Inspiring Business Podcast
The Inspiring Business Podcast hopes to inspire business owners with focussing on their genius and create a business that is scalable and ultimately does not depend on the them.Get your ready, as if you were selling it, but don't sell so you can retire into your business.
Inspiring Business Podcast
Basic to Basics is a Mistake Episode 63 Damian Andrews
As you can tell Damian has a very positive attitude towards business and life
There are a few lessons that I think we could take away from this conversation.
The first is that going back to basics is a mistake. What worked years ago may not work today. Although we didn’t discuss this a lot of what Damian spoke of was first principles.
You can be experienced and not confident, and not experienced and confident and it’s knowing the difference. There is obviously risks when acting with confidence and no experience, but if you don’t experiment you’ll never learn.
One area that Damian speak to a lot is profit. Clearly if a business is not making a profit, then it cannot survive. I’ve never met a successful business person who doesn’t understand their numbers.
Finally, Damian mentioned being an Employer of Choice, and this is something he and I believe is a necessary position to be in over the coming years to have a competative position in the market.
The final area, and it might be the most important one, is generosity. Damien has a very giving nature my interaction with him have always been positive he's always being generous with his time and thoughts and advice and he's helped a number of people who I've introduced him to in the philanthropic area so I have first hand knowledge of his generosity.
CEO, Damian Andrews
Email dandrews@damianandrews.com
Stephen Sandor CEO Inspiring Business
Inspiring Business website - www.inspiringbusiness.net
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Back to basics is a kiss of death. Because if we're gonna take this from a logical point of view, and let's go back in time, you know, let's go back to the 1950s, you know, were things, things done in the 1960s as they were in the 1950s. Were they done in the seventies as they, as they were in the sixties? And, and this is, I know they're, they're pretty, um, Obvious questions. You know, you know, when we look at it, for example, let's take technology. Um, the half-life of modern technology is six to 12 months. You know, would you buy a computer today based on computer reviews 12 months ago? You know, would you do a tax plan based on tax advice 12 months ago? You wouldn't do it. And this is where we can get caught in this experience trap where we've got experience, but we've, our experience is dated and we need to be, you know, in this, this phase of being able to understand what's going on now and not only now it's like playing chess. A person that's good at chess won't be thinking about the next move. They'll be thinking 10 moves ahead.
Steve Sandor:My Guest today is Damien Andrews. Uh, Damien draws upon the skills learned in the Australian Special Air Services, and he's got some funny stories that he can relate to us. I'm not sure that he actually can relay those stories. It's probably bound by secrecy and he applies those to advising national and international businesses As a corporate recovery specialist, an expert in revenue and rocket potential, Damien says that fundamentals in leadership, negotiation and innovation principles are often overlooked and has developed Breathing Fire, the most definitive program for unleashing your revenue and profit potential. He's based in Melbourne, Australia, and Damien is also a philanthropist and created the Family Peace Foundation share.care. That's s h a i r.care. an all inclusive global community sharing experience, strength, and hope to create strong, healthy, and inspiring relationships. Damian says, He exists to improve efficiency in operations, increase value, and disrupt current norms to make the world a better place. He's also writing a book, which we'll get into. It's titled Be The Black Hole, and most importantly, he's father to Benjamin. Damien, welcome. That was probably one of the longest intros that I've done, but welcome to the Inspiring Business Podcast.
Damian Andrews:I was wondering about that. It was a pleasure to be here and, yes, thank you for such, wonderful statements.
Steve Sandor:you're welcome. Pleasure. we've done a couple of podcasts, so you interviewed me for, for your podcast. We are now doing, a fortnightly series together, so we've got to know each other a, a little bit, um, still along that journey. but the listener. could you just explain a little bit about your background, the, your experiences in, in the military and how you've used those and, and who is it that you're servicing now?
Damian Andrews:Yeah. Thank a pleasure to do that. And part of that background was I was at school like most people, and I didn't like being at school, which I think relates to most people or most people relate to. And I wasn't, my dad said I wasn't allowed to leave school unless I had, uh, a job. About a couple of weeks after he said that the army of recruitment people came around and I thought, beauty, great. Get outta school. This is fantastic. So I signed up, joined the Army, and in my first three months at basic training, there's a lot of running around the bush in Australia, doesn't have a forest, it just has one bush. And you know, so I was running around there, which was a bit of fun, but I thought ahead to that. So I, I don't think I was that mature, but I was mature enough to realize that that wasn't what I wanted to be doing for the next however long in my life running around the, the bush. So I, um, what I did was I, um, I thought about it and there was a number of good jobs that people could have. I, I was mature enough to recognize I wasn't gonna get one of the good jobs and signals or some of those areas there. And anyone that didn't get one of those jobs ended up going to infantry. And that means more running around the bush. But there was one job that people weren't applying for, and I had a bit of a think about that particular job. And being 18, my motivation was slightly different. The job was a chef's position and my first motivation was women, like guys that can cook. And so I thought this sounds like a good opportunity. And there was something else. There was a, a second option. And the third one was, maybe if I get out of the Army, I could use it as a career. So being a career was well down, down the list of, of my priorities. Anyway, I, I joined the, um, I, I took that role up. While I was being trained at a cook at the, we have, they did a lot of agar cooking, a-la-cart sorry, not alagar. And while I was there, when we were getting near the end of the program, they, they said to one of the guys on the courses, did he want to go to Perth? And he said, no, he'd just come from Perth. And I being overheard that, I said, I'll go to Perth cuz that was a long way from home on Vic to Victoria. And I just wanted to get out and, you know, go and do things. And they said, okay, if you pass the psychological test, you, you can go. And I went, no problem. Not even thinking about what it was. So I went and did the psychological test, passed that I drive across the Nullabor I decided that was, um, something fun to do. and, and I arrive at the SAS. So unknowingly I've got posted to the SAS as a cook and done everything that they need to do. So I'm effectively Steven Segal in under Siege and I got to jump out of airplanes and, um, run around with, run around the bush a lot. We, we, but use things like, um, rocket launches and stuff like that we did, cuz that was also, they had that counter-terrorism unit there. Um, did, did so many different things, which was, was really exciting when went, um, diving from submarines, all kinds of great stuff like that. But the biggest lesson I probably got in the Army wasn't so much from the Army training. There was a guy that was on the base with us now. He was a, a good looking guy, but he wasn't very bright. He was the proverbial dumbest but he always dated these really, um, gorgeous. Intelligent women like these, these were, you know, doctors and lawyers. They were so smart and they were really, really beautiful. And I was like, how do you, um, I'm thinking, how do you do this? And my friends and I were go, how, how's he? One day I decided to ask him. So I walked up to him and I said, Shane, you're not that bright. I literally said that to him. I said, you're not that bright How is it that you, um, how is it that you dating all these women? And he turned into this wise Obi one type character. He put his arm around my shoulder and he said, Damien, what you don't see is I ask a lot of them. Most say no. You just see the ones that say yes. And it was like, that's one of the most powerful life lessons I've ever got. That it's like, it's it's not about you. It's about asking the question about giving it a go. Even if you fall flat on your face, get up, give it another go, give it another go. And, and, and for me, that was one of the, the key lessons. I actually, I mean, there was a lot of lessons I took away from it, but that was a key life lesson that I took away from that period of my time was just one, ask the question and two, if it doesn't work, go to someone else. Gonna ask the question again until you get what you want. And I think, you know, for those of us that have, um, and for you or viewers, the, the listeners, um, whichever it is, uh, will have read in any motivational book is, is um, you know, persistence. And that was, that was a practical application of persistence that for me, really instilled itself in my life.
Steve Sandor:Is, isn't that fascinating? That, um, that at that point in time you got, um, a, a number of. Wisdom from someone who you didn't expect
Damian Andrews:to get at all. He was, he wasn't bright, that's for sure. Although he ended up getting promoted a lot. But I think that's, you know, because he attracted a lot of attention. Yeah. Which is another thing to do with marketing. It doesn't matter. There's no such thing as bad. Uh,
Steve Sandor:But it was, um, it, it, it, the motivation behind it wasn't your career, right, It was how could you get laid
Damian Andrews:It, it was pretty much that, was it? No, that's that. So, okay. But then again, they, they isn't they the, the thing they say innovation, all innovation. It is, um, you know, trying to impress the opposite sex
Steve Sandor:Yeah, yeah, exactly. Um, so, okay, so you, you got that you've had a career in the Army, um, at I, I'm assuming at some point in time you, you went, I've had enough of this. Um, I'm gonna, yeah.
Damian Andrews:I, I decided, I did my time. I decided that yeah, I'd had enough. I was in Perth at the time. I got outta the Army. I was fluffing around. Um, but while I was there too, while I was in the Army, because of the work that we did, we had a lot of time off. So it worked seven day fortnights, and I, and I used that time. Um, you know, I, I wanted to understand marketing, so I actually approached the marketing firms. in Perth. And I said, you know, can I come and work for you and, and do, do marketing? And, and you know, some of them said no, but one said yes. And so on my days off, I would go into a marketing firm and I, and I wrote, um, a copy for, for printer ads. I wrote copy for, for, um, uh, radio and, and TV ads. I directed an ad, um, you know, and I got all this experience. So I did a lot of things like that but then after I got outta the army, I was fluffing around a little bit, um, not really sure what I wanted to do, um, uh, was single, so had no reason to stay there and then, um, a girl that I knew said, you know, why don't you, um, there's good money in the mine sites. Why don't you go work up there? And I went, oh, that's a good idea. And, you know, no, no real plan. And this is again, the persistence thing that kicked in with from that was, I, I found the, it was four or five, I think it was five biggest contractors that did work up in the mines and I sent, I wrote a letter of application. This was back before I had a computer. so I wrote a letter out and by hand, uh, to each of the and sent that off. And then the next day I wrote another letter and sent that off and I did that for two weeks every day. Sent a letter of application. Um, after two weeks, the, the, um, Leighton called, which was one of the contractors called me and said, you seem really keen, why don't you come in for an interview? And I went in for an interview, got a job, and I went and worked up in the mines in Western Australia. Then after doing that for a little bit, um, you know, earned a bit of money, had a bit of fun, um, came back, I got a bit of homesick, um, wanted to come back to Victoria. So I came back to Victoria and again, I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do. Um, I fluffed around a little bit. I worked in real estate for a little bit. I worked as a ballroom dance teacher, which was, you know, that was a lot of fun. Um, being again young and liking to be close to women, it was, um, that was certainly a lot of fun of everything. Appropriate of course. And, um, but then I thought about it and I thought maybe my dad was right as far as this education thing goes, um, that, you know, education is important. So I went and I went in enrolled at Melbourne Uni as a mature aged student and studied at commerce and, um, commerce and accounting, which I wouldn't recommend accounting for, high excitement. But, um, there are, there are three things that you really need to, if you want to succeed, not just in business but in life. There are three things you need to understand. One is accounting. You need to understand the numbers, whether it's in a business or in your personal life. You need to understand, are you making, um, are you making money? The other skill you need is you need some legal skill and that's where I did, I studied a bit of law, um, in. At university. But, and the reason that's important is a contract is really just an in set of instructions as to how to play that particular game, whatever that game might be. And if you were, I mean, you, you are up, you know, bit north, you have the, the, um, the rugby up, up your way, the, the rugby, um, And, but if you were to go out and, and onto the field and, and try and play that game without understanding the rules, you'd be pretty stuffed, basically. You wouldn't be able to play effectively and similar sort of thing in, in life um, and in business contracts set out how we deal with this. And, you know, in, in life it's the same thing. I mean, getting married, that's a contract a lot of people don't understand. I idea, I help a lot of dads at the moment. Well not just dads, but, but mums as well. But, um, people that have gone through, uh, a separation and, um, And now dealing with a, a messy court process. Um, what they didn't understand is entering into that relationship that was part of that contract, that this is one of the options that you could go down. And this is where it's important to really understand what is the contract you're getting yourself into. And the other, the third skill, which is the most important skill, is people skills. If you don't have nothing happens unless people make it happen. We haven't got to the stage where the com where the robots have taken over. It's not T2 yet. And, you know, terminators running around everywhere. Um, nothing happens unless people do it and, and your ability to manage people. And I, and I'll, you know, from my perspective, um, I wasn't the best at managing people when I was younger. I knew how to do it better and, and I was pretty good. So I had something to back that up. But, um, you know, the, the thing was I was. Was pretty good at offending people too, in, in, you know, coming in and saying, I can do all this and I'll sort it out and, you know, yeah, I did a great job, but I pissed everyone else along the, off on, along the way. So there's something to be said for, you know, well people skills are the number one skill that you, you need to have. Um, Henry Ford, um, looking at that example he had, um, if I got my person rigth one of those people really famous, was sued for, um, well, he, he was claimed to said that was, he was incompetent, um, or, and he sued the newspaper. And then when he was in court, you know, they, they're asking all these questions, kind of like your jeopardy type thing or sale of the century for those who are old enough to remember that. Um, and he, he then stopped and said, I've actually got on my desk a row of buttons and I can push any one of those buttons and get someone that can answer any question that I need to ask. Um, And that's a, was a really important lesson from me as well. It's not about you having all the knowledge, it's about your ability to get the knowledge that you need to do. Always surround yourself with people much smarter than you. Um, so that was another life lesson that I learned, so I can't remember where that was. It wasn't about, you know, some dumb ass with, you know, dating sexy women. It was somewhere along the line. I picked that, that up as well. Mm-hmm. Um, and then I, yeah, from there, I, I wanted to work in corporate recovery. Um, that was a lesson in Fortuitousness. Uh, I, there was a company I wanted to work for. Uh, they had a really schmick office, very flash and, you know, dressed. I've sent my application. I got an interview, um, went to the office. It was, it was very flash. Um, I, I did the interview thinking, yeah, I've smashed this. I've knocked this right outta the park. I walked outta there feeling 10 foot tall. Um, I've got this, I got a call a few days later and said, Just to let you know you didn't get it. I was like, oh, crap. Um, and I, and I was, I was a bit dejected for a bit after that. I, I was, cause I was so certain I was gonna get it. Um, and I allowed myself to be dejected over that. But finally I picked myself up and said, okay, let's move forward. And so I sent some more applications out and, and then I got, uh, I ended up getting a job with another firm, which turned out to be two partners, um, that were X farriers. They were very, very, they had really, really good reputations. They took me under their wing and they really trained me well. And this is where the other life lesson came in, was when I had actually entered the industry. Um, there's things that you learn about inside that you, you don't necessarily, it's difficult to get that information from the outside. And as it turned out, that first firm I applied for, um, were dodgy brothers. They were actually known in the air industry as. basically sharks. And had I got that job, I would've been labeled with that reputation without even thinking about it. So sometimes when things don't go your way, um, I've, now, anything that doesn't go my way, so to speak, I, I don't even get upset about it Now. It's just like, okay, there's a reason for that. What do I need to do to move forward? And that served me really well. Just remembering that experience as well.
Steve Sandor:Yeah, there's so many, um, um, pathways that we can take as a result of. So thanks very much for, take the
Damian Andrews:funniest one. I'm quite capable laughing at myself. Yeah, everyone is. Um,
Steve Sandor:so a couple of, couple of things. Um, the first one is, I went through not the same sort of experience, but certainly had that hubris moment where, you know, I went into a role thinking that I knew everything, um, and, and managed to piss people off, and then realized that, okay, um, you know, you need to be a better person. Um, there's different ways of doing it. So there's all those, I guess, technical things about understanding human relations, ships, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah. What, what I do know about you though is that you have a very positive outlook on life. You know, whe whether that's, um, and, and you just mentioned that then, you know, I, I, I have that same philosophy of it. It's shit right now, right? What, what, what I've just experienced is not nice. However, it happened for a reason. what behavior can I have now or what can I look forward to, or what opportunity can I now find? And, and the lesson from that, you know, my, my saying is, you know, mistakes are only decisions that were made with not enough information, more information, different decision not better, but different, right. You go down a particular path. So, I'd really like to, um, drill down a little bit more into that, you know, positive behavior because you've got, you know, got resources on your website, the talk about goal setting and objectives. And I think for the, for the listener, particularly in this timeframe or this time that we are of, we've just come through, you know, a couple of years of uncertainty with Covid. There were people who took. The opportunity of covid and doubled down on certain things like marketing and, you know, I got involved in social media where they, where it wasn't before, and they actually benefited from it. And there's obviously people who are now coming, bouncing back from that in, you know, the likes of, uh, tourism and hospitality, they're banking it now because Mm. Spending the money that, they're getting outta the box now. Um, so really your, your thoughts when you are, when you're actually being slammed up against that brick wall hmm. What's your mindset and what are the things that you. Do to help you overcome those situations. And this has not been Pollyanna, right? I know that you're not a Pollyanna, so maybe you could just give the listener and viewer a, um, in a couple of tips on, on your process and, and, and that they might be able to benefit from.
Damian Andrews:Yeah, certainly from my, that's a really, really good question and good, good thing to talk about because I mean, that's a number of things and partly what, what the book is about that I'm right. Well, it's a real fun, fundamental under, um, foundation of the book. If I can speak. Probably, I haven't warmed up my speaking brain this morning.
Steve Sandor:but what I wanted to, I did say we were looking for bloopers, so we just got one. You
Damian Andrews:got you. Can you. As many other bloopers as you want. Um, and that's something that, and we've talked about this on, on, um, about shair.care uh, rewrote the, the Knights Code back from, you know, the Middle Ages, cuz there's a lot in there that the Knights Code was about having a higher set of principles that you adhere to. And I've noticed that a lot with, um, um, been fortunate to deal with some very, very wealthy business people, um, and families. And I noticed that they will hold to their principles, even if it does cost them in the short term because it's better long term. Um, and part of that is we, we talked about, you know, the bloopers and one of the, the codes is that is to laugh for yourself. It's not take yourself so seriously. You know, I mean a lot of, so much people, you know, people getting offended. And that brings me back to what your, your question of, um, I was a big study of and still am, a big study of Wayne Dyer. His book, the Audio version of How to Be a No Limit Person is, is my all time favorite and I've lost track of how many times I've listened to that. Um, but he talks about, and the reason it's my favorite is because he talks about that your emotions are yours. Someone can't make you upset. You can be upset, but someone can't make you upset and so it's your candle flame inside. You've got an a candle flame. It's your, it's up to you to make it not flicker no matter what storms come your way. And that's where I was. You talk about, um, you know, the things being different. And from my perspective, taking that a step further, cuz if you have a positive, you must have a negative, you know, there's ying and yang. If there's one, there must be another. So if your mindset is okay, I'm gonna focus on the positive, you must then work against eliminating the negative. And, and there's ways of doing that. I mean, I'm old enough to remember the 87 market crash and the follow on recession and then the re well there was the recession, um, that we had to have according to a certain prime minister. And then the recession we were gonna have anyway. So but I'm, I'm old enough to to remember and gone through, I've lived through a number of recessions. I haven't experienced them because, partly because I largely don't watch the news. Um, I didn't watch it I think when I was younger, cuz I was just, Didn't want to, and maybe I was ignorant. I don't know. Today I don't watch the news because with what we have, I can search the key information I need to get what I want and I filter out everything else. I don't need to, to watch a new show now and be bombarded with a whole bunch of crap. And usually it's not very motivational or certainly not good for your psyche, um, to get the information that I want. So I, I don't watch the news. I find the news that I need to get me to where I want, but that takes that to that, that next step. And it, and that's part that, well, that's a large part of what the book is about is, and it's drawing from Shakespeare. But there's also has its foundations in, in older literature, it's even referenced in the Bible. But in, I'm using Shakespeare as an example in Hamlet, um, Shakespeare writes, nothing is good or bad. Thinking makes it so, so I don't look at events now as, oh, this is a, uh, I've gotta find the positive in this event. I don't look at it at all. Like that way. It's an event. How do I use that? Um, an example with my son, um, he's about to get his black belt in karate, and I was talking with his karate senses, uh, become a friend. We've known each other for a long while, ever since Benjamin's been doing karate, which is a few years. And we were talking about this process and I said, well, is it hard or is that relative? He's hard, relative to your experience. And you touched on that before. Cause I said to, I said to Pete, I said, you're a seventh Dan Black belt, so you're pretty experienced. If I asked you to do grading at a yellow belt level, how hard would that be for you? And he said, not hard at all. I said, okay. So it's not. The, the experience that's hard. It's your relative experience to that task should say. It's not, the task is hard. It's your relative experience to that task. I have a friend, um, he's a venture capitalist and we talk about business um, and, um, he, he, he has a process where he can just look at something and go, that's gonna be successful. That's not, I mean, one of his successful business, he invested in a little startup software company that Oracle ended up buying for, um, 1.6 billion. Um, that's, that's billion, not million billion. Um, but, and, and he has just a long string of success of in that regard because he knows that's where he's experience is. He knows what to look at, he knows well that's, if he looks at something, he goes, well, that's not developed enough yet. It might have potential, but it's not ready yet. Um, to go away and come back when you're, when you're ready. That kind of thing. And that's where this philosophy of, you know, from my perspective, that's why I don't have, I don't have bad days, never have a bad day. Now I don't have a frustrating day. I have a day where something happens and it's like, I don't expect there, there's the path. There's one of those cartoons. I love it. And it shows there's a, a, you know, this is, you know, the, the planned view. We've got bi kind a bicycle here and it's riding this nice little straight path to here and this is, you know, what actually happens And it's all over the shop. And we go, well that's, that's the reality. It's always going to be all over the shop. So if you're expecting it to be smooth, and, and of course you're gonna get disappointed if you think you're not gonna have something that, you know, you are not gonna have things to learn. I'm gonna rephrase it that way cuz a lot of times the issues that we have is because we either didn't pay attention, we didn't have enough experience, um, or something related to those two. That's what's caused the issue. It's very rare. If you really understood what was going on and you had the appropriate level of skill and you did. did that. Um, and you applied that, that you'll get caught out of left field because you would've thought through that. Um, and you know, I deal that, deal with that a lot with my clients. It's not so much that it's difficult, what they've gotta go through the process is getting them to understand, Hey, you don't have the knowledge to understand this. And that's the process that I have to do is convince them that they don't know what they're doing. as much as, and I had that one example with one client, and this was massive. Um, as far as dollars go, and this was a big first year company. Um, they had a dispute with one of their contractors and it wasn't a small dispute, it was a 25 million dispute. And I set up a process where we could deal with this internally. It was gonna take about a year and a half to resolve, but it could be done internally. Uh, and, and I started, actually started that process. And then someone else has come in and said, no, no, no. We need to get the lawyers involved here. I said, yeah, no problem. You do what you need to do. And the lawyers come in and said, actually, what we need to do is, um, we need to have this mediation. We'll do a one day mediation. And, and I said to the client, I said Here, and I pointed it out, here it is in your contract. As soon as a mediation fails, the any party can go to court. What do you think's gonna happen after that? And they kind of looked at me and it was like, well, they could go to court. I said, what? And it just, I could see it didn't click. Um, and I tried to explain it and I said, but this means that you can go to court. The process that I've outlined will take, yes, it'll take a year, year and a half, but at that point, because we've extended this mediation, they can't go to court. No one can go to court cuz the mediation hasn't failed yet. And they go, yeah, yeah, yeah, we get that, but we think we should, you know, get the lawyer's advice and went, okay, cool, no problem. And they got the lawyer, uh, well, which we should follow the lawyer's advice. Um, not only did they do it once, they did it with a, a second time with the same company, same dispute, there was two projects. They're having exactly the same dispute. Um, so now they've spent nearly$25 on legal fees. I'm sorry. So that, that's 25. 25. 25 million, 25 million on in legal fees, 25 million. So the, the, the dispute was 25 million. Now all up they've spent nearly 25 million in legal fees. It's, it's massive. It's ridiculous. Um, And, you know, the, the, because once you go down that path that you can't pull back, someone's gonna pay costs. And then there's ego. Most disputes too in, in that space are all about ego. 90, 95% are about ego. Um, and so they can't go back. They can't undo that. Uh, and there is, they, you know, we, I'm pretty confident we could have settled somewhere between the eight to 12 million mark. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. But, and that's where this listening, um, you know, and being aware that, you know, events are events, um, these frustration that you might be having is more related to your, either your skill, um, or your understanding of the circumstance before you got involved in.
Steve Sandor:So let, let's just drill down that a little bit there, because I, I'm gonna use the Dojo example, right? Yeah. So let's assume the business dojo. Yeah. Um, you know, people are listening to this, they're going, that's great. they may be like, you are in, in this space, you know? Mm-hmm. Let's classify you as a black belt because you've been doing it for such a long time. you have the, as you said, you've had the experience, the knowledge, the mm-hmm you, you are the expert in this space. You, someone comes to you, it doesn't take you a long time to be able to look at a situation and be able to assess it, right? Mm-hmm. and, and then trying to give some guidance along the way. And, we all are experts in certain areas because of the experiences that we've had, right? Yeah. Some of them are, some of them we can use in apply in life, and some of them we can apply in business and some mm-hmm. they're a combination of both. So someone who, you know, is listening to this and you know, they're going, the reason they're listening to this is they, you know, they, they enjoy the conversations, but they also are learning, um, about business along the way. they've just walked into the dojo and they've just gone, you know, teach me karate. Right? Teach me business. Or they might, you know, be a, a a, a yellow belt or a brown belt, or probably not a brown belt, but you know, a yellow belt. I know that reasonably experience. So now you're, now you're taking'em onto the mat and now you're training them, um, you know, to do certain things. So what are the, what are the, from your perspective, um, you know, um, question without notice, what are, so when you start, what are the one, two, or three things that you would have that business owner implement, um, uh, in their business to enable them to at least to become, becoming proficient at, you know, the next level, the green belt or whatever the, whatever the thing is. So is there anything there that someone could take away from, you know, this conversation and go, right, okay, here's two or three things that I could, that I could apply in my business and give it a crack and see what it, see what happens.
Damian Andrews:Yeah, definitely. Um, great question. The, and using the Dojo example, um, one of the key things to do and, and, and cuz a lot of people have a lot of, as you mentioned, they have a lot of experience, um, and experience is a past event and this is where we get caught. Um, because what, what what happens is, you know, we go through this cycle, uh, for, for those of, um, have, I'm sure everyone has had some level of success at something. And so you, you, but when you, if you think back to when you were first learning it, I mean this is the star, I mean it's the same process in nature. There's birth, life, and death. So when you start something new, you know, it's, you know, it might be, let's use the example of starting a, a new job, for example. Um, you, you start there and you go, well, who do I report to? Who reports to me? What do I, and there's this whole period of uncertainty cuz you don't know what's going on. It's, it's the birth phase and it's all, um, it's like when you start a new relationship, you know, it's all exci. You don't know, you know, what the person likes, what they don't like, and, you know, you, you're learning and it's all, it's all new and it's all exciting. Um, so that's the birth phase. And then you go into the life phase and you go, okay, um, you know, this is really comfortable. We, we, we've got into a nice rhythm here in a relationship. You've, you've got into a nice rhythm. Everything's going well in, in, you know, in a business you might, you know, um, you know, you've got a, a product that's doing really well. Um, you know, and, and, and everything's going nice and smoothly. Then we hit what we love when call the wall and things aren't going so well anymore. For example, if you've got a, a product that you, you was doing really well, uh, all of a sudden someone might step in and take market share you and it's not doing, and, and take the iPhone as a good example of that, when the iPhone was launched, it owned the market. It was, it was cuz it was the only thing that was there. And then as other people stepped in and, and were able to do that, iPhones now down to something like 17% of the market went, I think it had about 80% of the market when it was first launched. So how do we deal with that? Well, a lot of times we, we do what we call go back to basics. Back to basics is a kiss of death. Because if we're gonna take this from a logical point of view, and let's go back in time, you know, let's go back to the 1950s, you know, were things, things done in the 1960s as they were in the 1950s. Were they done in the seventies as they, as they were in the sixties? And, and this is, I know they're, they're pretty, um, Obvious questions. You know, you know, when we look at it, for example, let's take technology. Um, the half-life of modern technology is six to 12 months. You know, would you buy a computer today based on computer reviews 12 months ago? You know, would you do a tax plan based on tax advice 12 months ago? You wouldn't do it. And this is where we can get caught in this experience trap where we've got experience, but we've, our experience is dated and we need to be, you know, in this, this phase of being able to understand what's going on now. And not only now it's like playing chess. A person that's good at chess won't be thinking about the next move. They'll be thinking 10 moves ahead. And this is where I'll, I'll come back to the Dojo example. Um, I've, you know, in my, my life I've done a number of different martial arts, but I always wanted to do a kid, maybe it was because it was that, you know, Steven girl chef thing, you know, he did a kid and, you know, and I worked, you know, chef in the sas. Um, I recently, uh, started that cause it was a dojo locally. Um, it's always been there. I just didn't do. And, and I started doing that. But what I noticed was the sensei said, um, because I'm picking it up relatively quickly, but he goes, you really listen when I give an instruction, you listen. And this is where a lot of people don't listen. They've already got a preformed idea, um, that, you know, I have got this experience. So when someone says that, they're not really thinking about it from the perspective of, okay, what do I, what do I do now? Um, how do I use that? Is that relevant? How, how do I use that going forward? They're thinking, I know how to do this because I've done it before. Well, yeah, you might have done it in the 1950s, being facetious there, but you know, the world has moved forward. You know, you might have, you know, done tax this way. The tax laws changed. You know, it's so, so from a perspective, and I know that's probably not the, the first answer that people were looking for, but one of the key things I've found that really has enabled me to do what I do and do things really fast and really well is because I listen as the sense I said. He said, you know, you really listen. So I pick it up, I understand, okay, what's going on here? I'm paying attention and I'll draw from, um, Nelson Mandela, his dad was one of the chiefs in, or the, so the story goes, I wasn't there, but the, I, I read the story, and when they got together and had a meeting, he would allow, or he would not allow, he had everyone else speak first, even though he was the chief he didn't, he, you know, the topic was known. Everyone else would give their opinion first. Then he would take all that on board and then go, okay, now what do we need to do? Um, so that's one of the first things you need to do. But certainly from a business perspective, um, and this is a downloadable on my, it's free on my website, Damien andrews.com. It sets out how to, to set goals and, and most of the time nearly all, I've very, I could count on one hand the amount of businesses that had a clear plan, um, is, is having a clear plan. And so for a business, what you really need to do is look at one, how much money do you wanna make? And not just, when I say make, that's not, um, uh, revenue, that's profit. I had that experience, uh, with the, a large client where they were, um, their goal was to get to a billion dollar turnover, so it's not a small company. Um, and, and I said, you know, when we're going through this plan, I said, what about profit? And I said, oh, it'll take care of itself. Okay, well that was kind of the attitude. You Sure? And it's like, the one thing I, I learned from a, one of my mentors was the, the managing director and, and chairman of BP in New Zealand and, um, he always said, never tell a client they're wrong. You give them advice, but never tell them they're wrong. And that comes back to that listening thing. But, um, I've never been good at following that advice, unfortunately, sometimes to my detriment. But so I said to them, as you know, I said, what about, you know, profit? And I said, oh, you know, we'll work that out. It was kind of the attitude. Anyway, so we worked through, two years later, they achieved their billion dollar turnover. They lost money. They literally lost money because they took on all these projects. Uh, it was in the construction area. They took on all these projects and, and some of them weren't profitable from the start. They should never have done that. The counter to that is, um, some plumbers that I know, they had a, a large plumbing business and they, um, they were turning over 15 mil. They're working flat out really hard, um, uh, seven days a week. Didn't really get to see a lot of family. They had dealing with a lot of problems from clients, a lot of problems. And they said, we don't want do this anymore. And what they did is they said, well, let's isolate the, um, the key good clients and focus on them and, and we'll let the other ones go and my advice is, you know, if you have a difficult client, you refer them to your competition, you know, let them, um, but anyway, let let the competition deal with the problem Correct. And, but what they did was they dropped, um, they dropped a third of their income, so they dropped 5 million bucks of their income. The thing was they went from working seven days a week to working five days a week. So they had time for their family. The major thing that they noticed was they made more profit. So they made more profit at 10 million turnover than they did at 15 million and they had more time. So this is where that first step is to isolate what are your, for a business, what are your revenue goals? What not, sorry. What are your, your monetary goals? How much money do you want to make? And. How are you going to do that? You want to look at how do you get to that objective? Um, and the other, the, the other two parts within that downloadable, you'll find is, is for a company, um, or a business, you want to look at, okay, what are your operational goals? So part of that is finding efficiencies cuz that leads to the re the, um, the monetary goals and also to the culture goals. What kind of culture do you want? Because that's important from, you know, from a, a sustainability perspective. If you, you don't want to be attracting everybody. It's not, that's not the purpose. You want to be attracting people that are gonna fit with the right culture. So if you are wanting a, a young and youthful culture, you want to be attracting those people and they'll all fit together. Everyone get along and, and it'll run smoother. If you wanna have a more se, like for example, you might be a law firm and you want to, um, you know, so you wanna have a bit more serious culture. So you set, you set that clear objective out, and then that really guides where you are, you are going. And that's part of, you know, you and I have talked about this, uh, particularly in today's environment um, Steve is, is, um, being an employer of choice. And part of that is, you know, when you understand where you're going and, and what your company's or businesses values are, you can set up your employment process to to identify people that have similar values, similar character to what you, their character is similar that fits within the business. Cuz if they're at home, they feel good themselves being with you, they're gonna want to be with you. They're not gonna be looking elsewhere. And that's not difficult to set up most things in life. And, um, and this is can be frustrating for some people to hear, but life is not that hard. Um, you know, using the money example, you know, how do you make money? Well, you're off of value. And, and how do you have wealth? I mean, that was in a book written nearly a hundred years ago, the richest man in Babylon by Georges Carlson. You keep a surplus, you invest a surplus and you are in reinvest the income. That's not a difficult instruction. Um, and so life is is fairly simple. But you know, for someone, um, certainly one of the key steps would be to, to set out the from a business perspective, set out clearly what you want to achieve in those three areas, monetary, operations and culture, and how to do that. Um, that is, there's in more detail and downloadable to do with the reticular activating system and, and how you'll notice more if you set this out clearly.
Steve Sandor:Yeah, I, uh, uh, as I said, I've downloaded it as well. It's a, it's a great tool and we'll make sure that, um, that the, there's a link in the show notes to your website so people can take advantage of that. What, what I got from that, Damien was, I mean, I, I heard listening was, was really important. Humility, um, you know, sort of, I, I know I've, when I started inspiring business, one of the things that. I felt that I knew a lot about business. Um, what I realized that I, I didn't know very much about running a, a, a solo business.
Damian Andrews:And there was a, you do a lot of work yourself, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Steve Sandor:And there's a lot of time there where I go. Yeah. And I just wouldn't take the advice because I just felt as though, one, I felt that it was coming to me with not the right intention, and that was that gut, you know, trust your gut feeling. Yeah. But part of it was also, you know, this can't be right. And I resisted, I resisted in a couple of areas. Mm. And, um, and, you know, have, have been honest enough with myself to say, no, I was wrong in that area. And, you know, and I, I'm, I'm now going down a particular path that had I listened. You know, to the experts of the time, had I trusted the experts at the, at the time, I probably would've picked up, you know, six or 12 months worth of, um, additional benefits. So, listening, humility, um, you know, the behavior, you know, when you have a salesperson, you say, you know, here's, here's an item. Can you go and sell a million of these without any, without any context. Yes, I can you know, like I can sell, I can sell a million iPhones. Not a problem at all. They just happened to be a dollar each. Right? Yeah, yeah, exactly. I get, but what, what I, I, I guess what, uh, you know, putting the business plan, um, together, understanding your monetary, uh, goals, your operational and then your cultural thing, what that gives you is, um, is the control of the business and with control comes confidence and with confidence. Then coming back to the way that. If I can, sorry, I'm paraphrasing what you, what you've said is that because you do have that control and that confidence, you just have days, they're not good or bad, they're just days. And because you are, because of that, I guess reverse engineering of, of how you want your life to live it, you feel comfortable with it and you're gonna have that, you know it, we're going from here to here, and then there's mm. Straight what appears to be a straight line. But every day there's this emotional rollercoaster that we ride on. But because it's the context that you have that you are, um,
Damian Andrews:they're two different things. Um, what, what you're referring to there. I mean, one of them is, yeah, I, I've a lot of confidence in what I do, and confidence is not an experience thing people link confidence to experience. They're not the same thing. Um, you know, you can have a lot of experience. Uh, and there's a lot of people that I've known that have tremendous experience and they're not confident. Confidence is a choice. It's a, it's an emo, I dunno if it's emotions the right word, but it, it is linked to emotion. It's, it's something that you choose to do, that you choose to act confidently. It's the same if you, if you, um, if you, if you slouch over and, and, and, um, this has got to do with peak performance and, and training your body and, and that kind of thing. Um, but if you slouch over and, and you hunch and you, and you, and you try and you, and you move really slowly and you try and do things, it's pretty hard to be highly motivated. But you know, if you sit up right and it's like, yeah, cool, that, that. in itself creates a different state within you that, that, that's not confidence in itself, but that creates a different state for you to be able to deal with things. Um, and that's part of, you know, peak performance and, and how to operate from that perspective.
Steve Sandor:And confidence is, there's a lot of military in that, isn't there? Because, you know, standing up straight and the one I know the son's down at, uh, ADK at the moment and, uh, or R M C and, and we were talking about that while he was here, and, you know, that's sitting upright and chest out. Um, it's, it's hard not to feel positive or it's, it's the re the relativeness of it. So if you are over hunched, over walking around slouching, you feel, um, you, you feel less motivated than if you sit up straight and walk with a straight back and all the rest of it. Yeah. Yeah. I get that. Yeah.
Damian Andrews:So it, it creates that state where you actually feel better. Um, when if you feel better, then you are more, uh, Able to think in a way that's gonna be more productive to you. But from a confidence perspective, and this is one of the, the lessons I had from a mentor of mine who was the, the I mentioned before, was the managing director and, and chairman of, of bp. And, um, I would ask him, and he was very deliberate in this, uh, well, I believe he was deliberate in this. Whenever I asked him for advice, he'd never wrote back straight so I'd send him a text and say, you know, can you, you know, I've got this situation, can you gimme some advice? And he'd never write back straight away. I think he deliberately did that to make me think about it. So there was always a few days later that I'd get a response. This one time I had this thing coming up and I, um, and I said, I'm, you know, I wrote and said, this is coming up I'm, I'm. Confident about it, but I, I'd like to, to have this discussion with you cuz I'm just concerned that there might be a few things that might not go the way I want them to go. And unusually I got a response straight away and he wrote, Damien, I think you should just trust in yourself that you'll make the right decision in that moment. And it was like, wow, that's, I really got that. Then it is like, just trust in yourself that you'll do the right thing at the right time. Now that right thing might be limited to your experience where you need to learn some things more. So you might cock it up completely, but you'll do the best that you know how to at that point in time. And that's part of that experience. And that's where confidence is. Confidence is not having experience. Confidence is the ability to, well, the making the choice. And I talk about this a lot in, in my writings and um, so there's a lot of my articles that I, on my LinkedIn and, and on my website where I talk about this, where it's about choose not what do you want, what do you choose, and you choose how to act in a situation. So you choose whether you are going to act confidently, you choose whether you're going to give it a go. Um, and I've done that from a personal perspective. I've, I've stepped into arenas, um, and um, I've stepped into illegal arenas, um, and gone up against some, some barristers, which I didn't really think much about at that at the time as to what they were but then later with legal people that I know, they've looked at and gone, holy crap, you've gone up against some pretty, you know, these people are, are no slouches. You, they're, they're well regarded and you've gone up head to, and I had no, I didn't, you know, I'm not a legal expert. Um, but I took it on anyway and I actually performed pretty well. Um, so, and I did, did I have experience in that? No. Did I have a lot of legal knowledge? No. I just went and did it. Um, and, and that's more what confidence is. It's just doing it. Obviously, you know, there's a a, a caveat around that, you know, there's a risk element you need to, to assess as well. So from a business perspective, you don't put everything all on black, you know, and just do it sort of thing. You, you, but, you know, so that's one area you have to be cautious about when you, when you're stepping into arenas that you dunno about, you can double up on black all the time. You can, you've gotta have really deep pockets to be able, well there, there is that, you know, in, in theory. And, and then the house, that's not a cap on it anyway, so you, you, you're not great. Never. Yeah. Um, but it, that's a different thing to, you know, that's a, that's a risk thing. So that's a whole different topic. Um, the confidence side of things is, you know, regardless, just saying, I'm gonna. I'm going to give it a go. I've ma I've done my work. I know the risk elements of that, and I'm, I'm just going to pull that decision. I remember the first time I have a private equity fund and we're doing investing. Um, and the first time I, I, I made a quarter million dollar trade. So in one hit bought quarter of a million dollars worth of stock. Um, now, you know, to me that's just, that's not a, you know, it I don't buy anything less in the equity fund. It's like, if it's not quarter of a million, then it's not, it's not a, it's not a purchase. Um, but I remember the first time I did that, I was like, I was, you know, not I, it's not that I wasn't nervous or I didn't feel, you know, all these different things because it was a new area, but I went, fuck it. I'm pulling trigger. And I did. Um, you know, and. I mean, because I, I had a plan as well that, you know, this is how I'm gonna do that. This is where, you know, things are, and you know, it, it all worked out because it was well planned, well thought out, and a lot of experience. I mean, in that phase, I mean, I have realistically 25 years of experience in that area. So there's that, that, that pulling of that trigger of, you know, quarter million dollars on the line straight away, one trade, it's like It was a bit bit freaky, but it was, you know, did it anyway. Yeah. So pull the trigger. Well, it's fear. I mean, it's fear is the same sort of thing. We, you know, it's acting in spite of fear. That's what confidence is. That's all it is. Acting in spite of fear, it's not experience can experience has nothing to do with it. It's acting in spite of fear. I had all the knowledge, I had all the experience to make a quarter of a million dollar trade. that didn't stop me from being, you know, scared about it because I'd never done it before. And there's a lot of, you know, it's a lot of money to have on the line. Um, but I did it anyway, mate. Every time I speak with you, I get inspired.
Steve Sandor:No, that's great. Um, sadly, we are getting un, unlike the conversations that you and I have where go on for our up two hours. Um, I do like to try and keep these two, um, un under the hour. Um, so we are approaching that, that, um, that timeframe. Um, Couple of things. I just quickly, I, I know you are passionate about the, particularly the philanthropic area of the, you know, the business that you started, um, the domestic violence area, share.care. So perhaps, uh, and I know that I've, um, introduced you to a couple of people who, and thank you so much for helping them, um, very generous of you to help facilitate what they're trying to do. Um, I know that it's in line with you, but maybe if you could just give a, um, a little bit of background on that, uh, on share.care, um, you know, how, how can people help you, uh, in, in that particular space?
Damian Andrews:Yeah. Well, thank you for that. Um, I think I really want touch on there is, you know, from my perspective, I think we underrate how powerful giving is. Um, you know, we we're so busy focused on ourself. Um, and I as a, having a discussion with a, with another dad, um, is, was from yeah, in, I'm not gonna get my area right. He's from Texas, I'm pretty sure. And we were talking about that and, and he used to do some fairly strong illicit drugs. And he was talking about how, you know, he doesn't, you know, he used to get a high from that, but then there's always the big downer that you get afterwards. And he said, now, I mean, he hasn't touched any of that stuff for a long time, but he says he's always helping other people and he finds the giving high is so much better, um, than, than the drug highway ever was. Doesn't even come close. Not only that, there's no down, there's no, there's no no coming down from that and, and I'll relay that from an experience I had, um, said, mentioned I got outta the Army and I was in Perth and I was, I was fluffing around in Perth and I, there was a period that I wasn't employed, um, and I didn't have any money left in my bank account um, and I was walking through the Perth Mall and an aboriginal man came up to me and asked me for some change. And honestly, I didn't have any, but I did have a note in my pocket. I'm pretty sure it was orange, and I'm pretty sure it was a$20 note going back to the old paper notes. And I went, fuck it. And so I had no money in the bank account. That was the money that I had on me and I pulled it out handed to him. At first, I think he didn't believe me cuz he turned it over a couple times to see if it was real and then he just started dancing and it's like he's dancing and he da, he jumped up on top of a garbage man. He's dancing on that and he running around the mall dancing. He went over to what I assume is his partner or wife or whoever, and he's dancing front of her, waving this night going Look down, he's dancing around. And I just sat there and, and forever watching this, uh, well felt like forever, but it just felt really good and. Even telling that story now I feel really, really good about that. Yeah. I got a smile, I got a smile on my face. Is that, that that was worth the price of admission, wasn't it? Yeah. And but the thing was, I got a, I got a call the next day about an interview and I attended that interview and I, I dunno whether it was because I was in such a good mood that I got the job, but I did get the job. But what I've noticed as well from that side of things is it's not just that is when you help people, the amount of people, and I, I couldn't list it that I've and then it's turned out. They've had some way of helping me back. There was a guy that I helped, he's a, a dad having problems getting access to his kids now. I, I, I just genuinely helped him and he, he didn't look like he was anyone. Um, uh, he looked, he looked, the joke made the joke about, and he looks like Jesus. He had this big beard and thing, and when he, and he would, on a video call, he'd go near a light, so we'd have this halo over his head, um, and make that joke so he didn't look like he was in, but no, helped him. Anyway, turned out he's extremely intelligent, an exceptional programmer. Um, we mentioned before he worked, he actually worked for ASIO, so he was a spy. Um, and he, and there's some programming stuff that he has helped me with and also one of my businesses as well there, there was an area with one of the, the businesses that I've got, um, that was, was in a difficult position. He was actually able to turn it around. Um, and this is where, and I, and I didn't do it with the intention of that, but it's, it's, and I've never given with the intention of getting something back, but it's amazing how much more you get back when you give and, and for me it's, that's made tremendous impact to my ability to get things done. Is this giving, that's why philanthropy is something that I'm, I'm rarely pa Well, it's part of the reason I'm really passionate cause I, I want to help people be better. But it's amazing how, and we talk about that in, um, in, in shair.care it's like, it's in your own selfish best interest to help others. That's one of the taglines from there and the reason that is, is we haven't fully, I, I don't believe we've fully moved from thinking the world is a zero sum game. But up until the Industrial Revolution, if you wanted to pretty much better your lot, you needed to take from someone else, it was limited pie um, and this why there was so many invasions for people to be better off, you had to take from someone else. You know, that was the limited pie from the industrial Revolution. It sped up the process of innovation. And what innovation does is makes a bigger pie. So by helping people, um, be, be, and innovation is about solving problems that we have and, and then solving problems we don't even know we, we ha we, um, we, we will have, I mean, go back a hundred years, having cheap air travel was not a problem that we were aware of or even considered be a problem, but someone solved that. Now Richard Branson comes along with Virgin and, and creates, you know, cheap airlines and probably wasn't the first, but certainly did it with a lot of splash, um, and solved that problem. That problem didn't exist a hundred years ago. And so, but what that done, what that did is it made the world more accessible for all of us because we could all travel around and that's made it a lot of people's lives better or people are in separate, um, countries living, you know, families in separate countries, they can now visit each other more often, that kind of thing. So they've, they've made a bigger pie and that translates, if you really want to translate that, for example, let's look at cancer for example. Now there's a number of, um, research centers in the world working. Uh, and all in generally in the developed world. Imagine if we'd helped other people in the world become more educated and be able to, to actually improve their lot so that those countries had universities and, and those kind of research centers as well. So instead of say seven, which I think is roughly, you know, the area where, where the major focus is, there was 20. How much quicker would that have happened? So all those people that, you know, we've all known someone that's died from cancer, I'm pretty sure, um, it'd be rare for someone to not have known someone who died by cancer. Imagine if, you know, 20 years ago we'd helped rather than, you know, fighting wars and stuff like that. And, and I'm not just, that's not to say I, I like a good action movie and, and my son does karate. I do, you know, in, in the, the sporting arena, you know, I like a good tackle in rugby, that kind of thing. Um, it's exciting. But in the real world, you know, if, imagine if we didn't have those wars and we put those resources into 20 years ago into developing, helping people develop, so they had the education. Someone in those countries might have developed the cure for cancer and, and those people would be alive. So that's part of that focus is we are in a, in a positive, sum world now. So this is why it's in your interest to help others because that person may discover that person. You might, you know, help someone in a, in a third world become a doctor who then finds cure to cancer, which saves your child or grandchild or something like that. Um, and that's how, you know, that's the world we live in it, but it's a different level of think thinking a lot of times we still think this scarcity mentality where, um, there's a limited amount of resources, but innovation changes that, and that comes back to what I was originally talking about. There's no good or bad. It's like, this is an event. How do I use this? How do I use it? It's not a frustrating event. It's not annoying event. How do I use it? How do I innovate from this? How do I create? And that's when you're looking at a business we talked about, I'm going back to basics. Don't go back to basics. Look at how do I innovate, how do I take this situation and then move towards those objectives. But you need to have set those objectives.
Steve Sandor:Yeah. Tithing in the law of reciprocity, um, and law of attraction there they like electricity. I, I know how I sort of know how the theory works. I don't really understand it, but um, I know it works.
Damian Andrews:We don't need to understand it. That's the thing. Why, why questions are not, I mean, they're good if you want to, philosophies and stuff like that, but for achieving um, and there's an article I wrote on this. It's why is not necessary. You don't need to, I don't understand how, I know roughly how an internal combustion engine works. Yeah. But I don't need to understand how it works for me to get from A to B. Yep. We don't need it. Just let's use it. That's fast up. Yeah.
Steve Sandor:Um, so i, again, I encourage people to, um, jump onto share.care. We'll put, um, connections in the, in the show notes. So thank you, Damon. I'm, I'm, yeah. Blessed to, um, uh, have the opportunity of hanging out with you. Uh, so it's always, as I said, it's always good fun and you're always inspiring. The last question I have, and I asked this of all of my guests, is, what are you curious about?
Damian Andrews:Oh, that's a great question. That's a really, really great question. Um, I'm curious, I mean this probably relates more, it's a good question. Uh, mate relates more to my resolution. Cause I, I was thinking about resolutions, um, because we just recently had the new year and, or as we're recording this, we had the new year and I was thinking, well I don't really have any, cuz all my goals are pretty much set out and they're, they're longer and, um, you know, kind of intentions as well. But it was what I did eventually came up with, and it wasn't like through searching it, it came up through, um, discussion and it. I'm gonna listen, I'm going to focus on listening more. And it was, so what I'm curious about is how do we get to this stage where we can actually be more in the moment of listening to what's going on around us, rather than projecting what we think onto the world and, and missing key information. Uh, so yeah, I, I'm really curious about how do we as a population, as a, as a race, as a species become more in tune to listening to what's going on around us as opposed to projecting, you know, this is how it is. Cuz there could be, and this is a thing with innovation, this is a, the, the thing with today's world, with change that's happening. Um, I just recorded and was launched this morning on, on my podcast a bit about adapting to change. How do, how do we be comfortable with this state of flux as a, as a society going, okay, this is weak. Flux is okay. Growth is okay. It's part of nature. Nature's changing and growing all the time. How did we get to a stage where we are so rigid that we don't allow ourselves to be flexible and, and, and to grow? And, and how do we get back to that? So yeah, that's, that'll be what I'm curious about.
Steve Sandor:Love it. Love it. Damon Andrews, thanks so much for being a guest on the inspiring Business Podcast.
Damian Andrews:It's been a pleasure. And yeah, come back anytime and, and always great chatting to you, Steve.
Steve Sandor:as you can tell, Damien has a very positive attitude towards business and life, and there are a few lessons that we could take from this conversation. The first is that going back to basics as a mistake, and Damien uses the example, would we do things that we would do in the fifties or sixties? The first is going back to basics as a mistake and what worked years ago may not work today. although we didn't discuss this, a lot of what Damien spoke of was actually going back to first principles and really understanding what makes your business work and being, experienced and confident in those areas so you can be experienced and not competent. And not experienced and confident and knowing the difference is really important and there are obvious risks associated with overconfidence. and not having enough experience and going into areas that potentially are of high danger. And you just need to be aware of those. Because without any experimenting, you, you won't learn one area that Damien speaks a lot to is, uh, profit. And clearly if a business is not making a profit, then it can't survive. I've never met a successful business owner who doesn't understand their numbers. Finally, Damien mentioned becoming an employer of choice and creating a positive culture within the organization, and it's something that he and I believe in, particularly in this current environment, that will position small and medium size businesses with an advantage in the marketplace if they adopt this employer of choice. It'll just mean that they'll have an opportunity to attract and keep quality and provide a better service level to their, to their customer base. And what I can say is that Damien's generosity is real. There's been a number of situations where I've referred him or uh, introduced him to people who are in this philanthropic area and he's really dived in and provided as much support as he possibly can to them. He's also been very generous with his time, advice, and knowledge when we've ever had any interactions so I can, I can truly recommend that you go and have a look at his website. There is lots free information there. And I know that Damien would be happy to have a conversation with you if you felt that he could add some value. We'll make sure that all Damien's information are in the show notes. Hope you're enjoying conversations that I'm having with these business owners. A lot of them have the same problems that you have and they're just sharing their ideas and hopefully from these conversations you'll be able to take away some thoughts, some tips, and apply them into your business. I'd love to hear from you and let me know whether what I'm delivering here in these podcasts is of value to and what else would you like to hear, or what would you potentially like us to not do? You could send me an email my address is steve@inspiringbusiness.net that's all one word. Or you can contact me on LinkedIn and if you enjoy listening to the podcast, I'd really love you to share it with one or two other people who you think might also benefit from it. And if you haven't already given us a review on your favorite podcast platform, I'd also really appreciate that. My name's Steve Sandor and there are plenty of additional resources on our website. And thank you again very much for listening to the Inspiring Business Podcast. My wish, as always, is to inspire and energize you to take action so you too can make a difference in your and others' lives.
