Tomorrow is Not Today

Andrew_Final
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Kingsley: [00:00:00] Welcome to The Tomorrow Is Not Today podcast. You've already started to create the life you want just by being here, designed for you as a business professional so you can be physically, mentally, and emotionally healthy, more productive, less stressed, and living a life you truly love. My name's Kingsley and thank you for coming on another journey with one of our uniquely qualified professionals.

Well, welcome to The Tomorrow Is Not Today podcast. I got today in the studio, a gentleman who I've a lot of respect for, business wise, just a genuine person who I believe you just genuinely like to help people in whatever it is that they're doing.

Andrew: True. Summarized start, well, you know, started way back when, I actually used to be a fireman.

I don't know if you know that.

Kingsley: I didn't know that. No,

Andrew: voluntary. Yeah. Yeah. So I wasn't getting paid for that. So somehow I think I. That's ingrained that I wanted to [00:01:00] help people. Yeah. Awesome. Today it's obviously different.

Kingsley: Yeah. Yeah. Well, well, you still help people. True. Maybe just not a fireman way, but I wanna start off, as we always do on the Tomorrow's Not Today podcast, and ask you one question to start.

You've been in business now for over 30 years. Mm-hmm. How do you keep going in business for over 30 years and the same business as well?

Andrew: Yep. That is a huge question. I don't know if there's a. A secret to it, but it's obviously a mindset thing. I've, you know, we've been dealing with businesses over 34 years now, and because helping people gives me a bus seems to make it a little bit easy for me to keep going.

You know, every day is a new day where we meet new challenges. Where we can solve new challenges and having these wins along the way is probably the wave that carries you. [00:02:00] And, I've seen business owners over the years that become jaded, fall out of love with their business. Don't find a new angle to motivate themselves that.

Ultimately they're looking at, I think I just wanna sell this business. And sometimes they fall out of love that much that they just get out. They're built for 10 years something. And that, that's a feed in itself already. I mean, when we consider the statistics that 95, 90 7% of businesses failed within the first five years, so the people that go onto 10 or 20 years, they are, I call 'em now.

The one percenters. Mm. And you've achieved something so special that I think you need to do a little bit of mind work to fall back in love with the business and reenergize yourself and stay focused of what you're trying to do, rather than just walking away from you're already left. 99% [00:03:00] of all people that start a business behind and you're on this mission trajectory, walking away is like swimming a hundred meter lane.

And turning around or back three meters before the end. Mm-hmm. You know, the big breakthrough could maybe just happen, maybe our business is a little bit different because you get the buzz every single day. When we help someone maybe collect on debts, they haven't been able to collect or get clients.

They never got to be into, help them improve their lifestyle. You know, some people haven't been on a holiday. I mean, small business is such a hard grind. Some people haven't been on holiday for five or 10 years and then, you know, they become part of our network and all of a sudden they can afford that.

Just seeing their faces when something like that happens is magic. It is. That is the stuff that keeps me going all the time.

Kingsley: So, I wanna dive into a couple of things that you said there. Mm-hmm. So, earlier on when you were. Uh, chatting. You mentioned about sometimes there [00:04:00] needs to be a bit of a mind shift.

How, how do you mean? What do you do exactly to shift your mind into that place where you are in love with your business again?

Andrew: Well, it's really hard to make it universal for every business. Mm. But talking from my own experience was, I mean, we started a company that was a national franchise company, and I.

We had a great bus expanding the business, building teams so I could satisfy my need for helping staff to grow, helping people grow their career. Even educate, keep educating myself because remember, I was a young jumper when we started this business, so I had a lot to learn. I mean, you're only at the top of , the tree because you started it or you own it, it doesn't mean you're on top of the tree because of your skill level.

So over the years, you acquire the skill level. Every time you acquire a new [00:05:00] skill, you gain this kind of confidence that you now can do this new task. So we started franchising nationally. Sold a few of those franchises. That was a big bus. I. We got now a new level of people that we can help in business.

So not just the clients that joined the network, but now a franchisee that is building a business and we help them. Then we took that concept internationally. Then I had to do it in different languages. Now, I don't speak other than German and English. I don't speak anything fluent, but I picked up some Thai, picked up some Arabic, and I picked up how these people do business.

So every time we grew the business, and maybe that is an underlying thing, when you grow your business instead of being the one man band, that's really hard to reinvent yourself. But when you're growing [00:06:00] a business and you've got people that you can help along on the journey, build careers, see how they're flourishing.

Then you have got the means to add. Add new layers in the business, maybe offer new products or services, educate yourself to add something or vertically integrate in your offering. You know, that then gives you another few years of enthusiasm.

Kingsley: It seems like when you were in business, just listening to what you're saying now.

That you are always looking for The next thing, what's the next thing I can do? How can I help people? What other offering can I do to have help people? And obviously there's a balance here because if someone's in their business, I. And there are a lot of people who are struggling in the business and want to give it up.

Mm-hmm. Uh, that's just where people are at. A lot of people listening right now will be in that place. So how do we make this balance? How do we know when it's time to, maybe I need to, you know, the service offering or maybe not. I need to aim at a different target [00:07:00] demographic or something like that without actually damaging what's already happening.

Andrew: I try to sort of reference a little bit what I've experienced in Australia. There seem to be a lot of people that think that they don't need to talk to anyone else because they are the core of their business. That is a lot of times when you've got the really small business, maybe a few employees in the business, but.

They just don't communicate with others a lot. And I always say to everybody, what you put in here is what comes out in here. What comes out here. So if you don't constantly learn from other people, talk to other people, connect to new people, you will never find out what that next layer is that you can add to your business because communication is key.

Kingsley: So that's. Talking with somebody ahead of where you are, by the sounds of [00:08:00] things.

Andrew: Yes, because the word gives it away, you're looking ahead. Mm. But sometimes you don't know what lies ahead. So it's easy to set your goals, your sales figures, customer numbers, collection ratios, and so on. That's the goals on things that you do right now, but.

When you're looking beyond the horizon, you don't know what is next. And so unless you're talking to new people, learning new things, that vision will never really crystallize, you know? So my advice would be for people to listen, talk to people, and listen What I've found so often when you, when you're in a business that's kind of somewhat a little bit unusual or controversial, what have you?

There's a lot of people that they hear first time, and this is my own experience, you know, they hear about a car, oh yeah, I heard about it. And I'm wondering, well, if they heard [00:09:00] about it, why are they not in one of the best business tools in the world? But they just listened to a might. Who knew someone who spoke to someone next to on the traffic light and said whatever.

Mm-hmm. That may be. Then the second part to listening to people is you've gotta work out who to listen to, and the word always gives it away. You listen ahead when you want to go ahead. You listen to people that are ahead, not behind. When you wanna grow your business, you want to go ahead or up not down.

So that needs to be the thing. So you listen to people that have got something to say and you need to listen to understand and not just listen to nod your head. 'cause I get that a lot and people go, Hmm hmm. And they talk, they're thinking about what they're having for lunch rather than, yeah. Yeah.

Listening. You know, this could be life changing. There's nuggets, gold nuggets everywhere on the road and people just don't listen. Or they're too lazy to bend over [00:10:00] and pick it up.

Kingsley: That. And it's interesting that one because, uh, opportunities usually dressed in overalls and we don't like that. We want to just the opportunity to happen and be where we want to be.

So there's that a first step, obviously, of listening to people getting in the mindset that, hey, there is another area to what place we can go. There's another area we can get to. But then it's taking that. And actually putting action to that sort of thing. 'cause a lot of people in business, if you're by yourself or you've just got a few employees, you are at this point where it's like, I don't have time, I don't have the resources, but I need to actually implement this.

How do you, how do you get people to go, okay, don't, you've heard, you know where you want to go? Fantastic. How do I actually get my mind and my time into a place where I, I can actually start implementing these things?

Andrew: Well, when you're making a decision that, that you want to implement a change or you want to add something to it, [00:11:00] currently, I would assume you are an expert at what you currently do and you want to add something to it.

So you gotta become a bit of an authority on that next step, because if you don't inquire, say for example, you are a plumber that now wants to be an electrician, so you've got all the customers that you could sell to already. Because you did plumbing for them. But if you're not an expert on electrical work, you'll never take that step.

So you really gotta then go educate yourself, get qualifications. Then you can sell a new product to your existing client base instead of finding new clients for your existing product. So sometimes it's a lot easier when you do a good job. To sell to the same person again. 'cause they've already had a good experience.

Hey, if he's that good at his electrical work than what he was in his plumbing, I'm gonna get him back. You know? But, or you have to convince a brand new person. So then [00:12:00] all of a sudden you start turning into a numbers person that needs to increase the number of sales, you know, and you're gonna be always chasing that extra.

Sale. So sometimes just the shift of becoming an expert at something else could be the secret of doubling your sales without having to double your customers.

Kingsley: Yeah. So it's just

Andrew: that the mindset thing.

Kingsley: It is, it's very much a mindset thing, isn't it? And everything you're talking about is something that It's my responsibility.

To make this happen. Mm-hmm. I can't blame what's going on out there. I've, I've got my mindset. Okay. I know it can grow and I'm mean a, you know, a small percentage that actually can keep going. I've been given some instructions on how to, how to do it and how to make it happen. Now I know that I've gotta go and learn.

I. To put this into place. So the reality is, , for any business owner that's listening, the responsibility is on me to make this happen. It's great to get advice and [00:13:00] ideals and things. Yeah. But the responsibility is on me. I was just at a conference, the end of last week for three days, and, one of the guys who was being interviewed there, a guy by the name of Sir Robert.

Edmundston, I think his name was. Mm-hmm. Uh, he's a billionaire. I'm not sure how many times from the uk he started literally from a, not very well off household. Yep. And created this. And what you're talking about is taking me back to where he was, because every time there was, there was a, , an opportunity there, but there was always in front of him so many reasons why he couldn't do it and why it wouldn't work.

But he's like. Now I can find an idea. So he found who he could work with to make it happen, or he actually found a different way to make the same thing happen. So one example is, and I don't remember the whole story entirely, but they were bringing, different cars moving into the uk and what they were trying to do was [00:14:00] stop a certain amount of imports for certain countries.

And so he's like, well. , okay. I am not allowed to do it through my dealerships, and that was going to put a massive drag on his dealership. Mm-hmm. So we went a different way, went directly to the company through a different organization to bring the cars into. The country and he became the only person in the country that bought that brand of country cars in.

Wow. And it's just this, it, it, what you are talking about reminds me of that is he thought about, okay, how can this, I've heard about this, I've heard what's going on. My mindset's gotta change to work out how I can actually make this happen. And that's one of the things that really made it for him.

Andrew: Yeah, sorry.

Kingsley: No.

Andrew: Well, and that's when, when people start using excuses, you know, they go and say, oh yeah, he's a billionaire. Well, he wasn't one,

Kingsley: no.

Andrew: When he started. And I don't always, you know, I don't like to blow my own trumpet too hard, too much. But when you look at it, you know, I was an immigrant in [00:15:00] the late eighties, coming to Australia, didn't speak English.

Um, built a company that grew around the world. I. It was a MI mindset. It can be done. We found the ways how to do it. Hmm. Problems. We never really, we actually banned the word problem in our organization. I like it. And call them challenges.

Kingsley: I like it.

Andrew: Um, because if you have a problem that is insurmountable, we just don't do anything about it.

Yeah. You're just wasting your time. But it was, we found a way on how to do it. Mm-hmm. You know, we listed on the stock market in multiple countries. This is in the heyday. Of, the company. Was I qualified to do it? No. Was I determined to do it? You bet your socks on that because there was nothing that could stop me.

Even when I was back in Germany and I was working with Mercedes-Benz, my family all thought I should work with them all my life. Get a great pension and what have you and what I like. The cars, [00:16:00] half their customers were snobs, you know, they didn't even look you straight in the eye and I thought. When I become that person, like financially.

Mm-hmm. And success wise, I'm never gonna be that, that guy that looks down on people, you know? So attitude is a big thing. And you know, when you start something like an alternative currency in a market that was just come out of a recession, everybody said, can't be done. The government will never allow you to start an alternative currency.

Who do you think you are? You're a bunch of yahoos, you know? But we found the way, and we navigated through all this, I mean, the, we had legislators crawling all over us. We found the way because this thing is really good for business, but it was just not that easy to package.

Kingsley: Yeah.

Andrew: When, when you, when you kick off with it, you know.

Kingsley: Take me back to the very start of barter [00:17:00] card. Like how were you guys sitting down at a bar somewhere having a chat and go, Hey, this would be a good idea, or, what happened and how did you actually start? Because obviously you didn't start with franchises all over the world. Oh, it was a very fledgling type thing, which I would imagine for most people is like, what are you even talking about?

Andrew: Mm-hmm. Yep. So when I first, when I first came to, australia. I didn't know anything about this, that this industry existed, even though we all have done some kind of swaps in the past. You know, you swap a comic book or a Matchbox calf or something else or what have you, even as a kid, and Barta has always been around somehow.

But I just didn't know that it was an industry. So when I stumbled across it, because there were actually a couple of guys that were trying to pull off a barter company. In Australia before us. And when I came across the concept, I knew within a month that this is what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

And I [00:18:00] don't say these things lightly, you know, so, and I was, would would've been happy to be with them, unfortunately. Their ethics weren't all that great, and ultimately we decided to pull away and do our own thing. And that's where I met my two original founding business partners, and we did exactly what you said.

We are hanging around the backyard eating donuts, planning out this business that. Was we planned to be a global behemoth of a business, and when we learned how big the bar industry was in the United States, we wanted to beat the Americans at their own game. I mean, we had some serious lofty goals, and whilst some of the things were a little bit hazy on how we were going to get there, but we thought when we arrive at the junction, we just set the indicator and go that way, and then we commit to that.

So a lot of people are [00:19:00] hindered by decision making. You know, if you get 51% of your decisions right, you're going in the right direction. If you're really good at what you do, hopefully you get more than that, right? You know? But, we had roadblocks that came with big names attached to it. A SC, you know, a SIC tax office, you name it, they were barter cart was established and all of a sudden.

But a what? You know, the tax office on the, on the phone. We want to come and have a talk to you guys, but because we did the right thing, we never broke the law, you know? The tax office quite liked us, and we were very buoyed by that because we did the right thing. So we just carried on and every time we found a roadblock in the way we maneuvered away.

Through it. We never got stopped. We were relentless. I see people giving up all the time you know, you hear all these cliches, if you like what you do, you never work a day in your [00:20:00] life. And it's sort of, kind of true after 30 years I can say I'm just as enthusiastic today. About the product and helping business people to use it than what I was then.

And the journey I had in between was, you know, amazing. And even when I thought I wanted to get out of the business and retire, because you're being German, you're sort of sometimes a little bit stubborn at some stage. I decided I wanted to retire in my forties and. When I hit that marker and you know, was financially independent and so on, that I didn't have to work anymore.

I went and retired against advice from good friends and what have you. But I said, no, I wrote this down a long time ago. This is what I have to do. Being typical German. And yeah, so I retired on a Monday and I was bored by Wednesday.

Kingsley: I could imagine.

Andrew: And I, you know, I was looking for the next thing and so many people spend time on finding the next thing.

And all it [00:21:00] came back to was always bar card. So I went and bought one of our own franchises because I love what we do and was a little bit more on the coal face applying it just when we, just as we did when we started, rather than traveling the world promoting this now global international licensing company.

You know, this is the stuff that I. Love deep down to the core. So maybe the advice is every so often take, take a look back to see if you're still doing what you love doing, or if you got sucked into following a trend or a cycle or you, you're chasing a dollar, or you made business decisions that didn't come from your core values.

Kingsley: I think what you just said there is so critical because society tells us what we should be, how we should [00:22:00] go about something, who we need to be, how much money we need to earn, what we need to look like. And unfortunately for a lot of people, they go down that track. Rather than going, no, who am I?

The reason you're doing this isn't because, like, you don't need to be here, you don't need to be doing this, but you absolutely love it and you know, you're helping people with it. And I think that point that you just said is probably one of the most critical points of the whole lot for the longevity, in business.

And for some people I know they love to buy businesses, do 'em up and sell 'em. Mm-hmm. Do that. And, but again, it's the same thing. They're doing it for fun.

Andrew: Yeah,

Kingsley: not, not because they probably, most of them don't need the money, but it's a fun game and that's what life's all about, I think.

Andrew: Yeah, the, you gotta have the, you gotta have the fun in it, you know?

It's like, I met this great plumber. He had been through all the cycles of having staff, not having staff growth contraction, but he [00:23:00] really loves plumbing. And it just blew my mind, you know, because. When you and I look at plumbing, smelly pipes, dripping water, the damage that goes with it, and so on. But his core was he was helping people.

Kingsley: Yeah.

Andrew: You know, and one thing I never forget, I was back at Mercedes-Benz way, way back. I came out of my apprenticeship. Mercedes-Benz just rescued all the wharfies because, some wharfs got shut down and they employed all the Wharfies. So. Mercedes sent me to, from my hometown in Bual, sent me off to Disseldorf to train these wharfies at certain aspects of the, the business.

And part of it was assembly of minivans, like sprinters kind of stuff, you know? Yep, yep. And there was one guy he was ready to throw in the towel. He was just doing a [00:24:00] very monotone. Assembly. A break assembly, and he felt worthless. He didn't have any fun at work. He was a great guy, but it was ne on him so badly, he was so unhappy.

He wanted to chuck it all in. And I saw one of the, you know, I don't know the the term in English, but he was like the supervisor, supervisor, supervisor kind of guy, you know? Mm-hmm. Take him to the site and he said, he said to him, Paul, he gotten the feedback that Paul was on the way out and Paul was a good guy, but he could have been replaced by plenty of people.

But this guy valued each individual. So he went, came down from his, not over a tower, but high letter, went and had to talk with Paul and he said, Paul. You are doing the break assembly, [00:25:00] da, da, da. Things get a little bit monotone and he goes, yeah, I've been thinking where I'm going, what I'm doing. He said, let me put this in perspective for you.

Who drives our vehicles? This is in the eighties, and people that were driving Mercedes were business people. Successful professionals, accountants, lawyers, could be drug dealers, whatever you're successful in, and required a lot of money to drive one of these cars. So he said, most people that change the world or matter in the world drive our cars.

Your job is not to do a brake assembly. Yours is to save the world's future, to make sure that these people are safe. In our cars and when they've got their families in their cars and their offsprings and all the, the next generation that we will keep our country and our world turning. It's your responsibility to make sure Wow.

They get that job done. And you know what? I get [00:26:00] even goosebumps just thinking about it. I thought the guy was brilliant.

Kingsley: Yeah.

Andrew: And it's just a mindset. And Paul hung around.

Kingsley: That's amazing. It

Andrew: was, this is where these supervisors, he was in charge of this whole manufacturing section and so on.

That's where they earned their money.

Kingsley: Yeah, yeah. And it's funny. So tell me when you started getting some success then the money's coming in, the company's growing, it's getting a bit of a brand recognition. People obviously starting to come to you and ask about it as well as you going out to sell to them that way.

How did you keep going, keep the drive there and keep from going, you know what, I'm pretty good now. I've made it. I'm gonna buy a few of those Mercedes myself, and I'm going to, you know, Joe, have my holidays that I want to do. Obviously you're [00:27:00] doing stuff like that, but without getting ahead of yourself, how do you keep yourself in that position?

Andrew: It's difficult. It's actually not that easy because we all got the little bit, the tendency. Everybody has an ego. No matter how small or how big the ego is, everybody's got one. You know, nobody can convince me otherwise. Some people have it in check, some people don't. So when we had our first successes, you needed to sort of tick the boxes on some consumables.

Everybody goes and starts splashing out and. I had some good advice on the way where someone said, look, as you're getting along, if you are ticking off some goals in your business, you also need to tick off some personal stuff to reward yourself. So, you know, it's almost like it's when a staff member does a great job and they ultimately get a pay rise or you send them away for a weekend away or stuff like that.

Now, if you are the [00:28:00] business owner. People forget or neglect themselves. They might be really good with staff in rewarding them, patting them on the back and whatever. But as a business owner, life can be lonely. So you have to make sure that you pat yourself on the back, that you reward yourself by the little to maybe the motorbike that you always wanted, or a jet ski, or.

Or whatever it is, or a train set, what, whatever floats your boat, you have to do those kind of things. And then every so often you need a bit of a reality check because here I was sitting with a, a guy that worked for the company and we had this, there was always mutual respect, but we are actually working together.

Nobody was working for me or for my partners. It was, we were working together. We were chasing this goal, the [00:29:00] dreams. We were on this train together, and then one day Cliff was his name, he said to me, mate, if I didn't know you any better, I would think you're turning into a bit of an asshole. I went, what?

What are you talking about? And he goes, yeah, I know you're German and your accent sounds funny, da da, da. But you know. And we were, we were at the beach and then he sort of picked up the, a bit of sand and he goes, look, one of them is you. If I put you back on the ground, the world will not notice that you've gone.

So he said, you need to keep remembering where you come from and not get too, and I never thought I was a snobby guy or whatever, you know, but not get too ahead of yourself. Not think that you're better than anybody else and keep up what got you to this. [00:30:00] Wow. 'cause that, and you know, the guy was no Einstein, but what a profound moment.

Yeah. In my, you know, in my life. And it was just, maybe I was just breaking out a little bit because now we had some success. You know, you walk around, you get some swagger on and you start looking maybe down on people. Unbeknownst to me, I'm not wired that way, but. Maybe that's how it came across when success goes a little bit to your head and on that little one conversation grounded me.

Kingsley: It's really interesting because you got both ends happening there where I. You've actually gotta go, you know what? I can do this. I'm actually making it. I'm gonna give myself a reward because I am actually starting to see some success in what I want to do. But at the other side, going, cool it buddy.

You're not as good as you think you are.

Andrew: But that was one is the, to satisfy your material needs. Yeah. And. You know, [00:31:00] some people, unless you're completely off the grid and you love living that way, most people wanna fit in somewhere. You know, they wanna have a house. Could they have a smaller house? Sure, they could.

Could they have a house that looks worse? Yes. But they want it nice. They want to expand it. They put an extension on, they park a nice car in the garage. Have a ho pursue a hobby. You gotta have some balancing thing and. Know what you do it for. You know, some people do it for status, how they're seen in the community, you know, like keeping up with the Joneses kind of thing.

That is like a very unfulfilling rat race because you're chasing always someone with the wrong, for the wrong reasons. You know, because at the end of the day, what everybody wants to be is happy. And if you're, if you never achieve what Jonesie is doing, then you're never gonna be happy no matter how [00:32:00] much you got.

But if you say, you know, if I have a really good friend, someone that gets up at night, if I'm in trouble, you're already pretty successful because there's a lot of people that don't have that. Hmm. You know, if you then have a car that you can get from A to B and you don't need to walk, that's pretty successful.

But in our society now, people go, well, unless you've got two cars or, and, or it has got European badge on it, or it's like really high tech so that you can brag about it to, you know, the rest of the game. You're doing it all for the wrong reasons. I think if you do your thing right. And I'm just thinking about myself now.

All the stuff that I think I need, it's not, I don't really need it. I want it, you know? Mm. And I need, I wanted a lot more when I was younger. When you're in your twenties, you just want to have a better car. The faster thing faster, [00:33:00] that bigger, that shinier, whatever, then you get to your thirties becomes a little bit less important.

Got to my forties. I and I did a, a deal with a charity. It was the first charitable transaction that we had going where we, you know, supported something, a charity, and I was a bit surprised what I got out of it because, you know, you're by yourself a jet ski. Yeah, you're buzzing around the broadwater, you know, having a great time.

But it never really gives you the warm and fuzzies. And whilst retail therapy sometimes plugs a little gap, but it only plugs it for a short time. After this first experience with a charity, I had the, the warm and fuzzies, you know, not that it was helping the charity as a charity with the bar card business tool, but actually doing something for their course.

And I thought, gee, how things have changed [00:34:00] from my twenties when I was chasing the next fastest. Jet ski, for example, now is looking for another opportunity to help out another charity. And for like a long period of time, I've became addicted to helping charities because maybe more for what it was doing for me.

Kingsley: I think you've just totally turned on its head what happiness means to a lot of people.

Andrew: It changes

Kingsley: and, and that's from you obviously is going decade to decade. Because obviously you've done so much and you, it sounds like you realize that you got here and you're like, that's actually, it's nice and I enjoy it, but it's not what really makes me happy.

Mm. It was when you actually went out and were able to serve other people that that's where the true happiness came for you.

Andrew: Yeah, and probably, you know, someone used that term the other day with me and it, and he said, what's your North Star on this? And I. One of the north stars in your [00:35:00] life would have to be your own happiness, because if you're not happy with what you're doing, you've gotta stop because you're gonna kill yourself.

And what, you know, your podcast is all about, the overall wellbeing of a business owner. And if you were getting up for the grind, not for a purpose. That would have to destroy you as a person. Mm-hmm. You know, and I can see from what I've seen out in the, with clients, I can see how people are under so much pressure that they go and their business becomes a grind and they have to get up to pay the bills and get into this rat race, and then you become so close minded.

So focused on just making the next dollar to pay the mortgage or whatever, that you miss out, all the things that could set you free.

Kingsley: I [00:36:00] a hundred percent agree with that, and I think one of the things that seems to happen is we get to a point where we so busy doing our thing that we've got happening and building our business and doing, growing it and making it happen, and earning more money and doing all this that we forget.

Wh why am I doing this? What do I love about this? Do I still love it? Like you said earlier, do you, have you fallen out of love with your business? Whatever it is, what are you gotta do to be in love with it again and find true happiness?

Andrew: Yeah. It's soul destroying. Mm-hmm. When you see, and they'd so many people go down that road.

We are so driven and I, I'm gonna hear people saying that, watch this podcast. They go say, oh, it's easy for him to say, you know, he runs this company. But no, you know, it's like you have to go back to where I came from. If I can do it, anybody can.

Kingsley: That's why I wanted to go back to the beginning [00:37:00] so people knew you didn't just go all of a sudden, bang, look at me.

I've got this great big business.

Andrew: Well, and I didn't come here. You know, my foundation was. Highly motivated, under financed. In fact, I was kind of broke when we started the company. My business partners weren't doing that much better. I mean, so we had a little bit, but we're not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars.

We were what we didn't have in capital, we made up with enthusiasm. Commitment and hard work, you know? And when Barta companies started springing up sort of around the country for a while, we just outworked everybody and we were pursuing our goals a lot more, and we celebrated the wins. We never lost that side of our North Star, you know, but, so, yeah, no English.

Just immigrated. Didn't have any local contacts, couldn't borrow heaps of money. I couldn't go [00:38:00] like, Brett Jefferies did with Virgin Airline. Go ask Richard Branson for 20 million or whatever the number was to start Virgin Australia. No way. You know, we started dust knuckle on the ground and we did everything.

We emptied the bins in the office. We did the lot so. We identify exactly with every small business owner, our mental boundaries, were just further out. Mm-hmm. You know, I mean, you can, I, I take reference we've got two electricians in our network. Well, we've got a lot more, but we've got two that I like to compare here.

One guy has got his North Star very well set on providing for his family happiness, da, da, da, and he is. In his own words, sacrificing a few years to do that. And I said, how are you sacrificing those years? He said, by working my ass off. I said, okay. And the other guy is cruising along doing his electrical job.

He is a great [00:39:00] electrician. Turns up, does a good job. That's it. But he's still the same electrician that I've known three years ago. The other guy, when I met him, he had his van and an apprentice. And he now has got 20 staff. Wow. And he's working on the business. He's not losing the North Star. So he's pursuing happiness via a couple of steps.

Mm-hmm. And that step is sacrifice wasn't capital. You know, like him and the other guy, they've got exactly the same foundation. They have a van, they had a spot, they had an apprentice phone book, mobile phone, you know, whatever. They had the same, in the same marketplace. But why is this person doing that?

Because from what I've seen, and I'm, I don't wanna be judgmental to the, to the guy that is, you know, the, the single operator, but he's gonna do this. And I've had people in their sixties, [00:40:00] in seventies tell me. That they have to keep going. Mm-hmm. Because they're self-employed, never put anything away from super.

They still have a mortgage markets competition. Everything has impacted their earnings. They can't charge anymore what they used to charge. Now they have to extend their working years just to survive. And the other one is. Building the future. So he's now at a point where he is actually working more on the business than in the business, and he is not losing sight of his North star, you know, and how he can safeguard his family newborn child just a few months ago.

Like, this guy has a plan.

Kingsley: It's interesting and it, it follows on with what you've been saying all the way through. Your whole mindset, what's gonna make you happy? Where do you want to be? And just get up and work that with determination. Yeah. As, as we come to [00:41:00] the close here, which unfortunately we have to thank you so much for coming on this, this has been like, this went fast.

It it does, it goes really fast. 'cause that's what happens when you have fun. This has been phenomenal and the. The lessons you've given people, I think no matter whether they're just starting or whether they've got the business to a certain, pretty good level right now, I think there's a bunch of lessons we can, anybody can take away from what you've said.

So I really appreciate that. I always end the, the podcast with two questions, and one of them I, I'm actually gonna ask in two different ways, , because one of the questions is. What to you is the ultimate tomorrow, but I'm gonna couch that in. Tell me for you what the future looks like, because I think those two are gonna go together with you

Andrew: tomorrow.

Looks like having another successful happy day. We spend, we spend a lot of time at work, so you might as well be happy. [00:42:00] That's my motto in the office for the whole staff as well. And I get a buzz on not only when members have success, but when staff have success. If we can maybe just reach back a little bit.

We had a building in Southport and we had parking under the building 80 car parks or so, and right in the beginning when we just acquired the building, the people were driving older deaths and Mazda. Commodore falcons and so on. Nothing wrong, just older models. Mm-hmm. We had just attracted people that were enthusiastic who could follow a dream.

Several years later, apart my car and I walk sort of away from my car and I look along all the, the bonnets of these cars and there's probably. 90% of them have now turned into [00:43:00] European badges, BMWs, Jaguar, Porsche, and so on. And that was one of my proudest moments that seeing how our staff were following their dreams, plugging their, you know, material needs their status, because that made them happy at the time.

Mm-hmm. Happiness changes over time.

Kingsley: So what's the future look like for you now?

Andrew: Well, because I love what I'm doing. That's what I keep doing. Now from a technical point of view, I'm so re-energized about what we are doing is because. The business changed hands. The ultimate owners ended up hiring me as the CEO for the company.

So I'm full circle back in charge.

Kingsley: I think that's hilarious.

Andrew: Yeah, it is. Totally. But we get to do it. Well, I get to do it [00:44:00] again. I had such a buzz of, the first, call it 15, 20 years when I was running the company at varying different levels. Then as, as our own franchisee, then I was subject to the rules that we made for franchises.

So it was quite funny. And now back at the helm of the company, maybe there's a different lesson also that can keep you energized, is maybe you can furnish a different role in your business. If you build it big enough, maybe you can actually be in a different role in your own business. Not work in the business, work on the business, be the marketing person or whatever.

Unless you be the doer all the time. Yeah. So my future looks like just bringing it back. Have we've already installed the old value system that we've always gone by face-to-face, add value to a business, be more than a service provider. You know, I can hand on heart say that [00:45:00] I'm friendly with all the people that I know.

Personally, you know, and some of the Bar camp members have become really good friends and one of them has even become my wife.

Kingsley: Oh.

Andrew: Of 30 years.

Kingsley: There's an option for people if you're looking. Yeah. Well, there we go. You

Andrew: know?

Kingsley: So it's not just good business. No. So the second part of that question then, and there's for, for everyone obviously, but how do you create the ultimate tomorrow?

Andrew: Just do what you know what you want and what makes you happy. That is the ultimate tomorrow. It's pretty simple. There's no technical things. Take spin on number 13. Apply to this screw, turn left. That doesn't work. You gotta know what your North Star is and aim towards it. Do what makes you happy. Even if you have to sort of make some little sacrifices, your future needs to be that.

Kingsley: I think you summarized the whole podcast really well. Just in that, Andrew, thank you so much [00:46:00] for coming in. Congratulations on Barde car, what you've done, starting it, putting it all the way through. It's been phenomenal. I know talking to you outside of here that the wisdom that you have and just the stories that you tell about how things can go, I'm always inspired talking to you because I know there is more.

There is more, there is more, and uh, it's up to me obviously to make that happen. But I appreciate you coming on today and sharing your wisdom and experience with us

Andrew: anytime. You know, that's how I'm wired. Someone ask a question, they're gonna get an answer.

Kingsley: Absolutely they will. Thank you. Thank you, thank you.

Have a fantastic day. Remember to create the life that you want.