, it’s a double-edged sword. It can make you question yourself, but it also gives you motivation to improve yourself as well and improve your business.
Speaker 3 (00:44:44):
As a leader, how do you not let that tip? It’s very hard to do, right? Because you’ve got these high … Everyone talks about, “Well, I’ve got the highest expectations.” And how do you know that … You’ve got to bring it into the team as a leader, but you’ve also then got to temper that a bit that you don’t then crush the team with the weight of expectation as well.
Speaker 1 (00:45:02):
Yeah. And that challenge still arises. It’s not like that’s gone away. Only a few weeks I was having a catch up with the team. I was like, “Guys, we need to be doing better here.” I pulled all our designers together and I was like, I think there’s eight designers in the team now. And I was like, “Guys, guys and girls.” I was like, “We just need to be doing better here.” I feel like we’re failing. And I explained, I was vulnerable, going back to vulnerability, I was like, “I don’t feel like we’re doing as well as we should, and I feel like we can do better here.” And so it’s both setting that, what my expectations are pushing that onto the team, but being vulnerable about it in a way where it’s like, “Hey, you guys are fucking up here.” It’s like, “Hey, I’m not comfortable with what we’re doing.
(00:45:50):
I know we can do better. I know you guys are capable of doing better. We just need to improve the way we’re doing things so that we meet both my expectations, our expectations are collective and the external expectations that are placed on us.”
Speaker 3 (00:46:03):
And what did you notice when you had that conversation from the team? Did they rally, shut down, counter it? How did it play out?
Speaker 1 (00:46:13):
I probably didn’t approach it in the best way, to be honest, Dan, at the start. And that’s part of being a leader, you’re going to make mistakes. And I probably bit a couple of heads off, but then through the course of that 45 minute discussion, it was like I bit some heads off and then the team rallied and like, “Yeah, we agree we can be doing better and we do need to improve these things.” So that is a fine balance and I’m not sure I get it right 100% of the time, but obviously we’re doing okay.
Speaker 3 (00:46:49):
Are you a guy that comes down with those conversations on the idea of the perfect result or the perfect effort?
Speaker 1 (00:46:55):
That’s been reshaped massively over the years. So I used to be perfect result always and getting frustrated with myself and with others because we weren’t achieving perfect results. But now I’ve learned that no one can achieve perfection, even myself. And it’s being comfortable in that mistakes are going to be made, that I’m more, I guess, more open to me not being perfect and therefore open to others not being perfect either. But it is something that I still struggle with because I do set a very high standard for myself and I expect a high standard from others. So yeah, there is frustrations when things aren’t going right and when things need to be, when you can see things can be done better, but for the team, it’s hard because they’re in the trenches. It’s hard to often see out of the trenches. And we’re so lucky is when you’re a leader, you can be up in the helicopter and looking and it’s very easy to see the issues from above.
(00:47:56):
But when you’re down in the trenches, you’re in warfare mode and you’re dealing with deadlines and that kind of thing. So it’s hard to see through that to what can be achieved and what the perfection is. But I guess that’s the mark of a good leader is to see that and to guide the team towards what needs to be done.
Speaker 2 (00:48:12):
This is the thing when it comes to standards. I think standards have a double edged sword. Standards are, high standards create exceptional businesses because they look to not create a perfect result, but they’re a great business because they have high expectations and they pursue excellence. And that’s when I think about Dave Wilcox and Common Ground is they pursue excellence. But the other side of the equation of that is sometimes you can burn your team out because you get them to chase excellence when potentially some people aren’t capable of doing that or your management style is tough. Sometimes you over engineer jobs in a road margin because you look for the perfect finish when really the customer doesn’t want it and you burn money to meet an expectation which really isn’t necessary. And so high standards I believe is, it’s a topic we teach and coaching.
(00:49:13):
You’ve got to constantly be looking to raise your standards because the standards of what creates the higher levels of results you want in life. But you’ve got to temper that sometimes because there’s a downside of high standards. And Dave, that’s what you’re talking around here is you’ve had to balance both sides of the equation over a period of time, haven’t you?
Speaker 1 (00:49:32):
Yeah. And I’ve got so much better at putting the guardrails up around where we bounce between as a team and what we want to achieve. But I’m thinking and laughing, Rob, when you’re talking about that, is just how far I’ve come on margin management and how far the team have come. And it’s funny how it all … I’m only just realising now, but how it’s all interlinked, hey, the expectations, the external expectations that have been put on me and how I internalise that, and then that resulting in me wanting to please people in that eroding margin.
(00:50:04):
I’m thinking of a job that we did, it’s probably four years ago now, but we were contracted to do a 500 square metre jump track and I was like, “No, this can be cool. We can do something real cool here.” And we did a 700 square metre one and we lost money on it and I physically gave the client my money to deliver them their job. I’m like, “Why the fuck would you do that? ” But it’s been such a huge journey for me to recognise that and to recognise that clients don’t want that. They just want you to do what’s in scope and to do what’s in scope well. They’re not expecting you to go and be up and beyond.
Speaker 3 (00:50:40):
I think it’s a huge one, Dave. It is. It’s a work in progress. It’s a real challenge, but I think this is the thing, and without going into coaching mode, it could be the last big vulnerability lever to pull, is that permission to live in a world that’s not perfect. And there’s a vulnerability in that. If it’s not perfect, can it still be successful? Can it still be profitable? Can I run a business if I’m not the perfect manager? And I think that’s a vulnerability that I think everyone still wrestles with. But I think once you overcome that, then it almost becomes like, now I can flow. That acceptance is the key to dealing with those conversations differently, to allow yourself to improve, better lies on the other side of that ability to be vulnerable to the point that it’s okay not to be perfect.
(00:51:29):
It’s not that you lower your standards, it’s just that you let go of that need for it to be perfect.
Speaker 1 (00:51:35):
We get, as we grow, as individuals and as businesses, we go up these tiers and what we deliver goes up these tiers, but there’s still people down on the lower tiers that want outcomes. And so one of the things we’ve been wrestling with lately is we’re doing these really small projects and they feel insignificant in comparison to these multimillion dollar projects we’re doing. But then I stood back recently and I sort of articulated to the team, I was like, “We need to remember guys that it’s only $100,000 small little pump track and it might seem boring, but to the kid that lives 300 metres away, that’s life changing.” And so we need to make sure that, and I guess this relates to all different businesses, but you need to understand that whether it’s plumbing and someone being unable to use their shitter and it makes a big difference, like it mightn’t seem like you’re doing good work, but if you can’t go to the toilet, then you’re going to get backed up.
Speaker 3 (00:52:34):
And it speaks to your mission directly, that mission you talked about before. It’s exactly that. That’s that in practise.
Speaker 1 (00:52:39):
Exactly.
Speaker 3 (00:52:40):
Yeah. All right, let’s keep going. I could talk about this leadership. I don’t know about you, Rob. I’m loving this. We could go for hours, but we need to keep moving. Let’s talk a little bit about where you’re at now. We started off with your first Monday morning momentum. I haven’t unfortunately got your latest one, but anyway, I’d be interested to see it might look a little bit the same in some areas. I haven’t
Speaker 1 (00:52:59):
Been that solid at doing them over the years, to be honest, but we can see Rob’s face twitching there, but anyway.
Speaker 3 (00:53:10):
But how about you give us a bit of a rundown now? So what are we really talking about? The business as it stands today, I want to hear the footprint, where you work, some of the cool stuff you guys do, which is off the charts, and then we can maybe have a little bit of talk about just sort of your focus these days, but just give us the current day picture for you now.
Speaker 1 (00:53:29):
When we started, it was hard to find $10 to $15,000 to deliver a project, really hard. And so that was the scale of projects we’re delivering now. We’re now delivering five, six, seven million dollar projects, lots below that, and there’s projects out there which we’re chasing, which are even bigger than that. In terms of run rate, I think when I joined you guys, we were doing under a million dollars a year, and now our run rates close to $15 million a year. So the business has gone up 15 times in scale. We’re now operating all over Australia. Currently, we have jobs just down the road here in the Southwest in Augusta, which is the most southwesterly point in Western Australia. We have jobs in the Northwestern Western Australia. We have jobs up in air up near Townsville in the Northwest. We have jobs down in Victoria.
(00:54:29):
So we are fully across the whole of Australia. We consider Tasmania overseas. We haven’t ventured over there yet, but we are Quertion work over there. So yeah, we are a fully national organisation and we are doing design work overseas. We’ve done design work over in Canada and that has been a passion of mine to want to go overseas, but we’ve had to temper that to sustain growth, I guess. In terms of team size, gone from when we started coaching, like five or six I think would have been. We’ve reached, it goes up and down depending on the projects we have, but between 70 and 80 team members. We have a full management structure now. So we have five different departments, four which are functioning really well and one that’s emerging. So the marketing department’s emerging, but we have a people and culture department, which has two people working out there doing a lot of HR and keeping people happy.
(00:55:28):
We have a finance department which has three people in it, which they do a phenomenal job. We have a pre-contract department which do all our sales and quoting. And then we have our operations department, which is where all the work gets done in the team. And that has three different divisions. We have our construction division, we have our natural space design team and our urban design team. And so it’s a fully fledged management structure now. We have a leadership team, there’s managers that sit under the leadership team. Yeah, it’s a phenomenal business now and I’m really proud of the individuals in the business, but also the structure that we’ve created and how well everyone gets on. And actually one of the proudest moments, maybe it’s moving aside quickly, but one of the proudest moments in business was actually, I achieved it the other day and it was really quite humbling.
(00:56:23):
A team member, an ex- team member sent me a photo of eight ex- employees from Common Ground, all catching up over in New Zealand to go riding together. And so they’re all from different states in Australia and they sent a text and they said, “Hey, this happened because of you. ” And so to create these lifelong friendships that these guys have because of a business that I’ve created and for them to acknowledge that when they’re all at together and having fun is just like it really speaks volumes to the culture that we’ve created in the business and the friendships that it creates, but also I guess the connection which I have with all the team or the majority of the team and their desire to keep reaching out and saying hi. So we’re in a really hard business where because everything is remote, everything we do is remote and workforces move, we have a high turnover in team.
(00:57:23):
And I was talking to one of my peers in the industry the other day and he’s like, “Yeah, we struggle to keep most team members for more than two years.” So we have quite a high turnover in what we call our labourers and operators and it’s a big challenge for us, but still we keep in touch. And these guys are guys that joined us and when they joined, they wanted to get into trail building and they didn’t know how to do it. And they’re now featuring in films like Red Bull Films and building for these Red Bull guys and building facilities all over the world and we gave them that opportunity. Yeah. So it’s bloody cool. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (00:58:04):
And that’s how your mission ripples out over the world without you even having to do it. It’s just the natural knock-ons and you won’t even know where they go in time. It’s just going to have that thread that you can be really, really proud of, mate. It’s amazing. What does a week look like for you? Just outlined what the business is like now. People are probably thinking, “Holy shit, you must be absolutely off your feet.” And we know you are because you’re filling in with tenders and stuff at the moment.
Speaker 1 (00:58:30):
Last week was a shit show, but that’s all right. That’s not normal.
Speaker 3 (00:58:34):
That week aside, what does a normal week look like for you now and how’s things at home and all that sort of stuff? Just quickly on that one.
Speaker 1 (00:58:41):
I guess I have two main functions. One is the director, general manager, CEO, whatever you want to call it of the business. So that’s one main function. And then my other function is as design, director and design lead. So my weeks basically are just full of meetings and guiding the team. So I have one-on-ones with all of my department managers. I have a weekly coaching call, which goes for two hours. I jump in and have weekly team meetings with our design team and make sure that they’re directed in the right way. And then the rest of it’s just filled up. Hopefully I’ve allowed some time for rocks and to work on the business. Sometimes that goes by the wayside. And then the rest of the time is just generally, I guess, work admin stuff, emails, phone calls, reaching out to new clients, that kind of thing.
(00:59:40):
So I’d say most of it is filled up though by my weekly structure of one-on-one meeting with the operations manager, one-on-one meeting with the people and culture manager. And so it’s me, them coming to me with a set agenda, we go through the agenda, identify all the issues that they’re seeing. I provide them guidance and direction, and then they go off And then deliver.
(01:00:02):
But yeah, a typical week now is only like 35 to 40 hours of hard work, but then it’s not to say that I’m not working hard because I’m constantly thinking about what we need to do, but the actual physical contact’s probably 35 to 40 hours a week now.
Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:00:17):
It’s to about 80 hours a week in the past.
Speaker 3 (01:00:21):
Yeah, absolutely. There’s a difference between working hard and working hard sometimes. Your very first, we started, I’m going to end with this. We started off with your first Monday morning momentum post. And in that, one of the things I didn’t mention is you jumped in the water with your youngest daughter for the very first time that week, and it was one of your wins that you had. It was that long ago. I mean, what’s going on now with family and where are you at with that and the role you get to play there?
Speaker 1 (01:00:51):
That probably would’ve been over on that beach down there. And most mornings now, and this is something that we never used to do. Sorry, I’m diverting here, but we never used to do this. And it’s an interesting reflection. Most mornings, the girl, I walk down to the beach, the girls often ride down or jazz jumps in the car with them and we go down to the beach down here. Some days we’ll swim, some days we just walk all on the beach together. And one of the sets of grandparents lives just up the road and they’ll walk down often and catch up with us at the beach in the morning as well. And I really, I make sure, and this doesn’t happen every day, but it’ll be 60 or 70% of the time. I make time in the mornings to hold that space for me and for the family.
(01:01:36):
Whereas in the past, it was just like, wake up, okay, see you. I’ll see you tonight. And then I’d be lucky if I got home for dinner. So it’s really nice to hear that I did that for the first time because that is something that’s a daily occurrence now.
Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
So good, mate. I love it. I think we’re going to have to start winding up. I’m going to ask you one more question from me and get your thoughts on it. But I think we’ve been absolutely … I think we have clients that we obviously love working with all our clients, but to have you in lifestyle for as long as we did, probably longer than we held you up for. But at the same time, really blessed to have you in the group for what you did. You’re a leader to your team, but you’re also a leader amongst so many of the guys in Pravar that look to you for guidance, for support, for just examples and inspiration. So from that perspective, thank you. I’m keen to hear though from you, Dave, what’s your take on coaching at Pravar? What does the community mean to you?
(01:02:35):
And just sort of a word on that, if you could.
Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
The leadership group in Pravar, I was very fortunate to go into that leadership group. And I remember being asked and I was like, “Oh shit, this seems like a big thing. I’m not sure I’m the right guy for this job.” The amount I learned through leverage, started with leverage, hey, the amount I learned through leverage and the amount I learned through Mastermind, now the amount I’ve learned through legacy has been like … There’s no way I’d be … I think Rob the other day, I sent him a message and said, “We just wouldn’t be where we are without the guidance that you guys have given me. ” And only on Wednesday when we had our quarterly leadership catch up without our leadership team, these are the little things that people don’t realise that you pick up. So through the guidance that Pravar’s given me, we used to have in lifestyle our quarterly catch up, which I now do in the business, we used to have our quarterly meeting with the leaders and we’d have a quarterly dinner.
(01:03:39):
These are all things which I’ve now implemented in my business and have had a phenomenal outcome in the way that the business is structured and rolling out because of the amount I’ve learnt. Rob’s never taught us to do that and it’s never said you should have a quarterly leadership meeting or quarterly dinners with your leadership team. But I saw how well that functioned as the leadership team in Mastermind. And so I’ve taken that and implemented in my business. And yeah, we would be still running payroll when we were giving birth if it wasn’t for Pavar, that’s for sure.
Speaker 3 (01:04:15):
I’m going to say I’m out of questions, Rob. I’m not, but I can geek out on leadership and teams and all that stuff all day. But anything you want to add, Rob? Any other questions for Dave?
Speaker 2 (01:04:24):
Yeah, it’s been a wild old journey, mate. And mate, you should be so bloody proud of who you’ve become, the man you are, the leader that you’ve become, the family man that you are today. And just the epic business you’ve run, mate. It is such a … You’ve come so far in the whole scheme of things in a short amount of time. It’s really only been seven years. And the business that you’ve built and the leader that you are is phenomenal, mate. And you are a humble guy because you don’t give yourself credit for as much credit as you probably deserve for what you’ve been able to build because the leadership that you show on a daily basis is so understated. And mate, you should be bloody proud of what you’ve done and even to be able to be doing things on the international scale is incredible, mate.
(01:05:15):
So we’re proud of you, mate. We really are. We genuinely mean that. And you’re such a good bloke and yeah, we’re grateful for the opportunity to help you out. And yeah, you’ve done an incredible job, mate. So yeah, well done.
Speaker 1 (01:05:27):
Thanks guys. Appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (01:05:28):
And thanks for getting up early this morning to talk to us too.
Speaker 1 (01:05:32):
I think the sun’s almost to come up.
Speaker 3 (01:05:35):
Beautiful. All right. I think we can leave it there, Rob. What an episode, hey?
Speaker 2 (01:05:40):
Thanks so much for joining us today, Dave. We really appreciate it. Dan, what an epic episode. There’s so much there that we started to … We really unpacked. And the common theme today was leadership. It just shows that leadership is not only how you show up in the business, but it’s how you show up at home, as a husband, as a father, as a family, man, as a friend. Leadership is who you are and how you show up on a day-to-day basis. And that’s the essence of today’s episode. So I hope you’ve really enjoyed it. If you know you’re in that position where you are stuck on the hamster wheel like Dave was back seven years ago and you just felt like you’re going ran around in circles and you know that you need to be able to make some change in your business and your life, and today’s story has inspired you to be able to be vulnerable and put your hand up for some help, then let’s get a discovery call booked in. Jump across, to strategysession.com.au. Fill in the application form if you qualify, book in a time that suits, and let’s have a conversation to see if we’re the right fit for you. Dave, thanks again for joining us today and looking forward to coming back to you again next week with another episode here in The Trade Den. Until then, take care.
Speaker 3 (01:06:54):
See you soon.