Automatically transcribed, so expect the odd wrong name or word.
Hey squad, welcome to another week of the Virtus Performance Podcast, I'm very excited to give you guys today's episode. Had an epic conversation with these two humans, one of which you'll know, Tommy T, he's been on a few podcasts already, he's not that interesting so let's skip ahead, let's move right along. We also sat down with Jake Wilson, now Jake is someone who I met for the first time when we decided to record this podcast, he's someone who, very young, has had a whole heap of life experience, he's done a heap of cool shit, he's
running businesses, he's ticking boxes in his own way, he's kind of chasing ways to make the world a better place, and he's someone who I found I connected with really easily and really quickly because he's frankly just a good guy. So I think there's a lot of learning points out of this episode for doing the shit that kind of gets you up and about and gets you out of bed in the morning and to find different ways and to not really have the need to get bogged down in one thing all the time. So to
be honest, he's going to tell his story much better than I will, so before we get stuck in, if you could share, subscribe, review, that would be epic, I'm really keen to keep growing the podcast in 2019, so if you guys could spare 30 seconds of your day to chuck a review down, that would make me a very, very happy podcast host. Yeah, let's get stuck in, hey? Here's Jake and Tommy. My personal and business goal is to be just a little bit better every day. I believe everyone, especially normal people, have a story to tell.
The Virtus podcast exists to help us all find small ways of consistent improvement by discussing the time, journey and experiences of each of our guests. Lads, welcome, happy Thursday, Jake, Tommy, welcome to the podcast, first question for you Jake, because Tommy, we don't really care what you have to say, you're just here for token special comments, gags and stuff, comedy relief, that's true, Jakey boy, what gets you out of bed in the morning? Getting out of bed would actually be sharing coffee, and I wouldn't say I'm out of bed until I've had coffee because I
do not function as a human, and same as my business partners can hold me accountable to that, but for me it'd probably be purpose mostly, like what's driving me every day, I'm a huge opportunist, so every day is a new day basically, and you know you have your ups and down days, but in general it's pretty much the excitement of we live a pretty short life, and the fact that you get to experience a new day every day and you get to start again is pretty rad I reckon, so that's what gets me out of bed most days.
That's super cool, I love that, because I don't think enough people, or people overestimate how long we've actually got, and we just waste it and we burn days and we burn months, next thing we know we're fucking 26 and it's all over. It's like Gary Vee, one of my favourite entrepreneurs I guess, that wasn't easy, he's always saying that basically go as hard as you can the way you are, and even if you wake up tomorrow and you're 40 and you still haven't achieved anything, just keep doing it again, because end of the day you've only got 80 odd years to live here, so what's the point?
Not trying. Definitely opportunities that present themselves. Can you articulate on what that purpose is that you're kind of heading towards? I wouldn't say have it down pat, the purpose is that we, straight up we live in a first world country, we're pretty blessed, so the opportunity that whether you're in the top 1% of a first world country or the top 10 is pretty high and you've got opportunity all around you, so the purpose is just not wasting life essentially at the start of it. For me it more and more revolves around others, community, I'd love
to be able to look back at 80 and Go, it wasn't about me really, but it was about the way I impacted the world and the people around me, I'm a person of faith so that obviously comes in as well and the way that impacts my world and what it actually looks like to help people, but at the end of the day the purpose for me is what am I doing for the people around me and not wasting the short life we get to live. Right now in terms of what you do, and I guess
this is going to be a lot more about who you are and why you do it rather than what you do, but how are you living that purpose at the moment day to day? So I have a couple of businesses and I do some public speaking, some consulting and a range of things, but if you want to call it a 9 to 5, it's not a 9 to 5 but it's a job. I actually work at a church called Discovery Church out in Mount Evelyn, where I'm kind of in, my job tells executive assistant but
I call myself the gopher because it's not really what I do, I started as an executive assistant there, but I kind of do everything, so everything from the business side of things, so we've got a jump castle business, we've got rental properties, external events, business, all those sorts of things, so they kind of call me the in-house entrepreneur, but then also a factor of working with the team and basically in that environment I get to set up spaces, environments, rooms where people get to basically experience community, if it's a Christian event then obviously their faith
and their personal development in that area, but just being able to help people in basically making their world a little bit better, you know I have to be pretty, I'm not always the nicest person but I'm the most direct person so I'm happy to challenge someone to make their world a bit better, I'm the 10 step guy, so you tell me your problem and I won't let you cry on my shoulder but I'll tell you the 3 steps to get out of that problem, so just encouraging coaching, helping people to move forward in life is
one area, because I'm in that world I get to work a lot with NGOs, charities, that sort of stuff, so I was over in Africa recently working with a company called Grace Pads and basically they make reels with sanctuary pads and empower local women in Malawi and since then I'm working on a few other ventures in that space, but just being out of like, you know I'm not just working locally with my neighbourhood but globally as a whole and how can I just contribute to where I'm going and not tell them how to do it
but experience their culture, understand their culture and for me I travel so much because I love it because you get to really engage with the community and every community has something good about it, no matter how bad, how poor, how negative, you could be in the worst environment in the world, I promise you there's something good there and being able to engage with that and bring that home, so for me it's just identifying my skillset, stepping into whatever environment I'm in and making it a better place. I love that, and where we're at, that was fantastic, how did you become that guy?
Because having the variety of roles and having the skillset and the capacities to be able to execute on them, how did you become that guy? Yeah that's a good question, school was useless for me, everyone told me I shouldn't be there and I agreed I shouldn't have been there, thought most things was good at sport, that was it, but I never learnt what, other than a career, what you could do in life, so until you bust out of that box, it's a pretty small box that you have to do a 9-5 career and that's what
I grew up learning at school, so finished school in year 10, went into a school based apprenticeship electrician and realised I didn't like that pretty quickly and then became a window cleaner and I actually worked with a guy who was in community development and that's when my world started to expand, so basically I'd clean windows all summer, 14 hour days, 6 days a week, 3 months a year and then travel for the rest of the year, so I did that, I didn't see winter in Australia for 3 years I think it was, but just doing
that and surrounding myself with taking up good opportunities to not just travel for my own purpose on a holiday, so I went to East Timor where I worked with Vic Uni on a developmental paper over there and just studying the people and being able to immerse myself in a culture where at the time it was the 7th most dangerous country in the world and the number 1 undeveloped country in the world and you just go, what you learn and understand about people from there is just crazy, so I started to like I guess engage with
people in the world that weren't doing the status quo and kind of moving in different boxes and I would say I'm still working it out where I want to go but I guess the people around me is what, because I never did a Uni degree, I never did, like I've done parts of, I did like a year of theological college, I did 6 weeks of a Bachelor of Business, I've done all these random things, I've been in trading but nothing really fitted and for me it's every day I realise pretty quickly that every day I
want to do something different and unique, so what does that work out and eventually that kind of equated to being an entrepreneur essentially but yeah it's kind of like a 10 year journey, it wasn't like I did something and it worked it out but it was often the people around me that really moulded me into that, to working out that that's what I loved and that was my passion. What was it about school that kind of rubbed you the wrong way, was it just the structure and the ticking boxes, same same every day? Yeah it's
like you know, if you've ever seen the picture you stick a monkey, an elephant and a goldfish and a lion all in the same classroom, give them a t-shirt and tell them to climb the tree, who's going to win? Not the fish. Exactly. Or the elephant. It just didn't suit me, you know you grow up and I was probably, I've never been properly tested but I've done some online tests so I'm probably dyslexic, stayed down in year 2, maths, English didn't make sense, still suck at spelling, makes no sense whatsoever but if you give me a computer and tell me to rip it apart and put it back together, I'll do it in a couple of hours.
That's cool. You know what I mean? So growing up I even learnt that, I quickly learnt actually that school was just something I had to do and deal with it and just pass and then outside of that is where I actually learnt so at an early age I started making handcrafted furniture, coffee taps and stuff, grew up on a farm, me and my best mate would go on hard rubbish pool computers, all these different poles and basically build a computer so it was all about self teaching and stuff like that and then going to professional
gaming for a while and that's where I learnt leadership because you're running a team of five guys on Counter Strike Source right around, seriously, and I got so into it and I sat at 3am, school was just like my down time and then I'd come home and play Counter Strike Source but in hindsight I look back and go man I learnt so much leadership skill from that because you're learning train claptons, how to work with other people, it really developed me. Could we tell our parents how to do that though? Your son coming home, playing games on it and then going to school to essentially rest and sleep is good for him.
Yeah. Or like, nah, counter intuitive to what we're not conventional when it comes to that I would say. You look at Fortnite now and one of the top players are making $10 million a year so it's a serious career now. It's insane and it's a really important reminder that it's a different world now, like it's not, we don't live in industrial age anymore, it's not 9 to 5, sit in a classroom, stare at a whiteboard, very, very few people actually learn like that and actually develop like that. Yeah, I think if we allow ourselves to
get out of the box, so to speak, and actually find the things that we love and you've been able to create a life that, like I can tell how passionate you are about what you do, you've been able to create that by using school as your down time, which is pretty epic. How did all the, I guess, where did the entrepreneurial spirit come from and how did that kind of start developing into what, now a couple of businesses? Yeah, well, it's pretty crazy actually, like I probably wouldn't have actually identified myself as an entrepreneur until a year ago.
I knew that's where I wanted to go, but I'm one of those guys that hates talking too much about himself. So, right now, entrepreneur is a hype word. Oh yeah. Lots of people put it on their profile and think just because they have a business they're an entrepreneur. I don't necessarily agree with that. I didn't actually put that branding on myself at all. I went in that path and waited till everyone else called me that. And that's when I felt okay to call myself that. So just because the definition of an entrepreneur means I own or started or run a business, I didn't agree with that, so I let the people around me call me an entrepreneur.
And even then I tested and measured it for a while. I still struggle with it. To the, yeah. Because at the end of the day, by definition you are, and I am, which is a fucking weird thing to say, but all the while, like for me, I'm a coach that runs a gym that is in charge of a team and all these other things. Plus gym. Get excited. I'm on. I'll wait. Too big. Too big to be confirmed when that's happening. But yeah, like is it something that now you're just okay with and you just live with?
Yeah. Or live with? Run with? Yeah, I did a little speaking thing with Cam Greenwood and we were talking to some year tens, I think they were, and I ended up just calling myself a serial entrepreneur because I am, like I can't sit still, I need to do the next venture. Yeah, that's cool. So in my world right now, I've got two official businesses, coaching speaking, work at the church, and then I've got two other ventures on the go that I'm just working on a side hustle. I just can't help myself. Four businesses plus a couple of side hustles because you're bored.
But for me, it's the journey and it's about the other people in that as well so yeah, I'm totally comfortable with calling myself an entrepreneur now. But I only changed my LinkedIn profile like two months ago, I think. Until then, I was an inspiring entrepreneur, but then everything after that basically defined me as an entrepreneur, so it's one of those things. What's it like with the speaking gigs and with the talking gigs, what's it like sharing your story and your outlook on the world to different people? I love it in the right context. I haven't
done, like I've done a bit of it, but it's somewhere I want to keep advancing and moving into more and I've been loving the opportunities and the reason is like if I can get up in front of some people and just encourage them in a healthy way to move forward, so like one of my big things would be how do you identify if you are actually an entrepreneur or not? And what's the test and measure of that? Because right now it's so popular and so high, but people don't actually realise what it means to be an entrepreneur.
Like I've spent the last two weeks in the office till 8.30, you know what I mean? And people think if an entrepreneur just gets to travel the world and run these businesses and train and stuff, yeah, that is a part of it sometimes, but you know, what's the definition of a success as an entrepreneur and is that something you actually want to do or not? So if I can get up and I've found that if you get to speak in front of a group of people, that's one of the most impacting ways to do that. Definitely.
And then just being able to provide you deliver it right, you actually get to impact more people's world quicker and it's not always about quickness or, you know, I'd love to do the journey one on one, but that's something I do with my staff. So for example, Double Park, the coffee business I have, Evan's one of our partners in that, so is me, my other business partner, Sam Tinsley, Evan, and basically we kind of came up with the concept and I said to my business partner, I don't want to do it unless Evan's gonna be
on board because I'd worked with Evan as a barista, but I could see him, he had entrepreneurial skills, his love and passion was coffee and he's not like he's a little bit younger than us, but he was trying to work out, you know, how do I grow my Korean coffee? And I just identified that and said, Hey bro, how about we give you a path to buy in a 33% in the coffee business, nothing up front and you are an owner of the business and then just come alongside someone like that and go, let's do
this together, you know, and iron sharpens iron, like, you know, he's challenged me and shaped me as much as, and I had a business for four years before that, as much as I've hopefully sharpened him and made him a better person. And for me, it's hugely about the one on one stuff, like, I don't think you can beat that ever, like developing someone one on one, but being able to speak in front of a room means if you can challenge them on something or a concept that might not be true, that's going to create lasting impact.
And I know it has for me, people have spoken to me, like in a public setting, and I've gone, Oh, man, that's the best thing I've ever heard. You take one thing away from a conversation like that, like a big conversation like that and to win. And I think if you can, because all it is is a spark, right? Like all it is, is just giving that big group of people a little spark and you'll you might have a 20 minute conversation and each person takes something slightly different, which is a cool thing. But I
think when you can talk to people one on one and kind of realise that talking to we had a chat with our interns yesterday, and they just kind of loaded up on questions for like two hours. And we're able to get from A to Z so much faster than we would have if it was in a big group. So I've heard you talk about the intern stuff and I reckon that's sick because like, you hear our intern, he's just going to get me coffee into those things. But I've actually heard three podcasts, you're talking a bit about how.
I haven't sent them for coffee for a while actually. You um, yeah well you've got Tommy today. Forever an intern. Thank you for the coffee. Yeah, just the way you run that, like it sounds like you actually invest into them in developing their future. Like I think, as in Tommy's podcast, you talk about how they have to do a big project of planning out their own job. And you go, that's awesome. Where else are they going to get that experience? Yeah, it's kind of cool, it's funny because they're all, a lot of them are starting
at jobs at other gyms and stuff, and like even local, and I'm just like, ah fuck, like, we're creating really good coaches and like, it's that reminder that they're working in the industry that we're working in, so everyone's working together rather than against this, but it's like, damn I want to hire them. But you can't hire them all, right? That's right. Which is the upsetting part. But it also shows you're doing your job. Yeah. I mean, they're outgrowing you, which is the job of every leader, right? Yeah, that's it. It's still that little. It sucks. It does.
It's like, it's fantastic. And I look at some of my mentors growing up and coming into the industry, I don't lean on them as much anymore, and I'm kind of doing the same thing in different ways. They would have gone through the same feelings that I'm going through now, and it's a good feeling, but it's, yeah you're right, it does suck a little bit at the same time. I encourage people to try and review, if they have mentors, get mentors if you don't. Oh man. And if you do have them, review them every two years.
I know it sounds harsh and they might become a friend, but maybe they become more a friend than they do a mentor, which is totally okay and have that conversation, but I think it's pretty key and pretty important to be always moving forward in this space. So do you formalise those relationships with mentors? Like you say, you're my mentor, is it more informal kind of understanding? In general I do. I think I've defined my thing of mentor tighter. So I think growing up through my teens, early 20s, I had clear defined mentors, and then I
realised that the people around you are developing you just as much as a mentor, and they might be a friend, they might be a boss, they might be a colleague. So it's realising that there's mentoring moments in every relationship, but then at the same time I'll have key, especially in the field I work in, I'll have key mentors as well. Even one of them, old class one of my mentors is my counsellor, and the reason I have a counsellor is because I'm a verbal processor, so to have someone outside of that environment that I pay every couple of months is like me sitting down with 10 of the world's best mentors.
It's the best thing I can possibly do because I get everything out and I go, "I can't know what to do next." And she's just an older lady that I have no context for outside of being a counsellor. She would be my mentor, you know what I mean? And then I've got a few other key guys, but it's balancing that, like a lot of my mentors end up becoming mates. So it's that hard balance of just if the conversation is to have to say, "Hey, look, I'm realising that you're still trying to be my mentor, but I actually consider you more a mate now."
It's a hard thing to do, and you don't want to be disrespectful, but it's just having that conversation going, "Hey, we're going to have mentoring moments, but in general, you're my colleague, you're my boss, you're my mate," and that. So right now, I live with one of the guys that was my mentor growing up, but I wouldn't class him as my direct mentor anymore, but he's a good mate, you know what I mean? - Yeah, he's still going to learn stuff off him every now and again. Who are the people outside your, I guess, people you know personally, who are the people you look up to?
You mentioned Gary Vee. Who are the others? - Well, social media helps a lot because people like Gary Vee. There's another guy called Dave Hodge that runs a thing called Kingdom Investors and runs programs. That sort of stuff is super powerful for me because it's time and time. I can drive down the peninsula, it takes me 45 an hour to get here, and I can listen to two podcasts on the way down. So it's that sort of stuff. I would actually say my key mentor group is my core friendship group. - That's cool. - And just being able to have those real conversations when you need to, and the mentoring moments, I guess, that I was talking about.
This was a massive one, my direct boss, who's a senior pastor, so Matthew Destry, he's been, we're working together, and we're all colleagues, and we got to do a lot of life together, camping, hiking, have fun. He moved from Sydney, but now we're still super close mates, but there's still mentoring moments. Plus he's my boss. He's the guy deciding on payroll. You know what I mean? So it's that balance, I'll go another really good mate, who was also my boss at one point, and a corporate coach, was a senior pastor, and where now, he's not my boss, but we still travel together, hang out together, mentoring sessions together, or just sit on the back deck and have a beer.
Those sorts of things, yeah. - Yeah, which is cool. I think it's cool that you're able to, I guess, cultivate an environment where the people around you all the time are your mentors. Because you'll be offering the same, different wisdom, but the same kind of level of quality to them, and then it's kind of this beautiful group of people that just all want to see each other succeed, which is the kind of opposite to the majority of society of that. - It becomes contagious, though. - Yeah. - Like, a few of you together slowly build, and it's like, I want to be part of that.
You just start bringing people along, and all of a sudden, you've got this massive network of people that's incredible and just helping each other, and it's, I mean, this is what the podcast is. This is why Jake's here. Because, I know, I met him during coffee circles, and I was like, oh, I know so many other people that you know, just because of good people. - Yeah. - Yeah, I think that's-- - And I love to get protective, as well, about the relationship you do, which can be hard. Like, if you've got something going on, you're like, stay out of my world, Tom, get stuffed, you know what I mean?
- Get rid of this circle. - Like, at the end of the day, you go, actually, we're all here for each other, so, you know, let that go. - I would say, I mean, one of those reviewing stages, that two-year reviewing stage, so, probably for a year now, I've been trying to chase someone that's like a Thalampetrist kind of serial entrepreneur, because I don't have anyone in my world that is really doing that. - Yeah. - Like, that guy Dave, I met him in Queensland at a conference, and I just networked hard. I was like,
hey, bro, I'll be your personal driver in Melbourne, because I just, I'm like, I just want some time and time, because he's one of the first guys that I've heard go, I'm a serial entrepreneur, and here's why. And he was one of the first guys that was like-- - That's cool. - Like, he runs, I think it's 30 companies in nine countries. - It's insane. - You know what I mean, like, so, but then I've been trying to find that sort of person in my world, and I've been struggling, but, like, I've got some leads in that, but we'll see how it goes.
- And seeking them out, and then actually create, fostering a relationship with them, like, how beneficial is it when you're actually almost, like, you pull it off? - Yeah. - Like, Simon Cooper, who's been on podcast a few times, like, he's one of really good mates now, he works with us, like, effectively I'm his boss, but it doesn't feel like that. He's one of my mentors as well, and we've been using Instagram as a way to connect with people all over the world who are doing things that, like, help us push to our edges. And
it's almost like we've created three or four really cool relationships with people that we've never met, but they kind of know who we are, we have conversations with them individually about each other, and it's, you know, it's amazing what we can do now as individuals on, like, social media platforms. - Absolutely. - I don't use LinkedIn, but I know a lot of people that have made those relationships in LinkedIn. What advice would you have for, I guess, younger people who might feel, like, more serial entrepreneurs or people that want to be that kind of person who might feel a little bit alone or might feel like they're unable to kind of create those relationships yet?
- Totally. Get yourself in a community and then network, basically. For me, that's been the church world, for other mates, it's been footy clubs, cricket clubs, randomers, like, gaming communities. Like I have mates. - That's huge. - I started, like, for some of my developmental stuff through the gaming community, talking to people who have mics, like, who knows where they are in the world, but I've had some of the best conversations I've ever had over a microphone with a guy I don't know. - Yeah. - Yeah, and I know that can be hard if you're
an introvert and trying to work that space out, but basically find a field that you're interested in that you've got passion around and go, "All right, I'm just going to throw myself out there and get in it." And have those first awkward 30-second conversations, like, everyone knows they're awkward, just get over it. Like, just do it and see where it leads, and you'll find before you know it, you'll belong somewhere, like, you can be a part of something, and that's where you just find links and as people get to know you, they kind of direct your world into spaces that you wouldn't normally get the opportunity to move into.
So I definitely encourage people. - You touched on it before as well, you say you're an opportunist. I definitely had to have fun with that as well. Can you talk a bit about opportunities you've been given that you say in school or before you left school that you would never have thought that you'd been? Like, for me, someone said, "You'd be in coffee when you're in school." I'd be like, "You are high as." There's no chance of having coffee right now, but yeah, I have no interest whatsoever, and someone's like, "You'll be in coffee, you'll be the head of the rest of the convo, you'll be the coach," and all these things.
Like, just talk to opportunity. I think some people are very prescribed in what they think their destiny and what their future should look like when they're, say, in year 10 and they're looking, "Oh, I'm picking VC subjects." - Train tracks. - Train tracks is a good way to put it. Talk about how you took opportunity and how it's taken you on this. - Yeah. I reckon in school context, one of the first moments where my box started to expand and go, "That's an opportunity that's worth taking," and I didn't know that existed, was I had
this teacher who kind of just understood that school wasn't for me and went, "I'm personally gonna help this guy out," essentially, and just had some good chats with me. And what ended up happening was I skipped, so I stayed down in year two, got into high school and would hang out with my peers, like the people above me always have, but I basically skipped year nine, so I went from year eight straight to year 10, didn't have the education base to do it. - That's cool. - Did year nine over the summer, which was a load of crap, you know, stole me best mate's books from his year nine books and went over everything that they'll do.
But the reason for that is we all agree that you don't belong in the school system, not because you're necessarily dumb, but because it just doesn't fit your mindset and the way you're going. So how about we advance this and move it forward? And that's when I went, "Oh, I can think outside of a career. Oh, I can think outside of..." Like I wanted to be a chef when I was growing up, I love cooking for people, and then realize what a chef actually looked like working night shifts, weekends, all this. I'm like, "I don't wanna do that, I'm a social butterfly."
I'm always gonna be around people hanging out, stuff that, but because of those environments and being put into a space where someone just identified that this guy basically needs someone to come alongside him and go, "Hey, have you thought about this?" or "Actually, there probably is an option to go with that." And he basically made a way for me, you know what I mean? - That's cool. - And you know, it might not be someone you might have to make a way yourself, but it's just taking a step back, breathing and going, "End of the
day, I can try something, completely fail at it, wake up two weeks later or a year later or five years later, and it's still all good." You know what I mean? Like a lot of the big success stories or people who say they've really found their purpose as being a long journey of failures and they finally got it right. - Yeah, 100%. - And you know, you talk to people that, you know, like let's say they built a business to 100,000 and they had that for 10 years and they completely fell and collapsed and it failed.
But then they did another one, failed, did another one, failed, and then they finally do one. You go, "This is what I love, this is what I'm doing," and then they've got a $100 million business, you know what I mean? And it's just that test and failing process of going, you know, at the end of the day, and school doesn't like, I shouldn't say school matters, but it should be more for practical skills and general society skills and not the best ATAR I can possibly get. That's what I think. And then from there, learn and engage with what your passion is.
- I dove into the podcast, How I Built This, it's Guy Raz, it's one of those ones where basically interviews a business owner or like a lot of the big businesses like Patagonia and like Bias Media and stuff are all in there. And the one thing I realized by listening to it, like every single episode, like without missing one, every single episode, the owner of the business came so close to failure and like properly like bankruptcy and losing it all like multiple times as the business was growing. Tommy's been reading a book for the last
eight years called Shoe Dog, and if he ever finishes it, he'll realize that Nike, like Nike, one of the biggest Nike, oh, let me just go ride my two-wheeled bikey, fucking idiot. It is Nike, by the way, I'm aware that it is Nike, but, you know, play on it. And that like, that's one of those businesses that you look at as like over successful, but Phil Knight almost failed thousands of times, and I think that's one of the things that we forget as, or just as people, but as, you know, business owners or entrepreneurs or whatever you want to call yourself that you're going to fail and you're going to fuck up.
There's going to be times where you're like, I don't think I can do this anymore, but if it's something you're truly passionate about and you love, you're eventually going to find your way out of it. Are there one or two failures that you've made that kind of stick out as turning points or memorable moments or anything like that? There's hundreds of little ones, and like failure is your biggest learning curve to success really. It's like embrace it, indulge in it, you know, if you haven't failed at something, go out and make sure you do. I know, I know, it sounds stupid.
I reckon my, one of my biggest failures in what I do is the process of learning time management. I probably let a lot of people down, a lot of environments down, probably a lot of opportunities purely because I didn't provide enough personal time or overdid it in my world, like I did too many things at once, which I'm pretty good at doing. You know, like most people are like, how do you balance everything you do? And I actually don't really know. So it's almost like a natural skill set for me, but at the same time, I have to be super intentional about what I am giving my time to.
So, you know, in my, in my current business status is the two businesses that I'm a director or owner of are pretty self-sustaining, like they only take me a couple of hours a week to run, but that's because I fully trust the staff and my other business partners. And because, and the reason I don't like that, some of that stuff is my passion, but the reason I don't put more time into that is because I'm working a 4.5 day at Discovery Church where I'm committed to a team and a culture and an environment that I need to invest my time into.
Otherwise I'm going to let other people down, not necessarily myself. And if I was a big picture, it's all about the community and the people that I'm impacting in my world and what can I give back to the world. So I reckon some of my biggest values would come out of time management. Yeah, I like that. Where does your faith fit into everything and how has that kind of developed over the last 10 years? Yeah, well, like I grew up in a Christian family, so that obviously plays a massive role, but doesn't mean I had it easy.
And then, you know, like family divorce, grew up, was pretty independent from the age of 12 or 13, lived on a hobby farm, lived by myself. And then later in life, as in lived in the shed by myself, later in life through that sort of stuff, I guess I went on my own journey of, I'm sure I was a Christian, but I lived like anyone else. Like there was no difference between me. And then I just felt in my faith that I needed to kind of deciding moment and I did it for myself and I kind of went on a pilgrim trip around the world, 17 countries, five and a half months off, six grand.
And basically went with the intention to go, I'm going to find another man's war to fight because I actually want to do something beyond myself. And at the same time felt like in my faith, God saying to me that, nah, you're at communities back home. Like I would have got myself killed. Like I was going through Iran, I mean, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Eastern, like the Northern border of Iraq, like all that sort of stuff. Basically just finding somewhere where I could, whether it's, pick up an AK and save some children's shoulders or work in the trafficking industry or whatever.
I felt that, nah, like inside of me that I could go, I need to be back home and it's time to decide on myself and on my own terms that I'm living this sort of life, but like what do I actually want to do in life? And for me, I'm not oblivious to the rest of the world. I wasn't kept in a Christian bubble. And I went at kind of Kangal point where I go, actually, I think this Christian thing and this faith journey is real and I think there's something important and impacting in it and basically just committed to the journey.
And then kind of went from there and then I had some crazy moments through life that defining moments where I go, how do you end up working for a church? You know what I mean? And I never wanted to work for a church or be paid by the church, you know what I mean? And then here I am. I guess it's never one moment, it's a journey of working on that relationship and how you own your own faith because it's different for everyone, it's completely different. Yeah. And then that's the thing that I guess talking
to Tommy and Sammy and a few of the other boys and like I'm starting to learn the different kind of views of effectively the same thing. If you could articulate your faith to someone that you've never met and doesn't have faith in that realm, how would you do it? I'd say my goal would be to have a real and tangible relationship with God or Jesus. And in that express it in a way that is, I'm humble, I'm just a normal human trying to work out life and I don't have an empath and I'm not perfect and I'm going to screw up all the time.
I know life's better because I have faith and I believe in Jesus and I get to do life and community with him. I like that, that's good. It's such a hard one to talk about and I've been pondering this since we've taught heaps. And I'm trying to sit down and talk to a bunch of friends that you know as well, Jake. But you talk a lot about meditation and those kind of things, Christians meditate as well, it's not an exclusive thing to people without faith but I think the difference is when we meditate and we
pray, we're looking for an external influence whereas meditation can be somewhat internal into the universe, we call that, that's God, that's Jesus talking to us and that's divine intervention, talking to you with a plan, with a purpose, as opposed to kind of magic and unknown, does that make sense? It's all semantics really. I'm going to jump across the desk and say, semantics is the fundamental thing. But that's the thing, it's funny because the definitions are fairly similar but what I would say the universe, you would say God. For us that's like the biggest thing, that's not semantics, that's just the whole thing.
There's something over your life that has purpose and drive and it's why you live, it's why you do what you do and there's an unbelievable peace in it as well. So like, Jake's been through some crazy stuff, I've been through some less crazy stuff, but really just different things and you go, there's a peace in it and you're like, it's cool. Nothing fazes you, it can suck, it can hurt, it can be terrible but there's an underlying peace of like, it's all good, it's going to be fine, this is a season, this is something that's
going to change but I know there's something bigger out there that I can influence and something's influencing me and I don't know, there's an unbelievable calm to it. And a lot of people search for that through meditation and things and I don't know if you're the same as me but I find I'm always kind of at peace with that kind of stuff with the world no matter how messed up and terrible it can seem like, it's all good, it's coming through, I don't know how to describe it and you can chase that peace forever but for us there's one way to find it.
I just found through everything I tried in the world, as in if you go secular world or Christian world, so in my context, everything I tried in the world, it was fun, it was temporary, it was awesome, it had an impact on the world and I had heaps of fun but at the end of the day I would go to bed and go, oh, I feel empty, I'm not fulfilled, I don't really have that drive where, you know, in the context of meditation, even if you talk about, hey, if you talk to a Buddhist, if
you talk to a Hindu, if you talk to a Christian and you go, I know him, I know her, I go, hey, why did you do that, I just know, like everyone's got a context for that but they can't explain what that is, no one can. Meditation I just knew inside of me, oh, was it your head, nah, was it your heart, nah. By science definition it doesn't make sense but yet everyone has context for it, for us, for us that's Jesus, Holy Spirit gone, for someone else it's, you know, it's their God and you
can go into any context around the world and they can all say the same thing and they have some explanation for it or maybe they don't but they don't know what it is. Yeah, well at least we try and find an explanation for it. Exactly and for me, nothing made more sense or more tangible real sense than when I felt that I was having a relationship with Jesus. And that's cool. And I've tested, measured that multiple times, you know, people are like, don't test God, I'm like, nah, I've tested it. Like, I kid you not,
the reason I went to theology college, I was in Bali 2012, there for New Year's, having an absolute worldly party, right, like that place is messed up at New Year's, like my drink got spiked the night before with mushroom based stuff and had the world's biggest trip, right, but in that context two of my other mates had a worst trip and I was the guy that, like, we had a punch on with Alan and just got robbed, like, hangover story now, right? Yeah, right. Next morning, sitting by the pool, feeling crap and something inside of
me just goes, you know, you go to theology college, like this exact course that starts in three weeks and this time and I'm like, that's a load of crap, I can't even do college, like, I'm terrible at it. It's like, it's alright. I look back in hindsight and go, for me, that was Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and that has had so much impact on my journey and has basically created who I am today, you know? And then there's other times where I haven't listened to that inner voice and I've regretted it ever since. You know what I mean?
Like, damn it. Because someone did the same thing and got the result that I would have gotten and you just test the meta and like I said, it's a journey, but it's one of those things and it's like, why I travel so much, like, because every culture you go with and no matter what religion they're based off, no matter where you are, people are beautiful and the world's beautiful and it's an amazing place to explore. And for me, every single culture I go into, I get to experience a little bit of God's creation or a little bit of what I would call the kingdom, so God's kingdom in that culture.
Like, what's God doing there or what are people doing there or what's beautiful about this culture because everyone's got this aspect of like creation, beauty, amazement and bring that back to my own context, you know what I mean? I don't know. I've just tested, measured it and gone, nothing else was worth it and I felt empty and then when I felt I was following God, I had that relationship with him, my world just goes, it's just better. I have context and it makes sense and I feel peace and I have fulfilment and I don't go to sleep going, what's my purpose, you know what I mean?
I never have that thing of going, what am I really doing here? Yeah, it's really interesting because I guess I come from the other end, the secular end of the spectrum and I find that calm and that peace like in the fact that it's all just chaos and in the fact that what we really do doesn't matter and there's no real meaning to anything but in my own way, I feel incredibly relaxed that that's what gives everything meaning. I guess that whole meaning, no meaning like getting twisted up in that mindset but yeah and I
like the meditation side of things, it's like diving into me and how I feel which at the end of the day, I'm just like a bit of a whim of dust in the universe and I love that we're all trying to find that meaning and that purpose and what that meaning and that purpose is just depends on us and our own I guess perceptions. I actually wrote down a Jim Carrey quote yesterday that was really cool. You stop explaining yourself when you realise people only understand from their level of perception. So it's like I can
find someone who's devout Christian with blinders on around everything else and you can find someone that's devout like atheist or whatever and with the same thing and they're just going to butt heads forever because they only understand things from the way they're looking at it. I think our ability as people, business owners, friends, whatever to be able to take a step back from that, whether it's ego or whether it's that first person point of view and step back or helicopter up and kind of look at everything and kind of go a little bit like okay that's kind of cool, because I see it as we kind of believe the same things but different, we look at it differently.
Tommy keeps saying it's just semantics and I guess it's one of those things that frustrates me, that sounds like me, I've never seen you so mad and the other day where you'd pour your heart out and I'd be like yeah it's just semantics though. I reckon 10 minutes or so ago you said yeah it's semantics and I was like oh no, I don't usually show emotions, I stopped listening 5 minutes ago but yeah it's semantics. This is like a super broad question which Tommy also loves, what's next? I'm in like a review stage so as
far as I can see I'm going to keep working at Discovery Church and keep going on that journey but it will change in it's role, it will become more of an in-house entrepreneur type thing, like how can I be growing the church which is really just a group of people, a community that's based around something, so whether it's AFL or God, and how are we engaging and making our community better. So is it opening a brewery down the road where it's just good people, like common folk, I look at common folk and go man this
is an awesome model of the church, because people think church is the ultimate thing, I'm like no, it's just a place where you get to be centered around a common thing. This is what Steeples is doing as well. So a good buddy of ours, Corey Mitchell, runs a church called Steeples that opened a coffee shop sandwich bar in waterman business centres, or in the Chaston waterman business district, and it's sick because they're just good people making great coffee, great food in an environment where they get X number of corporate people come through those every single day, you know what I mean?
It's just been a positive attitude in the world. So that will probably change a bit and more focus on entrepreneurship, what does it look like to move the church forward, double park we're looking at expanding growing and what that looks like, so the coffee world, yeah like watch this space, doublepark.co. Yeah we've got some, yeah come on, we've got some cool plans there, I've got my commercial cleaning company that works in specialised and aged care facilities, so don't even try and find us because we don't exist other than being corporates, and basically I've had that
for five odd years and a couple of staff that run that because I was a window cleaner, bought a company and kept it growing and that's when I really started working out that I could do this whole bi-vocational, let someone else run my business and still have input into it and just being more refined, you know and hopefully travel and do the things I'm really passionate about whilst hopefully making some side money. I'm looking at starting a charity consulting space in the reusable sanitary pad stuff, pretty exciting what could happen there, and the latest one
is a health food product that I've got some samples of at the minute which is on the down low for now, but you know you can follow me on social media and I'm sure you will find eventually when it comes to real life. Yeah nice. It's not the potato gems in front of Tommy at the moment is it? Glue free. So who knows really, like being a serial entrepreneur I say this now and you might ask me next week and I've got two new business ideas or some other opportunities present itself you know. I like that.
It's good. It's good. What travel-wise where are you going next? Well I've been on a bit of a bender lately, so into Snakeheaps, I was in Africa so I went to South Africa, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Malawi and then I was in India as well doing some stuff with an organisation around like food processing staff, businesses missions so the concept of running a business for a purpose bigger than yourself, doing some stuff around that. So I'm a bit like stuffed at the minute but my next plane ticket is to Bali which is actually holiday in January.
Yeah nice. So pretty keen to actually go travelling for no other reason than sitting by a pool. Relive that 2012 years. Yeah right. I haven't been back since so it'll all happen. I love that. Alright I've got a bunch of little questions for you to finish off. You can dive deep into these or you can keep service level. Yeah. How would you change the school system? Make it more practical, so the fact of life skills or life hacks. Yeah. Yeah teach them how to read write but not at a level that's I'm going to be
a genius but at a level of just basic skills and then go make it tailored to the point of each person is their own person and their own human and no one lives the same life so how do you best engage with that. I like that. And go alright let's actually come up with a coaching program or a so I can yeah one to six or practice six is basically general life skills. High school is not is not about advancing your general life things that's a pretty small market in the big world but hey what
is what sort of person is this so working out what the gifts are what sort of personality they are personality tests and going alright we know this is going to change but right now you're your own human and let's develop that the best we can. I like that. If you could bring a subject in that's you've written it like designed it if you could bring a subject in to say like second half of high school your 9 to 12 so what would you teach them? Entrepreneurship. Yeah cool. I like that. Just chasing what they love and finding a purpose, passion.
Risk management but actually having the guts to take the risk. How do I do this in a way that's smart and I'm not going to you know I'm not going to end up with a hundred million dollars worth of debt but you know how do I do how do I have a positive change in the world or have a positive business in the world and not kill myself at the same time metaphorically. What's your favourite fun fact? Oh that Australia doesn't fit within us within within America if you put a map over a map minus Alaska yeah Australia's bigger than America.
It's pretty cool. Wow. When you think about it you look at a map and you go oh America's huge and they're like yeah Australia's a tiny island. I can't remember what the map's called but if you google like actual size world map like this it's looks I don't know it looks like the the actual globe's been put in an oven like it's all twisted and like contorted it's super weird yeah. What is success to you? Looking back at on my death bed and going I had a positive impact to the globe that made the world a better place.
Good. Good definition. Yep yep and it's a tension it's a tension of I'm happy but I'm not satisfied as in I'm not I'm satisfied at who I am and the journey I'm on and that carries joy and happiness and I'll give my faith heaps of credit to that at the same because I can be pretty negative focused person at times yeah because I'm a problem solver that's why I'm an entrepreneur is because I see a problem in the world and I figure out a way to solve it. So be I am happy but at the
same time I'm like what else can I do so you know you know I don't think I'll ever hit the satisfaction point where I'm like I've actually made it I've actually done everything I want to do because even if I became a philanthropist serial entrepreneur and like Dave Hodge I had 30 companies in nine countries and it's probably worth let's say two billion dollars yep and I'm giving away 1.9 billion. Still gonna be more things you want to do. There's still gonna be more I'm gonna do and if you look at success stories that's what
everyone says doesn't matter how much money and doesn't matter how much you do in the world you'll never fully want to stop and it's different for different people it might be sitting with your family and hanging out with your grandkids that might be a success and paid off your home or it might be building billion-dollar companies and giving away all of it so I've never asked this question before but if if you could live forever would you? You're pretty happy with that aren't you? Everyone write that down. In this life like on this world yeah no.
Does that come from a from the faith that there's something else or from the yeah yeah yeah so I think there is something I don't know what it is I'm not going to try and define what heaven and hell is or the afterlife it's impossible and it's a debate that's never going to end but I don't think there's something else after but as a kid I clearly remember and this would be developmental I reckon I was about 10 or 9 and it was a developmental thing I remember my mum talking about heaven and going it's
for eternity and I was like what do you mean by eternity what's the word tournament and she's like it's forever and ever and ever and ever and ever and ever stops and that actually scared the crap out of me as a kid so I was like hang on a second there is no end to it and just your brain is a development stage and you just go like what like how's that possible that nothing something will never end um you know so as soon as you said that that was the first thought that came up
doing like heck no like I was scared as I was like I don't want to go to heaven if that was if that's what heaven is you know what I mean um I'm not going to try and define what it is but um yeah no no thanks good I like that yeah I'm excited for what is next yeah well I think it's we've talked about this before like sometimes you need the the negative to balance out like if there was no oh I hope so if it was never going to end you kind of the
beauty of life is kind of lost a bit like there's no there's I don't know it's diminished slightly if there's no death somehow yeah having having that finishing point or that like a fine art resource adds value to the resource like absolutely there's a part of me that's like I'd be sick because imagine how much cool stuff you could do yeah like you can just master so many things and just absolutely kill it and then I'm like no you can't see that imagine losing your mates over and over and over and over again yeah community
friends relationships kids yeah it'd be hectic but yeah it'd be interesting to kind of like there'd probably be a number of life's times you'd want to live in the back I'm done yeah that's right all right 300 years yeah it's cool um because we underestimate how much we can actually achieve in a year yeah totally I think we overestimate how much we can achieve in a month but underestimate how much we can achieve in a year yeah yep good question though all right yeah I'll use that again um do you have a favorite dad joke
oh yeah hit me answer the phone hey Jake hey is your fridge running yep better go catch it yeah that was horrible so bad I was hoping for something better when you said yep you're smart like fuck we're on that line because it was so bad that was the only thing I could think of play on good mate thanks for coming on it's been an absolute pleasure thanks for having me it's awesome if you want to pump up your stuff and how do people find you yep so uh jr wilson um is my instagram um
or jake wilson's my name double park.co or double park coffee on instagram um what else is there I don't know social media um find me doing all that linkedin jake wilson i don't know how good my profile is i don't pay much attention to it it's yeah anyway it does me head in corporates um gonna play the game uh yeah one of those things or just hit me up at jake.reichard.wilson@gmail.com mate love your work thanks tommy thanks em you
