Welcome to the I. Q. Meets EQ podcast. I'm Jackie brahman, Principal solicitor at T. B. A. Law Ceo of legally wise women and I'm here with joe Stanick former corporate lawyer. Then the head of HR and now an emotional intelligence coach morning or wish good morning, Jackie, How are you? Good. How are you? Good, good. It's just saying to you just before we hit record that I started Vision GT. If anyone hasn't done that, it's a freaking killer. It's so good. And I've purposely done mornings because I find it really hard to train in the morning. It's been great. It's been so good. Yeah, brilliant. Yeah. You'll be a new person in six months. That's the goal. That's the goal. So I got a divorce tattoo and now in your body, all I'm missing is a haircut and dyeing it or something. I don't know. I don't know. Yeah, I booked in for a marathon two for november. So I've got plenty of time to train, pull on. Where's marathon? Um, it's around all the wineries in central victorious. So it's called the vines run.

It'll be a really nice one. It should all be on like gravel or grass as well around the vines to, because my feet get really sore usually when I do a half marathon. But so the surface should be really good for that. Are you doing a full Yes, yes. It's my full first full Oh, you got a training plan for that. You would have right. Yeah. I haven't looked at one yet plenty of time. Amazing that the body can do it. It's just the brain ultra and run 10 Ks by the time you do a full marathon. What the hell? Yeah, awesome. Good. Now we are having a few men on the podcast, which is a great little change. So we had self love months for feb and now we've sort of got, we're introducing men in March. So yeah, I really like this and we've found some really great, emotionally intelligent men which we have is lovely.

So your interview, which is great. I had to listen to it yesterday from Cat Mayaguana, another UK resident. Love the accent. So yeah, he's amazing. 20, years plus as you know, business growth strategist and talent developer, I think it's about his fifth business and Fridays lab is just huge. Now he's founded it and grown it to international like he sort of said in his interview project management, so he finds clients who need help. He finds the providers, he brings it all together. Yeah. And international speaker and you can really tell like his subjects are mindset, innovation disruption. So yeah, let's have a listen kate, thank you so much for joining us on our podcast.

Like you meet CQ, it's my pleasure and thank you for having me, I feel really, really honored to be here today. Excellent. So for all of our listeners, um you're probably listening to this voice going, it's not a woman's voice because they're so used to hearing women on our podcast over the last year and a half that we've been running our podcast and we've decided to shake things up for the month of March and april and do um some interviews with some men around the world. So obviously being poor me, I had to like go who in my network talk to that's in the UK. So I've got you and I've actually got matt coming on next week as well, Matt Corona. So thank you. So can tell us about who you are and what do you do on the other side of the world to where we are? Well, well, accidental businessmen and we'll get into that in a little bit. I'm I'm a business strategist entrepreneur, I'm a husband, a father, a mentor, an expert and advisor.

I've been doing a lot of this sort of work for the last 20 years and primarily work in the talent innovation and business innovation space. That's that's really kind of a quick whistlestop overview of myself and outside of outside of this as I say, outside of work professionally, I mean a husband father two kids, 15 year old and a 13 year old. So I'm if anyone out there that's listening to this, you probably have teenage kids. Yes, I'm going through that right now and I'm also father to a six month old puppy as well. Simba. So very cute and our listeners can't see him because you and I are recording this on video. But he is very, very cute. Well, we actually have a picture of him probably with your bio. Why not? So they can see, I'll get you, I'll get you one of those types of pictures for you. Yeah, definitely. That would be amazing. So you and I connected. We actually haven't met in person actually believe it or not. Right. I keep forgetting that we've actually never met in person. So we connected through facebook I think when I was on facebook a number of years ago.

Right? A mutual connection jay Shetty. That's right. Yes. Yes, Yes, that's right. Yes. Obviously have quite a quite a good connection relationship and then, you know, he put forward, he goes, there's this one person that he really wanted me to connect with so we haven't met. So hopefully when Covid eases, we keep saying that you're going to either come down to 70 or I'm going to come down to Windsor in the UK and catch up with you. I think you come to Windsor and I will definitely come to Sydney so we're going to share the stage at some point. Right? We keep saying we're going To do that. 200%. So when I met you, I am and I googled you and when J introduced us, you ar are still running something called Enterprise Lab. So tell us a little bit about what enterprise lab is and does. And then also a little bit about your journey now of where that's going and the move sort of that you're having in the shift you're having in business. Yeah, so Enterprise lab is now 10 years old this year.

It's my it was my fifth venture, or is my fifth venture. I've got another other ventures beyond that as well now as well. It was and first started up as a training and development company to support the bridging the gap between education or academia and industry. We wanted to come out and be more disruptive in the way in which young people or future generations were being equipped with skills and I found it quite a frustration that academia or education environment settings we weren't preparing our future employees or leaders in in a particular way. So we we came up with a concept where on one side were a business consultancy and on the other side we're actually a training company and we were taking the very challenges that we had with our clients, from the business consultancy into the academic or education environment and allowing young people to come up with ideas or campaign responses. They could then pitch those ideas back to directly to our clients.

And the whole idea about this is is that the employer would then give them rewards like an internship, an apprenticeship or something like this and what we wanted to do, the aim and purpose behind it was to remove skepticism in young people about future, their future careers and what the world actually looked like and also give industry an opportunity to see what talent could actually do, what future talent could actually do, and that's where we started, it was humble beginnings, kind of went on to, to really kind of lift off within the first year or two, and we then started to work in universities and doing accelerators and then we got introduced to startups and entrepreneurship and from their small businesses came forward and said, could you help us with growth? And um so you know, over time we started to grow our customer base more and more, bring it, you know, bring it up to, to around about 2000 and 17, we were an international organization, we work across all the different levels of the enterprise ecosystem, so whether you're a budding entrepreneur with a startup idea or you are a corporate executive leader, we had a solution for you, we were, you know, I was hop skipping and jumping on planes nine months of the, the year and eating spiders in Thailand, right in Thailand, just, this is what happens when you travel too much, you get bored of normal food, so you think, well let's just see bugs, why not try that, You know, I remember that.

So, you know, my life kind of, it was, it was jet set to a certain extent, you know, if you look at it, you know, from a facade you think always on a plane, always going to a different country, it's always, you know, it's the wow factor. Everyone's that I wish I could have that life. But the truth of it is, um, wishes 9, 9 months of the year you away from your family, five continents, 42 cities, maybe 250 different types of projects, programs or events. You know, it takes, it can take an impact. You know, it takes effect on, on people. Burnout is one of the words that I would come out, you know, with and I got to the stage where, you know, you're, you're moving from a minus seven GMT two a plus eight GMT in three days, you know, you are going to become very alien by the time you finish this. So towards the end of that year I decided that, look, I've got the business where I want it in terms of its performance and what we're doing and we're making an impact. But I need to change something significant.

And that was really about how do I take myself out of being the nucleus of the business without me, it should run. So it's the whole thing that, that perhaps some of your listeners would have experienced before being asked, Imagine if you were left on a desert island for, for six months and you can't touch anything or do anything, would your business still be surviving to a certain degree. The answer to that question was yes. But the bigger bigger thing was no, in the fact that without me, things don't happen in that company. So I sat down with my mentors and I kind of said look what is the problem? What you know, why is it that we're we're in this particular thing and this is back in around 2017 and my mentors are saying to me that look you know, you're doing everything the right way but it's just you you know, you are getting in your own way. Yes, don't we? Yeah get out. It's you know, get out of your own way or stop getting your own way. These are the two things. So I did something a little bit.

I'm quite disruptive. So I did, I did something quite nomadic I guess. You know what I decided to do that evening is I decided to fire everyone in the company. Now you can't legally do that. So that night I literally even fired myself. But there's a significant reason behind it. I paid everyone a severance that's involved. I mean this is in the middle of the night and no one that everyone's asleep right and they're going to wake up to an email says you're fired. They look at their bank balance, they're going to see some money in there and then the lawsuits are going to have. But I fired everyone that night the next morning I rehired everyone back. So people yeah, everyone exactly the same. But they weren't exactly the same in the business. They're all, everyone had now migrated to a new role, a new function, a new and this whole thing for me had to be, it had to be a physical mobilization to cross over a threshold. So even firing myself from my own company was this statement that I was making that you're no longer the gonna be the old Ceo or the the old M.

D. You're gonna be, you've got to, it's, you know, it's not, it is that reset button to a certain extent. And what it allowed us to do is start from a new fresh beginning as opposed to trying to build on on past historical foundation. And essentially what we did over the next couple of years was formidable. You know, I opened up a managing partner network. We we, you know, we got about eight managing partners around the world which allowed us to now eight offices or satellite offices or presence there. It meant that I didn't have to do so much traveling and had to be engaged in every level of minutia of work. I took more of an ambassadorial role and strategic role to look at large format government projects like in Thailand and the UK and chile and Guatemala and parts of the Middle East and stuff like this. And what we carried in was a net weight of expert partners who would come in and be the the the key delivery of of our programs.

So essentially we went from being a consultancy in a training company to a project management company which procured projects and outsourced it to experts to deliver and it was all built on 11 mantra which is win win win. You know the client must win, my partners must win and enterprise lab must win and you know to cut a long story short allowed us to expand our operations. We now procure projects from 26 countries. We work with over 200,000 people a year and I now spend well let's let's not let's not talk about pandemic and lockdown but you know before lockdown I'm spending nine months of the year at home rather than on a plane which meant that okay I don't get to eat spiders in Thailand anymore but but but the point of it is is I choose where I was traveling to. I was more resourceful in the fact that I could go and let's say sign you know a six year contract with the government of Thailand to look at Increasing their g.

d. p. by 3.6 billion and incorporating a quarter of a million new jobs. So the work that I was doing could be impact impactful but and also scalable. So this is what this is what we are we you know we we morphed from being a simple, humble training and development company to being really a talent innovation, business innovation solution provider, but it's all kind of down to core strategy building the right strategy into, into the right ecosystems and knowing that I could say yes to everything, knowing that I had, I've gotten a whole raft of experts who can come in and deliver in the particular niches. So This is where we are. So this brings us up to around 2019, and 20. In fact february 2020 I was in, I was in Thailand actually, um, I went over just to, to meet with the government, see how our pilot program had, you know, finished and really just get the first footings for the official program, went to go meet the Prime Minister there and everything was done, jumped on a plane, got back home and this whole covid pandemic stuff started to rear its head and in fact back then if anyone recalls Thailand was the hot spot for remember 80 cases and this is the worst, you know in history china hasn't even got as many cases as Thailand has, do not go to Thailand like great, you know, Here's a guy who went to Nigeria and got malaria in 2014, go to Thailand and my parents just like you are, you are just gluttons for punishment, you are anyway, we were, you know, most like most of most of the world, we were, we were locked down, you know, the company, you know, big people's businesses were coming to a grinding halt almost instantly, it wasn't even a, a kind of a small, you know, short space of time for things to slow down there.

And to be honest, there was a pandemic and there was also a pandemonium. And what I mean by that is I'm sitting at home and all different devices that have were absolutely inundated with calls, messages, requests. We had companies contacting up, contacting us saying we'll pay you more, get us onto the training and development side. You know, we need to know about agile, remote and digital. We've got people saying I need investments, I need money, you know what we're gonna do? It's, it was just absolute nuts. And um, I'm the kind of guy who takes responsibility on very, very personally. Anything that happens, whether it's home, my home life, my family life, my business life, I feel that I've got to carry the burden of responsibility on my shoulders. So you know, as a ceo, I had to do some, I had to make some really surefire quick decisions and I had to make some, you know, you've got all of your company looking up at you, everyone that works within the organization and now starting to think, oh my God, am I going to lose my job.

Am I going to get paid? My expert partners are like, oh my God, I've done this work, Will enterprise lab pay us for this work? Will I get in any more work? You know what, you know what's going on. Then we've got our clients kind of, you know, some are saying we don't need your services now and we want to cancel to others who are saying we need more of your services. So I took a little bit of time to to sort of readjust myself look at what was important within the business. There was important enough. And for anyone who's in business, this may sound a little bit odd, but I was actually turning business away. I was canceling particular contracts primarily because of the heart of what was there. We I just knew that we won't be able we would not be able to serve the client in the way that we would want to buy carrying on holding, holding on that. What also that does it automatically opens up capacity for you to focus on what to do more and for the people that need it on the ones that you can see exactly exactly. So I wrote a wrote a personal letter to every employee in the company or people are just saying, look, you know, don't worry, we're behind you.

We've got money in the bank. We will keep you know your jobs are safe if it means that I have to go without taking my kind of salary and rewards. I will, you know, I will pay you before I'll pay myself, which is usually goes against the sort of grain of what you say, we say, you know, the the line should eat first in this respect. You know, you got to take care of yourself. Um I also wrote a letter to every single one of my expert partners saying, don't worry, all of your invoices are covers. You know, you'll get paid. And in fact, we are looking at trying to so my role has changed from being um ambassadorial and kind of driven to get out there and procure more business to becoming the leveler the equalizer, the kind of person that's going to kind of bring this sense of calm, in a in a sense of chaos, which we did. We turned away a lot of contracts and business. I went back then and, and start to get our corporate clients to not cancel their contracts. We were saying, look, freeze them, we'll give you pro bono services during this uncertain period and we'll revisit and see and renegotiate, get to the towards the end of the year and 2020 for Enterprise Lab was by far the most successful year revenue generating.

We made more money in in lockdown and pandemic then um then we have in the history of the company, which one thing I'm ecstatic about, but something just still wasn't quite right for me, you know, something just wasn't sitting, you know, the business is exactly where I wanted to be the, the organization is doing everything wonderfully impact is being built. You know, we're still creating ripples around the world, everything's there. But just, it's just not sitting right. You know, I'm just still not entirely satisfied or happy. And that word happy is the, is a very important one to sort of reflect on there. So, you know, as we came to a close, I kind of to the end of the year, I said to the everyone, I said, look december is no work zone, just shut off. You know, we're going to take the whole month off. I'm gonna come back. Rearing to go in january this year and between christmas and New Years, I started to show symptoms of covid. And um, well, it came on as first as a, as a common cold or flu and you know, ask men were, were not as strong as you women, you know, we felt sorry for ourselves and I thought it was just man flu and stuff like this.

But by New Year's Eve, it had turned into pure covid symptoms. So everything from a cold and flu had turned into four muscle eight campaign by New Year's Eve, I was actually bedridden and I couldn't move. It took me almost 25 minutes just to get to the, to the lavatory. So it was just, it was unheard of By two January, I had tested positive for COVID and it started what was a three week journey for me. The first week was it was just oblivion. You know, for someone who's quite switched on and knows what's going on and has has a finger in different pies and always active as you would know me. I didn't even know what day it is, what time it was. If you asked me what you ate 20 minutes ago, I wouldn't even be able to tell you. I just didn't know where I was. There was one point in time where I thought it was 8 30 in the evening, but it was actually 10 30 the following day. That this is this is the kind of madness that was going on, telling you that it's like still, You know, you just left for like what, 16 Hours?

16 hours. Exactly, exactly. So, so all of this kind of started to happen um a week within, within a week of getting into Covid, I started to regain more consciousness, but but my mind was running and my body was still um so I had this whole, the whole kind of frustration and anger and my energy levels were at that cata bolic state. It was still very, I was really fighting the energy. I was I was just not, I just wasn't myself to that in that respect. You know, my dog, even timber for the first week would sleep outside of the bedroom door, you wouldn't want to go anywhere be anywhere else. And then the second week we, you know we allowed him to come up and Sina spend spend the day with me during, during the day on the bed, you know and it's just me Simba and the tv to a certain extent and you know I'm I'm fighting myself to a certain extent because I just can't get up and move and I'm like thinking but I want to do this and I need to do that and I need to go here and I need to say these things and eventually what it did is it forced me to to do something which I haven't been able to do for a long time in in in my life in my business and stuff like this.

The first thing it done was to address some elephants in the room. Now as a as a business owner and as a ceo you do get busy. In fact we are in the art of not business as in B. U. S. I N. E. S. S but dizziness more than anything else as we become as we start to thrive, we become very busy. You know, how many people do you speak to and you say how how how's it going? I'm really busy you know? And the thing with this is when you are busy, you brush things under the carpet. Oh don't worry, I'll think about that. I'll come back to that later. I'm busy. I'm too busy right now to to think about these things and this is it. You know, this is, you know, everything was now coming home to roost to a certain extent, all of these questions that have brushed under the carpet for many years. I had to now face because my body wasn't going to let me move anywhere, but my mind needed to keep moving forward. It's almost that shadow work, isn't it, that we call it. You've got nothing to do but to actually then face it.

Exactly. Um, so I spent this time with myself in a conversation with myself answering addressing these questions, these issues and these challenges and I came to a conclusion, it wasn't that I was doing anything wrong or bad. It was just that I just really couldn't feel the impact of the work that I was doing anymore. I'd become a strategic tool in the whole process of impact. And I'm all about impact and legacy. I wanted to actually says legacy on it. Yeah, I'm all about feeling and making impact, but also knowing that I'm creating legacy as I move along and somewhere along the along the line when I first started enterprise Lab, I was there, I could feel the impact, I could feel the impact that we're making. But as we start to scale impact, I started to lose my way, I wouldn't say I sacrifice, but I did put myself behind, I said, look, you know, it's not about me feeling impacted me me working on scaling impact and being able to build a business that operates in 26 countries and works with 200,000 people a year.

You have to, you have to sacrifice a few things. And I said to myself that look, you know, this is what you're missing the most. And it's not a case of, can I have my cake and eat it too. It was very much a bold decision that I had to make. Is it time now for me to get out of my own way? Is it time for me to step down from what I've built and created at enterprise lab and allow someone else to come either take over the business from an acquisition point and take it to this next level. Bring someone in that would actually take it to its next level. And then that that would allow me the freedom to actually become more ambassadorial and follow my passion projects. So I come out of, I come out of covid with one clear decision. And that clear decision was I'm going to find my successor this year. I'm going to spend six months to find my successor. And what it immediately did is put me in the mindset that you're no longer the ceo of the business. You're the caretaker of this company and we are still manifesting business at the highest level.

You know, we just signed a UK government contract for for three years to to work with unemployed people to make, help them become self employed. This was done two weeks after I came back from Covid. I've launched my podcast, I'm commentating on Forbes and entrepreneur, I'm revisiting coming back, you know into speaking and stuff like this. So everything is, you know, transition in a way where because I have the high energy for it and it's an anabolic energy, not a cata bolic one, it's all building constructive, I feel a oneness. So what's, what, what has this done for me is 10 years has been incredible. The journey actually more than 10 years has been absolutely incredible. I've seen amazing things. I've worked with so many amazing people, I've been able to achieve so much. But the truth of it is is you do this that cost and eventually that price well, you have to pay the price of that at some point for me, I realized that just as I got to a stage where I was disabled from doing things and forced me to to address those demons and and answer those questions that within itself actually is the catalyst to where I am today.

So, you know, the future is not written for me, but all I know is that I'm now approaching this one day at a time only working and and keeping my energy management and leadership to, to the day that I'm working here. So behavioral things, my relationship with things like alcohol. Um you know, I'm not an alcoholic, but you know, I haven't touched a drop since the 28th of december 6th of april will be 100 days without alcohol and here's a guy that would have at least 22 small bottles of beer a day. You know, I have no, I'm not, I'm less aggressive, I'm more happy. I am unhappy is a feeling it's not a state for me, You know, I'm more tolerant, I'm more driven, I'm more focused all because of that one thing. I have energy for everything that I feel that sense of purpose again and I know that I can carry that out in enterprise Lab as much as whatever it is that I'm going to go off and do. It opened me up to do the things that I want, commentating, but then it's also opened me for, for more things which are closer to my heart now, which are philanthropic stuff.

So, so yeah, there's the, there's the journey, it's sometimes it takes you a decade of to get to the very message, but I think I feel, I don't, I wouldn't say I've reset, but I definitely feel re energized. I almost feel like I'm 10 years younger again, you know, a bit of a rebrand, isn't it? That was sort of the term that we were saying like you've almost come forth like because initially you were kept marijuana doing what you're doing, then you went to enterprise Lab. It's almost like now you're coming back to that but connecting to your purpose and mission. So I do have a question for you or two questions before we end the podcast and one of them is like, you know, everyone has a bit of a ah ha moment where they in their own business sort of, we have to reassess yours was clearly covid getting, getting covid, I should say not covid as the pandemic. I guess for me, mine was the divorce and reassessing where I'm at for any of our listeners that are that are going through the ah ha moment.

I know that you get that in a critic coming up the voice. How do you then when you have a path? And I look at it as a fork where you go one is that you need courage to go down because you know it's going to be uncomfortable. There is a bit of an unknown but you know that there's a sign there that's pushing you there. And the other path is to sort of ignore that and go, well I'll just carry on in the business and do it in another year. How do you encourage someone that's listening that's at that fork. Now to take that path of courage. Look, the first thing you've got to do in my opinion is you've got to you've got to listen, but you've also got to hear. So there is a reason why this messages popping up now in in your life. You know why? Now that's the first thing that I would I ask myself why now and obviously, okay, I'm I was Covid would, you know, had rendered me it. You know, life has a funny way and the universe has a funny way of throwing certain things at you. So, you know, I mean, I could write a book to say Covid saved my life.

You know, rather than killed. You know, it could be it could be written in that particular way. So it is a perspective thing. The first thing I would say to anyone that that at this moment that's kind of at that fork junction is asked the question why now and asked, you know Toyota create this whole strategy of the five. Why keep asking yourself why? Why why? Why why? Because you will get to the root. Cause now once you get to the root then it's a decision. It's a decision you have got to make personally are you? And then I used the word brave. But I think it's the word honest. Are you honest enough with yourself to really admit that this this is something in the past that you've put off or you have ignored, but you can no longer ignore because you've got to be you've got to be at that stage. And then it's rather than trying to map what the future is going to be like, it's what is it that you need to be in today? Remember we were human beings, right? So what is it that you've got to be in today? Not tomorrow because tomorrow doesn't exist. Tomorrow doesn't come. You can, you can say, you know, I wish that I had become a millionaire tomorrow.

Okay. But at the end of the day, you've got, what is it that I've got to be in today to make sure I'm a millionaire tomorrow. And I think it's taking each day as it comes as opposed to trying to four plan the next six months and build the goals and this and that because all you're doing is you're hyping yourself up again and and that kind of puts you down a false economy, which means that when your expectations at A level and your delivery is at another level, The gap in between that is what we call failure and that failure puts you down that slippery spoke of. I should have never have gone to my intuitions or I never should have thought that. So it's kind of rather than exciting yourself, it's being really honest with yourself. So the first thing that I want you to do if you're in that at that junction is ask why Now, whatever you get an answer to them that ask another why and then another one and then another why when you have done it five times you'll, you'll get write it down, write it down because this is what I did, I had to write it down to a certain extent where I got to that five the fifth y and that's the one bit that's on the post it note and you know what that was for me is I need to feel the impact that I'm making.

That's all it was the truth. I got to the truth then. I thought, right okay, so what is it that I need to do today? That's gonna help me step by step. I couldn't get up immediately and say, right okay, I'm gonna start, I'm gonna quit everything. So you build your plan day by day and what you'll see is things will start manifesting themselves around you. Things will just happen so quickly. It does remember doing mine and my word that I ended on, but I don't think it's ended. I think there's another one after that is freedom. Mhm. And you know, that's a bit debatable because freedom for what? Like why do I want freedom? So it's almost like I need to push myself a little bit more to go, there's a reason it's a very uncomfortable piece because now what it is is you're admitting the truth to yourself, it's a truth that you've you know, but you've as I said, because we become busy, you brush it under the carpet, you think I'll deal with that later. Now, whatever that freedom is with freedom of choice, freedom of this, freedom of finance, freedom or whatever, it will come now when you hit it, when you hit that word, whatever it is, it will make you feel so um invincible, you almost feel like everything's lifted and you're completely invincible two things which is the point, which is a dangerous point because when you feel invincible or my just in that way, it's very easy for you to start praying, right?

This is what my next six months are going to look like and you start building something fake. Whereas you've got to be really disciplined, determined and say, right, I've got to it. What does, what does the day need to look like? What does, what is it that I need to do today and today only and just keep following it day by day, you'll you'll you'll you'll definitely get to where you want to be. Yeah, I love that. And it's you know, going back to that word, courage or faith or whatever it is, but to really trust that. Call the soul of what it's what is your soul telling you to do because I find that sometimes in business and I have this one, I quit being a lawyer and barrister. It's that fear of judgment. What are people gonna say you've started so long now you've quit? Like your ungrateful bitch and then it's like I put my business up and it's like, well you did that and I want to quit that. And it's like, no, I don't want to quit my business. But it's like what you were saying, there's something missing and it takes balls to go, Yes, I've got a good business, but I want more okay, and it's not more in the sense of greed or money, or it could be, and that's okay too. But it's what is that for me?

It's freedom. And I'm still trying to ascertain what level of freedom am I looking for, But it takes courage to do that. Yeah, It's just something that it can it can take a long time. It could, you know, for me, it took it took a couple of days to to get around and then I started to, but I'm a strategist, I know I know how to kind of roll things out. Look, don't The other bit of advice, I would say to anyone out there listening is don't compare your journey to anyone else's. Some people will get it in minutes, others will get in hours, some will take dates, some will take weeks, some will take years. Just know that you're on the right path. You know, you're you're following your path, It will come when it needs to come right now, you are exactly where you need to be. You are going through this pain because you have to go through this pain to get to where you want to be. You know? So, take it as a part of the journey rather than the effect of the journey. That's that's that's really important because yeah because there's lessons right that you're still learning to help you probably get to what that goal is. And I always look at that saying you know the rejection is just redirection, it's okay you're just gonna be redirected to something that you need to be at that moment in time and then you will then be directed again and don't judge and just don't judge.

Judgment is such a bad thing. So consciousness about without judgment is really the center to your energy leadership and you know where your your E. Q. And you know emotional intelligence kind of fits into space. But remember this okay judgment increases friction whilst reducing freedom. So the more you judge yourself, you are going to increase the friction in in everything. It will create emotion that you don't need or want. It's the byproduct you will create the sparks of anger and resentment and the cattle bolic energy and all the time that you are in that judgment mode. You're reducing the amount of freedom that you have which is the free thought. The free thing. The oneness, the anabolic energy that you're looking to. I'm going to write that down and put it on my vision board which is right in front of me which I can see right now. Also last question care is what advice would you give to your 21 year old self if you could trust the process Yeah, you are exactly where you need to be.

Don't be too hard on yourself in terms of when things aren't going the way that you expected them to go. It's all part of the process and plan. I think one of the things that I've learned over In a very short space of time now after a 22, year career is that, you know, I've worked really hard and I've been very driven and I've been very inspired and motivated and energetic, but I've never taken time to sit back and reflect and say, could I have done that better? Should I have done that? Better trusting the trust in the process of where you are will mean that you you are less judgmental about where you you need to be. So you know everyone, everyone right now you're here listening to this at this point in time because it was meant to be you know, so you had to go through this whole journey to get connected to someone like you to then listen to this podcast and then listen to me to hear this message. It's all part and parcel of your process. Don't worry too much about what's coming tomorrow.

Don't worry about anything that's happened in the past? Just live in the current moment. And that's the advice I would give to my 21 year old. So enlightening, Oh my God, it's like my nine PM and your 10 a.m. And I feel so energized. Thank you so much for, you know, an amazing insight and value for all of our listeners and you know, really, really sharing with your heart. So thank you so much. You're very welcome and thank you. And where can people find you if they want to connect with you is linked in the best. What's, what's the best? Yeah, I mean you can find me on linkedin. There are not many bold beautiful men called captain on linkedin, but captain Quanah, I hang around a little bit on facebook but it's more kind of social and personal. So linkedin is really the, the kind of best platform. I've got a, I've got a podcast that we've just launched called the Business Distillery. Again, you know, there are other, you know, be, it's available on Spotify should be on apple podcast soon etcetera. But again, this is if you're looking for any sort of nuggets of inspiration.

This is where I go back Over the 20 years and I reconnect with people that I've worked with or inspired with me and I tell their stories through an interview. So, so just you know, connect in any, any way, shape or form, you know, come through enterprise lab, whichever way you feel comfortable and if there's anything that I can do for any of you that are out there listening. You know, it's important that you come and ask, don't feel that you're you're you're burning or obliging the only the worst, what's the worst that can happen? Only someone can say no, but I mean not yet. So come and connect and let's have a chat. That is so true. And also all of viewers, I attest to that, like, how many times have I reached out to you going, I need a chat. So yeah, I totally, totally leverage that. So, thank you so much. You're very welcome. Thanks a lot. Great. So tell us what's it like talking to him, He's great. You know what? He's just one of those people that, you know, you said it at the end of the interview, but he legitimately gives back, right? Like he is so good.

He's someone that I can bring, you know anytime going, you know what I'm going through this, you know, what can I do with this? What can I do with that? How can you help me? And he's so giving of his time. So, so giving and I think that one of the biggest inspiring things for me about him is that he's been through a lot. So it's almost like he had a bit of a, you know, breakdown breakthrough moment. This is before his covid story that he's put in there and I remember him saying to me, you know what I've just not been a very nice man, a very nice person and I want to change that because I need to know that it's not just about business, but it's about who I am as a person. So I just find that really, really inspiring, wow. And did you know him before he had that? Because that was the Burnout story he was talking about, wasn't it? Yes. I've known him for a number of years now, but yeah, I did, yeah, I did know him at that time. At that burnout story. Yes. And the fact that you can talk about it and you know, he can really share and be quite vulnerable about what he went through and how it transformed him.

I think it's great and we need more people like that to share those sorts of things. Was he being a bit hard on himself? Like I'm sure he was nice two people before, but maybe it's another level nice now. Yeah, no, I think no, I don't think he was the odd, I think he was he was just really open that, you know, he was who he was at that moment in time to get the business to where it wanted to get to. And I remember him saying, you know, people think it's his glamorous world of travel and behind the scenes, how you feel and I remember having a conversation about also the ego and what that does to you as a person and makes you feel from the ego perspective of who you are and yeah, he's like a different person now, that's one of the things that I wrote down actually the glamour and prestige of being wanted and needed and having to go all over the world and do all the things and you know, from the outside looking in people might really aspire to that. But why I guess when there's so many people that sort of say, well I'm away from my family, you know, it's exhausting travels horrible.

You're living in hotels, all that sort of stuff. And again, it's this and we've spoken about it before about doing what you think you should do because it's like a a level of success externally for others. But it's not something you actually want for yourself. Mm hmm That's right. And it's like he said in the interview, right, that don't compare your chapter to someone else's chapter. So, you know, you almost think, well if that person has done it, maybe that's what success means to me and maybe that's not what success means for you. Maybe your definition of success something else, but you're swayed by what you see around you and you think, well for me to be successful, I need to be speaking around the world or for me to be successful, I need to have a book or for me to be successful, I need to be traveling, you know out of the country, 99 months of the year. Mhm. Mm Yeah. And he speaks about comparison almost as his tips at the end, as an afterthought almost, but it was almost some of the best staff at the very end where he's talking about judgment, comparison and judgment and because you were saying freedom is one of your wise or rather probably one of your values and he was saying, well, judgment reduces freedom.

All this friction reduces freedom. Yes. Yeah. So have you gone deeper about why you want freedom? Yeah. Do you know what I did actually, I, you know, even after I spoke to him, I I did, I asked myself and I got the pen and paper out and I think it's It's interesting because it's freedom for a lot of things. So it's time freedom, which is why I left the 9-5 and then there's days in my business where I'm working more than I ever have ever and you know that you've done that yourself, then it's financial freedom as well. So, you know this perception that running your own business is going to get you financially free and then you end up paying your tax and you're like, what the hell, I'm just going to go get a job, why am I working for myself? So there is, and there's there's also freedom of choice, so to be able to do what you want in your business and that's something that kate and I have spoken up about a bit, a fair bit is, you know, he He started off as his own brand personal name and then he went back to the enterprise lab part of business and now he's almost gone back for 360 and I feel like I sort of done that to like, you know, I set up with my own brand, I've gone up to the EQ Academy and and then the business evolves so you want the freedom to evolve.

Yes. I think there's there's freedom in, in lots of different things. But I think he's absolutely right when he said go back to your, why? So what is that purpose for you? Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. It's really good. The other thing that I really liked was getting out of your own way. Because in his story that he shared, you know, those two big pivotal points where he had to get out of his own way I guess. But there's probably many more like the burnout where he then restructured everything and had this big, so interesting that he metaphorically and literally I suppose fired everyone. But then rehired them all, which was a big shakeup. And then his second one was, you know, having to stop because he had Covid and really having the time to think mm hmm. The bit that reminded me of you actually when he was talking and this was before the interview because we spoke about it before the interview too a month ago is how as a business owner, he feels that responsibility of everyone on his shoulders.

And and I was like I even said to him and I'm like, oh my God, like this just reminds me of you because it is right. And I think as business owners, you know, I don't have staff so I don't I don't really understand it yet, but I guess there is right. I'm sure you feel that to this burden of just being there and looking after everyone. Very much so. And sometimes resenting it because you can't just can't really be yourself because you've got to be there for everyone else. You know, I haven't had kids as a conscious choice because I don't want that responsibility and yet I've created it through staff Anyway. You've got grown up versions of it. You just missed the puppy stage thankfully. Like it's not to that extreme. You know, I say that jokingly but there are some days when they don't take responsibility and and they're adults and it's very difficult.

Mm hmm. Yeah. And then there's days where you go, I'm sure you go, you know what I'm gonna do my own thing. And that's going back to freedom. Right? In a way I think everyone are saying to care afterwards, I think everyone wants freedom in some form or another. It sort of goes back to freedom. Freedom of being able to do what you want when you want to do it. Yeah. Yeah. And I love what you sort of said about the reinvention as well, bringing it back to that? How there's been those couple of changes for him and for you through your business and and in some respects that's happening for me as well. So um TB A law is quite traditional but moving into legally wise women and stopping to identify myself so much as that practicing lawyer and actually being big enough to hold space for far more. And I loved what you said about it's not quitting, it's not not wanting to be that it is this Plus plus Plus, like it's just opening up to be far more than being defined by a very narrow thing.

Yeah. And the thing is you can't identify what you want if you don't stop either. You know, I find that if we don't actually just take a pause and go where am I right now, you don't know where you want to be and then you're in that constant state of doing alright constantly and then before you know it you look up a bit like what kate had done, it's like, oh okay, wow, this is where I am and you know what I really think I really want to be here or I think I like the person I am at the moment that that's got me here and then you have to take stock but it takes something, it almost takes, its a bit cliche, right? But it almost takes something big like that to happen for it to stop you. It's like, who was that lady being God forgotten the name. They'll have done so many. And it's so early where she said, yeah. And she goes, you know, sometimes it's a voice or it can scream or it can halt you physically. But there is that it is necessary to do that pause and go, where am I? Yes, No, kim says it's it's yes, a slap, a whack or a mac.

If you didn't get it at the small things, which I think you do, people keep pushing through and not listening and then they get Covid or they get cancer. Or they have someone have a serious serious breakdown or something. Exactly, yeah. Mm hmm. Yes. Food for thought, isn't it really is Very much so. Very much so, yes. That conversation with him was just fantastic. It was really he dives straight into vulnerability and truth very quickly, which is just again, shows the level of emotional intelligence and the work that he's done on himself. Mm hmm. You know, the other thing that I really loved really early on, he described himself as a husband and a father. And I think a lot of men, Yeah. Put that in their bio. And a lot of women are always described as by whatever they're happening in their personal life, whether they want it or not. But he voluntarily does. That. I think that's awesome.

It is. it is you can't see in there got also this, you know, main tattoos, He's got this beautiful tattoo of his wife on his arm, stunning. We'll have to get a picture to show you. It's just beautiful. But yeah, it's just really, really beautiful, humble family man and just awesome, awesome to be around. But it's funny. We haven't met yet. So it's because we have already met when I left the UK, I have to eventually meet this guy in person now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like so many people who have met drink over, like we only online, none of us know how tall each other are because it's so funny you say that I met this guy yesterday actually for a client, we've done like zoom calls and we had a face to face meeting yesterday and I looked at linkedin profiles to go, who the hell am I meeting? Right, we're meeting in a coffee shop. And I just had this and I thought he was really tall because he looked at his picture when I met him. He was like a lot shorter than I was. And it was really bad because I looked at him, I laughed.

Oh no, because it was just really funny. It's not something I was expecting and like more funny and I'm like, no, no, nothing, nothing. It's just like, oh my God, I'm just laughing because you're so short. But I always do that. Like I've always done that. Where if I haven't met someone I spent on the phone, I build up a picture of what they look like. Look nothing like what they are. That's great. That's fantastic. Um yeah, it would be really good if you could get a photo from kit of that tat and we'll just pop it in the show notes. Yeah, we're going to get Simba on. He's the cutest dog that got just before Covid, and he was actually sharing the story that he contacted the breeder because at the same time there was another dog, a female dog and he's like, I wonder where they are. It would be really good for the dogs to have a playdate if they're near where we live. Anyway, so the breeders like, oh yeah, here's the detail. So they met, so cats dogs called Simba and when they met the other owners called their dog Nala. That's gorgeous. Like now Simba and Nala can have play dates. I'm like, that is so cute.

Yeah, that's gorgeous. So yeah, we'd love to hear people's feedback of kept but also, you know, feedback of having men on. And yeah, the story generally, I mean, there was so much to take from from that and everything we've spoken about as well. So yeah, please leave comments at I Q meets eq dot com dot au or contact us directly. Where's the best place for us. I am at eq dot academy. Fantastic. And best to email me, Jackie at legally wise Women dot com dot au. So there we are for another week and coming to you next week with another mini bite. Thanks everyone. See you soon. Bye.