S4, E8: Building a Scalable Business with Jeremy Chetty (Co-Founder, Chief Evangelist and Board Director at Student Edge)

S4, E8: Building a Scalable Business with Jeremy Chetty (Co-Founder, Chief Evangelist and Board Director at Student Edge)

In this episode:

Jeremy shares insights into how he Co-Founded and scaled Student Edge – a free student  membership community. The student turned entrepreneur, conceived the  idea with his friends while they were at Murdoch University in Western Australia ten years ago.  They identified a gap in the market to build a platform that would help  students with the challenges of student life. The program helps students  save money, find jobs and deliver useful content to help them make the  right career choices, that matches their skillset and passion. Today it has over 1.3 million members,100+ educational institutions and a  growing list of sponsors have joined the community. He currently serves  as the Chief Evangelist. 

The South African born entrepreneur is also active in the startup community. He currently is the  Entrepreneur in Residence at Murdoch University, Spacecubed & Switch Living advising,  motivating and educating students on how to turn an idea into a business. He also established the Young Entrepreneurs Showcase where he personally mentors and  coaches hundreds of young business owners in WA. 

Passionate about helping the community, Jeremy has also held previous advisory positions with CQU University, Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship, Office of Multicultural Interests,  Australian Airforce Cadets and Willetton SHS. 

Get ready to be inspired…..5-4-3-2-1. 

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Connect with Jeremy Chetty:

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Email: jeremy@studentedge.com.au

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Click here to purchase a copy of The Momentum Mindset Book by Vicki Main and Jonathan S.Bean.

Transcript

0:02

Doesn't matter whether you're black, white, Asian, trans, gay, male, female. It doesn't matter because entrepreneurship is the best thing that you can get into because you can come up with an idea to solve a problem, a genuine problem, bring it to the marketplace and get paid for it. Welcome to the Get Unstuck Fast Viscosity podcast brought to you by VLM training and coaching specialists across the UK and Australia, hosted by me, Vicki Main. Are you a business owner, leader, or executive? Have you ever felt stuck or disappointed where your life or business is heading? Do you ever feel overwhelmed, compare yourself to others, or feel like you're swimming in treacle at times? This podcast is here to help you Get unstuck fast from viscosity to achieving escape velocity. Our guests on the show will share practical tips and real life experience about how they got out of negative situations or circumstances to live their best life on their terms. We will be sharing real life stories from real people doing some incredible things. Stay tuned for our next guest. Welcome to season four, episode eight of the Get Unstuck Fast Viscosity Podcast. I'm your host, Vicky Maine. And today we have very special guest, Jeremy Chetty on the show. Welcome Jeremy. Hey, thanks very much for that, Vicky. And, uh, thanks for having me on the show. Really excited to hear what you've got to say today and share. A bit about your journey of entrepreneurship, which has been a long one as well, and very exciting for you. So let's start off by asking what, can you tell our listeners what you're about your career journey and about what you're doing now? Yeah, sure. Thanks very much for that, Vicky. Well, you know, starting now, you know, this is going into our 20th year of starting a business. An online platform or business called student edge, but we'll get to that. But if I take our listeners back to, you know, where it all started for those that are listening, you know, as entrepreneurs, all we do is solve problems. So we decided to solve a problem for ourselves being students at the time, 20 years ago, obviously to make myself very old now, but 20 years ago, we were students at Murdoch university, one of our universities here in Perth, Western Australia. And we want to solve a problem for ourselves where there wasn't a one stop shop to help students. Especially online to help with the key things that you need in student life, and the young people listening to this podcast, then you'll know exactly what I'm talking about in terms of, you know, we found, you know, finding a job, even finding an internship, even actually working if you're actually in the right degree, like there's a lot of the you know, struggles and stress of choosing a right course. Like a lot of young people, and I was certainly in that boat. I'm not sure about you, Vicky, but, you know, there's a stress that happens in high school, typically high school, where you got to choose, Hey, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. And it's a very stressful part of doing exams and then going to university, you're in this course that is probably chosen, meant, you know, sounds easy, or this is something I could probably do. But when you get there, you're like, Oh, this is not for me, you know, dropping out or deferring or changing degrees. So there's all this plethora of issues that we face as students. We said, let's create an online community. Let's create a membership. That's really going to help young people around these career choices, making it less stressful. But. Making student life fun, so we basically focused on three core areas in terms of how our platform, our membership and it's the same three core areas or pillars that we call it now, which is save, earn and learn, which is we help students save money with their membership, we help them earn money with their membership, we help them learn about those key life skills, soft skills in terms of being a young person, the things that we wished we'd learnt when we were students at school, typically, like budgeting, managing your tax, Managing your health and well being. Zero inelastic now, schools are not doing that anymore. So, we're doing a limited job of that. So, that's student edge. But I guess, you know, I'm not here to promote student edge. I'm here to you know, share a bit more about my journey. So, if I have to take a step back from starting student edge, my high school years and my pre up to that point in terms of how I got to starting student edge was not traditional. So, what I mean by that is, I'm a obviously an immigrant. So, I came here to from South Africa, so Apartheid South Africa. I want to give a shout out to my mum and dad who are still, you know, role models for me and inspiration for me where, you know, two courageous parents that left Apartheid South Africa in 1990. Mum applied to come to this country just off, seeing a pamphlet in a library and applied and got us over into Australia. Wow. But that would be the start, Vicky, of this whole journey of mum and dad coming here, not knowing anybody. We were very fortunate enough to have a Christian family that shared the same faith as us that took us in, gave us a house, a car to use. It really set us up for the first, you know, few months. being in Australia. And it was through that family of faith that we were able to have this grounding. So as a nine year old boy coming to Australia in 1990, the height of a recession where, you know, interest rates were, you know, above 17, 18 percent. Yeah, that was tough times in Australia, you know, not now it's not tough. People talk about its interest rates being high, that wasn't at all. So why I'm sharing all that is because it kind of gives everyone an idea of where I've come from in terms of, you know, immigrant product of two greatest parents that are faithful, that brought us here, no family, no friends and started off afresh again. They're not entrepreneurs, but what I like to say is that, and why they're still role models is they exude the characteristics of being an entrepreneur. And what I mean by that is, you know, as an entrepreneur, these are the kind of things you need to have in your character, which is you want me to see opportunity. So, first and foremost, my mom saw that opportunity, did not know anything about Australia, but thought, you know what, this flyer looks all right, let me just apply via snail mail and leave a country with all my family and friends and start afresh. No one does that. So, you've got to be able to see opportunity as an entrepreneur. So, they exude that. The other thing is, well, you need to take a bit of risk. And as entrepreneurs, that's what we do. We take calculated risks, some big ones, some small ones. That's another bit of our mindset and our character set is we've got to be prepared to take risks. We can't operate in the area of comfort. Nothing gets built in the area of comfort. So again, mom and dad and pushing themselves outside of comfort, taking a risk coming to Australia. Again, something that's been, like I said, we got inspired from as kids. The other thing is, well, you need to have that element of passion. You need to actually genuinely. I have to be passionate about what you're doing and otherwise it's going to get hard or it does get hard. You're going to quit. So as entrepreneurs, you need to have the element of passion. This problem you're solving, how passionate are you about it? Because when the bank account is zero, it's your passion and the why you're doing this business. That's going to get you out of bed in the morning. So anyway, I'm mentioning there's three key characteristics that you need as an entrepreneur that my parents had and they're not entrepreneurs. They're just two people that exuded those qualities that's rubbed off on our kids. So I've got two siblings, a younger brother and a younger sister. So growing up for us in a household where you have parents like that allows you to have a really good solid foundation. And I guess that is really the start of my journey is that I've had that at home. Very lucky. And I'm not saying everyone has to have that type of, um, foundation, but if you have someone in your life, in your family, that's either mom or dad, uncle, grandpa, you know, Cause and just have someone in your life that's a steady for you that you can operate from and it'll allow you to grow and in my case, like I said, entrepreneurship was our thing, but how, what was a lot of a moment for me in my, when I was still in school, Vicki for entrepreneurship and business was what something my dad said. So he was really hustling. We first came to Australia, no jobs around walking the streets, the resume. Anyway, he managed to get a cleaning round. So a little cleaning round. Yeah. For our family. And I talked to him last week about it, knowing I was coming on this podcast, just to double check, but it was 50 a week. This little cleaning contract, 50, right? And I couldn't believe it. But anyway, 50 would clean this office building after church on Sunday night. And I remember I was like, oh, why do we have to go to this thing and clean? Why do you spend an hour in church on Sunday night? I just want to go home. Cleaning this office and I was just frustrated. I don't know what I said, but he just turned and he looked at me and said, Hey, okay, you don't want to do this? Why don't you get a business like this company? Cause it was you big fancy mining office. We were cleaning. He was like, well, why don't you get a business? And then one day you can own something like this. And it was just this thing that went off in my mind. I was like, Oh my gosh. Yes, business. Business is it. This is what I want. This is it. Okay. Yeah, I'll do whatever it takes. So, flash forward, I guess, tinkering around with different business ideas, my brother and I, and friends and I over the years in high school. And then, like I said, when we were 23, the student edge, you know, after tinkering around with a few ideas, we said, well, okay, let's give this thing a crack. As you do a real business and solve a problem for ourselves. And that's kind of, I guess, a long answer to your question. You know, my career journey has been kind of like a, you know, non conventional, not traditional path to get to, you know, starting a business. Thank you for sharing the insights there. I love the story about your dad and how he inspired you. That was really, really great. And I know I emigrated from the UK to Australia about 12 years ago now. And my son was actually nine at the time, my youngest son, Ollie. And I remember him being at school and he came home one day because we're from the Northeast, as you can tell from the accent. I still, I didn't lose the accent. No, you didn't. It's got stronger. Yeah. Yeah. And I reckon it was, well, when I talk to other Aussies, I sometimes go back into like Aussie language, but I remember my son coming home from school one day and saying, mom, nobody understands me, my accent. So, and he literally switched it to an Aussie accent. Like Almost overnight. And it was so because he wanted to fit in with these, with his peers at school. And even his teacher said, can you repeat that again? Cause I can't understand what you're saying. Cause he was like Geordie, but it just took me back there to that moment. And I loved what you said about how those three things, that risk and the passion. And, you know, seeing the opportunity as well. I think it's an incredible that those cornerstones, it's absolutely incredible. And I've talked to a lot of entrepreneurs who do essentially solve problems. That's what they do. And me included. And I think, I mean, I love the fact as well that you and your brother set the business up. So you've been working together now. How long is that now? That must have been. 20 years now in total? 20 years and two mates. So Vicky, we had Damien is also the co founder and then my late co founder as well, Simon Loader, who's actually the original founder of the idea. Well, he actually came to me with the idea of Student Edge back then. But yeah, so four of us, but yeah, a brother and two mates. Yeah. So is it because obviously you and your brother are working together for this long period of time, having a family business, and then obviously having other co founders, has that been like smooth sailing? I'm curious. Good question. And we've got my younger sister in the business too. So it is a family affair. But to answer your question about say as co founders, I always say and recommend to young entrepreneurs that those starting out that want to do business with family, uh, I would recommend it not, but I'm not the case study. So I'm an anomaly. We have, of course, disagreements, but we haven't had any fights. We haven't had any blues. We haven't had any conflict as such as brothers and co founders at all, because we have different skill sets. We have different personalities in a sense that, yeah, it's complete opposite. It works. But why I say so it works for us. Yeah. But why I don't recommend it is because I've seen enough families go through that conflict, those disagreements, where to a point they can't work with each other, things fall apart. And I always say family first and yeah, protect that first, business second. So, but if you combine the both, one's going to give up. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny. I'm doing some research on conflict at the moment and that's a good segue to this question because lots of research I've done and around, there's a tool that's out there called the conflict dynamic profile, which I'm accredited in. And it looks at destructive and constructive ways to deal with conflict. And it's so insightful. And I wanted to get a deeper understanding of how I deal with conflict as well, because it is inevitable. It does crop up. Yeah. But it, it's sometimes it can catch you by surprise and sometimes it's something that's a slow burn. But how do you handle conflict situations? I mean, you're quite a laid back, chilled out guy anyway, from what I've seen and know of you in the last 10 years. But I'm, I'm curious how you deal with, if you ever have conflict or see it, what would your advice be to other people and how do you deal with it? Yeah, and thank you for the compliment. It's not always like that, Vicky, of course, the calmness. But that, to your point, though, I think we have got to, in my life, is the calmness has been built over time. Because one thing that, you know, we all have to learn to do is to regulate our emotions. And I'll answer the question in a minute, but just leading up to it, you know, one thing that I've part of myself on is regulating those emotions. Because what I say is it's okay to be angry. It actually is okay. That's an emotion like every other emotion that I believe God has given us. Is there are emotions to be used because a lot of good things can come out of anger, believe it or not, because it can propel you in different directions. All I'm saying is that we learn to regulate it. So yeah, sure, be angry in that moment. Definitely don't hide it. Don't hide it because that could also work against you. So I've been up plenty of times. I get angry all the time. I mean, this morning I got angry about something that just needed to be resolved. But then it's only about 30 seconds. Yeah. Yeah. And then I use that to then go, okay, how do we deal with it in terms of it's a conflict situation to your question. So how I deal with that is okay. Yeah, sure. Okay. React how I need to react and then go. Okay. Pull it back to. Okay. Now. Let's assess the situation. What we need to do is always approach conflict with very simple philosophy, which is just being truthful and upfront. Sometimes if it doesn't always, you know, make the other person feel better, I think it's always been good to be honest up front, if you're dealing with a family member or a team member. And I say, wrap it up, uh, you might appreciate this Vicky in what I call a love sandwich. So what you do is you tell them the truth in the heart of this, but you wrap it up on love on either side and of course that's the love sandwich, right? So, so that's what I try and do is because at the end of the day we're all human beings and we want to be treated as human beings. So however the conflict is transpiring, right, or how it's taking shape, operate as a human being first and foremost with respect. Yeah. Operate with integrity. Operate with, like I said, you've done the emotional, whether you felt anger before, that's it, just before confronting that person, get it all out. Yeah. Get it all out. Then go into the situation a little bit more calm. And that's the philosophy that I use, is that if I'm dealing with conflict, I will not go into a conflict while I'm in the heat of the moment. Yeah. To say it just happened. Say something happened to me. I will not operate, or respond to that situation until I've got my emotions in check. Yeah. So that kind of go into that. Yeah. With a bit more of my head. Yeah. I love what you said there about, you know, that self regulation of your emotions. And it's so easy to go straight from zero to 100 in a situation where like, you know, when people are driving and things like that, I mean, I consciously, when I'm on the roads, I do consciously go. Right. I'm not going to, how am I going to show up today? And I'm not going to be that angry person who holds on to stuff like that. But there have been situations that have caught me out. And I think particularly I'm very aware, like I watch, I've seen a lot of people like, you know, when you're out shopping and retail or in restaurants and people are quite mean to some people, like the, you know, customers and I sit back and watch Wow, that's really interesting. They'd be observing the behaviors because I think we're all human beings. And, you know, if something goes wrong, there's a way of handling it and having that, I think it comes down as you say, to self regulation to be able to regulate your emotions and not blow up and sort of just keep it calm and you can get the best out of the situation that way. I was going to say, I saw it yesterday at the airport. I was, I'm currently in Lisbon at the moment in Portugal. And I saw it at the airport where this lady was disgruntled because she had to pay for extra luggage. To be fair, her hand luggage was, it was bigger than normal. And to be fair, the guy was doing his job and he said, look, You're going to have to pay for extra hand luggage. And she was, her anger was like, so she was so frustrated about it, but you know, that's the rules that they're there. And she was, and she pushed it into the machine and was going, well, it fits. And then it didn't really. So, and you could say she was festering on it, getting on the flight. And I was thinking to myself, chill out, you know, And just to be clear, Vicky, Like it's okay to have those emotions, right? It's okay. But to your point, it's about the self regulation, meaning if you're angry in that moment, let it happen first off, but then don't use that same moment to then go and solve the problem. Whatever that problem is that issues with that same energy, because that's where it's not. And that's where I say there's a little gap in between and it could be 10 seconds. It could be 10 minutes. It could be 10 hours. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever your time is to regulate. Everyone has different regulation timeframes, right? For mine, I've got a master now to about a minute, two minutes, depending on the series of the matter, depending on the series of the matter. But you know, nothing really fazes me in that sense. But yeah, have emotions. They're things that are part of the human buildup. Yeah. And they're supposed to be out. It's when people start holding back the emotions that you start getting, you know, sick, literally sick, you know, because you're holding in this toxicity and not getting it out. So I always say, I'll get it out, you know, sometimes in private, I'll be, you know, angry in private and then back to it. So anyway, long, long answer to it. No, no, that's really good. And I think as well, journaling helps. Because I think journaling does help get those emotions out, especially if you're someone who doesn't like to have confrontation and discuss and check your feelings, internalize, you can write things down. And I mean, I run away from conflict wherever possible. I just don't like it to be honest, but there is times when I'm very direct and it's, that's the thing. The way I am, not a lot of people do like conflict really from the research I've done. I'm curious. One last question on that around, what do you think the biggest mistake leaders make and within teams around the challenges around managing teams and conflict? What have you seen over the years? Cause I know you've worked a lot with businesses as well in, in a mentoring capacity, and I'm just curious what you've seen as possibly the biggest mistakes that they make or from your own viewpoint. Really good question, Vicky, because after witnessing and working and coaching and mentoring a lot of leaders from your C suite to your GMs to your executives, I feel the biggest thing that I've seen that is a mistake in my eyes from a leader point of view is they feel they need to solve the problem and every problem. Yeah. So, Oh, I'm a CEO, I'm a GM, I'm in this position because my team are looking to me and I have to have all the answers. Yeah, not the case. What a good leader will do is really calm the situation, work out exactly what's going on and then yes, sure, bring some of your own solution to it, but always seek counsel. So, HR issues, I have a personal HR advisor. Yeah. So I think I've got a solution. Yeah. Right. But before I do anything around that, I will seek counsel. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and it goes back to, you know, I'll use kingdom principles being a, you know, a kingdom entrepreneur. I use kingdom principles, which is even kings. Seek counsel. So if a king seeks counsel, and you're just a CEO in a company, take the king's advice, which is okay. Yes, I can. I have to make the decision. I have to come back with a solution. That is your role. But in the moment, don't try and diffuse situations. I don't try to come up with solutions on the spot just because you think you are in a leadership position that your team expecting a solution from you right now, because it might be the wrong one. And that's where it falls over. Yeah, they feel that they have got to come up with a solution to fuse whatever situation. This is my solution and it might be the wrong one. Yeah. Usually it is. Yeah. Yeah. Really good viewpoints. So, and it's having that discernment, isn't it? As a leader of being able to go, right. Okay. Taking that time out, having that self regulation and being able to go, right. What is the best. Opportunity here to solve this, but get other people involved as well and looking at and get them empower them to do it. So they learn from it as well. I love that. What is it you love about what you do then as an entrepreneur? I guess it's because you've been self employed while working, working, running your business now 20 years. What do you love about it the most? Well, the freedom, right? And that's on lots of different levels, right? Obviously, everyone talks about the financial freedom, the freedom to be your own boss, the freedom to pay yourself your own wage, the freedom to, you know, create your own lifestyle, control your time to a certain extent. So yeah, freedom. But really, that's just the, what I call the outcome, right? They're just the outputs. Yeah. Your question is deeper than that, which is, yeah, outside of those frills, why do I love what I do? Well, essentially, I love solving problems and coming up with ideas. But first and foremost, don't worry about the ideas, because I used to always get stuck in the ideas stuff. Yeah. I love coming up with ideas, but I don't play in that space anymore because ideas you can come up with, but it's the problems. The ideas is only good as a problem. Yeah. And then how it translates into entrepreneurship is you only get paid to solve problems. That's the quick analogy, but to answer your question, yes, you know, the best bit of what I love about what I do is I get to get up every morning, meet a whole new heap of people in the day. They were typically new people. Yeah. You listen to new problems. And then you're helping them come up with ideas to solve those problems. And then you get paid for it. I mean, is this the best thing in the world or what? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was having a chat with someone recently, a male friend, and he was talking about men do love to fix things and fix problems, but I would say the same for, well, myself too, as a woman, I, like you, I see opportunities, but see opportunities to fix problems. And. It's like, there's big world problems that you can look to fix, but you can't do it all on your own. And people, it's still an evolution. You've got to bring people on board, but yeah. I love how you said, you know, the men thing and the woman thing, and yeah, there is no gender. There's, it's not about gender. Yeah. And this is what I love about entrepreneurship, right? And this is for your listeners to know that don't buy into all the different agendas that are going on right now that are controlling conversations around different topics and different narratives. Just put that all to the side for a moment. Yep. Doesn't matter whether you're black, white, Asian, trans, gay, male, female. Yeah, yeah. It doesn't matter because entrepreneurship is the best thing that you can get into because I call it an equalizer, because you can come up with an idea to solve a problem, a genuine problem and get paid for it, bring it to the marketplace and get paid for it. No one is looking at this bottle of water and going, was this a, Gay person that created this bottle of water? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Was this a female that created this bottle of water? Yeah. Because it's so refreshing. Maybe it was. Oh, was this? No, it was definitely a black person that created this bottle of water. Yeah. Entrepreneurship is the ultimate equalizer. Yeah, you could be from any walk of life and typically entrepreneurs come from those tough areas of life. Anyway, you know, disadvantaged backgrounds, homeless, all those different status is you can bring someone to the marketplace and get paid for it and change your life around. Yeah, you know, all those entrepreneurship stories, those founders. You look at their backgrounds and not one of them has come from an area of conflict. Isn't that interesting? Isn't that interesting? Every single, and I just finished Elon Musk's biography and I was like, wow, okay. Was it good, was it? Trauma. Yeah, the amount of trauma that this bloke has gone through. Wow. From a childhood point of view that I just go, well, it certainly explains how he can operate on a whole other level on the planet and track five. multi billion dollar companies that are collectively worth a trillion dollars. Yeah. So, Oh, I'll have to read that. You've got me. I'm buying it. I'm travelling to New Zealand. Your book's next. Yeah. Your book's there. I've got three books. Yours is in there. It's a big act to follow. No, no, no, no. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. But just to answer your question, you know, it just don't get into the whole agenda. that typically our world tries to get us to believe in around these stereotypes. Just put it all to the side. So wherever you are listening to this podcast, whatever you're doing, whatever walk of life, I will encourage you if you've got a problem to solve with a genuine idea, turn it into reality, bring it to life, get paid some money, turn your life around. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant. Thank you. When you were talking there, I've reminded myself of when I was a kid and I used to spend a lot of time in the library. I loved reading. So every night I'd go to the library after school and I'd sit there and I was a bit of a girl geek if you like, and I'd sit in the library after school and I'd sit and read encyclopedias because there was no internet back then, you know, and I was curious. I was, I was I had Buddhist encyclopedias though. You know, the Britannica encyclopedias. You just go from one. It's like a YouTube. You go from one thing to another, at least another. And I get it. I get it. I loved it. And I remember my mum used to come in and sit next to me. Cause obviously she was a stay at home mum and she'd whisper in my ear and say things like. You're going to be a businesswoman, Vic, when you're older, you know, you're going to go out there and she'd like put these like sort of ideas in my mind. And then it just made me really, she was very inspirational in that way. And it would just broaden my eyes to, and you know, my dad was a builder. So I used to sit and I remember this as a kid came from, you know, Working class background. And I remember sitting in the back of my dad's van. Okay. Like his, his like truck and he had loads of sand in the back of the truck. And I sat in there one day and I remember sitting there and I was in there with my bucket and spade and I was sitting in the back of this truck and I was thinking, Oh, I've got loads of places I want to travel to when I'm older. And I was only like, I don't know, seven, six, seven year old kid. And I remember thinking, And just because I've been reading and immersing myself and just surrounding myself with sort of ideas and being curious, I was thinking, I'm really going to travel the world one day. And I sat there and it was like just that experience and that hunger. I had the thirst for it and the hunger. And I guess everything I've done in my life has been from those humble beginnings of going right. Well, now I want to go and do some great things with my life. So I really thank my parents for, you know, the life that I've had in a way that has led me to where I am now, because my resilience and my hunger and drive is being instilled since I was a kid. But interestingly, it's great that you've set up the business because I think for young people to have those opportunities around the saving, the earning and the learning, I think. When I was younger, I would have probably naturally tended to go into entrepreneurship after school. I would have been one of those kids, but I guess where I grew up, it was kind of the norm was to go and get a day job and work in like, you know, living in the Northeast, it was kind of, Oh, I'll get a job in like a local council. Cause it's a job for life or, you know, get a job. Buy a house and, you know, get yourself stability. Entrepreneurship wasn't really an option back then for when I grew up and my parents, they both were very entrepreneurial. It kind of didn't come out to me, but it came out with me, but I guess like I was selling stuff when I was at school and things. And I guess now the school programs, there's things for kids now that can help with in their entrepreneurship. But back then there wasn't. So you just kind of did what you did. And, and I think there's a lot more opportunities now for young people. So hats off for you for creating what you've done to help people because it needs it, you know, entrepreneurship is a third pathway. It's an opportunity to, for young people to create their own freedom and opportunities, whereas they don't have to necessarily go to university and go down the progression. Having said that coming from an academic background, I think there is opportunities to. Get more curious. And I think doing research at university is quite a good skill to have, but it's not the only pathway. I 100 percent agree with that. Shout out to your parents too. It sounds like Noah, again, like mine, you know, just exuding all those different characteristics. You've got to call it that, that allowed you to go down the path. It wasn't always smooth sailing, but that's another podcast. But that's okay. But exactly. Comfort doesn't create. Oh, I like that. That's gold. I'm going to write that down and I'll reflect. I really like that. It's interesting. Okay. So let's talk about your mindset, Jeremy, in terms of, as you know, you mentioned the book, I've written a book on mindset and it's something that I'm really intrigued about. And she haven't studied entrepreneurs and working with them and going on my own journey too. Um, Is there anything you're fearful of or anything that has held you back in the past from doing great things? I'm curious. Oh, look, everyone, I think everyone is fearful. Like let's, let's be upfront, right? People that say they don't, they're not telling the truth because we're all humans and we're all fearful, right? We're fearful of things and have these fears, right? But, Where I take a different perspective on it is I don't let those fear translate to things where it prevents me from taking action. So what I mean by that is say, uh, yeah, I want to go bungee jumping. Right. So, and this is something I really like I haven't done, but I have this fear. Right. That something's going to happen and so forth, then really we know nothing's going to happen, but I'll still do it. If someone says, Hey, we're going to go bungee jumping, I'll still make the decision. But in that moment to the decision, I will have those feelings of fear. So while I'm saying it, I guess my answer to that is, look, I am fearful of things, but I'm not fearful of something as such in terms of that would prevent me from inaction. And I guess that's the point is that we're going to all be fearful. That is the truth. Okay. But I'm not fearful of saying bungee jumping. I'm not going to say that right because I will go on bungee jump. Yeah, but In the lead up to it, in my mind, yes, it'll be saying, well, why are you doing it? You don't need to do it. The rope might snap. The, you know, so yes, I will have that. And why I'm sharing is that they both go in tandem. You can't not face your fears where they're having those fears of the emotions come into it. No one just goes, I'm just going to jump off the, you know, this and just do it. Which leads into the other, I like to use the word courage instead, Vicky. Yeah. So the way I describe it to my seven year old. Is we can be fearful of, you know, climbing up that big tall tower, but it's having the courage to do it. Yeah, is what's more important because the difference between someone that doesn't do it and does do it is courage. So, you're still fearful, Vicky. Yeah, but you only earn that courage because you've went through it and climbed that top of that tower. Yeah, that's the difference between someone having courage and someone not, is that you both fear it, but one made a decision to keep going. Yeah, that's, I love that. Do you think in terms of courage, it's a muscle that you can arm in terms of if you keep getting yourself out of your comfort zone and doing things, is it something? It's a muscle you build. Yeah. Yeah. And you train and keep doing it because no one just wakes up courageous. Yeah, yeah. You have had to go on through so many fires and so many things to then wake up courageous. Yeah, yeah. No, that's, yeah, absolutely. It's not born. It's not born. It's not born. So yeah, you have to go through it. And of course, you know, I'm going to give credit again to my parents because my mum in particular, who was a stay at home mum, who always instilled to us, give it a go. So. There was never ever this expectation and actually this is actually another part to the answer actually Vicky for those that have got kids and especially young people that are in schools where there's this pressure to perform. If you keep telling your kid you're gifted, you're gifted, you're gifted. They now have this expectation to perform and they have this fear of failure. Yeah. When I was growing up, my mum never ever said I was gifted. I never heard that once. And she never even told me I was talented. So what does that put in me then? Okay, now I just walk around going, I'll just give things a go. If I fail, I'll just pick up and keep going. No one's You know, have a go at me. No one's going to hit me with a stick. No one's going to penalize me. So why I'm sharing that is because it's so important. And I've got a seven year old son that we focus on them just having a goal with things and failing and making mistakes because that's how you learn as opposed to telling your kid or your son or your daughter, you're really good at that. And they're like, well, okay. And if they don't perform at that level, Then they beat themselves up. Yeah. Now they don't want to keep going forward because they're afraid of failing. They're afraid of failing themselves, failing mum and dad as an expectation. So yeah, I always say just remove all that so you allow people just to fail. And I've had this through my whole life. So I'll just keep failing. People don't know. I'll just, I've had that many failed businesses and failed projects and failed ideas. Yeah. And you keep going. Yeah. No, I think it's a great point that you make. And I know I'm a mom of two teenage boys now, well, one's just turned 20 and the other one coming up 17 and my youngest son, he wants a career in football and sport and he's really a soccer in terms of Aussie. And he's. He's actually, he's got a talent and he trains four times a week and he gets his head down, eats really well. He's, you know, being a young person, you know, there's always sort of things outside of school. Well, outside of college or school that, you know, there's distractions, but he's very disciplined. And I think the one thing I've said to my son is. It's not necessarily pumping these tires up all the time. It's saying, you know, discipline is key here. You know, if you want to get, yeah, exactly. That's good advice. Discipline is really like, you have to eat well every day and treat yourself like an athlete, like eat well. And by the way. Um, I don't necessarily eat well every day, but I do say to him, look, if you want to go for this, like, if you want to go for this and you're, this is your dream, then give yourself every single opportunity to make that happen. Discipline, you know, show up for football, show up for the sessions, have that great mindset, you know, listen to your coaches and what they're saying to you eat really well. And all those things. And I said, eventually You know, you keep going for it. It will happen. You'll get your break, but just, it might not be the way you think it's going to be, but it'll be happened, but just keep being disciplined. And that I found from entrepreneurship, that is the one thing I've found to be key in entrepreneurship, that you've got to be disciplined, that you kind of just chase the shiny things and go off and do it. What do you think about that? Yeah. I love it. I love exactly how, cause that's how I parent as well, is you focus on those things like, you know, talent is not enough. It's the other. This is what you talked about character, right? All we want to do is build good woman, build good men. We want to build good people. And the only way we can do that is through encouraging him through those different things like discipline, being focused. Having that resilience, that grit, that persistence and perseverance and to show up no matter what. So that's the encouragement, focusing on talent and saying that talent all the time is not going to work. That's setting you up to fail. Absolutely. But what you're doing is exactly what I'm doing. We should be doing is building up our kids with those things, which is you can never go wrong building up the character for someone. Yeah. He's pumping up his tires, pump up his character tires all you want. You can never do that enough. Yeah. That's what matters. That's what marriage matters. Do you know what I mean? So, and that he can take on regardless of football. Yeah, that's the best thing. Everything you're teaching him is transferable to life, to his relationship, his future wife, his future girlfriend, like his future employer. Yeah. His future employer is going to thank you because you encourage him to have those crates. Yeah, he's got a great work ethic as well, which I think is really good. Absolutely. But yeah, so going back to your, like, I'm curious, do you have like a morning routine or, I mean, I know I personally, I get up now because I work with Aussie clients first thing, like on a morning, I'm normally up at 5am. I'm in the UK currently. Well, I'm actually in Portugal at the minute, but normally I'd get up at like, have a routine at 5am. I'll do. A few things, and then I'll start my day job and then I'll like start working with Aussie clients and then I'll go to Europe in lunchtime and go from there. So I have to get up early anyway, but I'm wondering, do you have a morning routine that you go through? Comes up all the time, Vicky, more than often. And I actually did this on my own podcast around morning routines are really the key. I believe because if you always say when the morning is not my quote, when the morning, when the day, and that's very true. Because if you can't win at least the first hour of your day, then you're really set up on the wrong trajectory for the day, I'll tell you that bit. How you start your first hour. But my typically morning routine is, yeah, 5am club, so anywhere between 5 and 6 I'll get up. Read and pray, so obviously, you know, I'm, you know, Christian and that's my faith, so anchored in spirituality in terms of, you know. And like, a lot of the time, you know, I could be just meditating or something, but here, you know, people think, Oh! Did you, do you like religiously, you know, study scripture and so forth? And it's like, no, I don't. I'll pick up the Bible and I'll be, you typically reading through a chapter at some point or a passage, and usually I'm just looking for one nugget. One nugget. And at the moment it's a verse, and you'll appreciate this because we share the same faith, but I'm reading about Solomon, who's the wisest man on earth. All the self help books have come from Proverbs. So nothing is original. No books are original because everyone's taking Proverbs and turning it into self help motivation books. What he said in the end of Ecclesiastes just blew my mind, which is that he was the wisest person and the richest person. He was a trillionaire. He says, you know, the conclusion of the matter is this, which is fear God and obey his commandments. That is the whole duty of man. And I read that this week and it blew my mind because I was like, he is the wisest and richest man on earth saying those words. I've got to listen to that. There's something in that. There's something in that. But to your question, I'll do some reading and look at nuggets like that and then try and apply it to my life. But sometimes I'll just read. That's five to six. It's usually my time before my son, you know, comes in and wants to do stuff. Yeah. And then after that, typically, you know, we've been going down because the weather's been good. We'll go down for a cold dip. So I'll do a cold dip in the pool, at the beach, or if I'm in a rush, I'll do it in the shower. I love it. It would be some sort of cold therapy, if you want to call it that. And again, that's my first coffee of the day because everyone knows a bit of cold water on your face or your body wakes up your whole nervous system and gets you set anyway, lowers your heart rate. It's just good for you anyway. So if you're not practicing it, I get it. It's not for everybody. But if you took some cold water and put on your face in the morning, it's as good as you can get. And then after that, I'm not even checking anything around emails, nothing until I get to the office. It's just typically around nine, 10 o'clock. But then it's family time. So it's like, you know, either making breakfast for my son, spending time with my partner, whatever it may be. At the moment we're doing drawings and stuff before we leave for school. I'll do school drop off twice a day. But typically that morning picky is literally a family time, time and my time to recharge. That's really important. That's the what I call the anchoring that has to happen in the morning. That's got nothing to do with business. You can't anchor yourself in business. That's not the solution. A lot of people will get up and go, Oh, I got to do my first task of the day. And I got to do this for my clients. And this is that I might make each of their own. But do not anchor that because guess what? Your client's going to be taken from you at any point in life. Your business can be taken away from you at any point in life. Your money can be taken away at any point in life. If you are anchored in any of those things, guess what? They're not really anchors because they can be taken away. So go the other way and do the other way. You won't lose out, which is anchor yourself in faith. That's consistent. Yeah. Right through. Whether you're broke or rich. Yeah. Yeah. Your faith is still there. It's still there. So go with that. And like I said, that morning routine, win the morning. Yeah. I love that. Really love that. And I think one of the things I've observed, if people don't give themselves time, thinking time, it just, as you say, all those routines you have and that family time and faith time and all those things, how do you expect people to give you time if you don't give yourself time? And that's the thing, and it's about treating yourself well and treating yourself with respect, having that breathing space to then be able to be the best version of yourself for other people, but also for them to treat you well too. So, and I was talking to someone about this yesterday that If you are being the best version of yourself, like if you're eating well, if you're going and exercising regularly, if you're saying positive things to yourself and you're journaling and you're, you know, praying, if you have a faith and you're doing all these things that you're doing, you do intrinsically your internal world, you're a lot healthier and there's less dis ease, which causes disease. And you know, you're in a positive state and in flow, then everything else externally in your life flows. Like when my business, I know when I'm treating myself really well, I know my business flourishes just because it just does, you know, the outside. So your outer world is a reflection of your inner world. And that is just so true from what I've seen. So what does, what for you in the future? So you're very well established man in business and obviously you've got your lovely family there. What does success look like for you in the future? Yeah, really great question. And I'd love to say, I know I have this clear picture, Vicky, but I don't think anybody in life has a clear picture where they're like, you know, in five years time, I want to, you know, be doing this or, you know, it's good to have vision. We all have vision and we have an idea where we want to go, but we don't have it all set out. So I want to just start off by saying that, but I'm going to give you this answer, but to your listeners, I don't have it all figured out. I don't have this clear picture of where it's going to look like, but what I do know is. Up until this point, you know, starting business, running business is fantastic and it's what I say, you're operating business, you're scrapping, you're hustling, you're doing all this stuff, but then you've got to move into that next realm or next phase or level, if you want to call it, of what I called ownership, which is. You know, how do you get into business ownership where you're not, you know, in the business 10 hours a day, you know, running the business, you know, you move from an operator to an owner and essentially that's where everyone needs to go to, but you do need to spend as I like to say, we've done 20 years, you know, operating we're operators, right? Yeah, we're doing strategic plans. We don't want page plans. We're doing sales plans. We don't meaning clients like you're operating, which is exactly what you need to do to build business and have that experience. But then you've got to move into what I said. It's not determined by your age, right? Because, you know, the kernel KFC started 65. So it's got anything to do with age. It's got to do with stage, which is I'm at the stage where I can now move to more of the ownership level of, you know, have a business that I own with Student Edge. I have a fantastic team that make the magic happen. It allows me to have ownership and operation Business interests and opportunities. So one being my podcast and my showcase, Young Entrepreneurs showcase, and there's a few other things that I'm doing as well. But yeah, moving to that ownership realm of entrepreneurship where every single entrepreneur wants to be, where you can be, like I said, you know, the Richard Branson of just, you know, sitting on your island now and just reaping in all the royalties and licensing fees of all these, you know, 300 companies around the world. But that's where I see myself evolving to, where I encourage every entrepreneur to be. You don't need to be in the business. If you're in the business 10 hours a day consistently, you haven't set up enough systems to be an entrepreneur. You're just simply a self employed, you know, business operator. That's what it is. Yeah. Or glorified employee, you know, using the Robert Karasaki quadrant, you know, you're in that side, which is the employed, self employed, you want to move to the investor and business owner side. So yeah, I'm already in the business. side, but you're getting to that investor side where you go in between being an investor and a business owner. Yeah. Is where I'd love to be. And then of course, you know, get back to the next generation. That's why I do the young entrepreneurship stuff is because our role now at this stage of entrepreneurship is how do we pull the rest through? Yeah. Yeah. And that's such a, I can't remember who said that, the quote that, you know, if you've reached the top, make sure you send the lift back down for other people to come up behind you. I love that. I love that. I tell you what, Vicky, we live in a world now where the lift has to go all the way down. Yeah. There are so many forgotten, unheard voices that should be heard. Yeah, so the lift needs to go way down to the bottom at the moment and I don't think we're anywhere near helping the people that need to be helped and giving voice to the people that need to be voiced and you know, you know how it is. So, yeah, we got a lot of work to do with that lift. Yeah. Yeah. No, thank you. One final question. Can you have any tips for listeners who maybe are feeling a bit stuck at the moment and who want to get out of maybe a negative situation that they're in their life? And what would you say is top tips to help them based on your own experience in the past? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, absolutely. And look, I don't know anyone, everyone's personal situation. So when I say this, you know, take it with a grain of salt, which is, you know, make a start. Whatever it is, make a start, just take one step forward, one step. You don't need to see the whole staircase, but have the faith to take one step where you can potentially get up to the staircase because I see a lot of people, you know, like I said, getting stuck, not even taking the step, just take a step and it could be one step a week. Yeah. Like you don't have to start a whole business and stuff, why don't you start with attending startup events? Exactly. Absolutely. Why don't you shadow a founder for a week? Yeah. So it doesn't have to be you starting a business idea. Yeah. Just take a step in that direction. That's number one. Just take a step. Just start. A step to start, if that's as easy as I can put it. Yeah. The next thing is, which is more around your why, and a lot of people like Simon Sinek have already talked about this, I won't go there, but I'll refer back to vision. And I'll, again, because I'm a Kingdom entrepreneur, I'll refer back to biblical principles, which is, you know, where there is no vision in Proverbs, where there's no vision, the people perish. That's as good as it gets, Vicky. Yeah. You need to have some sort of vision for yourself, your personal vision of where you want to go. And it could be literally in a piece of paper. This is where I want to go. Write it all down. Not a plan. Local can't work out the plan yet. That's fine. But at least have a vision of this is where I want to go. Because if you don't have, that's when you become unstuck. Yeah. Because how do you take the first step? So part of your vision is, Hey, I want to have my own business and get paid a lifestyle and blah, blah, blah. Then write it down. Yeah. And then you work backwards to the first step. Of that vision, but where there is no vision, the people perish. And I tell you what, Vicky, that's truly what it means is that if you don't have a vision, you will perish. Perish. You'd be literally just alive, but not really going anywhere. Yeah. You know, you'd just be in this washing machine and, or what I call the hamster of life, where hamster wheel of life, where you're just constantly spinning. And not going anywhere. So yeah, have a vision for yourself. You know, the best thing about vision is Vicky, you will never ever need a self help motivational book because what vision does is it pulls you forward. Yeah. Whereas motivation pushes, vision pulls. Yeah. Yeah. So that's why some saying spend the time working out a vision. Yeah. To get you forward. And the last thing is to compass all of it. I say is have some sort of Yeah. I'm not saying you have to have the same faith as us. Don't get me wrong. We are Christian, but you're Jewish, you're Muslim, Buddhist, whatever it may be. I have friends in all those faiths. Yeah, me too. Have faith. Yeah. Because like I said, it's anchored in something that's beyond and higher than yourself. Yeah. At least that does it for you. Yeah. It's have some spirituality in your life. And for me and you, it's Christianity because we believe Jesus is King. He's our king. He's the one that we look to. He's the founder of our faith. I'm not saying you have to believe what Vicky and Jeremy believe in, but Have some faith. Yeah. So take the step forward, take one step, take action, and have the vision, have the faith. Have the vision. Yeah. Really great. And it's been a real pleasure, Jeremy, to have you on the show today. And thank you so much for taking the time. I know Western Australia right now, it's still sunshining, isn't it? It's still lovely weather. It's still sunshine going into winter. It's amazing. It's amazing. But Vicky, also, thanks very much for taking Allowing me to come into the podcast to share what I shared, thank you for doing the podcast, which allows you to share not only my story, but lots of other people's stories. I know you've got some fantastic guests that come on, so I'll encourage you to keep doing what you're doing. The reason you're passionate about it is because you're sitting in Portugal. You're not saying, Hey, you know, I'll wait till I get back home and then I'll do the podcast. You're like, no, I'm doing this podcast whenever I am, because I need to do it to help others. And that's what I like about you. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I mean, I've built my business so essentially I can work from wherever I am with My laptop. So a lot of the work I do is online pretty much now. And I love that because I'm working in Australia. I was in Perth recently, as you know, we caught up and you know, I work well, I work and live between Australia and the UK. That's, that's what I want my life to be like. So I've got those connections and I'm actually just about to go into the European market more so in the U S market that's next year's plans, but I'm setting the foundations now, taking the first steps. and just moving forward. But yeah, it, what it is, it's about giving back and sharing that knowledge and helping other people. Because if one person listens to this podcast and goes, you know what, now is the time to take that step. We have both been of service to others and done that, you know, to help someone else who we might not even know we've helped. helped, you know, it might just be their journey and on the way, but thank you again, where can people find you if they want to reach out on all the different social medias, but a LinkedIn primary, Jeremy Chetty, C H T T Y, Student Edge. If you just Google Jeremy Chetty, Student Edge, you will find me and all my contact details, please add me on. Like I said, LinkedIn. I'm on Instagram now because of Jeremy underscore Chetty. So you'll find me there, but thank you very much for having me on the show. Thank you. And like I said, keep doing what you're doing and we'll see you back in your second home soon. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. See you soon. Thanks, Jeremy. Bye.