Curious AF

#7 Confronting Darkness, Global Lobsters, and Building a Business from the Ground Up - Ryan Jones

• Luke B

Share episode

Guest: Ryan Jones, Founder & CEO at Refuel Creative, Digital Adelaide Organizer, EO Adelaide Board Member, Speaker, Marketer, and Digital Technology Specialist

Host: Luke Biermann, Managing Director of Mechanical Seal Engineering Pty Ltd, Councillor of Pump Industry Australia, Forum Chair of Entrepreneurs Organisation Adelaide, and Founder of Hard Stuff Podcast

Confronting Darkness, Global Lobsters, and Building a Business from the Ground Up - In this episode of The Hard Stuff Podcast, we sit down with Ryan Jones, founder & CEO of Refuel Creative, to explore the real, unfiltered struggles of entrepreneurship. Ryan shares his raw experiences with mental health, business challenges, and scaling a global company while staying resilient.

Inside This Episode:
- The dark side of leadership—navigating mental health struggles in business
- The unexpected emotional cost of firing an employee
- Why chasing success over happiness leads to burnout
- How scaling globally is the key to escaping a stagnant market
- That time Ryan shipped live Australian lobsters across the U.S. 

If you're an entrepreneur, business leader, or someone looking for real-life inspiration, this episode is for you!

ABOUT CURIOUS AF PODCAST

Curious AF is the evolution of what started as The Hard Stuff Podcast. Initially focused on guests who’d done hard things—ultra marathons, building businesses, overcoming personal challenges—it’s now becoming a broader platform to explore anything and everything I’m genuinely curious about.
The new direction is more personal and wide-ranging. I want it to feel like a space where I can follow my curiosity and have real conversations with people who inspire, challenge, or fascinate me.

For further information, contact:
Podcast Host - Luke Biermann
General Inquiries: hello@curiousaf.com.au
Instagram: @curiousaf.podcast

Intro:

Hello, and welcome to the hardest I podcast today. My guest is Ryan Jones. Rhonda is Ryan. Ryan is founder and CEO at refuel. Creative. He is a digital Adelaide organizer. He is an area, a later board member, a speaker. A marketer and a digital technology specialist. He's also my friend and a great bloke. Now. A bit of a trigger warning here, we get into some fairly dark topics and we actually talk about self harm. Um, if that's going to trigger you in any way, don't listen. Um, I mean that very seriously. I don't want that on my conscience. It actually triggered me and put me in a bit of a dark place for the next couple of weeks after the recording. It's something that has touched my life fairly significantly. Um, Funnily enough, this is actually the second time I've recorded this intro because the first time. I went on a 10 minute. You know, trauma dump about my experiences with, uh, self harm and, and how it's affected my life, not my self harm, but how other people. You got the picture. I'm going to leave it there. Um, maybe later I will dive into that topic a bit more. Um, but at this stage I'm still figuring out whether there's actually value to anybody or that's just, you know, some entertaining trauma dump for what purpose. And it is just going to trigger people. I don't know. Either way. This is a fantastic episode. I love Ron is a very smart guy and he's done some very cool stuff. I hope you guys enjoy it. Uh, if you do enjoy it, please like, and subscribe, or please subscribe on whatever audio platform you are listening to. And, uh, I enjoy the show. Thanks.

Ryan Jones - Entrepreneurship:

Ryan Jones. Thanks for coming on the show. Thanks for coming on my show, Luke. Bit of behind the scenes, there was a few technical difficulties, so we're, uh, actually recording with your equipment, but we'll get through. I'm trying to calm down after the punning attack of you showing up and me having no way to record the show, but we got there. So I think it's the name of the show, mate, it's not the way you have to run the show. You don't have to be hard. I think I just make things hard. Um, look, I want to start with if, uh, you could dive a bit into your business. So today's show is going to be about entrepreneurship, um, some of the issues going through building a business, starting a business. Um, and yeah, I think when we spoke about what we're going to try to talk about in the episode, um, you want to make it relatable and talk about a few of the issues because I think that's important. I really, I kind of despise, now I know that's a harsh word, but I despise a lot of the, uh, I guess entrepreneurial. Uh, content out there cause it's all pretty unrealistic bullshit. Um, Just hustle harder, Luke. It's so ridiculous. Um, anyway, so yeah, if you could just dive into your, uh, your business to start and what you're currently doing and we'll go from there. Cool. So, um, I've currently got, uh, two businesses. Um, my main business, I guess you'd call it is, is refuel creative. I didn't know you had two businesses. Oh, there you go. Yeah. Um, we're a digital marketing agency. Uh, we're based in Port Adelaide, South Australia. Um, we've been around for, uh, uh, nearly eight years now. Um, and we've got about 10 staff, um, mostly in Port Adelaide, but a couple remote. Yeah. Um, we from Port Adelaide, we service. Australia, New Zealand, um, the UK, the US, Singapore, Australia, all over the world. So can I ask where your remote staff are? Uh, I've got one in Queensland and we've got one in the Philippines. Yes. Um, and then we kind of, we've got a whole model that we can talk about if you want, but, uh. I think I would like to talk about, yeah, a model as in for outsourcing? Uh, no, for, um, our Refuel is. to build a 24 7 always on digital marketing agency. Okay. Um, we've just found that, um, you know, whether it's a, a startup founder that their only time to review their data is 3am on a Sunday morning and that's when they're having a panic attack about their numbers and they need somebody to talk to. Um, that happened, that happens quite a lot. Um, but then also it's the, um, global marketing teams. Um, we've worked with some marketing teams. We've got 120 people all over the world. So those people need support when they need that support in different time zones. So how do you achieve that if you've only got the Philippines, which is what, two and a half hours behind us, and then Australia? Well, quite simply, we're not quite there yet. Okay. I was going to say, does that just mean you're on call 24 seven? No, we're somewhere at about, um, 12 by five at the moment, um, but you know, by hiring in a couple of strategic locations. So Mexico and South Africa are probably the two next ones that we're looking at rolling out in. Yeah. Um, that gives us that 24 seven time coverage. Yeah. Um, and also just allows people to have the flexibility that they want. Yeah. I'm, this is very timely for me, this, and I'm really interested to dive deeper into this. So I just caught up with David Buckle yesterday. Because I'm, I'm at this position where I feel like I'm spinning my wheels in Australia. So the Australian market, um, it's a nice industry. Uh, it's, you know, there's still a lot of room for growth, but comparing the Australian market to the world, it's quite small. And then on top of that, there's a labor shortage. Wages in what we do is extremely high. And I feel like, you know, I've got to take some responsibility for this, but I feel like I'm on a bit of a cycle where I'll hire a business development manager, you know, they'll talk themselves out. Three months down the track, nothing's happened, uh, I've lost an extreme, like, so the business makes a decent net profit, but wages in Australia are so high that one business development manager eats up all the profit and then you find you've just wasted the last six months and haven't made any money. So I'm currently looking at. First of all, I need engineers because I want to start getting real serious about our product development. And I, there's just no way I can do that within Australia because my competitors are big multinationals who have engineers all over the world. So I was like, I'm going to hire, uh, engineers and I've been looking at a bunch of different countries. And then I'm like, well, if I'm going to hire engineers in a different country, why not just Take my business global and I can actually sell product to the whole world, right? So I'm currently going through that journey now, but yeah, you know, we were talking about all sorts of countries South Africa Philippines, Vietnam And then just they're different ways that you can hire people there and that their laws and you know, how I Guess open they are to foreigners running businesses of it over there. So you can just in Australia look The, um, employment environment has changed here. Yeah. Uh, the government haven't quite caught up to how that works. Yep. Um, so, you know, if somebody works on a Sunday, then they're expecting their penalty rates to, to work on a Sunday. Yeah. Um, but if that person, it suits that person to work on a Sunday and they want to swap their Tuesday so they can go out with the kids for the day, but they want to work Sunday instead. then that's their choice and we're willing to give them that flexibility. But why should we pay penalty rates for, for that if it's their choice to swap the data? Yeah. Um, I think a lot of the Australian laws appeal obviously to the lowest common denominator and it just takes away all flexibility as both employee for situations like you were speaking about. So in general what we've found is people don't want to work overnight. Yep. Um, and that's a hundred percent fair enough. Yeah. So, you know, we see hiring in these other countries as being, uh, um, you know, an enabler to enable us to do something different rather than a cost cutting exercise. Yep. Um, you know, we're adding people in these other countries. We're not swapping them out. Yep. Um, But your, um, your clients are global anyway, are they? Yeah. Okay. You know, it will take some of the pressure off our team here so that we're not doing, you know, long days catering for different time zones. Yeah. Um, we really want somebody to be available in every time zone where we've got clients so that they're available when they need during their business day at least. So how many clients would be a late based as a percentage and how many of them would be? Interstate and global. Like, is this a recent kind of shift or you've always had that? We've always been, um, not very well known in Adelaide. Yep. Um, the other business that, that I run, um, uh, with a couple of friends of mine, uh, which runs the digital Adelaide conference. So between the three of us, we run Adelaide's biggest marketing conference. Okay. So that's not done through refuel. No, that's not done through refuel. Um, so there's, there's two other partners in that business. We all work together to put that event on. Um, and that has definitely helped get our name out there more in Adelaide and get us known in the marketing world in Adelaide. Um, but because of the work I was doing before I started this business. We were doing a lot of work in the NT, we did a lot of work in, in other states and countries. So when I went out on my own, I was in a role in that other business where, um, I'd sort of transitioned over time into more of an education role, but I was very strictly not allowed to do delivery. So you'd educate people as much as you want, and some people are going to turn around and go, you know what? I don't have time to do this. This is too hard. Can you just do it for me? And my hands were tired. I had to say no to all of that. Um, that was, that wasn't through a company that you owned. That was through, no, so that was through a, um, you know, I worked for a non profit. Yep. Um, and they only wanted to do the training piece. Gotcha. So once I went out on my own and people found out I was, was out on my own and LinkedIn and things like that. The phone started ringing and people were like, Hey, can you actually do this thing for us now? Yep. We haven't found anyone to do it and we just want to work with you. Yep. Um, and so that meant that, you know, the first couple of years I'd spent a couple of months in Darwin working with clients up there. Um, you know, some of the New Zealand clients earlier on came through that relationship as well. Um, some of the sort of Southeast Asia and US clients. And you were traveling? Uh, yeah. So did you feel a need initially to How do you make sure that you're meeting with your clients face to face, but then as time has gone on, you've realized that that's not as much as a necessity or are you still, are you still traveling around the world for new clients? So my travels dropped off a lot since COVID for fairly obvious reasons there. Um, but, uh, I'd say the work that we were doing back then, um, a lot of it needed to be done face to face. Like it was site inspection type work and some systems work that had to be done face to face. As time's gone on, um, that's, that's been less of an issue. Um, but definitely like COVID, one of the great things about COVID for us is, you know, we had clients in the city who would want to meet face to face once a month. And, you know, for me at the time, it was like, all right, well, that's a. a two hour round trip for a 30 minute meeting. Yeah. Um, so you'd say to him, look, if you want to meet today, I can, I can meet at three o'clock for half an hour on zoom, Google meet. Um, or I can come in next week on Wednesday afternoon for a face to face. Yeah. And I, yeah, we'll take the, we'll take the zoom. Yeah. And COVID's kind of taught them, okay, well this, this virtual thing works quite well. Yeah. So, you know, we always, you'd always prefer to meet face to face. But the practicalities of, of things make that quite difficult. Yeah. Well, it's not really scalable, is it? Especially if you're the one meeting personally with clients. Yeah, absolutely. So yesterday I met with, uh, Victoria, um, Brisbane and Adelaide CBD. Yep. Within three hours of each other. Yep. I don't have a plane fast enough to do that. Yeah, well, I mean, this is something that I've, I do love Zoom and I utilize it a lot for work. But I do think something is missing there. Um, so as far as like business related, I'm happy to do Zoom, but I may change this. But for the podcast, I've made a commitment to only do face to face, which. You know, it has me flying to Melbourne next week, you know, and batching guests. And I'm like, I don't know whether this is sustainable or not, but I do think for a podcast, I like being face to face. So yeah, it's, it's good for you, but then I got to, you know, force poor blokes like you to drive an hour. Yeah. And people, people in the state don't think about that either. They go, ah, you know, we, we get an opportunity that's in, um, uh, Adelaide and they just go, ah. So my partners and stuff. Oh, can you go, can you go out and do a demo with these guys? Sure. Where are they? Lonsdale? Yeah. Yeah. I live in Gawler. That's a 90 Are you in Gawler? Yeah. So today, today's like 90 minute round, like each way. Oh God, sorry. So if you can do all that via Zoom and just be more efficient with your time. Yep. I don't know about you mate, but um Um, time feels like it's ticking away these days and you never have enough of it so, um, you know, I'd much rather do things face to face when you can and when they're pleasurable to do so, but you need to find a way to make it kind of fit your life as well. Yeah. So tell us about some of your early business issues. Yeah, I, um, you know, started, started quite early on. Um, My, um, I was lucky enough to get a scholarship for, uh, for private school when I was, was reasonably young. That school had a laptop program. Uh, so, you know, bring home, uh, you know, my parents had to save up and buy a laptop when I got to a certain year and that was the first computer in the house. Yep. Um. When was this? Uh, 1997. Okay. I've still got it. It's in the office actually. Yeah. Just, uh. In a display cabinet. Well, it shows the, the, the younger people, like, this is what a computer used to look like. Yeah. It's like a two inch, I think, laptop. Had to carry it to school every day. But, um, yeah, I just took to it because it was, like, the, the most high tech thing in my house. We had a Sega Mega Drive, a Sega Master System, and an electric typewriter. Yep. And this laptop turned up. So, um. How good was the Sega Master System? Oh, wait, no. I had the Mega Drive. I had the Sega Mega Drive. Ah, yeah. Yes. Is that, was that newer? The Megadrive? Yeah, Megadrive was newer. You had the flash one. Yep. Yep. Yep. I think we used to play Sonic and Lemmings. I think that was my two go to. And Alex the Kid, I think. Yes. Well, the Master System had Alex the Kid built in. That's right. Yeah. Yep. Yeah. It's the best. I want to get one of them. They're probably worth like 500 bucks now. So much. Yeah. Um, yeah. So, um, just took to it and so my mates and I at work, at school. Learn how to, um, code apps and build websites and things like that. And, um, back then it was kind of, you know, the web design industry wasn't as, um, evolved as it is now. And it kind of, there wasn't that many people servicing the low end of the market. So here I am, I'm 12 years old and I'm building a website for a company that made a few hundred bucks out of it. And that's kind of how my whole, my whole journey started, I guess. Um, and then my, my school did something quite unique where they tried to run a, what you'd now call a social enterprise within the school. So they had school students repairing laptops and they also effectively sold our labor out to some partners and things. Yep. So, um, you know, we were building, a team of us were building websites for, um, uh, Like the school outdoor ed, kind of supplier and we did some work on the school's website and a couple of things like that and that just, you know, those little website jobs and things like that. That's, that's what I did through high school when friends were doing fast food and things like that. Yeah. Um, and that's kind of what I've been doing ever since to some extent, um, but I was quite interested in the deeply technical side. Um, whereas, yeah, a lot of people would specialize in either the tech or the marketing or the design. Yeah. Whereas I was interested in bringing all of that together. Yep. Um, so went off to uni and did, uh, well, started a double degree in engineering and marketing. Okay. Um, and, uh, yeah, I started a business with a, with a friend through that process and Um, got turned off of entrepreneurship for a little while there, and then kind of got to a point in my day job where Can we hear a bit more about that initial entrepreneurial journey? What happened? So we, um, just, uh, we, we started this company, uh, a friend of mine and I from, from school. He'd, he'd dropped out a few years before. Yep. Um, I had an idea for, for a product. You'd, you'd laugh at it these days, but, um, we were building a cloud, um, management for video rental stores. Okay. Um, and I had a, I had an in that one of the, um, independent chains, uh, that were quite interested in looking at it cause the market was. Terrible. Yep. Um, like people hadn't updated these things for years. How did they do it previously? So they ran a little database on one of the computers in the store and then the computer would crash and they'd lose the database and you know, the daily backups and yeah, yeah, all those things. So like the, this was long enough ago where people were like, Oh, what happens if the internet goes down? You know, the concept of cloud software, they were freaking out about what would happen to their business. So as these days, it's just what we accept. So how far did you get in the business? Were you, did you start revenue and stuff like that? Like, or? No. So we, um, we got the software reasonably far along. Um, we had a working, I guess you'd call an alpha version of that software. Yep. Um, we took on a, um, private client to, to build out a website and a platform for them. Um, just to keep cash coming in and it seemed like a good opportunity. Um, and that is through that relationship with that client. Um, I, I think, you know, the, the benefit of hindsight now, I think it was just not clearly explaining the, the expectations. Um, you know, and just making sure that everybody understands what's going to happen here and when it's going to happen. So, um, you know, when you're building a product based business like that, One of you is the, the primary person that's building the program. Yep. The other one's doing the, the sales and the consultation and the, the marketing and the product development. Um. And that was just the disconnect there. Yeah. You're going to do different work at different times as well. Yep. So the developer's going to do a lot of work in some, in some stages and then be able to take a holiday while somebody else picks up. Yep. And I guess that wasn't properly, I figured that that was. reasonably well understood. But, you know, I think it wasn't quite and then there was a third party there that kind of jimmied in on that and saw an opportunity to take my partner off and help their business. Okay. Um, and so, uh, that kind of, he walked away from the business before the, um, before the product was ready to go. Yeah. Okay. So how long was this kind of whole process? Um, probably a year in total, a year and a half. So how are you surviving during that period? Um, I had a, I had a day job at the start of it. Okay. Um, and, uh, and then I sort of moved on. We were kind of just trying to get by based on, um, the little revenue that had come in. Through webshop at the time and stuff like that? Yeah. I still, I still lived at home at the time, so that made things a little bit easier. Yep. Um, but obviously all the stress has started to add up and, you know, in the end I, I took another job at the end of it and had to do that to, to be able to clean up the business and Do those relationships survive? No. No, unfortunately not. Um, and we're never really able to, to reconcile, um, but through the, the whole set of circumstances he, um, and a couple of other people, um, You lost a couple of other mutual friends in that process as well. Um, and you know, again, that's part of one of the things that I've learned through this journey is, is a lot about mental health and making sure that we look after ourselves. And yeah, it was about six months after that whole thing devolved that he took his own life. Um, so it's one of those things that you don't get. You don't get to resolve really. Yeah. It's just kind of there, so that was, that was quite difficult for everyone. I can imagine. How old were you at the time? 21, 22? Oof. Yeah, so, It's just um, yeah. And you know the, You just, Things, things make a lot more sense in hindsight. I guess that's one thing that. That I want to sort of take from my learnings that I've got here, and I've got a kid now, and just help her understand the, what's going to happen in the future, and big thing in my house is like, nothing's broken, it's all fixable, it's all good, so How they um, this is something I've never, I've never spoken about publicly, but Uh, probably six or seven years in the business, we hired someone and, um, they, they started off okay. You know, they started off quite well and, and I could, I could see their, They were, their performance was deteriorating, and I was so busy with the business, with the dogs, I was so busy with the business, you know, I didn't really give much time to them, I was more like, oh their performance is deteriorating, they need to, uh, step up. Um, anyway, there was some suspicion of, uh, substance abuse. Um, you know, and I had that conversation with him and he was completely in denial. And then he didn't show, like, say, I'm just trying to remember all my brain because I've blocked a lot of it out. This was probably about two years ago. He um, he showed up for work and it was pretty clear that he was just out of it all day. Right. And there was not, not even worth having the conversation with him. And then the next day. At about 10 o'clock, like he didn't rock up for work, and about 10 o'clock, like I've been trying to call him all morning, he called me back at 10, and I was pretty blunt with him and just said, hey mate, look, it's pretty clear that you were, you know, affected yesterday, and um, you know, and like, and he just wouldn't admit that there was anything going on, and me and all the staff were aware, so I fired him over the phone, and just said, look, no, no, you know, I've warned you, you're not doing, you are not showing up, Um, and he killed himself two days later and I don't know where I'm going with this, but like I, I don't know, like that, that, that I wasn't able to run the business for a while after that, like properly because I was just so scared of upsetting staff. So I'm still trying to find that balance of trying to make sure everyone's mental health is okay, but still. Um, you know, at the end of the day, the business still needs to make a profit and we can't just, yeah, it was a really, I still haven't figured out how I feel about it. You know, I was, it put me in a pretty dark place there for a month, you know, and obviously I took a lot on that, like, you know, it's my responsibility and like I didn't do enough to resolve the situation. And then I kind of just buried it down. I don't know. You don't know what else is going on in that person's life. In some respects, it's almost the easier option to take the responsibility yourself and go, you know, I fired this bloke, so this is, this is what happened. But it's just not the reality. It's, it's not the reality, you know, it's just that, I don't know, I, I'm still trying to find the balance of how much to dig. Like, I, I've always, I always had the, the, the mentality of like, don't dig into employees personal life. Um, but. I don't know. I'm still trying to figure out that balance and focusing more about mental health, especially in our industry. Right. Cause I think, I think the second I bring up mental health, it kind of turns people off and you know, it's a bit, it's still quite heavily stigmatized in our industry, but it's something I'm deeply passionate about. Um, yeah, still trying to figure that one out. We try to make it perhaps too much. So we try to make it so that people Do you feel comfortable bringing stuff to me because if I don't know about it, we can't accommodate for it. Um, and so, I mean, there's, yeah, the leader of the business. That means that a lot ends up getting thrown on your shoulders. Yeah, you got three staff that are all dealing with some pretty heavy issues at the same time. You're the one that's got to then figure out the accommodations and, you know, keep a track of these things and help them with it. So, so how do, how do you implement that, I guess? Um, a lot of, a lot of tough, honest conversations, um, giving a little as well. So making it clear to them that, you know, you've got to model the behavior that you want to see. So, you know, there's been a couple of times where I've had to say to him, look, this is what I've got going on. Yeah. Um, this is, uh, you know, the support and accommodation I need from you guys. Um, and that kind of transparency helps people understand, all right, so you don't just talk about this stuff. You're like, this is, this is for real. Yeah. Um, whereas like, I almost think about it like organizational PTSD, but they've gone into places and, you know, they've said to their manager that they've got some kind of weakness and the manager finds a way to fire them as a result of that. Yeah. Weakness or that flexibility they need or whatever it is. Um, whereas in actual fact, if, um, yeah, if that place was a place that's worth working at, you know, people are a bit more invested in you and prepared to help where they can. Yeah. Well, I, you know, looking back to this situation, like I, I gave him the opportunity, but there was just nothing, you know, like I could tell something was up. And I tried really hard and since then, you know, I've had a few other employees in mental health issues and, you know, I, I, I think I've dealt with them quite well. Like I've hung around and had deep conversations with them and made sure they're okay. But I guess I just don't know where the line is because there's another aspect, you know, like I had another, um, person in my life, uh, try to commit um, unsuccessfully and, um, I was, I ended up being the one to take them to hospital and kind of force some sort of action. So this didn't happen again. Right. And I think a lot of that was scarred from the previous obviously situation because this was after that. Um, but the emotional toll, like, like, so I felt like I needed to inject, even though Thank you. I don't know. I'm probably not, I'm definitely not the closest person in this person's life that should have been interjecting, but I did. And the emotional toll that took on me. So it's a balance of like, you know, let's say you've got like, you've got 14 staff or whatever. You can't, I guess, be deeply emotionally available for all of them. I don't know. It's a balance I haven't figured out yet. No, I haven't either. Because you end up, if you, you're deeply emotional available for all of them. Um, yeah. Can you still be emotionally valuable for yourself? Yeah. And also like, I'm not this like person up on the, you know, top of the mountain where my mental health is, you know, ideal. And I, yeah. But you, I don't know, like the, the mentality used to be, you know, who the fuck are you to tell me what to do because you're not perfect. Yeah. Whereas now it's like. You're just the person that's providing the help, right? Yeah. And you don't have to be perfect to be able to provide help or provide a sounding board to somebody else. Yeah. I think the narrative shifted a little bit there and people are a bit more accommodating. Yeah. Um, I mean, obviously if these people are having a real, um, hard time or a real episode, maybe they're going to lash out and accuse you of something. But, you know, I think in reality, you know, the dust settles down and they'll realize what's, what's actually going on. Yeah. Yeah. All right, let's change the pace a bit because that got real hectic. All right, well, um, yeah, let's keep going with your business story. So what happened in the next part of it? Um, I kind of always, um, kept doing the same, the same kind of thing in different places in different ways. For other people? Yeah, for other people. Yep. Um, you know, I got an opportunity to do a project with UniSA when I was still at uni where we, we interviewed all these Um, uh, restaurants in the U S about lobster because at the time Australia wanted to, you know, let me know if you've heard this record before, cause it's come out in the news again recently, but the, the Chinese market, we're going to stop buying our lobsters. Um, and this is, this is 15 odd years ago now, I think. But, um, so they wanted to crack into the U S market, but they had a completely different lobster, a completely different set of scenarios. So. They, um, they did this project through the US and of course, my thing is, Hey, I can build a survey system for us to collect all this data and analyze it. So building a survey system for that, then we, we flew over to the US and. Yeah. And we traveled around with lobsters on our shoulder to show these chefs how to, really how to, yeah. Australian lobsters on your shoulder. Australian lobsters. So that was a project through UniSA. Yeah. Yeah. And it was just, it was the weirdest thing because you go to Compton, um, which is not at all like, um, I thought it would be. Yeah. And you grab these live lobsters out of a tank and put them in a phone box and then mail them across the country. You know, you're sitting in, uh, Gordon Ramsey's kitchen in, um, in New York, showing his head chef because of course he doesn't cook himself in any of these places anymore. Um, showing him how to, um, humanely and ethically kill a lobster and then harvest all the meat out of it. Wow. And that was funded by the Australian government? Yeah, that was, that was funded by, um, the Australian government and the, the Lobster Fishers Association. Because they wanted to, they wanted to fix this problem. Wow. And America kind of looked at our lobster and went, Oh, there's too much waste in that. Where we had to educate them on, you can get all this meat out of areas you can't get out of your lobsters because your lobsters are these weeny little one and a half kilo things. Ours are four and a half kilo monsters. Yep. Um, but again, like it really sort of lit the fire under me around the, the opportunities with international marketing. So, you know, the, the world's not that, not that big. Yeah. Um, you know, we'd get into, we'd get into work at 5am and start ringing these chefs before service started and, um, and that helped me get my, um, you know, my industry job where I was working in Australia, New Zealand, APAC, doing, um, doing marketing there for a while and Hold on. Before you go any further, did America start buying our lobsters? I suppose the Chinese Never stopped today. So the, the, the fear didn't really, yeah, I think they, the US bought more, but I think they're still really in the, the Chinese market. Okay. Um, but again, like it makes sense as far as location as well, though. But China comes up and down and yeah. And it's tricky because they send them to the US. They want to send them alive. So, um, yeah, obviously packing live lobsters into a, into crates and sending them over. Yeah. Interesting thing. Yeah. Especially sending them overnight in the U. S. in phone boxes. The things we left in hotel rooms. Surely there'd be a demand. We don't really get into the economics of lobsters. But you'd think there'd be enough of a demand here in Australia. Because, like, realistically you can't find them. I don't know, do Australians just not want to pay for Oh yeah, I think it's the capacity to pay really. I suppose the market size is so much smaller in comparison to the US. Yeah, and these were bigger lobsters as well. Like the, um, the lobsters that you see in the shops at Christmas time now, they're pre cooked and they're selling those for about 100 a kilo. Yeah. But they're only selling you maybe 800 grams. 700 grams. Yeah. Whereas the whole lobster is four and a half kilos. Um, no one, you know, not very many people in Australia are gonna pay a hundred dollars a kilo for a four and a half kilo lobster. 400 bucks. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Um, and plus if you're buying the whole lobster and you don't know what to do with it, you end up throwing a lot of it out when you really shouldn't. Yeah. So, yeah. Yeah. That's such a cool experience. Yeah. Awesome stuff, man. Yeah, I could imagine. But, you know, just, you know, it's all these kind of experiences, uh, that take you to, to where you want to go and, and really help you learn what you need to learn. And also just how small Adelaide is like. Yeah. My, my tutor for that course ended up getting in touch with me years later about a, about a job opportunity with us at Refuel. And you just think that's, yeah, the world is small and. Yeah, and that's kind of, like I said over the last few weeks, the realisation I'm coming to, hopefully, um, that, yeah, the Australian market for what we do is just so small. And if I can somehow, you know, like I've watched competitors in lower, uh, wage countries. In, within my opinion, poor engineering designs and products and stuff like that. I've just watched them explode because they've just got access to a global market, right? And, um, yeah, I can't see any reason why, why I don't. So that's, that's my next journey, I guess. I read something yesterday that if, um, Oh, cause Trump's got his theory about making all these countries part of the U. S. at the moment. Yeah. He's taking over the world apparently. Yeah. Yeah. So if, uh, if Australia was absorbed into the U. S., um, Australia as a country would be their third or fourth biggest state. Okay. So you think about the size of that country then with 50 different states. Yeah. We would be, we would be behind California, New York and Texas and a couple others. So, um, you know, the people talk about cracking the U. S. market. It's huge. Yeah. You don't need to be successful over there. You don't even need to crack the U. S. market. If you can succeed in cracking the Kansas market or the Wyoming market. Well, that was, that's what I was talking to somebody about yesterday. They're like, just focus on one state. And worst case you burn a few bridges, you move to another state, you know, it's, you know, the market out there is, is, is, is so big. And like I said, I mean, the Australian market for what we do is so colloquial. It's, I feel like everyone's bouncing all over each other. Um, and again, like I'm just at the level where all our competitors are just multinationals with huge resource is behind them. So I'm sick of, uh, doing the same thing over and over and expecting different. Um, results, you know, um, That's the, that's the cool thing about the journey that we're on there. Like it's, it's of interest to our potential clients there. The work that we're doing to open those markets up for us. So now like the, some of the advisors and things that we've worked with are like. You guys realize that you're doing all the R& D for your good fit clients here. Yeah. And so now somebody like you can come to us and go, I've got this product and I want to tap into this market. Yeah, sure. Yep. We know how to do that. We've done that for ourselves. We've done that for these clients. Yep. So what size companies are you working with? Well, we've worked with like, on an ongoing basis, we work with companies that are like one or two person startup type companies through to, you know, billion dollar public listed companies. Um, and we, you know, what we find consistently is the thing that we like about the good ones is that kind of growth mindset. You know, the, the billion dollar companies that have a very fixed budget that, you know, if we come to them and say, Hey, look, if you spend an extra. 5 grand on your ad spend this month, you'll make an extra 500 grand. And they go, nah, we don't have 5 grand in the budget. Yeah. That's just not interesting. Yeah. Um, and it's just frustrating because you can see, the data tells you that that's the outcome that you should expect. Yep. Experience tells you that that's the outcome you should expect and then I will do it. Yep. Whereas now we're seeing this whole, you know, rise, be less so in Australia, but more in the US. Yep. These one or two person businesses that effectively outsource everything. Yes. You know, there might be a product development company where they, they develop the product and then somebody else builds it. Somebody else warehouses it. Somebody else markets it. Yeah. Um, and they've got no overhead. They've got no risk. Everything's just turn up and down as they need to. Yeah. Um, and so all of a sudden you think about one or two person business may not have the The revenue to support doing some serious marketing activities, but they do, and they're outsourcing it and that's what they want to do. Yeah, look, I mean, that's something that was kind of a mistake that I made initially. Maybe it was not a mistake, I mean, I didn't have the resources, but I just thought every business has to do every single aspect of their own supply chain, you know what I mean? Like, you've own manufacturing, you've got to do your own design, you've got to do your own marketing, you've got to do that. You don't realise how much of that stuff you can just easily outsource. Yeah. Um. What do you think about, and maybe this is just in my head, I mean, I, so I have a fear of marketing companies and I'll tell you why, here we go, I, cause I don't know what they're like. I fear that, you know, and I think it's just because a lot of the cold calls ones give people a negative reputation because it feels like, like I had a guy a few years ago come in. Um, and just basically, you know, take a card and then kept bugging me to set up a meeting. And then he said, Oh, the thing that you need is a new website or like to get the website that you deserve. And he wanted to charge me like seven grand for a website, but there was no talk about like how is it, you didn't even know how my company generates leads, like how, how is this going to help me, you know, um, no, this is your problem, but I'm just interested in like a, how a company like you would operate and. Um, you know, can you, can you change my mind? Look, I think the whole, the marketing industry is, is an interesting one and it's changed a lot over the last probably 10 years, more than anything, but, um, marketing gets put on the hook for a lot of things and a lot of businesses now, um, you know, I know businesses where the marketer is responsible for the, you know, the P and L, the income. Um, but they're the accountable person that needs to deliver that, um, you know, marketers that are responsible for, for product development, um, decisions now and, you know, they'll, they'll go and they'll run surveys and they'll, they'll get information from your prospects and, all right, we'll bring your engineer together. This is the product that they need, um, which is awesome because you've got customer, um, customer led. Um, product development, if you've got a big enough customer sample size to validate it, that's, that's brilliant. Yep. Um, but I think people are still stuck in this mindset of marketing is graphic design or marketing is a, uh, an expense. Yeah. Yeah. Marketing is an investment that should be providing a return. Um, and these days we've got such sophisticated tools to be able to demonstrate that return that, you know, I really. So the days of, Hey, I want to run this campaign and it's going to be cool, um, yeah, that it should be about how many phone calls did you get? How many orders did you get? How many, you know, sales, whatever it is, we should be able to justify that a lot more. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, if you need a website, then why do you need a website? And the marketing industry is just as guilty of this as, as the clients, because sometimes the clients go, I need a new website, you know, okay, cool, but, but why? Yeah. Oh, well, it's dated. Okay. Yeah. I can see that. And you know, if it's dated, then we might be able to use that as a conversation to say, all right, well, we can see that, you know, it's not, it doesn't look like it's going to be providing many leads. Is it? Yeah. Cool. All right. So this, this, the whole, the whole game is shifted and you need to be able to be able to have those conversations. Yeah. Sometimes it means you've got to spend a couple of bucks on the right technology to be able to measure it. Yep. Can't all be on the marketing company if you're not prepared to make the investment. Yep. Um, but you can measure all kinds of crazy stuff these days, um, and demonstrate the return. Okay. So the marketing, yeah, I, I still think. Um, clearly, but if you look at it as a whole and how it supports each other, the whole thing should be able to say, all right, I put in a hundred K into my marketing this year. And marketing alone generated 500k worth of new business. Yep. So you say, yeah, I mean, this is something I need to look into because like the early days I was just griller tactics, right? Knocking on doors, knocking on doors, knocking on doors, and I didn't know, I still don't know anything about marketing. And yeah, I just made some stupid mistakes, you know, like, like even now there's a, there's a pump industry magazine, right? And I advertised there in the early days. I think it's like. 8000 to get a full page for a couple of pages and I keep getting bugged now by the, um, the person who sells the advertisement and I'm like, I have no idea whether I'm getting any return recognition. Like, I don't know what this achieves. When I get this magazine, you're saying this magazine goes out to, you know, 20, 000 people, whatever the hell it does. I've never opened it. Like I just, I just feel like I'm throwing money and I don't know where the hell it's going. You know, maybe I need to talk to someone like you. I mean, we can put a phone number on that that's unique to that article. So we know every phone call that you get from that is from that article. Yep. One of the best things that COVID did other than training people to have online meetings is um, Um, training people to use QR codes and so like before COVID, no one would ever scan a QR code. Now they're drilled into it. So you put a QR code on an ad like that, you can measure that as well. So you've got all these different points that you can measure where, when it comes around to doing that, um, that ad again, so, well, actually I can see last time I got one phone call and that was a time waster and I got three scans of the QR code and none of them actually converted into a lead. Like, ah, okay. So it's not worth doing that. Yeah. No, it's not. No. Cool. Alright. Which went off on a bit of a tangent. Let's keep going through your business, but don't Yeah, definitely do, do some marketing. Well, I need to, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, let's talk about this off there. But it's a, it's a, it's a way to solve a problem. Yep. Uh, and not just like any, any business tactic. Yep. Cool. So when did refuel start? Was that your next business venture? Yeah. So that was, so, um, I guess my next business venture technically was, um, uh, I ran a, I ran a small business called Pure Motorsport for a while. Oh really? Yeah. Yeah. motorsports. Right. What did that look like? So we, um, we were doing live streaming of motorsport events, um, back before YouTube streaming was a thing. Yeah. So, you know, it was all, but it's all the hard mode and you know, in, in hindsight, we're probably doing this a couple of years early. Yep. The internet connections were shit. So the, it was just too hard to stream. Yeah. We, we got it out there and we did some cool stuff and we, we built it up to a point where we did a couple of national series. Yeah. So I followed the Australian Rally Championship around for a year doing. Um, like streaming their end of event press conferences online and, so was that business profitable? Well, not, not really, like it was enough to, because it was, the ARC was five or six rounds a year. So it was enough to let me live out my dreams of traveling around and following a series and, so how did you, how did you make money? Was that, did, did they pay you to stream or, yeah, like who, so they, they got, um, The year, the year that we followed it around, they had a Honda, um, as the, the main manufacturer of the championship. Yep. Um, and, uh, we, so we ran everything through this platform that we built called, uh, rally live powered by Honda. Yeah. Um, and so I had Honda burning all over and, um, you'd go to this page and it'd have all your links to all your results and all the videos that were coming out as like fast turnaround edit type stuff. Um, and the, the streaming and everything as well. So you know, we did that and then we, um, we did some corporate streaming off the back of that as well. Um, you know, we looked at some other sports, but yeah, ultimately a lot of the, the sporting bodies at the time, unless they were, unless they were big enough to be on Foxtel, they just didn't have the revenue to be able to support that kind of activity. Okay. Um, and this was kind of at a point where. um, rights issues were coming into it as well. Um, and we got really close to a deal with, um, pretty significant Adelaide team. Um, and then, you know, we were, you know, just about to sign off on it and turn around that the, the national series went, no, we're doing a, a national deal here and you can't do your own state based things. So, you know, it's history. That kind of just dropped off on its own over time because we didn't push it hard enough with The the revenue side really. Yep. Just seemed like when we were going out to people they just didn't wanna They were happy to take it if it was free, but they weren't happy to pay for it. Yeah Okay, and funnily enough, it's become really easy to do now and people are a lot more interested in paying for it. Yeah Yeah, maybe if we kept on with that with a couple more years or found a couple of other Sports that could push it. Yep. That might have been a thing, but it's definitely been a service line that we've offered at, um, Refuel since I started that business. Oh is it? Um, yeah, we've streamed some events for EO Adelaide. Okay. Um, we've streamed the NT non profit leaders debate. Yep. Um, for their, not their recent election, the one before. Yep. Um, you know, we've done quite a bit of remote streaming and things like that. Yeah. Um, we do all the, the rowing. Um, COVID was a good thing for that because they, they couldn't have people there. So. So it was more of a necessity. Hey, we need to get this out there. Yeah. We're not, SA Health say we can't have people or that the NT leaders debate was the weirdest thing you've ever seen because. Of the 1. 5 meter rule. Yeah. Um, so the chairs were arranged in a checkerboard with one and a half meters between them and it was just so weird, but yeah, so as a result, they wanted to stream this on Facebook and so that was, yeah, cool. So all this stuff that, that happened in the early days really fed into what we, what we built Refuel now does. It's obviously interesting stuff. Yeah. It's, it's been cool. So let's get into Refuel. So were you sole founder or did you start that with a couple of other people? No, so I was the sole founder there. Okay, cool. Um, kind of jumped out on my own and yeah, my partner and I talked about, you know, what happens if it fails? What happens if the work doesn't come in? But I had enough work at the time that I figured I could sustain myself. Yep. Um, and within a couple of months I was Well, within the first month, really, I was doing long, long days and weeks and really after probably two months, I realized that, you know, I, I had too much on. I said yes to everything because I was worried that it was going to run out. Um, and so I was like, okay, well I need to figure out a better way of doing this. I need to bring other people in. So you were still by yourself at that stage? Yeah. Yep. So, maybe month three I brought in somebody to give me a hand and um, and somebody else and somebody else and we sort of built this, this collective of freelancers and casuals and um, just people that, that could come together to build out the projects and. And how was your initial experience with hiring staff? Because I sucked at it. I was horrible and, and, and extremely uncomfortable. So the first, the first year, a year or so, I used freelancers exclusively. I didn't hire anyone. Just contract. Yeah. And even that, I sucked at that. Um, I, I always felt that if you hired good people who knew what they were doing, you just kind of hire them, tell them, you know, give them the brief and then let them go. Um, but that was dumb. Because they, they don't know how to do it the way that you want it done, the way that you expect it done. You know, I've started this business and it had grown to a point very quickly because of the way I do things and then I'm not telling people how I want to do things. Um, yeah, I, I fell into that trap of not wanting just like, I had a lot of self doubt and so if somebody wanted to do something a bit differently. And I would just be like, yeah, yeah, you know, you must know as good as me, not realizing that the business had gotten to the position that it is based on the standards that I put on myself. Right. And then I just ended up redoing everything and then not having the confidence to have those conversations. Hey, you know, this is not how it needs to be done. And yeah, it's, it's been a journey. Um, yeah. So we, we kind of decided to. Um, hire people internally that we could train up and make sure that they were versed in our ways. And, um, you know, believe it or not, this was two years before COVID baby, people were knocking us back cause they didn't want to work from home. Oh, so you didn't have an office at that point? We didn't have an office at that point and people were like, nah. Yeah. Well, what do you mean no? What's, like, the only reason is the work from home thing. Do you think it was the work from home thing? Or do you think there was a perception of you being a tin pot operation? Oh, look, probably a bit of both. Yeah. Because I found that in the early days. I, I, maybe this is just my own feeling, but it's the second people realize that you're like, got one or two employees and like, huh? I'm not going to, like, that's the, if like I had conversations with staff saying, Oh, my wife, like wanting to hire stuff. And I said, no, my wife doesn't want me to do that because there's no security. You know what I mean? You could be closed down. I've heard that. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, I feel like hiring people in the early days was a lot more difficult. And I still find this now, like, You know, with the whole BDM situation, you know, how do you convince somebody that works for a big multinational to, to come over and jump to your small business that's barely got, you know, that's still working on product development and yeah, I just feel like, and maybe this is my own internal lack of confidence, but I just feel like people don't take me seriously enough, you know. I think it's, it's the excitement of getting involved in, in a project like that. Yeah. Well, that's what you've got to push. And I've also, it was something that I've been pushing lately is, you know, I know there's a lot of bureaucracy in these big business, very corporatized and you know, we are not that we're, we're a very fast and dynamic and kind of free moving organization. Yeah. And we, we are that as well. We're having to slow down in a few areas now just to make sure that. There are a few checks and balances. Yeah. There's a reason these bigger companies are slow monities Yeah. Sometimes. Yeah. But yeah, we're just making sure that people, um, the big thing at the moment is just making sure people have got the support that they need to be able to do things. Mm-hmm And sometimes that means that they need an extra checklist or they need, you know, template or Yep. Something like that. But, um, we've got to a point with the team now where they feel comfortable saying. I'm not comfortable doing that. Yeah. Why aren't you comfortable doing that? Oh, I need this, this and this. Yeah. Okay, cool. All right. Well, let's make sure that that happens. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think has been some of the biggest pain points, um, or issues in growing the business? Um, growing a business is hard. Yeah. Growing a business quickly is even fucking harder. Yeah. Yeah. Well. I, I, I feel like for me, most of the difficulty has just become from my lack of skill and knowledge. Like I've just struggled to keep up with the growth and a lot of that comes down to managing people. You know, it comes down to realizing that as the business gets bigger, you need to make a shift into systems building, um, and stuff like that, accountability, all of those kinds of things. Trusting the wrong people can often be a big problem as well. Yeah, like you mentioned before about how we're expected to be an accountant and a project manager and a marketer and all those things You can't be all those things Yeah, so, you know, I took the approach of I needed to bring in people who were good at those things You know brought in an accountant who just let us up the garden path and internally or externally externally Yeah, but even then they just weren't doing the job properly and you're a dive into a bit more what happened there It's just the Um, you know, you trust, you bring these people and you trust them to look after your tax compliance and things like that. Um, but the accounting industry is finally waking up to this. I've had a couple of people talk to me recently, but they're not, they're not very good at the strategic part of accounting. So you're budgeting, you're forecasting, knowing that that tax is going to be due, knowing where that is. Yep. So yeah. Exactly. Exactly the same. Exactly the same. Um, and. I, like, so I just swapped accountants a few months ago and it was the same thing. It was just like, there was, there was no strategy. And then when I tried to actually talk to him about how, what I want to achieve in the next 12 months, they kind of couldn't be bothered with it and all of this. So yeah, I ended up swapping to, um, a new accountant and he's brilliant. So yeah, I think a lot of those things where, yeah, you just kind of hire someone and you expect them to have. What you, you know, what you need that they don't. So the funny thing is that a good accountant is often not more expensive than a shit accountant. Yeah. Um, but I hope you sleep at night cause you know that things are covered and you know, you know, things are where they need to be. Um, you know, you can, I'm sure other people got the same experience with lawyers and marketers and people like that. You really need to. Yeah. Be aware of that kind of stuff just because the impact that it can have. Yes. Yeah. Like I know you talked on a previous episode about tax debts and things like that. Yeah. A bad accountant can cause something like that even if you do everything right. Yeah. Um, it's just a shit place to be. Yeah, 100%. So yeah, I do. And then just the mistakes that you, like, you've got to learn all this stuff cause no one really takes you through, uh, so you're running a small business, Sonny, here we go. Here's the things you need to know and you've got to learn how to hire properly and just hustle a bit, mate, it'll be fine. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So somebody's got to teach you how to do all these things and you've got to teach yourself how to do a lot of it so that you can, yeah, yeah. So overworking. Yeah. That's been an issue for you in the past? Oh, yeah. I mean everybody running a business really. Where are you at with that now? Um, I had a really, uh, challenging last year. Um. As did I. Yeah. So, um, the overworking came back quite a bit, and I got myself back into some, some old habits. Yep. Um, it sneaks back in. Yeah. I've got a, I've got a 2-year-old now that doesn't really want to have a bar of that. Yep. So if I get home, you know, I can go into my office and close the door, but she'll just sit at the door banging until I come out So, um, that does help balance things out a little bit. Yeah. But you know, you just, you. If you're looking at it from the outside, you're looking at, Oh, that person is successful or whatever it is. You don't realize how much effort is going into getting that success. Oh yeah. Look, that's a very common problem. You know, people want the outcome. They don't want to put the work in that got the outcome. Yeah. A hundred percent. They don't want all the pain that's beneath, beneath that iceberg of, you know, success. And like these, these. Influences like these entrepreneurial influences. They want to celebrate the wins, but they don't realize that, yeah, that meant a lot of late nights and early mornings. And I don't think entrepreneurship is every is for everybody. You know, I almost admire. People that just realize that, you know, they don't want to live a stressed out life and, you know, they're comfortable, you know, like I, like I've got a, I've got an issue where I go through cycles of working my ass off because I feel like I need to achieve something. Otherwise I'm a, I'm a worthless failure and then I burn out and then I don't, um. Um, I don't do a lot like I just kind of relax and build back up and then I, um, go, I'm not doing enough and then I'll take on too much. And that cycle just continues over the years and it's just a constant cycle of burnout. So I'm trying to figure out how I can kind of flatten that curve and, and, and stop that from happening constantly. So for me, it feels like a lot of external pressure, like particularly if you, you win a couple of awards and stuff, and then you think. There's a lot expected of you to be able to back that up or to, to keep it going. Do you think that's external pressure or do you think that's internal pressure? That you're pulling external pressure? I mean, that's part of the realization the last couple of years since I, since I joined, um, EO a couple of years ago, I really feel like there's been a lot more introspective going on and, You know, reality is probably, I've made that up myself and I've felt that myself and Yeah. Yeah. It's not real. Yeah. Um, so, you know, perhaps it's not something I really need to worry about, but yeah. Equally, there are times in the business where you feel like you're fighting for your survival and you just need to do what's required to get it across the line. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think it's just about being conscious of it. I, it's, um. Cause I think the problem with a lot of entrepreneurs, right, is they go, look, I just need to get here. Okay. I just, I really, you know, and then they get here and then before they even, you know, they might crack a smile and that's it. And then they've shifted the goalpost to the next battle and they just live their whole life chasing, chasing, chasing, and never actually enjoying. it, you, you get to those points. Yeah. And you wouldn't believe it, mate, but no one throws you a fucking parade. Like, where's my parade? Where's my balloons? Where's my, um, champagne corks? You know, you just Yeah, well, going back to the mental health aspect, I mean, I think I put all, like, I thought my quality of life was all Based around my level of success, but I think my quality of life is based around my mental health, right? So That's something I'm really focusing on right? So mental health comes first business comes second because there's like so much of my life I've been so stressed out and miserable Because I've thought I just need to be successful And like my quality of life is just not there. Like I, I genuinely think I could remain at the level I am and be happy just concentrating on mental health. Um, but I guess you've got to do something with your life as well. So I found this out last year. So, um, I've told this story a couple of times, but I was so stressed out in the business that I was on the verge of, uh, panic attacks and nervous breakdowns, which has happened to me earlier in the business career. And, um, So I just went, I'm having a couple of weeks off and I'm delegating everything. And I came to the realization that I could be doing that a lot more. So now realistically, I don't have to work those crazy hours anymore. So I shortened down my hours and after about two weeks I'd go, well I'm fucking bored. You know, and I started looking at opening other ventures and stuff like that. Starting a podcast. Starting a podcast. And I think that's what this kind of global expansion piece is about because I'm just kind of bored and, you know, I could put the business into kind of maintenance level and make a good income. I don't know, I'm still figuring all that out. We, we did an exercise on, uh, our mini retreat a couple of years ago, um, with a forum about like your intrinsic beliefs and, and motivations, uh, the ones that are kind of baked in there from a very early age that you don't even realize that you've got anymore. Um, and it really made me realize like, The amount of shit that we hang on to that doesn't serve us anymore, that, you know, you don't even realize is there some of the time. Yeah. Well, and that's what I'm just figuring out over the last year or so, like my internal monologue is you're not worthy and you need to prove to the world that you belong and that you're actually acceptable to society. And the only way you can prove that is by material success. But the, the, the thing you come to learn is, no one gives a fuck. No, nobody gives a fuck. And also, even if they do, is that how you want to live your life? You know, so, so I'm, I'm, I'm smack bang in the middle of this like meaning crisis because I derived all my meaning from trying to make other people see me as worthy. And is that like, you know, uh, I don't know, tower built on, there's no footings is crumbling. I'm trying to figure out what the hell I actually want my life to look like. And I haven't got the answer yet. I'm still like smack bang in the middle of a meeting crisis. Um, but stuff like this, you know, I think I want to focus more on connection, you know, and, and that's, that's, I really, I really enjoyed the podcast talking to people like you and trying to get a deeper level of connection with people. Um, the realization that. Quality of life is more linked to mental health than success. That's a big one for me. Um, Making sure that my value of being a good husband and father comes above material success, right? Like, what's the point of having all this money? And, and you see this, you see people that, that build their business for, for 30 years, but every single other aspects of their life has crumbled beneath them, right? They're divorced. So they've lost half of what they built anyway. They barely know their kids and like, you know, I just don't want to live out that regret that so many before me have done. So, and I think that's just about what you said, you know, very. uh, or, you know, consistent introspection. Introspection. And also, yeah, just figuring out what those underlying beliefs are. Mm-hmm Do you wanna talk about what you, what you came up with? What were your conclusions there, or, oh, I, I can't even remember, to be honest with you. I think the thing I took away more is just the, the questioning of everything and going, you know, is that, is that actually what I believe or is that what's been baked into me from. From day one and, um, you know, a lot of this stuff was, was, was not, was, you know, really holding, holding me back a little bit. Yeah. You know, you, you realize that, you know, what is that thing like the, the, the success that's, you know, you feel like you've got to be a success and then you go out and talk to people about your success and they don't give a fuck or they think you're bragging about it. Um. Uh, yeah, that's a good thing about finding EO and, you know, being in a group of business owners that actually appreciate the effort that it's taken to get that win. Yeah. It's not as though you actually won the lottery. You worked really hard to do that. Yeah. Um, so you can say it without being perceived as, as bragging or big noting. Um, whereas, you know, you can't, you can't have those conversations with a lot of people anymore. Yeah, no, you get, you get to this weird point where you catch up with old friends and you can't talk about, you feel like you can't talk about the business because it just feels like you are being braggadocious or whatever. Yet that business also encapsulates your whole life. So you've got nothing to fucking talk about with anyone anymore and you just become this weird like, you know, I don't know, weird outcast of your previous friends. And then that's why, you know, a, uh, community like EO has been so goddamn helpful, you know. Sometimes you, you're just catching up with people as well, where the, the problems that they're dealing with, you know, not to, not to minimize their issues, but. They're not real problems. No. And, and they're all self, you know, they're all self inflicted and you know, they're just, yeah. My head off, my manager's making me buy purple paperclips and yeah, it's really bothering me because it's just such a dumb decision. It's like, cool. How am I going to make payroll for 15 people next week? Yeah. But it's funny you say that because I've caught up with a few like ultra successful. People recently, and then they make my problems. Oh, I'm that guy to this guy. So it really puts everything in perspective. Well, my mate says the reward that we get for success is bigger and more complicated problems. Yeah, yeah. I would agree with that. And I think we naturally create them and without being very, I guess, um, Careful about what we take on. It's just so easy. Um. Yeah. Yeah, 100%. Cool. Anything else you want to talk about? My man? No. Anything else you want to ask about? No. Cool. I think we're good. Appreciate you coming on. We didn't have enough hard stuff today, did we? Yeah, we did. Alright, good. Appreciate you coming on. Thanks for having us. Thanks. Thanks, Luke. It was good fun. Founder CEO at Refuel Creative. Digital Adelaide organiser. EO Adelaide board member. Speaker. Marketer. Digital Technology Specialist