Business Owners' Wisdom. Brett Kelly
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genuinely want to see other people succeed. There’s an old saying that ‘no man is an island’. Well in this case, I’ve discovered the spirit of business in Australia: No company is an island.
It’s no secret that for many businesses the past few years have been tough.In fact, I still believe many parts of the economy are in recession. The road to recovery won’t be quick for everyone.
With that in mind, I’ve been very deliberate in the way I approached these interviews. Yes, I asked people about their business strategies. But I also asked them about their personal lives. In my experience business owners live a unique existence. Their personal and professional lives become financially and emotionally intertwined.
There’s simply no way to escape this reality because the buck stops with you.At the same time, business owners are doing something completely remarkable.They’re living with passion, with intent, they’re doing something they love and often helping thousands of people improve their lives. Running a business isn’t just a job. It’s your life.
It’s a tough road sometimes, but pursuing your dreams is the only way to live. I’ve personally made a commitment to live a conscious life because I could think of nothing worse than being unconscious and disconnected from the world around me. This book reflects that pursuit, and I hope the stories of sixteen remarkable people ignite a similar passion in you to go somewhere and be the person you told yourself you would be when you grew up!
‘Do I wake up some days wondering how it all happened? Absolutely! Would I change a thing? Absolutely not! Are my dreams for Lorna Jane bigger and better? You bet!’
– Lorna Jane Clarkson
Acknowledgements
Business Owners’ Wisdom is the product of hard work by many people. First and foremost, I want to thank the business owners who generously gave up their time to speak with me and share their wisdom. This is wisdom gained through the hard work, persistence and passion that comes from working on your own business.
This book simply would not have happened without the following sixteen business owners and their personal assistants: Andrew Simmons, Bill Bridges, Brett Blundy, Collette Dinnigan, Harry Triguboff, Imelda Roche, James Stevens, James Erskine, John Cutler, Lorna Jane Clarkson, Mark Carnegie, Matt Moran, Mike Cannon-Brookes, Nicola Cerrone, Peter Stutchbury, Tom Waterhouse, Jessica Kelly, Cheryl Griffiths, Anna De Paoli, Nikki Andrews, Fiona Fraser, Christina Papa, Ardleigh Matthews, Donna Hills, Danielle Ross, Loreto Escobar and Renee Lord.
Simon Carroll from Living Image Photography walked the journey with me.Thoughout the interviews he provided objective comment, encouraged the project and took incredible photographs.
Thanks also to my talented production team who turned thousands of transcribed notes into the tightly edited stories featured in the following pages.
Graham Rendoth of Reno Design worked with me to design and print my previous books Collective Wisdom and Universal Wisdom. Then, as now, he’s brought experience and design sensitivity to produce a book that looks fantastic.
Ella Martin has also returned to work with me on this book. She’s a first class copy-editor/proofreader, and her incredible attention to detail is a rare talent. Dan Stojanovich likewise returned to help me turn some very tough transcripts into readable text. Your hard work under pressure made all the difference.
I’m grateful for the work of new members of the editing team. Megan Drinan is a seasoned book editor and she worked under a tight deadline to make each chapter sparkle. Thank you to Mark Jones and Heather Jones at Filtered Media for their ideas, insistence on excellence and assistance in writing matters.
Finally, to my immediate and extended family. My in-laws make our lives so much better. Rebecca, my wife, is the strength, wit and intelligence who runs the real business, our family. Thomas, Nicholas and Audrey get me up early and keep me going late into the night because I want to be the best I can for them.
Introduction
‘Die you will, but only regret can kill you.’
In 1997 I had my wake up call. I was twenty-two and watching people in their fifties grappling with having just been made redundant like me. Their whole world was collapsing as they lost their business card, and with that their identity.
I decided never to go back to sleep. Never live with regret.
Not knowing what I should do with my life, but knowing I had nothing to lose, I decided to write a book, which became a bestseller. Not your average response to a situation like mine.
Every seven years since, I try to take stock. I look at my life, the world around me, and how I’ve been spending my time. What am I learning, and what impact am I making on people’s lives? How can I consolidate my knowledge about one area of life? Am I happy? What meaning is there in my life?
The job I’d lost in merchant banking at twenty-two was supposed to be the glamour career job that set you up for life, but the reality was I was miserable. And looking back, many of the people I worked with didn’t strike me as happy either.
The experience changed my life. It forced me to stop and think about changes I needed to make. I wanted to know what it meant to live a meaningful life.
At the time, my father gave me two books which really got me thinking: Dale Carnegie’s How to Win Friends and Influence People and Napoleon Hill’s Think and Grow Rich. Together, these books offered two valuable insights I’ve never forgotten. First, your ability to deal with people is more important than anything else. Second, success in business and life comes when you model successful ideas that build great habits.
I’m a person who doesn’t ignore good advice, so I took the authors’ advice and took control of my situation. The first book I wrote was called Collective Wisdom. It was a compilation of thirty-four interviews I conducted with prominent Australian achievers – people who, in meeting with them, changed me.
Seven years later – in keeping with my new seven-year review discipline – I published Universal Wisdom in which I examined the lives of seven people who changed the world, including Nelson Mandela, Warren Buffet and Martin Luther-King.
And now you’re holding Business Owners’ Wisdom, a book that chronicles my latest round of interviews with successful business owners. Seven years comes around quickly, but in this case not quickly enough. This is the first of two books to exclusively focus on what makes business owners tick, and you can expect the next instalment next year.
So, why the focus on business owners, you ask?
Firstly, my family has grown to three young children: two boys aged seven and five and a new baby girl. My kids are reason enough to make me stop and reflect on life: where I’ve been and where I’m going. They grow so quickly and seem to emphasise the need for considered and deliberate living.
Secondly, our business. I have been building Kelly+Partners chartered accountants from scratch to five offices and a hundred-plus staff over the last six and half years with an exclusive focus on helping private business owners achieve their goals. And I want to keep learning in order to help my clients and my business.
Thirdly, the combination of my experience in family and business has helped me find my passion: what I call ‘helping people get somewhere’. Whether that’s a client, a friend or a team member, I’m driven by a desire to help people improve their situation.
And lastly, I’m inspired by the example of successful private business owners.
These are independent thinkers, people who are driven and determined to change the world. They challenge me to push my standards higher and demand more of myself.
These thoughts inspired and shaped the way I approached the