1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:04,080 Tell me about your vision. 2 00:00:04,080 --> 00:00:07,860 So it's actually over 30 years ago, 3 00:00:07,860 --> 00:00:10,960 I worked for the largest company in South Africa 4 00:00:10,960 --> 00:00:14,800 called Anglo American, which was a massive mining house. 5 00:00:14,800 --> 00:00:18,120 And I was an engineer, I was a young engineer 6 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:19,740 and very impressionable. 7 00:00:19,740 --> 00:00:21,560 And I got to fly on the corporate jet, 8 00:00:21,560 --> 00:00:26,020 which you don't really get to do at 22 for most people. 9 00:00:26,020 --> 00:00:28,760 And I was on the corporate jet, my very first trip 10 00:00:28,760 --> 00:00:31,960 and I was in a T-shirt, I was an engineer, 11 00:00:31,960 --> 00:00:36,960 I was flying to a mine site, T-shirt, jeans, 12 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:39,040 smart shoes, but boots in my bag. 13 00:00:40,640 --> 00:00:42,640 All my fellow travelers arrived, 14 00:00:42,640 --> 00:00:44,600 being dropped off by their chauffeurs 15 00:00:45,780 --> 00:00:49,000 and they were all in suits, three-piece suits, 16 00:00:49,000 --> 00:00:50,840 smart shoes and I thought, well, I was a bit out of it, 17 00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:54,620 but got on the plane, I sat right at the back. 18 00:00:54,620 --> 00:00:56,960 And I was sitting there contemplating this flight 19 00:00:56,960 --> 00:01:00,120 because all these people were so much more senior 20 00:01:00,120 --> 00:01:02,360 in the organization than I was, 21 00:01:02,360 --> 00:01:04,840 but yet they greeted me like an equal 22 00:01:04,840 --> 00:01:05,800 when we got on the plane, 23 00:01:05,800 --> 00:01:07,960 wanted to know what I was doing there. 24 00:01:07,960 --> 00:01:10,080 In the head office where I worked, 25 00:01:10,080 --> 00:01:11,880 I was a certain level engineer, 26 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,320 which meant I parked at the third parking lot 27 00:01:14,320 --> 00:01:15,800 away from the office. 28 00:01:15,800 --> 00:01:17,120 If I was one level higher, 29 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:19,360 I would have parked in the second parking lot. 30 00:01:19,360 --> 00:01:21,400 That's how hierarchical the business was. 31 00:01:21,400 --> 00:01:23,800 So that's the backstory. 32 00:01:23,800 --> 00:01:26,320 We get on the plane, plane takes off, 33 00:01:26,320 --> 00:01:27,920 the pilot turns around and says, 34 00:01:27,920 --> 00:01:29,920 okay, you can move around now. 35 00:01:29,920 --> 00:01:33,160 And on the floor was an ice box on the plane. 36 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:36,260 There was no service on the plane. 37 00:01:36,260 --> 00:01:39,120 So I figured I'm the youngest, most junior. 38 00:01:39,120 --> 00:01:41,260 I got up, I opened the ice box 39 00:01:41,260 --> 00:01:43,940 and I wanted to serve drinks to my fellow travelers. 40 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:46,520 I got a tap on the shoulder 41 00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:48,920 and the joke I actually tell on stage 42 00:01:48,920 --> 00:01:51,680 is that I'm glad it was from one of the directors 43 00:01:51,680 --> 00:01:53,880 of the company, it wasn't from the hand of God 44 00:01:53,880 --> 00:01:55,400 because I was at 40,000 feet. 45 00:01:55,400 --> 00:01:56,960 Okay, so I didn't want to... 46 00:01:58,600 --> 00:02:01,120 So the director turned around to me 47 00:02:01,120 --> 00:02:02,840 and he said, please don't do that. 48 00:02:02,840 --> 00:02:04,640 And I said, hey, I'm young and whatever, 49 00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:05,460 I'm happy to do it. 50 00:02:05,460 --> 00:02:07,440 He said, no, in our planes, 51 00:02:07,440 --> 00:02:10,800 the most senior person serves the drinks. 52 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:15,680 Now you think about that from this hierarchical situation 53 00:02:15,680 --> 00:02:17,800 where you were like literally, 54 00:02:17,800 --> 00:02:19,880 you ate in this canteen, not that canteen 55 00:02:19,880 --> 00:02:22,040 because of your status in the organization. 56 00:02:22,040 --> 00:02:26,260 That's where my interest in culture started, 57 00:02:26,260 --> 00:02:28,420 30 plus years ago, 58 00:02:28,420 --> 00:02:32,260 because I said if a company that was that structured 59 00:02:32,260 --> 00:02:33,820 could turn everything on its head 60 00:02:33,820 --> 00:02:36,760 in the confines of its plane, there was hope. 61 00:02:37,640 --> 00:02:39,780 And yes, over the years I built businesses. 62 00:02:39,780 --> 00:02:43,180 Then I left Anglo-American, went to business school, 63 00:02:43,180 --> 00:02:45,340 started my own businesses 64 00:02:45,340 --> 00:02:47,940 and I listed my first business in 1996 65 00:02:47,940 --> 00:02:52,220 on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange in education business. 66 00:02:52,220 --> 00:02:55,180 Went off to Inventure Capital for a number of years, 67 00:02:55,180 --> 00:02:58,860 came to Australia, started another business in 2001. 68 00:02:58,860 --> 00:03:01,880 But all through that, I've tried to create this culture, 69 00:03:02,780 --> 00:03:04,580 this culture of togetherness, 70 00:03:04,580 --> 00:03:07,100 of understanding the vision of where we're going. 71 00:03:08,600 --> 00:03:10,620 It all came together 11 years ago 72 00:03:10,620 --> 00:03:11,940 when I was training for a marathon 73 00:03:11,940 --> 00:03:13,700 and I had two cardiac stents. 74 00:03:14,600 --> 00:03:15,820 I almost didn't have a heart attack, 75 00:03:15,820 --> 00:03:17,180 I just had two stents. 76 00:03:17,180 --> 00:03:18,420 I had blockages. 77 00:03:19,300 --> 00:03:21,940 But that really focused me on what I wanna do 78 00:03:21,940 --> 00:03:26,440 and I wanted to share that vision with the world. 79 00:03:27,500 --> 00:03:30,940 I wanted to share that vision of how do you create 80 00:03:30,940 --> 00:03:33,820 these forward looking, amazing cultures 81 00:03:33,820 --> 00:03:37,740 where everybody buys into the values and purpose. 82 00:03:37,740 --> 00:03:40,540 And so that's what I'm driven by. 83 00:03:40,540 --> 00:03:42,500 I'm driven by sharing the experiences 84 00:03:42,500 --> 00:03:45,100 of listing companies on two stock exchanges. 85 00:03:45,100 --> 00:03:46,380 Because when I was in Inventure Capital, 86 00:03:46,380 --> 00:03:47,540 we listed a venture fund 87 00:03:47,540 --> 00:03:49,640 on the Australian Stock Exchange as well. 88 00:03:50,500 --> 00:03:53,140 And growing stuff from zero to, 89 00:03:53,140 --> 00:03:55,180 one of my current businesses now has done 90 00:03:55,180 --> 00:03:58,740 more than $3 billion of residential mortgages. 91 00:03:58,740 --> 00:04:03,740 So it's that combination of entrepreneurship, 92 00:04:04,280 --> 00:04:07,760 but also this deep, I guess, understanding of culture 93 00:04:07,760 --> 00:04:10,060 from years ago that I really wanted to change 94 00:04:10,060 --> 00:04:11,140 the world's culture. 95 00:04:11,140 --> 00:04:16,140 And that's how the culture project came about. 96 00:04:19,540 --> 00:04:23,260 You mentioned, thanks for sharing that, by the way. 97 00:04:23,260 --> 00:04:24,300 I think that was a great story. 98 00:04:24,300 --> 00:04:29,300 You mentioned that one of your highest director, right? 99 00:04:29,500 --> 00:04:31,660 And he put a hand on each other, 100 00:04:31,660 --> 00:04:32,500 he said, if you don't do that, 101 00:04:32,500 --> 00:04:35,620 only the highest people that will do that, right? 102 00:04:35,620 --> 00:04:37,180 Or senior, most people do that. 103 00:04:37,180 --> 00:04:40,860 It was actually, and I go to church 104 00:04:40,860 --> 00:04:44,860 and one of the things Jesus also did, right? 105 00:04:44,860 --> 00:04:47,660 He was the being this most senior apostle 106 00:04:47,660 --> 00:04:48,660 and he did that too. 107 00:04:48,660 --> 00:04:51,260 He served people to the lowest to them, right? 108 00:04:51,260 --> 00:04:52,100 Because that's why he came. 109 00:04:52,100 --> 00:04:53,840 I think that's a great story that you shared with me. 110 00:04:53,840 --> 00:04:56,420 I think that's amazing experience. 111 00:04:56,420 --> 00:04:58,660 Thank you for sharing that out. 112 00:04:58,660 --> 00:05:02,500 So is that what you say your vision kind of came from? 113 00:05:02,500 --> 00:05:04,460 Yeah, so my vision, and then it morphed. 114 00:05:04,460 --> 00:05:08,540 So I started off talking about being a culture futurist 115 00:05:08,540 --> 00:05:11,580 and speaking about cultures. 116 00:05:11,580 --> 00:05:15,620 And then I interviewed a company a couple of years ago. 117 00:05:15,620 --> 00:05:19,100 So I've interviewed 85 companies around the world, 118 00:05:19,100 --> 00:05:21,540 25 countries to try and understand 119 00:05:21,540 --> 00:05:23,620 what drives their cultures. 120 00:05:23,620 --> 00:05:26,900 And one of the companies had excellence as a value. 121 00:05:26,900 --> 00:05:29,660 Now you see, I didn't talk about vision and mission. 122 00:05:29,660 --> 00:05:31,260 I talked about value and purpose 123 00:05:31,260 --> 00:05:34,460 because I think those are bigger cultural drivers. 124 00:05:34,460 --> 00:05:37,520 And one of them had as a value excellence. 125 00:05:37,520 --> 00:05:40,820 And I asked them to explain the concept of excellence. 126 00:05:40,820 --> 00:05:45,540 And they said to me that excellence in their terminology 127 00:05:45,540 --> 00:05:48,780 was that you can never be perfect. 128 00:05:48,780 --> 00:05:52,180 But if you aim for perfection and you achieve excellence, 129 00:05:52,180 --> 00:05:53,460 you've done really well. 130 00:05:54,940 --> 00:05:59,460 And so that for me was kind of an eye opener 131 00:05:59,460 --> 00:06:01,220 because I said culture is bigger than that. 132 00:06:01,220 --> 00:06:03,340 Culture is excellence. 133 00:06:03,340 --> 00:06:06,620 And I now define excellence as showing up 134 00:06:06,620 --> 00:06:09,920 as the best version of yourself or your company every day. 135 00:06:11,280 --> 00:06:15,540 So even if you and Australians are renowned for going out 136 00:06:15,540 --> 00:06:17,620 and what they call going on a bender, 137 00:06:17,620 --> 00:06:20,660 going out on the beers for a night 138 00:06:20,660 --> 00:06:23,220 and feeling horrible the next day. 139 00:06:23,220 --> 00:06:25,660 And when I talk to companies and I talk to staff 140 00:06:25,660 --> 00:06:28,740 and particularly blue collar workers and I say to them, 141 00:06:28,740 --> 00:06:30,060 if you've been out on a bender 142 00:06:30,060 --> 00:06:34,380 and you are hung over to hell the next day, 143 00:06:34,380 --> 00:06:36,980 but you're showing up at work and you're doing the best 144 00:06:36,980 --> 00:06:40,040 you can despite your personal circumstance, 145 00:06:40,040 --> 00:06:42,720 I'm not encouraging you to go out on benders, 146 00:06:42,720 --> 00:06:45,600 but I'm saying then you are excellent on that day, 147 00:06:45,600 --> 00:06:48,780 you're showing up as the best version of yourself. 148 00:06:48,780 --> 00:06:51,100 And I said, so if you start at that level 149 00:06:51,100 --> 00:06:52,700 and the days you're not hung over, 150 00:06:52,700 --> 00:06:54,980 which is hopefully most of them, 151 00:06:54,980 --> 00:06:58,300 then you've got a target to show up 152 00:06:58,300 --> 00:07:00,140 as this excellent person every day. 153 00:07:00,140 --> 00:07:03,380 And so that's part of this whole evolution 154 00:07:03,380 --> 00:07:06,180 of what I now call the excellence project, 155 00:07:06,180 --> 00:07:08,820 which will be my third or fourth published book 156 00:07:08,820 --> 00:07:12,740 on excellence, on excellence in a broader sense. 157 00:07:12,740 --> 00:07:14,140 And what I mean by that, 158 00:07:14,140 --> 00:07:17,420 well, it's about optimizing culture, leadership and strategy. 159 00:07:17,420 --> 00:07:19,620 So I've expanded from just culture 160 00:07:19,620 --> 00:07:21,580 to both leadership and strategy 161 00:07:21,580 --> 00:07:25,340 and how those really give an organization 162 00:07:25,340 --> 00:07:26,740 the view of excellence. 163 00:07:26,740 --> 00:07:27,980 Thanks for sharing that. 164 00:07:27,980 --> 00:07:28,820 That's adding, 165 00:07:31,700 --> 00:07:34,700 not a lot of people think like that. 166 00:07:35,660 --> 00:07:38,820 There's a saying in first class business and vision pros 167 00:07:38,820 --> 00:07:43,100 that people don't care how much you know 168 00:07:44,220 --> 00:07:46,540 until they know how much you care. 169 00:07:46,540 --> 00:07:47,380 Yeah, absolutely. 170 00:07:48,780 --> 00:07:49,620 Absolutely. 171 00:07:49,620 --> 00:07:51,940 And so, yeah, I mean, we have little things, 172 00:07:51,940 --> 00:07:53,900 like tiny little things in our lives 173 00:07:53,900 --> 00:07:55,340 that we don't really care about. 174 00:07:55,340 --> 00:07:57,660 We have little things, like tiny little things 175 00:07:57,660 --> 00:08:00,580 in my current financial services group. 176 00:08:00,580 --> 00:08:04,020 Every Friday, the staff get lunch, 177 00:08:04,020 --> 00:08:07,260 whoever's at the office get lunch on my credit card. 178 00:08:10,580 --> 00:08:13,220 I've had staff in the past who have abused it 179 00:08:13,220 --> 00:08:14,900 and they're no longer my team. 180 00:08:16,900 --> 00:08:17,980 Not for that reason, 181 00:08:17,980 --> 00:08:21,420 but it was a cultural problem that they had, 182 00:08:21,420 --> 00:08:24,540 not understanding what being part of the team meant. 183 00:08:24,540 --> 00:08:26,780 It's about, I don't care if there's two people 184 00:08:26,780 --> 00:08:28,500 in the office on a Friday or 10, 185 00:08:29,860 --> 00:08:31,980 they come to me at about 11 o'clock 186 00:08:31,980 --> 00:08:35,180 and say, we're ordering lunch from sushi place, 187 00:08:35,180 --> 00:08:37,620 pizza place, burger place, chicken place. 188 00:08:37,620 --> 00:08:38,980 What do you want? 189 00:08:38,980 --> 00:08:41,580 And then kind of have your credit card to pay for it. 190 00:08:43,380 --> 00:08:44,340 That's awesome. 191 00:08:44,340 --> 00:08:45,180 That's amazing. 192 00:08:46,820 --> 00:08:51,820 Would you say that that is your why of your vision? 193 00:08:52,140 --> 00:08:52,980 What is your why? 194 00:08:52,980 --> 00:08:54,500 Why do you do what you do? 195 00:08:54,500 --> 00:08:58,020 Um, well, I've been a professional, oh no, 196 00:08:58,020 --> 00:09:01,060 I've been a speaker since I was 15 197 00:09:01,060 --> 00:09:02,820 and my late father died, 198 00:09:02,820 --> 00:09:04,980 my father died 25 years ago. 199 00:09:04,980 --> 00:09:07,900 When I was 15, he took me to Toastmasters 200 00:09:07,900 --> 00:09:12,260 and in 1984, I was South African Toastmasters champion. 201 00:09:12,260 --> 00:09:14,980 And so I've always loved being a speaker. 202 00:09:15,860 --> 00:09:18,260 And when I started my financial services group, 203 00:09:18,260 --> 00:09:21,020 I spoke a lot and I've sold over a billion dollars 204 00:09:21,020 --> 00:09:22,460 of mortgages from stage. 205 00:09:22,460 --> 00:09:25,540 When I had my stints and I had to reevaluate 206 00:09:25,540 --> 00:09:27,300 what I wanted to do with my life, 207 00:09:28,700 --> 00:09:30,820 I decided that that's my why. 208 00:09:30,820 --> 00:09:34,660 My why was to share the ups and downs, the learnings, 209 00:09:34,660 --> 00:09:38,540 the bad times and the good times with audiences, 210 00:09:39,980 --> 00:09:43,100 but with a very much a focused approach to them. 211 00:09:43,100 --> 00:09:48,100 So although I have sort of standard talks that I do, 212 00:09:48,100 --> 00:09:50,940 every single one is customized to the audience, 213 00:09:50,940 --> 00:09:52,860 to the people I'm talking to, 214 00:09:52,860 --> 00:09:55,780 to the experience that they are having. 215 00:09:55,780 --> 00:09:58,260 And that's my why, that's what drives me. 216 00:09:58,260 --> 00:10:01,780 When I see the lights come on in people's eyes 217 00:10:01,780 --> 00:10:04,580 and the dots joining in their heads, 218 00:10:04,580 --> 00:10:06,580 then I know I'm making an impact. 219 00:10:07,860 --> 00:10:09,260 Thank you for being here today. 220 00:10:09,260 --> 00:10:11,700 I'm really happy that you tuned in to Vision Pros Live. 221 00:10:11,700 --> 00:10:14,340 I'm looking forward to seeing your reactions 222 00:10:14,340 --> 00:10:16,580 as these episodes continue to move forward. 223 00:10:16,580 --> 00:10:18,300 This is gonna get more and more fun. 224 00:10:18,300 --> 00:10:19,500 We'll have more and more fun. 225 00:10:19,500 --> 00:10:21,340 We'll have more and more engagement as well. 226 00:10:21,340 --> 00:10:23,460 We'll invite people to participate in the show 227 00:10:23,460 --> 00:10:25,900 and thank you for giving us your time and attention. 228 00:10:25,900 --> 00:10:28,580 Have an excellent time building out your vision 229 00:10:28,580 --> 00:10:49,940 and becoming a Vision Pro yourself.