Achieving Business Growth and Personal Fulfillment - Sam Gardel #514

Ever wondered how to achieve that delicate balance of staggering business growth and maintaining quality family time? Join us as we get real with Sam Gardel, a business dynamo, doting father, and committed husband, who managed to double his business annually for four consecutive years without compromising on his personal life. Sam paints a vivid picture of his journey, sharing his unique tactics on reinvesting in staff, infrastructure, and systems, and how setting personal goals such as attending his kids' sports carnivals, influenced his business decisions.

Have you ever faced the dilemma of letting go of responsibilities or finding the right employee for your team? Samuel opens up about his struggle and strategy. He illuminates the traits he values in potential team members, and the process he underwent to learn to share responsibilities without losing control. His unique insights into maintaining a harmonious work-life balance, making tough decisions, and establishing efficient routines offer pearls of wisdom for anyone striving for improvement in both personal and professional spheres.

Brace yourself as we shine the spotlight on Gardel Electrical, an innovative company offering energy-efficient solutions across Queensland and northern New South Wales. Samuel narrates riveting stories of his company's work in remote locations and how he artfully balances his professional commitments with his personal life. This episode brims with actionable advice and inspiring success stories that are bound to fuel your drive to achieve a successful business and lead a fulfilling personal life. 

Tune in and gear up to be inspired!

Chapters

• 0:00 Business Growth and Secure Future Achieved
• 14:37 Good Employee Traits, Letting Go
• 25:26 Business and Personal Growth Lessons
• 37:14 The Importance of Work-Life Balance
• 43:30 Solar and Energy Solutions in Australia

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to episode 514 of the man that Cam Project podcast. I'm your host, lachlan Stewart, very, very excited. This will probably be one of my last recorded episodes in Australia for the time being, and who better to have on the show than G-Unit Mr Gardell, samuel Gardell.

Speaker 2: 0:25

The man that Cam Project podcast, our podcast empowering queer driven men to live more fulfilling lives. We are here to challenge your beliefs, redefine success and talk about the important stuff in a relatable way. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review. My name's Lachlan Stewart. Let's get into it.

Speaker 1: 0:46

Mate, you've been on the show a number of times. I've actually got it written down here on my notes section before you have a little look. Episode 207, we spoke about creating a healthy workplace. Episode 287, where we spoke about balancing business, family and health. That was 2020. For the first one, 2021. We missed last year because you're just too hard to get. Oh, come along. And 2023, we're back on, mate, stoked to be here.

Speaker 1: 1:12

It's good to have you back, mate, but I'm very fortunate to call you a good mate. We get to talk about a lot of stuff a lot of the times. You've helped me with a lot of challenges over the time, and one thing I want to highlight about you is for people on the show. People generally listen to this show because they want to improve an area of health, wealth or relationships, and one of the things that I've got to give you credit for which I probably haven't done before and I'll just do it in front of thousands of people now is your ability to be a good mate, or actually just being a good mate.

Speaker 1: 1:42

We went on a trip to Midge Point, which was amazing. You teed it up for all the boys and treated us, which was amazing, but the effort you put into a mateship. You just call people. Not many people in my life call me just to check in. So people call me when they want something, but to have someone that calls you to check in, that's when you're like that's a fucking awesome mateship.

Speaker 1: 2:01

The added benefit is is you're an incredible businessman. You're an incredible father and husband. So there's so much I want to dive into and we've covered stuff in earlier episodes, but I believe I'm also a better interviewer now and I think you're also better at articulating how you've created stuff in your life. So here we are at the Gadel pad. We want to cover things around how you've doubled your business year upon year over the last four years, which is incredible, and the amazing thing about that is you haven't just ran the cash straight back in your back pocket. You've reinvested in staff infrastructure systems to be able to create a bigger picture, which is probably where we can start. Yeah, that's right, locky.

Speaker 3: 2:46

So what I find in a lot of trade-based businesses or any businesses really is that generally there's a property owner or the owner of the business who's generally fairly focused on the net profit and putting money in their pocket, which obviously is an important part of having a business, because it's no good if you're not making money out of it. However, over the last couple of years, I've really focused on future-proofing my business by putting people in place that they might cost a bit more than someone else I could get to do a similar role, but I've really targeted trying to get the people that I want in the business, because it all has a knock-on effect. Back through to my personal life, by having people that can grab a good hold of their role and complete it to a high standard means that I'm not checking everything. I've got more time. I don't have to be here all the time.

Speaker 3: 3:53

I can get out and do the things I want to do, and one of the first things I think I wrote down back in 2020 when we did the breakthrough experience was I wanted to go to my kids' sports carnivals and that's just like a simple thing. It's just something that I use as a bit of a compass for. So if I'm so involved in my business that I can't run away for three hours and go watch Maddie's Athletics Carnival, then I'm not doing something right. And I always said to myself I don't want to be an oversized soul trader. What is it? What's?

Speaker 1: 4:38

it called Soul trader.

Speaker 3: 4:38

Yeah, I don't want to be an oversized soul trader. It's no point calling yourself a company when you're basically one person. So that's what I've really been focusing on is getting the business to a point where there's enough people involved and enough people doing the jobs that I don't have to be here all the time.

Speaker 1: 4:59

How have you gotten to that point, though?

Speaker 1: 5:01

So I understand, back in 2020, for example, you made the decision that you wanted to be able to go to Maddie's Sports Days and now, I'm sure, louis's Sports Days as well, and that's a decision I'm sure a lot of people make.

Speaker 1: 5:12

That that's why most people probably start a business, because they have the idea of the potential freedom that it can create or the wealth it can create with that. However, along the way, you become so ingrained and I think one of the biggest challenges is people go I'll do X when I achieve Y, meaning I'll go stuck on to my kids' sports carnivals when I turn over X amount of money. Yeah, the challenge with that is, once you've turning over X amount, if you haven't already implemented the routines, it's harder to do because the responsibility is bigger or the consequences of stuffing it up a bigger. So how did you and what was your mindset like in order to just be able to go? Okay, well, I'm gonna grow, but I'm gonna reinvest in my, because it must have been tempting right to take the profit for you instead of putting it back into the business, was it?

Speaker 3: 6:02

No, not particularly. It's. Probably one of the vices I don't have is that I'm not particularly money driven or money hungry, and I think I've got fairly good foresight in seeing that if you keep operating at a hundred percent of your effort into the business and you're gonna lose in other areas of your life and back in 2020. When we first met, it was very much me and five or six other people and I was working my ass off, and that was that was somewhat out of necessity at that point in time. But at that time I also started to get my head above water and I knew that if I kept doing what I was doing, I would I'd be making good money, but I was gonna blow myself up. So that's when I started pretty heavily investing in coaching, reading, podcasting and just starting to really grow up. I suppose.

Speaker 3: 7:02

And yeah, and even even lately I think we've been speaking a bit about, you know, getting my mint smanther, have got our will and our power of attorneys and all that sort of stuff sorted, and I'm 35. I don't anticipate on dying tomorrow Hopefully not Touch wood. It's just something that is is done now and it's been an expensive process, it's been a painful process, but it kind of gives me like more of a drive to keep going with how I'm going and more of a. I know it just feels like warm that I've got my life partner, we've got our you know trust set up for our kids, we've got all our super stuff sorted out, we've got our life insurance done and it's just like alright, we've got all this good foundation. That's cost a lot to set up and do, but now we're good for the rest of our lives pretty much, and obviously it's gonna need a tweak here and there, but we can now just really focus on on living and making sure that if anything ever did happen to either of us, that we'd be looked after, basically.

Speaker 1: 8:17

Why do you feel that took you so long, then, to get the will and those other things in place? I 35 to me still seems very young. However, there's probably some people who are listening who are 50 and still don't have that in order, and some who aren't even. You know, myself I didn't even think about it until you were speaking about it. Amy's always said it. I'm like should be right, man.

Speaker 3: 8:34

Yeah, look, I didn't really think about it till I met a financial planner that I've been speaking to and he was just going over over some financial stuff that I had and I was looking to purchase this shed, which which my business resides in, that we're leasing at the moment, but I've just got a contract on it and congratulations A solid to buy it.

Speaker 3: 9:00

So that's just another thing of having, yeah, just feeling really grounded in where I am, like my house is 300 meters from my business, my kids daycares, you know, 500 meters away, maddie's schools two kilometers away, and just having that nice sort of home base is what I I need in my life.

Speaker 3: 9:23

I'm not, definitely not a nomadic operator and I know that. So, yeah, having having all that sort of set up has been a good, good way off my shoulders and now it feels like I can just really get into my work. But I'm not running anywhere real fast, like where the business is going well. But I don't want to just go nuts for three years and then call it a day. I want to sort of create a company that's going to stand the test of time and be a great vehicle for lots of apprentices to come through, training them into being future leaders within the business, and then also my staff get to call this place home. And and that's why I put so much money into making this office and this space how it is because I believe that if you've got, yeah, happy, happy staff and they're gonna be much more productive and that can only lead to good things within the business definitely for you to develop that?

Speaker 1: 10:33

was there any? Has there been any standout moments? And I want to come back to why you started heavily investing in coaching and what things you were specifically looking for. But before we hit that, why do you believe, or what was one of those moments that stood out for you that made you recognize you couldn't just try and get the most or the cheapest employee to get a job done, because that's what a lot of people are doing they're trying to cut costs down on employing people and still want them to perform at a high, high standard for you. You pay well, but you also somehow well there's probably not a somehow, you'll explain that but you get the best out of people. Yeah, how have you developed that? And, I guess, why did you recognize that was needed?

Speaker 3: 11:15

I think I recognize that having a high staff turn over is a killer. And I've seen yeah, throughout my time in in a trade-based business, I've seen a lot of tradesmen just being paid extremely poorly by their employer and generally they're the ones that I end up interviewing because they're looking for greener grass and I just, you know there's bosses that'll squabble over five minutes on a on a time sheet and they'll be, you know, yelling at employees for using tolls or they'll be up, up and for, you know, a slight productivity drop or something like that. And like people don't go to work, you know to be treated like they're in prison. So I try to give all my employees a lot of freedom and I think they reciprocate by giving me a lot of productivity. So you know, whenever people feel caged up, they're never going to perform.

Speaker 1: 12:17

Yep People like to feel like they're in control. Have you had a moment where someone has taken advantage of that?

Speaker 3: 12:26

Yeah, so I believe I'm a pretty good judge a character usually, but I have had a few employees take advantage of my easy-going sort of nature and how I try and run my business and, look, you're gonna get that out of every 20 people you might get one bad egg and probably in hindsight I could listen to a few other people that may get some idea that someone may not be doing the right thing and, you know, moving them out of the business pretty quickly. But yeah, I have had two cases over the last six years I know longer than that, probably over the last ten years where I've had employees stealing from the business and it's just the most horrible feeling. When I'm so, I feel like I'm so kind and welcoming to everyone, and then when someone shits on you, it's like, yeah, it hurts.

Speaker 1: 13:26

How did that go down when you noticed that they were stealing from you? Like what was it because? Do you enjoy the tough conversations like that?

Speaker 3: 13:33

or how did you navigate the whole pulling someone up on that and yeah, like those conversations I don't mind having, and keeping your emotions in check in that point in time isn't the easiest either. But yeah, look, it's a it's. It's happened now, and I actually processed it and threw it out pretty quickly and just moved on because I realized that harping on that isn't going to be, isn't going to help me moving forward, and then I just had to put better people and better systems in place. And that's where it comes to employing the right people, because if you yeah, just always do what you've always done, you'll always get same results.

Speaker 3: 14:17

So, yeah, just employing some people that were a bit better at the detail side of things and process is is being the biggest catalyst to my growth and being able to do it sustainably without it being, you know, two years of blasting and then, and then nothing.

Speaker 1: 14:37

What do you look for in people? What do you, what do you believe makes a good employee or even still a good person? Because I know you look at people before. Obviously, skill sets are important, but there's some things behind the skill set that are important to you in your company culture. What would be some of those traits or characteristics?

Speaker 3: 14:55

Yeah, I don't really even read CVs, to be honest. I just usually like obviously, then you need to know, if you're employing an electrician, that they've got a natural license, but have me showing up one day.

Speaker 3: 15:08

Yeah, generally just try and I don't know try and get a bit of a feel about the person just by talking to them and ask them what they got up to on the weekend. And you know, one of the things I definitely look for in my field stuff is seeing if they've played team sport somewhere in their life, because in my experience anyone who's played team sport is generally a pretty good employee. And the way our work happens is that it's pretty much always in a crew, usually minimum of two people maximum. Sometimes on large commercial jobs there might be 13 or 14 people on one job and if you got one guy, that's all about himself. They get found out very quickly and the boys are pretty quick to let me know that someone's not a team player. So I try and filter that out before it gets to that point.

Speaker 1: 16:13

A lot of people use that same process where they look for people who have done team sports, because you can obviously find understand your role in delivering a specific outcome. You don't need to be the jack of all trades, master of none, which is I've been guilty of and I think a lot of business owners are as well. As you were saying at the beginning, you need to find a way to sort of filter yourself out if you ever want to actually have the freedom that a business can provide you. How did you learn to let go of responsibility? Because obviously that's part of the process of weaning yourself out.

Speaker 3: 16:44

Yeah, probably started by getting rid of the things that I didn't enjoy doing first. Straight off the tools, mate. I actually like being on the tools but I can't at this point in time. But yeah, I am hopefully building towards a point where I can sort of pick and choose how much I want to do on the tools and how much I want to do in the office, because at the end of the day, I don't want to lose my, lose my skill set of being an electrician. But yeah, I've lost my train of thought there.

Speaker 1: 17:17

That's all right, we're going back to. We spoke about skill sets. Then we're looking at I can't remember, oh so yeah, so getting yeah, I was just thinking about you getting soft hands, like me.

Speaker 3: 17:30

The way I let go was by probably removing some of the things that I didn't enjoy doing first of all so that was, yeah, bookkeeping and then by getting rid of that, that sort of showed me that I'd heaps of gaps in what I was doing and just simple things like not using systems properly and not creating purchase orders, and then getting to the end of a job and wondering where half the materials are and, you know, looking under the seat of your car for an invoice from the wholesaler or something like that, and that's what I knew I wasn't good at.

Speaker 3: 18:06

I don't yeah, I really don't have a process driven brain, so I employ people that do and they yeah, they rouse on me all the time because I probably step outside the procedures from from time to time. But, yeah, that that was probably how I started to let go, and when you see other people doing something way better than you could have ever done it, that's that. That's probably the trigger of being able to really just go. All right, I'm not good at that, so get someone else to do it.

Speaker 1: 18:39

So you still even do give your staff or management team and staff permission to rouse on you if you're doing stuff wrong as well.

Speaker 3: 18:48

Yeah, definitely, I often ask for feedback and it's. It is a positive thing that we've got a very flat line structure within my business, but it can also be a bit of a negative thing sometimes. So it's just managing yeah, managing that structure and, yeah, making it still feel like a team. And I definitely don't talk down from the top. I try and talk across to everyone and, yeah, we work on things together.

Speaker 1: 19:25

Why is feedback so important?

Speaker 3: 19:26

Yeah, well, when you've been your own boss for 12 years, there's not too many people telling you what to do and what you're doing well and what you're not doing well. So, yeah, I often ask some of my staff what I can be doing better for them. I also find it's a good gateway to some good conversations because at the end of the day, I'm still a I don't see it, but I'm 115 kilo bloke, that's, you know, ex rugby league front row. So people might see me as intimidating, but I don't think I'm intimidating and this is something that Sean and I have worked on a lot where I need to open the open the conversations, because people generally aren't going to open the conversation with me because they may be intimidated, even though I don't see myself as intimidating at all. So by, yeah, opening some conversations and asking for feedback on myself first generally opens up the communication channel and then we can get into some good stuff.

Speaker 1: 20:34

So that's a whole thing around judging a book by its cover as well. Like, if people see you as intimidating, they're still missing out on the opportunity to engage in all the stuff that you know, and I'm a big believer that everyone's an expert in something that you're not. Regardless of what they look like, some of the toughest people I've ever seen end up being some of the most incredible people, but they're just. You know, there's always that barrier, but it's like what do you got to lose if they tell you to piss off? They tell you to piss off.

Speaker 1: 21:00

That was one of the best skills I developed when I was Brisbane's best Uber driver was learning to build rapport with people from all walks of life. Just like, what can I learn about this individual? And it's one of the exercises that we do in the academy about every six months where we give that feedback form to pass out to people in different areas of your life. So probably someone from a friendship circle or a work colleague and you know a different area like a social group. We can get feedback on how you're showing up, because quite often we think we're showing up in a certain way and it may be very different to how your wife thinks you're showing up, or how your colleagues think you're showing up. So it's always good to get that feedback and sometimes it's hard to digest. However, if you look at it from the place of improvement, it's very beneficial.

Speaker 3: 21:44

Yeah, definitely. I do recall one of those feedback pieces we've done within the academy.

Speaker 3: 21:57

I think I wrote a message to Wes Vasil at that time and just thanked him for being such a kind and welcoming person and I really aspire to be like him in some ways. So, and that was probably when we weren't even really good mates at that point in time. But I think just by giving him that feedback it made us closer and now we chat like a couple of times a week for half an hour in the morning after gym and like he's a, he's a well for knowledge and I think he gets a bit from me as well and we have some great chats.

Speaker 1: 22:35

Yeah, that's the power of community, though. Like, if you're around the right people like you and I literally have awesome chats all the time. Sometimes you give me a bit of feedback that I don't want to hear, and you know it's welcome, but it also helps me improve. And I think when you've got the right people in your life whether it's from you know, an acquaintance, someone that you might pay as a coach, or you've just generally got made to are interested in helping you become the best version of yourself and I tell you fast track, because they're generally on the same wavelength it's when you talk to people that have no idea about things that you're interested in, you don't get that energetic conversation, so you just like, all right, that was great. But then when you and I bounce off heaps of crap where's there's so many blows that you can have those conversations and you walk away with a little nugget that you like thank goodness I had that combo.

Speaker 3: 23:25

Yeah, like and leveraging on your network as well. Like people, people are always happy to help. Help people if they know that their hearts in the right place. Like if someone's coming to you and wants to chat to you about or they're chatting to you about, is they just want to basically replicate what you're doing, then you can sense that and it just you're not really going to be real open to a chat with them.

Speaker 3: 23:52

But I think I told you about two months ago I reached out to a couple of guys that I'd played golf with a little bit at Brisbane Golf Club.

Speaker 3: 24:01

They're both in their early 60s, both successful business guys, and I caught up with them for breakfast one morning and it was like an hour and a half and it felt like I was being interviewed by the police for an hour and a half.

Speaker 3: 24:17

But they were getting into some really, really good questions and I was like I was back pedaling a bit because I had one thought and one idea of what I was doing and once they started drilling into me like I found it super beneficial. But then the feedback I got from them was that they were super impressed with how I manage staff and how I view staff and stuff like that and these guys are in their 60s and they've had multiple businesses each and they learnt something from me and I learnt a heap from them. No money exchanged hands and we just had a coffee and it was like one of the best hour and a half so I've spent with people and I think having a coach is very similar to that, where, if you've got someone who can just listen and ask the right questions of you, they don't need to know Jack's shoot about electrical contracting businesses. All they need to do is know how to get underneath the surface level of what you think you want.

Speaker 1: 25:25

Yeah, it is that simple. I had a guy yesterday I was on the phone with which ended up that same sort of experience. He just interrogated the hell out of me and he's down in Dubbo Very successful dude and at the time I was like fuck in hell. And he's like oh, this is like do you not follow my socials or listen to the podcast? I talk about this stuff all the time. But then he's like sorry if I'm interrogating you, I just want to know.

Speaker 1: 25:47

And then when I got off the call I went through I've got notes here around all the stuff that he asked me that I hadn't really thought about how I would answer that question. So I took away so much from that because I'm like fuck, I don't actually ever speak about that in anything that I do or ever put that point across. And he's given me so much more to think about on how I can answer questions better for people. And that's the cool thing about being around people who are almost like a whole, have different experiences to you because they just unlock this whole new area that you're like fuck, now I need to think about that. Yeah, and it's. You know, even for you. For me it's like okay, you're in a position where you could step back, like you and you've done this through a couple of things that we've spoken about it's like, yeah, you're growing your business, but you're heavily reinvesting back in the business because you understand that where your goal is is 10 years down the track. It's not about tomorrow.

Speaker 1: 26:39

And a lot of people are very impatient. They want it yesterday, but then good things take time to build because, as you found out, even you said to me last week you're like, I'm very busy at the moment because the staff members, when you're like it's just now, highlighted a crack that we need to work on improving and that you can just yes, I'm sure you didn't even think about that until it happened.

Speaker 3: 27:04

Yeah, no, I never really considered it. Like I told you, I ended up with two vital people on leave at the same time and I worked out that I'm the only person that could fill one of the roles, and then Tash and I my general manager together had to cover the other roles. So I was doing basically two and a half jobs for two weeks and I was doing two jobs for the two weeks prior to that. So I just found a massive gap that I never even saw coming. So out of that I've learnt two things. These two guys will never be going on leave at the same time again, so boys.

Speaker 3: 27:45

And the other thing that I learnt from it is that we need to cross train a couple of other people within the business that can assist with covering for those guys when they are away. So, like always learning.

Speaker 1: 28:04

And you can't teach that until you go through it. Like one of the, I was thinking about this this morning because this gentleman's like what are all your credentials, what are you studied? And I used to be very focused and saying, because I am studying psychology and I've done all these other things for what I think about, but it's like the stuff that I'm studying has nothing to do with what I focus on any more. Specifically, when the men that can started, it was really heavily mental health focused. That got too much for me to handle and it wasn't really where I wanted to. You can see how much pain you're in with the neck mate.

Speaker 1: 28:37

So, for those who didn't see the Instagram story Goddog, what do you got? What's it, Rhineck?

Speaker 3: 28:43

W-R-Y. It's like neck spasms Not enjoyable.

Speaker 1: 28:47

So if you're watching YouTube and he looks uncomfortable, that's why Poor bastard. But yeah, it got me thinking. It's like the stuff that I focus on is helping people perform better, and that's like looking at health-wealth relationships, but more habit-based time management and accountability. They're skill sets. You can't. You know, you can talk about that, but when I I remember when I was studying sports science, exercise, physiology, and there were some people who were academically so intelligent, you put them in a gym and they didn't know what a flip and barbell was. I was like how are you going to help anyone?

Speaker 3: 29:19

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 29:20

You have to have practical experience with this. And then it comes back to do you really have the results, Like, can you help people get the outcome that they're looking for? You may be able to talk about it, but it's a very different thing navigating with people, and that's where time back into coaching. For yourself. You said, like year 2000 was when you first started, John, I need to start heavily investing in coaching. Why did you see that was a necessary part of you creating a better outcome or more success?

Speaker 3: 29:51

I think I I'd made it to where I was by myself Just doing absolute grunt work, burning myself out, neglecting my relationship with my wife yeah, just working way too much and then I knew that there had to be a smarter way to do things.

Speaker 3: 30:14

So probably one of the the biggest takeaways that I've got out of my coaching early days was my communication was just horrible, and that that was with my wife, and my communication wasn't great with my employees either.

Speaker 3: 30:31

I was sort of had my head down and I was going as fast as I could in the direction that I was pointing, but I wasn't really coaching my staff or showing them how to do things or bringing them along with me. I was just trying to get from A to B as quick as I could. And, yeah, learning to slow down and use a calendar and block time out for certain things was really where my coaching coaching started. And then, through through that, I really started to find some gaps and problems within what I was doing and just keep plugging them one by one. So it's not a, not a race. And like, yeah, striving for excellence is a word I've been using within the office lately where, yeah, we all get flustered and we all get the shits down there and we think we're bloody useless at what we're doing, but then you don't have to look very far to realize how bloody well we're going as a, as a team, within the business.

Speaker 3: 31:40

So every time when, like, we just did a way job recently and a couple of the boys got pretty frustrated because we stuffed up some of the ordering and gear wasn't arriving, and then you know they're trying to get the job done as as efficiently as possible and they're chasing around for materials. So they're getting a bit frustrated and everything. And I just said to them boys like we're doing well, you guys are doing well, we missed a few things and this is how we're going to fix it, moving forward. It's no point us carrying on about it now because it's done and dusted. And I was sitting right here yesterday with those those guys, along with Tash, my general manager, and we just had a chat for like 10 or 15 minutes. The boys left not being frustrated. They know that we're trying to to rectify some of the issues through process. And I said to the guys that we're doing everything so well but we can do a few things a little bit better.

Speaker 3: 32:42

So I think we we get tangled up in the negatives and I think that's just human nature, where you get flustered, tangled up in the negatives and you forget to look at the at the positives. And I often talk to some of my staff about gratitude and look at them. Being great myself at journaling and doing my, my daily deposits on the gratitude stuff, I know that when I'm sliding in that miserable direction that it only takes me five minutes of writing things down and I can put everything back into perspective and then I'm, then I'm sweet again, so I've got the tools there to be able to do it. I probably should do it a bit more often, but yeah, I think that's been a another great takeaway from selling.

Speaker 1: 33:38

Yeah, you've taught me over the years. You've got a pen and paper mate. You can't beat it. Let's change the direction of it a little bit just before we wrap it up. One question that a lot of like men want to know about this is fatherhood and business, almost like that work life balance. So you've got your daughter and you've got Louis as well. You manage a big company, high stress. You also make time for Jim date days. I know you got we got a special day tomorrow, which would be awesome. How has becoming a father changed your outlook on business and shifted priorities?

Speaker 3: 34:15

Yeah, so yeah. Well, when Matty was born, I was in a bit of turmoil at that point with the business. Things weren't going great. I'd lost a big contract and basically had to work like a dog to to get out of it. Glad I did so I don't ever want to be back in that position. So I think communication with my wife and prioritising time with the kids has been super important. So, like I used the sports day comment before, but let's just use that as an analogy, obviously there's only one sports day a year.

Speaker 3: 34:59

Yeah, you're just giving yourself the one day, yeah, yeah, it's not about the three hours that I want to get off out of the whole year.

Speaker 3: 35:07

It's about being able to do school drop offs, do kind of pick ups, do you know if, if my wife needs a hand or whatever, I'm able to do that, and that's just comes down to us managing our our time together. So I think I was just listening to the the Matty Lane podcast and he was saying how he's, you know, prioritised the morning now with his kids because that's what he's wife needs at this point in time. And my wife's just gone back to work Thursdays and Fridays. So I basically make sure I don't have anything on before nine o'clock on Thursdays and Fridays now because I'll do the daycare drop off for Louis and then I'll do the school drop off for Matty. And you know, five years ago that just wouldn't have been a reality. I would have been on a roof somewhere. So I suppose being able to manage your time and I know everyone can't do this in a 9-5 job, but yeah, being able to manage your time in a way that supports your family life as well has been super important to me.

Speaker 1: 36:26

It's something to consider. It's something that I thought about in 2014 was like how do I want to be, as if I ever become a dad, or in those certain roles, what do I need to have in my life? That's why I work for myself, because it is a bit more challenging. In the 9-5 role, for example, you don't have as much flexibility pros and cons to both which is why I've done certain things, much like yourself.

Speaker 1: 36:48

But it's not about just waking up one day, which is what I think a lot of people do. I wake up and I've just had their first kid. They're like fuck, I want to be there, I want to be a present dad, I want to be able to do, you know, school drop-offs and all of that, but I just don't have the time, I'm not allowed the flexibility or I can't take time away from work, and that's why I think anyone who's listening to this show anyway would be a growth-minded individual who is trying to get their ducks in a row for certain stages of their life. Why is it so important for you that you are able to help your wife? Why is it so important for you that you are able to do those things with your kids?

Speaker 3: 37:22

It's important to me because obviously you need that connection time with your children. You don't like you don't want to be getting home from work seeing them for 15 minutes and then they are going to bed. So having that time in the morning, when they're generally happy and you know it's, it's good fun in the morning. So I find that's a great time to spend with them, because you don't want to be just in that routine of just doing, you know, dinner, bed, bath, done sort of thing. It's just like you're just hitting like three chores in a row with them and it can get monotonous for them and for you. So being able to separate out some other time to spend with them's been super important and I had something else I was gonna go with before.

Speaker 3: 38:10

Oh so, with the 9 to 5 thing, with being stuck in a 9 to 5, whatever it is, and people not being able to spend time with their kids not everyone can just change their job or whatever, but what I do within my business, like Lee, my operations manager, he starts at like 5 am on Monday, tuesday and Wednesday and then but he's out of here at 2 o'clock and then he does school pick up because his wife works afternoon yeah, work. So he does school pick up and then he's got the kids in the afternoon and he also makes time for Jiu Jitsu in the morning as well. So he just altered his hours to suit what he needed in his life. And I allow him to do that because I value him within my business.

Speaker 3: 39:05

So if you're in a position where your, your boss, doesn't value you enough to be able to change your hours to suit your lifestyle, I'd say get another job hmm, so and then on Thursdays and Fridays his wife doesn't work that afternoon shift that she does on Monday, tuesday and Wednesday, so then he changes his hours up and he might do and start a bit later and he finishes a bit bit later. Yeah, so I think there's always a way out of it, if or there's always a way to improve your lifestyle. If you're doing the right things as an employee and you're valued to the business, and if you think you're valued and the and your boss doesn't value you, then I'd probably move on yeah, it's obviously situational depending on whether you got bills and stuff to pay, but it's the same thing.

Speaker 1: 40:04

If you want that desired outcome and you're clear on how you want to be showing up in relationships with your health, all of those sorts of things, and how you need to structure a day, you've got to make some tough decisions to set your life up for that, which is hard. However, it's better than having a fucking miserable life like one where you don't get to see kids grow up and they're 18 and I don't even want to have a beer with you yeah like, which is what some people experience.

Speaker 1: 40:27

Or you know, you get to 55 and you're getting close to retirement and you can't enjoy retirement because you're 40 kilos overweight, you miss his hate you because you haven't invested in the relationship, you haven't invested in your health. That's why and especially today's world, there's a lot more focus and emphasis on work-life balance as such, whatever that looks like for the individual, yeah. But you know, you need to know what you want and how that looks, and then have those conversations and work out compromises and maybe even go to your employer and say, hey, if I do this, I feel like potentially, my productivity is going to be better because I'm going to come in feeling fulfilled that I've got to see my kids. I'm not coming to work on shit. I never see my kids growing up.

Speaker 1: 41:09

I'm thinking about that 70% of the time.

Speaker 3: 41:12

A lot of things to consider yeah, and that's right, and I think if any, any employer isn't flexible to to someone's needs, then either they're a shit employee. You're a shit employee and they don't want to bend to suit you and they don't really care what the outcome is, or they're an asshole and it's probably time to to look elsewhere.

Speaker 1: 41:36

So that's some of the guard I'll love, right there, just straight up yeah, well, you're not.

Speaker 3: 41:42

You're not gonna bend over backwards for someone who you don't feel it's feel valued by, yeah. Or if you've got an employer that you know, it takes the piss a bit and they're kind of just a number filler. If they come to you with a request or something or they want to change their hours or whatever and you're kind of could take it or leave it with them, yeah, and you're probably not going to be very flexible towards them.

Speaker 3: 42:06

But if you're a valued employee and you and you're doing the right things, then I can't see why anybody wouldn't be flexible, to the needs, and I think we are definitely seeing more of that as a as a bit of a cultural shift since the COVID work from home stuff and and things like that. But I just can't think of anything worse than being people being in a position where they're just like chained to their job as an employee. This is, and you know they might be on a 40-hour salary and they're doing 60 hours a week. It's just. I just can't stand that corporate slavery thing and I I actually tell my employees to go home a lot of the time when they've had, when I know they've had enough, yeah and they'll push, and when it's on its own sort of thing. But like a lot of, like a lot of the guys yesterday just took off at like lunchtime because we'd had a pretty big week and, yep, I was just like, yeah, right, let's just wrap it up.

Speaker 1: 43:09

Hey, I need to come work for you the way to do it, mate. Where can people? So where do you service from solar, like what, what's your? I'm not going to just say Brisbane, because I know you're all over, but for anyone listening who wants to get some solar or electrical work, got a electrical, yeah. So where can people hit?

Speaker 3: 43:30

you. We don't just do solar, but that is predominantly what ends up happening, but our solar sand, that's right energy efficiency solutions is what we like to say. And yeah, so we basically cover all of Queensland and northern New South Wales. We do a lot of remote, remote work, so out Roma Gundy, st George, kanamala every wire, gladstone, rockampton.

Speaker 3: 43:58

Yeah, we're sort of scattered all over the place and we sort of we've got a couple of crews that do 10-day swings out that way, yeah and yeah, we can basically service all of Queensland and they just head to GardellElectricalcom that's it, gardellelectricalcomau or AU, and you can also see Solar Sam on Instagram.

Speaker 1: 44:21

I reckon you need to change your handle or maybe I could do that.

Speaker 3: 44:26

I could be a game-tran Gardell Electrical on on. Yeah, facebook or Instagram suite as well. Awesome. Thanks for coming on, mate been a pleasure.

Speaker 1: 44:34

Don't move too fast.