Episode Transcript
[00:00:02] Speaker A: Today we have an incredible guest, Brad Sugars, the founder of Action Coach, bestselling author, and the number one business coach in the world.
With over 30 years of entrepreneurial experience and a passion for building businesses that thrive without you, Brad brings a wealth of wisdom on leadership, business growth and personal development. Get ready for a deep dive into what makes a confident leader, how to build a productive team, and why continuous learning is key to success, given he's got five kids. He also sprinkles in some great parenting advice. Stick around for the conversation with Brad Sugars.
So Brad, thanks for joining us on the cultural Leadership podcast, mate. What I'm really keen to understand, if you want to give people a bit of background, how a boy from Briz Vegas ends up in Las Vegas.
[00:00:53] Speaker B: Well, I always joke that Las Vegas is the only city in America fun enough for an australian to live in.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: Fair point.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: When I started building action coach, we'd always wanted to be a global company. And once we built it through Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines and Indonesia, it was then time to go stateside. So rather than just try and open the business when you go global or when you go to another country, you really got to commit to it. So we committed, we moved. You know, I put an office in northern California in the beginning, back in the middle of the tech boom. Eventually ended up here in Vegas. Based on the fact that California has a state tax system. That's pretty dang unfair. But we didn't need to be there. So, yeah, we ended up here in Vegas and, you know, running the company from here is pretty good because I can be in London in 10 hours or I can get back to Aussie pretty easy.
That's a great thing. And these days I can literally be in, I think I have direct to Seoul career from here overnight. So, yeah, great city to live in.
People always only ever visit the strip. They don't realize there's two and a half million people living in this city. And it's beautiful lakes and mountains and I mean, from my home, I can be in the ski fields in 45 minutes. Like winter snow skiing and people, like, there's snow skiing in Vegas. Yes, it's a desert. It gets.
[00:02:15] Speaker A: Yeah, beautiful. Yeah, I must say, when I went to Vegas many years ago, it was about 90, actually, it was 93 when you started action coach. And all we visited was the strip, mate. That's all you had to do.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: You know, it's the engine room for our city. That's essentially what it is. It's what pays the taxes and makes the money and keeps people employed. So tourism is a very, very big part of our city.
[00:02:38] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely.
Also, there was notice because I did stalk you on Facebook for a little bit just to get a bit of your personal background. You've got this establishment called the spot, from what I understand. Tell us a bit about that, mate.
[00:02:50] Speaker B: Yeah, look, you know, one of the things that I learned probably 1015 years ago is the older you get, the younger the people you should invest in. And so the young couple that did that, we invested in their catering business a few years back, helped build the catering business up. And then from the catering, it's now gone into brick and mortar locations, bars, restaurants.
Yeah, it's just a fun business to be in. You know, over the years, I've been in pretty much every type of business there is at some point. But I do love the restaurant business. I love the whole social aspect of it and the community that you build and the marketing of it. And so I think I. A great restaurant will have great food service atmosphere and staff, but it'll also have great marketing. And I think that's sort of what I enjoy most about that particular business is how does the marketing work? And even the ability to use influencer marketing is so powerful in that spot.
[00:03:57] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And let's just go back to, I guess, when you were much younger, I think about sort of 19, 2021, and you understand that Jim Rohn had quite an influence on your career. Dive into that a little bit. What started your thinking, your business thinking, your philosophies? And how did Jim Rohn impact that?
[00:04:14] Speaker B: Yeah, so when I was 16 there in Brisbane, Sunnybank Rotary Club, I won the Rotary Youth leadership award and got sent away for a week of leadership and success training, essentially. And that put me on the. It gave me sort of the yearn to learn. And Jim Rohn was coming. He was in the Brisbane city town hall, and I saved up the money, went and watched him. And I think Mister Rowan probably impacted more my life philosophy, more so than business philosophy. I think that he's very, very strong at helping you understand what it takes to be successful. You know, what does it take to be success? And if you want something, you got to study it. And that's where, you know, I learned from him three main things, really. Number one, never wish life were easier. Wish that you were better. You know, if you get better, it gets easier. Number two, work harder on yourself than you do on your job, because if you keep getting better, everything works out, you know? See, business is never going to get easier. Brendan, you got to get better at business. Sales will never get easier. You've got to get better at sales.
And so, you know, you can teach that philosophy to, you know, I coach the kids sports team. So you can teach it to a kid, you can teach it to an adulthood. And the third thing Mister Rowan taught me, I was. When I was 16, I ran down to get my notes signed at the end. Unfortunately, I lost them at some stage.
But I asked him, what can I do as a young man to guarantee my success? And he said, it's pretty simple. Read a book a week for the rest of your life.
And so I just stuck with that. I was young enough and naive enough to just do what I was told. You know, some people in their forties and thirties and twenties and even later, it's like, oh, I don't need to do that. You know, it's like, well, here's a guy that's the number one success guru in the world, Jim Rohn, telling me that to be successful, this is what you gotta do. Probably a good idea to listen to that, you know?
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Yeah, it would seem like pretty decent advice, mate. So obviously that's a hell of a lot of books over your career. You gotta. Can we nail it down to maybe? What's your top three, mate? What do you think people should be looking at from a business perspective?
[00:06:23] Speaker B: Oh, look, other than my 18 that I've written, I think, you know, I've always got to go back to understanding the e myth. Michael Gerber's book, you're building a business that can run without you is a philosophy. My definition of a business is a commercial, profitable enterprise that works without you.
The joke is, if you've got to be there, you're a crazy person and you work for a lunatic.
That sort of philosophy of having building an asset rather than just cash flow stream.
Other great books, it's always the last book I read. I'm currently reading Christmas conversion code, the version two, which you know, I love. I just love reading. And when I say reading these days, it's all on the phone. It's all dang audiobooks. So, you know, that's, that's pretty much the way I keep up with it. Today.
[00:07:28] Speaker A: In the hybrid working world, I've seen too many business owners and their businesses suffer because of poor performing employees, leading to below average results.
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Let's get the kids, mate, because I know you've got five of them, so let's link books to kids. What's your favorite I book that you read, that you've read to your kids over the time?
[00:08:20] Speaker B: Doctor Seuss. All the places you'll go. All the places you'll go is definitely. It's a life story, man. It's like, you know, there's the dark places and then there's the waiting places. You know, the whole theory of. You've never read a children's book where you know that it started in the deep, dark forest. No. You have to go through the deep, dark forest in the middle of the book. That's life. You know, in the middle of building your business, you're going to hit the dark forest, but everything will work out in the end. You know, everyone finds the cookies and kills the dragons and all of that sort of stuff. But that's definitely the favorite kids book.
[00:08:55] Speaker A: Love it, mate. Love it, mate. There's a lot of those Doctor Zeus books as well, isn't there?
[00:08:59] Speaker B: Yeah, we got the whole collection for our twins when they were born. I enjoyed it as much as they did, or probably more, actually.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: I think that's the beauty of kids books. Like the really good ones, the adults get as much out of it as the kids. I think it's good fun. Yeah. But in your. I guess with that. Let's stick with the kids theme at the moment. But, you know, five kids and, you know, your man is involved in a lot of businesses. Action coaches a global business. She founded that back in 1993, I think it was. How have you kept this Persona? And I guess even the challenges around just being. I know you're strong on family and having those businesses where you don't need to be in them all the time. How is that. How is that balance worked for you? When has it not worked? How has it worked? What have you learned through that journey? And what, what sort of advice can you pass on to business owners that really struggle with that?
[00:09:49] Speaker B: Yeah, look, I try to. I'll kill off the word balance and use the word harmony. There's a harmony to life and there's times in life where you need to be 100% work and there's times in life where you want to be 100% dad or husband. You know what I mean? There's a harmony to it. You're really in a day going to get balance, or really even in a week going to get balance.
But if you schedule, and a lot of it is scheduling, we don't rise to our goals. We fall to the level of our systems and our schedules. So what you schedule gets done, what you schedule gets achieved. If it's not scheduled, it's not going to happen. And then even this morning, I was coaching some business people and I said, well, show me in your schedule where at the end of the day you plan the next day.
And they're like, I don't have that in my schedule. I said, well, great, what time of the day will you put it into your schedule? Because you're going to need at least ten minutes to do it. So put it in your schedule. And they said, well, I'll put it in at 530. I said, well, hang on, what time do you want to leave work? 530. Great, so put it in at 515. Dopey. You know, come on, it's not hard. But I think the key to building a lot of companies and doing all that is building great people. You don't build companies, you build people who build companies. There's a big, big difference. You know, if you, if you try and build it yourself, then all you do is you work 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If you build people, if you build systems, you build products, you build models, you build artifacts, you build things that make it run forever without you. If I build a great CEO's, and, you know, in the early days, I would own the companies outright. Today, the vast majority of what I do is I invest in great young people who are building great companies or have the ability to build a great company. Just need some wisdom and some capital in most cases. And so if I bring wisdom and capital to great young people, then, you know, and, you know, I'm 53 today, they're in their twenties, thirties type thing. By the time they're in their prime, in their fifties, I'll be in my seventies, and they'll be sending me big checks every month sort of thing.
[00:12:08] Speaker A: So I like it, mate. Build people, pretty powerful stuff. A lot of people, I think, know that, but they don't necessarily know how to do that. So give us Brad Sugar's sort of tips on how do you focus on building people.
Well, you.
[00:12:24] Speaker B: Oh, dang, we could spend hours on this one.
[00:12:27] Speaker A: We certainly do.
[00:12:27] Speaker B: So, firstly, you look at management and leadership in a company. Okay, so management is the building of competent, productive humans.
So people say, oh, you don't want to be a manager. That's just the dumbest thing you've ever heard, right? And you want to build. And in the beginning, it means you got to micromanage like a child. You know, it's like they're a brand new employee. They got no idea what they're doing. Micromanage them, work with them every day, build their competency, coach them, mentor them, teach them, educate them, put them in training programs, work with them, show them hands on, apprentice them. You know, I like the word apprentice because if you treat a new employee like an apprentice, you understand that my job is to make them competent and productive.
So that's management, competency and productivity. And that's a systemic methodology of meetings and paperwork that people can learn. Leadership, on the other hand, is about passion and focus. And so leadership comes into drawing out people. You know, it's the easiest way to look at that is people.
You don't motivate people. You give people a motive, or you find their motive. If you've got a great motive, you're motivated.
It's not complex. When you break it right down, it's still a lot of work. Still, you got to work, and you got to do the time and do the things. But when you aim to build people, if you don't have a training program for your staff, you're not aiming to build people if you don't coach them. Like they give you a real simple example, Brendan, someone comes to you and says, well, boss, what do I do here? And you give them the answer. You didn't build that person, boss, what do I do here? Well, what are the options?
This, this, and this. Great. What's the advantage of each of the options? What's the disadvantage of each of the options? Which of the three options should we rule out pretty much straight away? This one. Great. So, of the two options left, which one's going to get us to our goal? Easier, better, faster, which one do you think is the one that we should make a choice on? I'd probably go with this one. Great. Why would you go with that one? What would you do? And if we didn't go with that one, what would be great? So and so. Do you know what I mean by asking the questions? I'm building their thought processes. It's the same with your kids, Brendan. You know, you keep bringing up the kids. Well, when my kids make a bad choice, you don't yell at them and say, bad choice. You turn to the kid and say, so, kiddo, good choice or bad choice right there.
Well, dad, you know. No, no. It was either a good choice or a bad choice. You tell me. Well, it was a bad choice. Great. What would have been a few better choices you could have made? Could have done this. Could have done this, could have done this. Great. What would have been a worse choice you could have made? Okay, I could have done that. Okay, so in future, when you're coming up to an example or something like this happening in life, what choice do you think you should be looking for? You know what I mean? If you invest the time and energy in people, and they learn it once, learn it twice, then the third time around, they don't need to come and ask you again. They know how to think. They know how to do it. We include a lot of junior managers into our management planning sessions, so they can just sit and listen and hear and see and feel why we make the decisions we make, why we're doing the things we're doing. So, yeah, you've got to build the humans that build the business. I remember Brendan, I was probably 20 or 21, and I went to my dad and I complaining to him about people, and he said, what do you mean? I said, well, dad, I just can't get good people. And he looks at me dead in the eye. My dad been running companies for most of his life, and he turns to me, he goes, son, you get the people you deserve.
What? He said, well, you're an average manager running an average company. Highest caliber a person wants to work for you is average.
You know, if you want great people to work for you, you've got to become a great leader, a great manager, and build a great company.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely, mate. Makes perfect sense. It sounds like you had some pretty good coaching from your old man. So is this where the. Your entrepreneurial spirit was. Was born? Tell it. Tell us a bit about that.
[00:16:40] Speaker B: No, no, dad was never entrepreneurial until I was probably run my own businesses a bunch of years before he started.
But, yeah, he's very common sense and extremely dry and extremely sarcastic. And he won't mind me saying that because I tell it to him on a fairly regular basis, but, you know, just common sense. I think I was pretty lucky in that my mom was really book smart and my dad was street smart sort of thing. And so the combination of the two helped me learn how to do both sides of processing any decision you make.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: And I've got to ask you, too, did you grow up around Sunnybank or.
[00:17:21] Speaker B: I grew up all over Australia. So when we were born, I lived in Mount Cravat and played rugby league over there for East's rugby league football club. And then we moved to Darwin and Adelaide and back to Brisbane. And then I was in Melbourne.
Eventually, I moved across here.
[00:17:41] Speaker A: So just Sunnybank. Just bring a tune with me, mate. It's a long time since I've heard that suburb name Abrizzi. I went out with a girl for Sunnybank for many years. So fond memories in the mind, I suppose.
[00:17:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Sunnybank State High School, mate, it's not a school you graduate from. It's a school you survive.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: Oh, there you go, mate.
[00:18:00] Speaker B: We got through, though. Me and a bunch of mates, we got through there. We all survived.
[00:18:04] Speaker A: You've done all right for yourself, mate.
[00:18:07] Speaker B: You know, look, the interesting thing about, you know, what goals you set for yourself determines where you end up. And I was lucky enough with Rotary and Jim Rohn that it was like, shoot for the stars, you know? And I think most people kill their dreams by not even going for them.
You know, there's been more dreams die as a thought than die as a failure.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, you're 100% right, mate. So with, I guess, back to the start of action coach, or even maybe pre that, like, what did you ever envisage what action coach would look like today? Like, what? When you first started that and started to grow and started to learn and fail and learn and fail and all that sort of stuff, what did action coach look like in your head?
[00:18:57] Speaker B: I. I wrote the vision of action coach of world abundance through business re education.
I wanted to be, and I still today want to be in 120 countries because McDonald's was in 119.
I believe that I could create systems that if I could run it in one location, I could run it in as many locations as I needed. You know, to achieve the vision of changing the world's philosophy of abundance from scarcity, I needed a big team, needed to build a big team. And that's essentially what we do every day as we keep growing. We keep adding new countries and opening our business in new marketplaces and new cities and new states around the world and help business owners grow their business. And so that's the big focus. Keep helping.
[00:19:48] Speaker A: So let's just look maybe five years ahead. Where do you see action coach in five years? Like, how far into the 120 countries are you?
[00:19:56] Speaker B: 83 at this point in time. So our goal is to be there by 2030. So we're pretty clear on where we're going over the next. What are we, seven years? And it's interesting business story because it was about two years back, I sat down and said, because we do hundreds of millions a year. And I sat down and I was chatting with one of my friends, who's sort of a bit of a mentor as well, Jeffrey Gittema. He wrote some great sales books. Biggest, best selling sales author of all time. And I sat down, I said, you know what? I think we're going to shoot for the billions rather than hundreds of millions. And he looked me dead in the eye and he goes, well, you know that you're going to go from good to great to shit to okay. I went, what? He said, well, if you're driving a normal car, you're a great driver.
If I put you in a four mil one race car, you're a shit driver.
He said, so you're going from hundreds of millions to billions. All of your systems that work for hundreds of millions are broken when you go for billions. All of the great people that you got that you think are amazing running hundreds of millions are not going to cut it when you're doing billions. So you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and spend a year evaluating everything as if you're a billion dollar company or a multi billion dollar company.
What do you have to change, throw out? And you're going to have to invest a lot of money in building new systems, new technologies, new everything, hiring new people. You're going to have to capitalize all of that. And so it's an interesting aspect of growth is that when you set that new, massive goal, you do have to take a step back and realize that now everything's broken. Now everything needs to change. And it's. It's a. It's a philosophy. Wherever. Let's say, Brendan, I said to you and your team, right, we have to do double the amount of work we're doing right now, double the sales, double the profitability. Most people in their head will fight you on that. They'll still agree to it, but they'll fight it. I don't want to do double the work. Double the work. We can't do twice as much. I'm working 40 hours, 60 hours now. How do I do twice as much? But if I said to you, Brendan, listen, we've got to grow the business by 20 times what it is right now.
People look at you. We can't do that the same way we're doing it now. You're right. You got to change. And so I think that's where a lot of people have to recognize that to make massive differences, you got to make massive changes. And for me, one of those massive changes was I had to move to America and see what running a global organization looked like. There weren't a lot of multi billionaires in Australia sort of thing. I live here in Las Vegas. There's 13 multi billionaires that live in this city. I was with two of them last week at a basketball game, you know, and it's like hanging out with billionaires is sort of a sort of regular thing here in Vegas, but it's definitely far more regular than it is in. In Sunnybanken.
[00:23:04] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess it's got to help with the mindset side of things. It's back to that Jim Rohn quote, isn't it? You're the average of the five people you spend the most time with. Sounds like you're living it, mate.
[00:23:13] Speaker B: Well, when I look out the back of my house here, I look down the Las Vegas Strip and I see buildings that they spend a billion dollars on. The Red Rock casino is literally five minutes from a house here. And they spent a billion or 1.1 billion putting that thing together.
And it's a very different mindset when people approach things with that level of investment and that level of growth. Because see, a billion dollar company, Brendan, is no more than a multi million dollar company in multiple locations.
So if I want to do a billion, let's say I've got a location that does 4 million, and it can be any type of business. Construction, insurance, real estate, restaurant, whatever it is. If I got a business that does 4 million a year, and I want to have it as a billion dollar business, I got to find 250 cities to put it in.
That's all Ray Kroc did with McDonald's. He said, you know, here we've got a multi million dollar burger joint. Great. How many cities can we put it in? That's all doctors associates did with subway. They said, okay, we've got several hundred thousand a year in doing sandwiches. How do we put that in 30? Like, do you know what I mean? It's just a x times y.
But most people only ever do x. They build a $2 million a year location and then they're done.
They've done all the work to design an amazing business and they leave it in one spot.
[00:24:41] Speaker A: So what do you find different? Obviously, having the background, the experience in living in Australia and that business environment and then the US, it's very much sort of that multiplied on steroids. What are the key differences you see in the two mindsets? Around business and what can actually, what people can achieve.
[00:25:01] Speaker B: Okay, so there's positives and negatives on both sides. In Australia, everyone will do everything, right? There's no if the jack of all trades nature of Australians is massive, people will all dive in and do everything in the organization in America, very much more. Split. No, no, I'm over here, you're over there. You know, it's like stick to your lane type thing.
On the flip side of that, I remember when I first got here to America in Australia, I had a beautiful, bright yellow Lamborghini Gallardo. And I remember sitting at a set of lights. At the time, I was living out at Pollenvale, and I was driving into the city, and I sat at a set of lights, and a guy walks across the street, looks at me, looks at the car, looks at me, looks at the car and goes, up yours, you wanker. And it's like, oh, yeah, there you go.
Here in the States, I have a beautiful blue Rolls Royce. It's a drop head coupe. It was one of the first ones they ever bought out of the convertible rolls.
And I remember pulling up a set of lights. A couple of young fellas pull up next to me in a little black Honda CR V, and they looked out, they put the window down and looked out and said, hey, buddy, great car. Well done.
Celebrating success is something that America is far greater at than Australia. It's all about, oh, you're successful, who did you sell drugs to? You know, and that. That philosophy's dying, thank God, a little bit. But it's still there, you know, that, that unfortunately, that that convict mentality is still there a little.
And the US celebrates success sometimes to excess.
But, you know, I think also the speed here in the US is much, much faster.
The size of thinking is much grander, especially if you go to, like, Silicon Valley, because it's not just, you think of America as almost like seven countries, you know, the different sort of types of areas of the United States. If I go to Silicon Valley and I get a kid who's grown up, their parents worked for Google or LinkedIn or something like that, and, you know, they've been around that all their life, they'll go and write a business plan for a multi billion dollar company.
You know, you take a kid from, you know, South Alabama, a kid will write $100,000 a year business plan. Do you know what I mean? And so it's not America versus Australia. There's a lot of very great similarities and a lot of big differences. And I think Australians don't recognize just how different, say, a New York or a California is to a Mississippi or Michigan. There's such very vast different parts of America and with 300 odd million population, that's a big differentiation. You know, when you go to Asia, the countries are small enough that you sort of see the differences in culture, whereas the US, I think you got to just get clear on the differences in culture.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: Speaking culture. Mate, any foods you miss from Australia?
[00:28:00] Speaker B: Not really, because I get them over here now, you know, my cherry rice, 100% cherry ripes and burger rings. I get them sent over all the time. Chicken twisties. I'm definitely in the chicken camp on that one. Robert Irwin just did a thing. The Irwin's were just here for a big ball and we had him over home and he's doing that chicken twisty thing.
Sausage rolls. But my wife makes. She got my sister, sister in law's recipe and my wife makes me sausage rolls over here on special Aussie occasions.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Love it, mate, did you get a chance to have a decent sausage roll when you went to the NRL game with your mates?
[00:28:39] Speaker B: No, but we. The interesting fun thing about that, showing Americans NRL was a heck of a lot of fun. You know, the tackling and the notepads and helmets, they're like, dude, where are the helmets? It's like, yeah, we don't wear those. We got thick skulls in Australia. We don't need those sorts of things.
The stadium is so used to american sports where there's a lot more cocktails drunk, like mixed drinks and wine and that sort of stuff drunk. Whereas they came here and the stadium literally ran out of beer in sections because Australians are like, just beer? Just beer, mate.
[00:29:18] Speaker A: Got a lot.
[00:29:19] Speaker B: But it was a lot of fun having a lot of Aussies come and visit us here. And it was good catching up with old petrol, seven cents a litre, Petro. And seeing the boys here.
Yeah, got to have a few beers with Alfie and Kevy and the boys. So a little bit of fun.
I mean, they were my era. Those were the Broncos from back in my day, mate, that's so.
[00:29:44] Speaker A: You are a Broncos man.
[00:29:46] Speaker B: Broncos. All the brizzy teams, mate. The Reds, the Bronx and the Lions.
[00:29:52] Speaker A: Good on you, mate. And you, do you gather the friends in Las Vegas for the state of origin?
[00:30:00] Speaker B: You know, we used to. And just timing wise, it hasn't worked recently. It's just been a timing thing, so. But I do record it and get to watch it the next day. I don't go on facebook until the.
[00:30:10] Speaker A: Next day, so it's certainly nice being at Queens here at the moment for several years, I suppose, isn't it?
[00:30:17] Speaker B: It's one of those things. There's a dominant period in certain sports and it's because teams do things differently. The All Blacks taught us how to do it and if you followed what they did, you became a dominant sports team. It's not hard. Follow a team that's doing amazing things and away you go. But like every year, I mean, I saw coach Sandy the other day. She's the australian women's basketball team. And pre, the last olympics, we had the Olympic teams both here at home when they were doing the states for their practices and stuff. And Sandy, another mate of mine, Justin Lepich, down at Collingwood, previously Richmond and Brisbane. And, you know, those guys all come over here and mix with other great coaches from all different sports to learn how to be the best coach in their sport. And someone like leper is doing amazing things using technology and analysis of the game and all of that sort of stuff. So, yeah, a lot of fun.
[00:31:14] Speaker A: Let's talk a bit about mentors, because you mentioned a little bit earlier and that sounds like where we're going. So how, how important are mentors? How they shaped your career and how do they help you? How do you, how do you work to, I guess, get around those average of the five people you spend most time with and use some mentorship and you grow your own business?
[00:31:34] Speaker B: You know, I started a coaching company 30 years ago, so I'm lucky that I have more than a thousand coaches on my team. And trust me, most of them are very willing to tell me how to run the company.
But the other thing I find is I do a lot of mastermind groups. I get together because I do. I also do a podcast, big success podcast. When I invite people on the podcast, I then do an annual trip for all people that were on my podcast that year and invite them all here to Vegas and throw a big party for them all. But hang out with 50 amazing people and just brainstorm with each other. And just the questions you get asked when you're around great people are different.
You just, you've got to put yourself in those environments. And that's why I still go to a lot of events. I started a company called Bizx, and Bizx runs massive events around the world each year with great speakers. So, you know, I was just in Liverpool, we ran Bizx in Liverpool and I was one of the speakers, but also bring in all of the great speakers on marketing and sales and mindset and Olympic athletes and world champs and the Dragons den guys and gals over there, shark tank for us here in the States. And so by bringing all of them in, I, you know, it's my company. I get to have all of them and pick their brains and sit with them and ask them the questions about what it is that that makes the world work. I'm doing it again here in. I think it's here in Vegas in October, and I've got Jay Bear, who was, like, the founding guy of digital marketing when Jay sold Budweiser, the domain name for Budweiser like that, and he sold it for 50 cases of beer. He tells that great story on that one. But, you know, and then Marcus Sheridan, two of the best marketers in the world, are going to be there. So I'll pick their brains for a couple of days while they're doing a speaking gig for me and just learn. I think you've got to put yourself in the environments where you are the dumbest person in the room, and maybe not the dumbest, but you're not the smartest. You know, if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room.
Get around people who know more than you. One of the reasons I started doing a podcast, Brendan, similar to yourself, is I get to ask questions of some of the greatest people in the world. You know, the other day, I'm sitting there and I'm pinching myself because I'm like, I got Stephen Covey, Emma Covey, on my podcast, and just. I'm asking him anything I want, you know? Hey, Stephen, how about this? You know, just give me some personal advice for free, will ya? Then again, we did have him at our conference to speak for us. So, you know, there's a lot of advantages to doing that. I think if you design your business and your life right, Brendan, you don't need balance. You've already built it into the business.
You know, like, my main company, action coach, is what I'm known for. And we run conferences all over the world, and guess where the conferences just happen to be places I want to go. I got to go to Croatia in a few weeks. When I say got to, I should say I get to. And I'm running a conference in Croatia, taking my whole family to go over there. We'll go to Croatia for a couple of weeks, go to Italy, and, you know, I mean, if you build your business right, you build it to do the things and build the lifestyle that you want it to build.
[00:35:01] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. I've got to ask you, how do you prepare for a conversation with Stephen M r Coveye?
[00:35:09] Speaker B: Watch a lot of videos, read a bunch of stuff.
You just gotta, you know, you've got to do your prep work on anything. If you want something to be great, this is what I mean. People don't understand the amount of work you put into a podcast, Brendan, you're very unusual in the podcasting world in that you create a lot of back work. So that I know coming on here exactly what it is that is the best thing with Stephen. It's like, I've got to go and do the work. But I've also built a relationship with him. I like to have a bit of a relationship with my podcast guests before I bring them on, where I know who they are, what they stand for. I know what it is. They're loving teaching at that point in time. I know what they're passionate about, and I know what they are wanting to get out of being on the podcast. But I also have to know, Brendan, what are the hooks for marketing? I have to know, what do I want them to say? What do I want them to talk about? Like when I interviewed Darren Cahill, who's the best tennis coach in the world right now, possibly going to be the goat tennis coach of all time, right? Here's a guy, Leighton Hewitt, Andre Agassi. I mean, he was number 22 in the world himself, but coached Andre. He's the ESPN channel seven commentator. He's currently Jannik Sinners coach. And so, you know, when I sit down and I interview Darren, not only we great mates, I mean, we lived together here in Vegas for many years when he was Andre's coach. But I've followed the career and I have the talking points down. And this is where anything you do, if you don't do prep work, homework, pre work, you're not going to succeed at it. When I go into sales, if I was coming to sell you something, Brendan, I have stalked the living shit out of your social media. I've gone through it all to a point. I know your kids names, your dog, your cat, your trip, your travel, your this, your that. I know all of that stuff. I've also researched your industry, and I've got at least a dozen questions written down beforehand, knowing what I'm going to ask about. Because you need to know that I care enough to have done that work.
If I don't care enough to do that work, I shouldn't get the sale. I should not be allowed to get the sale. If I've not done that work.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: How do you educate others to believe that? Like, the power of that.
[00:37:35] Speaker B: Oh, mate.
Education comes from the latin root educate, meaning to draw out. Right? So educating people. I use questions a lot, so when I'm on stage, I'll say something like, you know, so how would you apply that? Where does that fit within your business? And I don't expect an answer, but what is happening is your brain is giving me the answer. Your brain is now thinking about it. Now, your brain is very much like Google the type. The question that you ask, it determines the answer that you get. Ask a bad question, you get a bad answer. Ask a vague question, you get the answer in about four days. Like, you ever had this, Brendan. You ran into someone, you go, oh, what's that guy's name?
Three days later, his name pops into your head. You know why? Because it was on page 742 of the Google algorithm, right? And it took your brain that long to get through to page 742. Now, if you'd asked better questions, oh, what's that guy's name? Where did I meet him? Who else did I hang out with? Where did we go? What did we do together?
Is he married? Is he not? Like, if you start asking more detailed questions, you get to that answer. And so I like to educate with questions, drawing out from people what they need to do. I think the education system is done horribly wrong in that it's done ass backwards.
I believe the best way to educate kids is homework. Should be watching the videos.
So. And actually, it's interesting. News Corp. News limited did a whole study on this and created a whole education business doing this, taking over the world. And I love it. I love what they're doing.
The best video on the pyramids should be what I watch for homework.
Then when I come into class, the teacher talks to me about it. What did you learn? What did you think? What do you do? And they ask me questions, and they get group discussions and show pictures and evaluate further. What's done today is they watch the video at school with the teacher, or the teacher reads the textbook to them. Not all teachers are like that, obviously, but the teaching is done at school. Then they come home and the parents got to do the. Well, what did you learn? I get in more trouble with my kids teachers because I teach them the wrong way of doing math. I'm like, yeah, but your way's dumb. My way's fast and easy. I can't like this new math. Oh, my God, it's dumb math. But, you know.
But, yeah, so that's the way we teach, Brendan, what we do in our education programs at action coach. And for me is I have people watch the videos, and then we meet and coach and facilitate and draw out from them. What did you learn to, how are you going to apply it? What are you going to do with it? Because every person's lessons are different. 20 people can read the same book and get 20 different lessons, but you got to draw the lesson out of them. And interestingly enough, if we do that in a group scenario, Brendan, then what I drew out of you is different to what I draw out of someone else. And you both get two different perspectives on the learning. And so when Covid hit, I was bored. So I built myself a tv studio, and I just went in for 30 days and taught everything I knew about business over 30 days. And I condensed it to a half an hour a day. Then I did 30 days on wealth, and then I did 30 days on success. And so now I have people who come and have lunch with me for 90 days straight. They just, they watch a video with me every day for 90 days. We have lunch together. And of course it's recorded, so they can have lunch whenever they want. But it. I believe watching, learning and then discussing is the best way to help people understand things.
[00:41:19] Speaker A: If you were starting action coach today, what would you do differently?
[00:41:26] Speaker B: Go faster?
I would have raised the capital in a different way. We went the franchising route to use capital as we grew. I would have probably just raised capital once and done it through employees.
[00:41:43] Speaker A: And how has your thinking around business changed, if at all, given that, you know, there's so much I know, I know in my world, and I'm in this transition at the moment from doing a lot of sort of one on one and quarterly review process and stuff with teams, similar to, I guess, an action coach model, but moving a lot of my stuff into the digital side of things and continuing build flexibility. How have your philosophies changed around business, and particularly with this whole, can we call it digital transformation side of things happening?
[00:42:12] Speaker B: Yeah, you've got to rethink your business every seven to ten years. Like, almost entirely rethink the organization, what it does, how it does it. And that's not just digital, that's just everything. You know, how sales are done today is totally different. The pandemic changed the way people buy it, changed the marketing. Today's world, Google, you know, they put out that Zmoc study which shows people want to do 7 hours of research in eleven different, with eleven touches in four different places before they reach out to salespeople. In most cases, 40% of people don't want to talk to a salesperson to make a purchase. You know, 30 years ago, to buy a car, you went to ten different dealerships and looked at them all, took brochures home, looked over and went back, test drove a couple. Today, you go online, you build your car on the website, you click, done, and they call you and arrange the financing. You know, people buy in an entirely different way, but they search in an entirely different way. See, I'll do three examples of that. Brendan. If I want to buy something, I open the Amazon app. If I want to learn about buying something, I open the Google app. If I want to learn how to do something, I open YouTube.
That's the average of the majority of the world these days, right? We live in a two screen society.
Your kids will be watching tv with their iPad on, or they'll be playing a video game with a movie playing on the side type thing. And so that digitization of the world has shifted things. It definitely has. It allows consumers to be far more educated and salespeople no longer information providers.
They're problem solvers. They have to help make decisions type thing. They're relationship builders. When we still see many salespeople thinking they've got to tell the customer about the product, no, I can watch the video. And if you don't have enough video for me to watch, then you're crazy. Like, if someone goes on my YouTube or go on the action coach YouTube channel, right? And you'll see their thing about business coaching, and there's seven or eight videos there that will tell you everything you need to know about business coaching, how to buy it, what it is, how does it work, how do I get results? Do you know what I mean? Like, everything's there. So when someone wants to buy, people don't want a salesperson to tell them all that stuff. They want to see it once, learn it, and then go to the salespeople and say, right, are you the right people? So we've had to change that. Now, when it comes to a digital world, having been in business now 30 something years, it's interesting to see that every five years there's something that's going to kill the world. You know, it's like, well, the Internet's going to kill everyone. No one's going to go to a restaurant. No one's going to buy in retail stores. Well, luxury, high end retail now is the highest it's ever been in store.
You know, Apple goes, bucks the trend and says, no, we want retail locations. Yeah, everyone else is doing that, but we want retail locations.
Right? So you start looking at all of these things as people say, oh, it's going to kill everything. Like AI is going to kill business coaching. Everybody keeps telling me AI is going to kill business coaching. No, it's not. It's going to enhance it. These things enhance what is available. They don't kill it, they enhance it. Now, bad companies get killed off in bad economic times. There's no two ways about it, okay? Companies survive bad economic times, good companies make a lot more money in bad economic times or in times of change.
So, like, AI is a massive time of change in the world. And here's what 99% of companies will never need AI. But you will subscribe to software that has AI enabled capabilities.
You will use companies that use AI, not do it yourself, if that makes sense, you know? So, yeah, that being said, the Brad AI bot is still being developed and he's a very handsome young Mandev, much younger than I am, the Brad AI bot.
[00:46:30] Speaker A: But you will never age, mate. The Brad AI bot never age. I'm glad you took us down the AI path because I was really interested and you use that word enhance. So what do you see as some of these enhancements that, you know, AI, a chat GPT sort of thing, can help enhance coaching?
[00:46:49] Speaker B: Yeah, if people just remember that chat GPT is just one AI piece of software, okay? OpenAI background of it, and it's the backbone of everything. So the areas of business that are going to get killed off, customer service, phone rooms, you know, if you call up to do it, let's say your company sells 500 different products. Well, your AI bot can be the perfect customer sales, customer service person because it knows every single thing about every single thing, down to the last minute detail. It doesn't forget anything. So those, if you think of routine tasks, the things people hate doing, AI loves all of that routine, boring stuff. Right now where I find it interesting is like, I don't want AI painting art for me, I want to paint art, I want AI doing the boring stuff for me. And I think that's where a lot of people are looking for it. But, you know, the enhancement people, it's been given a label, but AI has been with us a long time. Google's search engine is artificial intelligence. Let's be blunt about that. It's been more intelligent than most humans for a long, long time at finding the answer to things. So let's not pretend AI started in the last little bit, it became economically viable. When OpenAI released their software, that changed dramatically. Google's just released Gemini, its next version of its search engine, and it's the way it summarizes the answers. And so it's going to change search engine optimization forever in a day, too. So I just think that the big thing is, for me, Brendan, when new stuff comes around, I make sure either myself or someone on the team is playing with it. You don't have to learn it, you just have to play with it. If you keep playing with, you know, like when TikTok came around, I said, one of the team, all right, get on there and play with it and see what you see, you know? And so, two years in, it's like, yeah, we've been playing with it long enough. We know what we're doing. Let's go.
[00:48:56] Speaker A: What are your plans for tick tock, buddy?
[00:48:59] Speaker B: Not to dance.
[00:49:02] Speaker A: I was sort of hoping to see that soon. Might get me onto tick tock.
[00:49:06] Speaker B: You know, tick tock, tick tock is finally going to start breaking. They've finally started doing algorithms to show you what they want you to see on your feed, the same way meta Facebook and Instagram did. And that's going to kill TikTok off. The fact that it was a natural algorithm allowed you to see what you subscribed to, not whatever they chose for you to watch, sort of thing. And so that, plus the amount of money they paid creators, when they were paying creators big money, and they started to cut that back as well. So they're actually trying to make a profit now. And we'll see, we'll see.
[00:49:41] Speaker A: Mate, what do you like to do in your spare time? Just to switch off and relax and don't say troll TikTok.
[00:49:48] Speaker B: Concerts, sports, swim, cigars, wine, travel.
We do a lot of food, travel and a lot of that sort of thing. We travel where there's great restaurants and great wineries and that sort of thing.
Yeah, we travel a lot. And with five kids, I don't know where you get this idea that I have any time off.
You know, being a dad is a bigger job than being a business owner, I believe.
[00:50:15] Speaker A: I love that perspective, mate. How has. I have certain beliefs around this. How has being a dad helped you be a better coach?
[00:50:24] Speaker B: Oh, patience is probably the number one. You know, being a parent teaches you patience is. Well, it did for me.
You know, it was Father's day the other day here in the States, and my daughter, my eldest daughter, she's 22, came over with a little meme that said, happy eldest daughter's day. You know, it's like, yeah, okay. And she always. We always joke that, you know, she's trained me to be a good dad. You know, it's like, it's. It's not. I didn't. I didn't teach her to be a good kid. She taught me to be a good dad. So, yeah, look, any. Any role you take on with gusto, being a parent. Like, I remember when. When Lauren said we're pregnant with twins. Like, after I picked my jaw up off the floor, I went and got on Amazon and ordered, like, half a dozen books how to raise twins, because it's like, okay. Never done that before. Like, I know when Kobe was born, the first thing I did is buy books on how to raise daughters. I had two brothers. I never had any daughters. So, you know, I think anything you're willing to study, and that's what being a great parent requires. Study. It requires learning. It requires being willing to learn. I think one of the hardest things to do as a parent is say sorry to your kid. You know, if I yelled at my kid, oh, they didn't deserve that. I was just. I got off a business thing, and my brain was over there. Hey, kids. Sorry about that. You know, dad wasn't thinking, and, you know, you didn't really do anything wrong. It's my fault. So let's. Do. You know what I mean? Like, it just teaches you to be a better person, I think, because you've got to be an example to them.
[00:51:56] Speaker A: So, yeah, I had to.
[00:51:58] Speaker B: Kids spell love, Brendan. Kids spell love time. And I keep threatening to write that book.
[00:52:02] Speaker A: I really should t I m e.
Love it, mate. It sounds like your eldest daughter and mine would get on quite well, because I'm pretty sure she believes that she's made me a much better dad as well. She's 24.
[00:52:15] Speaker B: Yep. And they should have, dude. They're the first kid. That's their job. Train the parents.
Glad my older brother did it. Thanks God for him training mum and dad. They were much easier and malleable when I got around.
[00:52:27] Speaker A: Well, I have to say, mate, I'm an ever evolving parent and said, my daughter's 24, my son's 21. But my wife and I try and give back through foster parenting nowadays. So we've got a little three year old with us, and it just. It's such a great experience.
I didn't. Again, I was a bit of a corporate man in the day. And so you're sort of married to the job and things like that. I feel like I'm having my second coming as a. As a parent and as a foster parent anyway, and just having the flexibility in my business and that harmony that you talk about and being a little bit more hands on with parenting, it's certainly taught me a lot. And, geez, sometimes you wish you had your time again with your own kids, to be honest.
[00:53:09] Speaker B: But anyway, yeah, look, you do what you do.
You don't try and parent your kids the way your parents parented you because the world shifted. And you can't judge them on the way they parented back then because the world shifted. You know, I see this all the time now with politics, where they judge people for something they did 50 years ago. Oh, my God. The times were different, people were different, values were different. You know, what we did was different. You can't do it that way. It's got to be very much like raising Riley today, who's six, versus Kobe, who was 22. Now it's totally different. Coaching today is totally different. The way we do things in our companies with diversity, equity, inclusion, the culture of our organizations today are so different to what they were 30 years ago. The fact that we now measure employee engagement as a measure of performance of a company is something that 20 years ago, no one gave. No one cared if your employees were engaged. They didn't even have that term, you know? So we have to do things different because values shift. People shift. The pandemic shifted people's values dramatically. We see the end of the baby boomer business owner generation. Now we've got, you know, fully 40% of employee based companies are owned by boomers who are now retiring and wanting to sell. It's been. It's one of the biggest opportunities in the world is that change of business ownership, mate.
[00:54:48] Speaker A: I know we're coming near the end of our time together. Just want to try and squeeze a few more questions. One of the things I'd love to know is for you, again, you've had success in business, and I think it's a successful life and more to come, how do you, as a parent, keep your kids raised? Can I say, normally they're living in, I guess, environment.
[00:55:11] Speaker B: I don't know. You want to raise them normally because normal is pretty bloody awful out there in the world these days.
You got to keep their feet grounded. I mean, I know, you know, I've taught my kids from day one that, you know, they're not rich. Dad's rich.
You know, you've got till 21 on Dad's dime, I'll buy your caviar and you can fly in my jet. But once you're 21, good luck.
Off you go. You know, I'm going to give you the taste of everything. I'm going to make it. You know what it's like to get on an aircraft and sit in that front seat. And you're going to have to then learn how to earn the keep to do that yourself. That's not my job. Once you're 21, goodbye.
You're no longer my financial responsibility. And people are like, that seems pretty tough. Well, if you read the millionaire next door, it's one of the biggest killers of wealth is when a parent keeps giving the kid money. You know, they just seen that too often.
[00:56:09] Speaker A: But yeah, they got their own way.
[00:56:10] Speaker B: You know, mate, it's not that hard to. Again, it comes back to just spend time with your kid, you know, if you let them be raised by tv and iPhones, then expect what you expect if you play cards at night with them or connect four or. Our latest fun one is called O Trio. If you love kids, if you love playing family nights, o trio. Possibly the best kids game there is.
[00:56:33] Speaker A: O trio. Never. Never heard of it. We do like the old, a bit of family games from time to time. Absolutely.
[00:56:39] Speaker B: But otrio and five crowns, they're our favorite.
[00:56:42] Speaker A: Five crowns. All right, we'll check them out. Mate, ours has been something like Yahtzee. Really simple and full of luck. Five dice, mate. For aspiring entrepreneurs out there, business owner, what would, what advice would you like to give them?
[00:57:00] Speaker B: Read.
Just keep learning.
You cannot out earn your learning. Your job is to become great at what? To become the best version of you. So as I said earlier, nothing's getting easier. You've got to get better.
[00:57:16] Speaker A: Spot on, mate. And our final question on the show, what's one thing that's helped you build a culture of leadership in your businesses?
[00:57:23] Speaker B: Documenting the culture.
Actually sit down and write what your culture is. Actioncoach.com, comma. You'll see it. There are 14 points of culture. But know who you are. Know why you do what you do. Who you are and why you do what you do are more important than what you do.
Select your people based on who you are and why you do what you do.
[00:57:45] Speaker A: Love it, mate. And for those that will watch this on YouTube, I'm loving the b's hat as well.
Double connotation, mate.
[00:57:54] Speaker B: You gotta lean into it.
[00:57:56] Speaker A: Love it, mate. Love it.
[00:57:57] Speaker B: Brad, my initials. People are gonna say it, so I might as well lean into them.
[00:58:00] Speaker A: I know mate. I know. Perfect. Why not? Why not mate? Thanks for really appreciate you coming on our podcast. Thanks for sharing your wisdom, your thoughts around business and everything you've done, and good luck for everything you have in the future, particularly out building this billion dollar company. So mate, thanks for being a fantastic guest on cultural leadership. Brilliant.
[00:58:23] Speaker B: Thanks Brennan. Bye for now.
[00:58:25] Speaker A: These are my three key takeaways from my conversation with Brad my first key takeaway confident leaders build productive humans. They focus on developing their team members into productive and competent people. They invest in their people and ensure they have the knowledge and tools needed to succeed.
By finding each person's intrinsic motive, leaders cultivate a driven and successful team, which strengthens the team and drives business success.
My second key takeaway, confident leaders build thought processes. They ask the right questions to stimulate their team's thinking. They guide their team through thought processes that enhance understanding and decision making.
This develops critical thinking and problem solving skills, making the team more self sufficient. Encouraging thoughtful reflection and learning helps team members grow intellectually and professionally.
My third key takeaway, confident leaders shoot for the stars. They set ambitious goals and inspire their teams to achieve them. They emphasise the importance of dreaming big and not letting potential go unfulfilled. Celebrating successes and maintaining a grand vision are crucial aspects of leadership. By aiming high and celebrating achievements, leaders create a culture of excellence and continuous improvement.
So, in summary, my three key takeaways were confident leaders build productive humans, confident leaders build thought processes and confident leaders shoot for the stars.
Thanks for joining me and remember, the best outcome is on the other side of a genuine conversation.
Ramdez.
