Podcast Transcript

[00:00:03] Jaemin Frazer: Sean, this is a, a vulnerable thing you've invited me to do with you today, to ask you questions about yourself and give you an opportunity to share your story in a way that your audience have never heard you tell. So, I love storytelling. I love going back to the start. And you know the work that you do, which is very impressive. I think a huge component of allowing people, helping people to scale up is got to be around their own internal story. Where they started, who they think they are, what they think they're capable of. Sooner or later, you're going to bang your head on some narrative that says “You're this good but not that good.” “You can work with these kind of people, but not those kind of people.” “You can earn this amount of money, but not that amount of money.” So, there's all the metrics and the business skills and the levers to grow and improve what you do and scale up. But then at some point there's the sense of do I have permission from myself to scale up? Because scaling up means standing out, and that's stepping into the light and drawing more attention to yourself. So, you've obviously found a way to do that for yourself. You obviously found a way to do that for your clients, so I'm really fascinated about how you did that consciously and unconsciously from where you started. So, can you tell me the start, like what was it like growing up in your world and the impact your parents had on you as a young man and the kind of way they thought about the world and their map of things and, yeah, tell us how it started for you.

[00:01:35] Sean Steele: Well, first let me say I'm really excited about this conversation because I don't think any of my clients and certainly not my audience would ever have heard probably any of this, really. So, you know, and I've had such respect for you for so long because your level of sort of vulnerability and authenticity on your Podcast, which is part of the reason why I said, why don't we swap this? Why don't you interview me on my Podcast and I'll interview you on your podcast , let's just see what happens, for fun. And when I think about my, where it all started, I mean, I grew up, first of all, I have to say, you know, I grew up, I was super privileged and fortunate to have incredibly loving parents. So, I grew up in a very high, like high encouragement environment. So, I had two, my mum used to be like an army librarian. My dad was originally a priest, and he left the order when he was a bit younger. He went into foreign affairs, and so we spent all of our early years traveling around the world. We're living in Switzerland and Argentina and Philippines and all over the place because my dad was in the embassies. But when they came back to, so I had this strange upbringing where, like all the way up until 10, I thought just, you know, that's what you did. Like, you know, you've got to ski in Germany this weekend and then Italy the next weekend. And I just thought that was normal. And then when we came back to Canberra, both my parents went back to sort of government roles, but all the perks disappeared. So, all of a sudden it was just like, back to reality. We were living in a pretty old house that they had since the early 70s in Canberra. My mom had to go to work, I'd go back to work because there was no one paying the extra bills. My dad tried to start a business as a migration or did start a business as a migration agent because he was a real humanitarian so wanted to serve political refugees and did a lot to have a life of service in Canberra, but it didn't bring dollars and there was zero entrepreneurial streak in either of them. So, what I remember, there were so many influencers, but I remember like my childhood was really sort of a feeling like when I think back on it, I just remember feeling loved all the time and encouraged, which is, I know I privileged that lots of people don't get. On the flip side, whilst that was incredible, and it was, by the time I was a teenager, I felt I clearly needed more than that because I was pretty out to control between the ages of probably 13 and 17, where I think I was mostly bored, but, that turned into a lot of different stuff, you know, joy riding cars, shoplifting, and getting arrested multiple times, you know, breaking people's noses in fights. I remember, I got one kid, I poured sulfuric acid down the back of his jacket, and I remember like smoking in the science room and him then wanting to come over with his dad to beat up me and my dad. And like, it was just, this was stashing cigarettes every day

[00:04:24] Jaemin Frazer: So you were a shit of a kid. Wow.

[00:04:26] Sean Steele: Shitbag. I really was as a teenager and I got to like 16, 17, and all I could see was more of the same. Like the people I'd surrounded myself with were like that. I'd kind of created this little, I don’t know, persona around it. And I didn't know how to get myself out of it. And so, I'd asked my parents, can I change schools because I actually need a clean start. Like I need to go somewhere where I've got no baggage because I don't want this forever and I need to do something different. And they were like, yeah, go for it. So, I sort of started with a clean slate. I don't think I could completely correct straight away.

[00:04:59] Jaemin Frazer: I got to pull you up there. This is fascinating.  Before you talk about how you got out of it, I'm really interested in how you got into it. So, you were bored and then you became, so you went from being really loved, having a great experience of being in family, seeing some cool things around the world, coming back to Canberra, and then having a less glamorous life that led to a bit of boredom. is there anything else that you think was part of this decision to be more than rebellious, but even a little reckless?

[00:05:33] Sean Steele: Yeah, I was definitely reckless. What else was part of it? I really actually think the majority of it was, I was kind of striving for, I was looking for excitement. Like I was like, Canberra, like, didn't like my school. It was a real shithole of a school It was just, you know, it's drugs and fighting and also stuff everywhere and I just was not really enjoying life. So, it was probably a bit of escapism and going; well, this kind of sucks. How do I make my life more interesting? Well, let's just push the boundaries. And because I probably, maybe this was the flip side of having such loving parents is I knew that they would be understanding, like I remember getting busted joy riding in my mate's car. It was literal, I don’t know one or two o'clock in the morning, we'd stolen his parents' car to, and we'd taken it up the mountain and we were like on the way to driving to a bottle-o. His dad's best friend drove past in his car, and saw us driving his best mate's car and with his best mate's son in the passenger seat. And we were like, dad's massive freaker. Anyway, we like lost him in the suburbs was, you know, hearts palpitating. The next day. So, this was a great example. Yeah. The next day, well some other kids got the belt, some kids got grounded for like three months. I got grounded for I think two weeks and like that was pretty much it. That was absolutely, so I think I probably had the safety of knowing that my parents were not likely to be hard on me, even if I was taking advantage of the situation. So, I think it was mostly boredom. I don't feel like there was anything kind of unresolved.

[00:07:09] Jaemin Frazer: Yeah. But again, before you tell us how you got out of that and go on with the story. I'm curious, when you think about that now, and even in the retelling of that, how do you feel about that period of your life now? Is there, oh, let me not preempt it. How do you feel about hearing yourself tell the story about that period of your life now?

[00:07:29] Sean Steele: I sometimes it feels like the same me. Sometimes it feels like a different me, and I've always carried. Level of guilt because there was a turning point, which was when my mom had to pick me up from the police station, I'd been busted shoplifting, and she was driving me home and she'd always been so stoic with all this stuff that I was going on. She's always been so supportive and all of a sudden, she'd just broke down. She was crying while she was driving and I was like; oh my God, I have broken my mum. Like just, I had this moment where I was like, this has to change. I can't keep doing this. This is just, this is not a path that I want to be on. And that was it. So, I think… Yeah, I hear it and I don't know, it absolutely still feels like me. I just maybe don't express it as much. I still love adrenaline-based activities. I still love adventure. I still love stuff that's new. That's exciting. I like changing locations. You know, Anna and I have lived in 17 different addresses in the last 20 years. We're about to move to Europe, at the end of the year, I'll still be running the Australian business, but we're relocating. Why? Because of the adventure. Not for any other major reason, but it just is interesting to me. So, I like, I like being put into the unknown and having to figure out what I'm capable of. And I think maybe there was a bit of that in that period.

[00:08:47] Jaemin Frazer: The sense of pain around, watching the impact on your mom, you know, that's really consistent with what causes change. Pain is a gift, really motivates us to do something different. But hearing you tell that story, like, I hear people's stories all day, every day. That's all I'm doing is. Going back into the past with people hearing stories they have never told anyone, sometimes they've never even heard themselves say, and so often there's so much angst with these experiences in the past. But I'm listening to Brian Cranston's autobiography at the moment. I don't know whether you're a fan of Breaking Bad.

[00:09:24] Sean Steele: Yeah. So, I didn't realize Brian Cranston. Yeah, I've definitely watched Breaking Bad.

[00:09:28] Jaemin Frazer: It's a fascinating book and he's a great storyteller and I'm a huge Breaking Bad fan. So, I was really looking forward to his book. Um, but I was just struck by his telling of the story of him being in Amsterdam as a 16-year-old, got some school travel trip and bunch of other, oh no, maybe it was with the young cadets or something with the military, actually, that's what it was. And so, there's all these rules and restrictions about what to do. They're given the talk. Do not leave the barracks. Do not go into pubs and clubs. Do not visit any dark places in dark alleys and all these teenage boys are going; mm-hmm, that's exactly where we're going. That's the only thing we've got on our mind. And so, he was just talking about his first sexual experience in Amsterdam. You know, going to a prostitute and all his friends, their experience of having sex with a prostitute. Now, he told it quite matter of factly as though it happened. He's a family man now. He loves his wife and his kids and he, you know, so part of that morality would say, oh, maybe that's not great. But as a boy, he could see it for what it was. And in the telling of it, there was no shame in it. It was just, this is what happened and I enjoyed that. And there you go. That's how I lost my virginity. So, I've heard so many people tell similar stories, but the way they tell it, there is so much shame. There is so much embarrassment. It's a period of their life where they think, this defines me, this makes me bad. This proves some deep flaw with my character. And so, it just really impacts their whole moving forward. So, just reflects the fact that life is not about what happens to us, it's about the meaning we place on the things that happen to us, and we are the storyteller. So, fascinated to hear your experience of something, which you go; eh, not great, but this is what happened, and this was me and I'm okay.

[00:11:20] Sean Steele: I made sure of course, that, you know, as you grow into an adult and you get that perspective or act about; for me, how wonderful my parents were and how great the upbringing was. I was the first one to apologise and kind of go, “Hey, like, I'm really sorry for the trauma that I created for you as parents, but it wasn't your fault, you know?”

[00:11:43] Jaemin Frazer: I mean, how old are your kids now?

[00:11:48] Sean Steele: Mine are 17 and 14. They'll be 18 and 15 this year.

[00:11:52] Jaemin Frazer: Okay. Does it impact the way that you parent them? Are you empathetic and applied of teenagers? Like, how does that, how do you relate to them going through a similar period of life?

[00:12:02] Sean Steele: Yeah, definitely. I think they've… Yeah, I don’t know, I really wrestle with this one on a regular basis. I've tried to transition from, you know, the kind of earlier stage directive parenting when they're, you know, sub teens into far more coaching kind of model and give them freedom and give them independence. And at the same time, one of the things that I didn't get a lot of was actually guidance. And I think that was one of the real challenges. I was literally like, you know, Sean, you just believe in yourself, back yourself, pretty much do whatever you want. So I was like, great. So, I was wagging school and I got horrendous scores. I had pretty much no university options available to me. Because I was just kind of mucking around and there was no one kind of going; “Hey Sean, like, this is great. Maybe you should be thinking about this.” So I've tried to find that balance, I think as a dad for my own kids to make sure they're absolutely strong independent boys, financially astute, confident in their decision making, carving their own path and doing what they want to do. But of course, that creates natural tension like any teenagers with their parents, when there are some rules, there are some boundaries and they just want to push up against them, and that's been a constant source of tension for the last month with my older one, but not anything that I wouldn't really expect of a 17-year-old either.

[00:13:22] Jaemin Frazer: Yeah. All right, back to your story. So, you broke your mom, and that was a pivot point. What happened from there?

[00:13:32] Sean Steele: Um, changed schools. I didn't really, I don’t know if I like, sort of sorted myself out, but I knew I had the opportunity to, so when I changed schools at 16, the following couple of years, I was mucking around doing whatever subjects I felt like, and I didn't have sort of any strong kind of career guidance. I got to the end of year 12, and having partied a lot in, you know, as you do in year 11 and year 12, and I got to the end of it and I was expecting, I remember I got an average score of 75, which I thought was pretty good. I was like, “oh, 75, great. I'm going to get an ATAR.” Everyone's on the ATAR model in Australia.  So yeah, your scores to go into university. And I thought I was going to get an ATAR of 75 and I got an ATAR 54, and I was like, oh, I don't really understand that. Like, well, you did all these subjects, which we would not consider academic. You know, you're doing music, double major in drama, outdoor education, you're going on skiing trips and playing volleyball and all these other stuff. Like none of that really counts towards the university. And I was like, really? Shouldn't have someone tell me this few years ago. And I don’t know where I was, but I wasn't really paying attention to that. So, I basically had a choice of arts and arts, I could go to Wollongong. So, I went to Wollongong and started in an arts degree. But again, I got halfway through my degree and realised, this is going nowhere and there's no job for me at the end of this. So, I switched to management because I thought it would be a little more, you know, look a bit better on a resume. And at the end of it I still didn't know how to do anything because of course, you know, a 19- or 20-year-old learning about stuff that you probably is relevant when you're 35 or 40 wasn't really very helpful. So, I just went into sales and I pretty much hustled my way up to the ladder doing all the crappy sales jobs that you can imagine. You know, out in the back of a…I'll never forget this job. One of the jobs that got me through uni financially was at the back, this place called Unanderra, which is, it's a bit of a hole. And I was like, basically in a big shed with about 25 desks. And it was literally just, you know, a phone on the desk and a white pages, and your job was to call people and invite them to property seminars about negative gearing, which is sort of property tax strategy back in the day. And so, you're calling people at dinner time and they're like, “What? What are you on?” I don't know. I just, I actually found it quite easy and quite enjoyable was everybody else was really struggling with it and I was like, oh, maybe I'm actually okay at this. And that just sort of led into this sales thing that then sort of climbed on into other roles in the future.

[00:15:57] Jaemin Frazer: Hang on. I've got to stop you there too. How did you find it easy? What was the narrative in your mind when you're facing angry people going, what are you calling, like the constant rejection that break most people? What was going through your head when you were experiencing that?

[00:16:12] Sean Steele: That's a good question. I think one of the things that had started to land in my brain was, one of the things that was a really surprising part of my upbringing for me was that my parents got into Amway. And so people who don't remember Amway, it was lots of cleaning products and all sorts of sales network marketing business, and my parents are the least Entrepreneurial, the least extroverted, the least engaging, relationship oriented kind of people. They're just sort of government minded and very diligent and all the rest, but I had always had no idea why they were in Amway. But anyway, they, therefore, through my teenage years, we constantly had all this personal development stuff on in the car, and I think maybe some…

[00:16:53] Jaemin Frazer: Yeah. Because that was a big part of that money, wasn't it? Like it wasn't just selling. It was about improving your lot in life and taking control of your finances and getting ahead.

[00:17:04] Sean Steele: It was like a early Tony Robbins program. And I think, you know, I had latched onto things like, you know, that every no gets you closer to the Yes. And all this kind of stuff. And so I think by the time I got into a, I like talking, I like being on the phone with people. I like auditory kind of conversations and I like engaging that way. So I think it suited my nature, but also, I immediately was like, “oh, well if I'm going to do this thing, I should probably try to get good at it.” I remember getting him Alan Peas’, it was like one of these books on questions, and I just started implementing the questions that he was proposing in these calls. And so I was generating 15 appointments a night when other people were doing two and three. And I didn't feel like I was doing anything special, it just sort of felt like it kind of clicked, and it made sense and it felt natural.

[00:17:55] Jaemin Frazer: Wow. So you're in this warehouse in Unanderra, desks and phones and you are making it work. Where'd things go from there? I’m sorry, did you drop out of uni to do that or are you still studying?

[00:18:06] Sean Steele: No, I finished, I finished the degree and was like, wow, okay, I'm not qualified to do anything, so I guess I'll just do sales. And then just went through, I went into multiple… I wanted to move to Sydney, so I took a telemarketing job setting appointments for like a website sales people, and again, it's just finding the appointment setting on the phone really easy compared to a lot of my peers. And upstairs, uh, in this building in Sydney, in Liverpool Street, they had account managers for the white pages who were selling to businesses, you know, bold listings and super bold listings and very uninspiring product. But I heard they were making a lot of money, and one of the managers came down who was looking at this team for potential staff for the account management. I went up into there and the next three years were just magical. Like, I found my feet, I think in the first three months I did something like three. I post on this on LinkedIn the other day. I found this certificate that I had from when I was 20 years old where I'd done 363% to target or something in the first four months. And then the following year I did almost 400% to target and I was winning these sales trips around the world. And all it just, sales just worked. Me being on the phone doing sales just felt good, but I very quickly wanted to be in leadership roles. I was spending most of my time, well, not most of my time, I was spending time anywhere that I could, I was just devouring every bit of personal development I could, Brian Tracy and Tony Robbins and Kiasaki and all this sort of stuff to try to, because I loved the fact that you could improve yourself personally and that it could translate into results very quickly. It was such like instant feedback loop, you know? Okay. Changed my state this day. Totally changed the way I was on the phone. All of a sudden got a sale that I wouldn't have got or it was much bigger and I was like, “wow, this is just incredible sort of cycle.” But I was trying to teach other people how to do goal setting. I was just trying to teach everybody everything that I was learning at the time that was working and really wanted to climb into leadership roles. So, picked out a general manager, said, “Hey, how do I become a general manager?” Like, “help me”

[00:20:09] Jaemin Frazer: Hang on, before you do that, sorry. I'm going to stop you there too because, like I coach and teach. And to me the big skill piece that, or the thing that enables me to do that as well as possible is to embody the things that I'm teaching. And so, hearing you say that, I think that is such a rare trait and most people would have not caught onto that idea that to be pragmatic. Not only does it increase the effectiveness of your ability to transfer information, but it increases the speed because you go; hang on, this is first and foremost for me. I need to learn something that's going to give me something better in the real world. And the moment you see that it works, then you understand it and then you're able to tell someone a story about what you've learned and how it works for you and how it worked for them. And it's a very quick way of reproducing information, but it's very wholehearted and very authentic. So, that's obviously been a big part of your success and I'm sure that comes up later in the story as well.

[00:21:14] Sean Steele: No, you're right. You're a hundred percent right. I think that's probably been central to the way I went through any additional jobs. Was always twofold. One, try to take the next, as soon as I felt 70% ready for the next job, ask for the next job and just hope that I would swim. Never waiting to feel. Okay, I'm a hundred percent ready now. Like, okay, I'm ready for the next job. Can I go and look for it? Always wait until I was about maybe 70% capable, and then seek to jump into the next one so that I would learn faster. And then in every one of those jobs, I would just try to absorb as much information, read as many things as possible, go to seminars, just try to learn stuff, apply it immediately to your point, and then go. “Okay. I think I know how to do that now. All right, what's the next thing?” And so kept just sort of jumping around. And that was part of, you know, Anna and I met 20 years ago when I was in sales in that first job, and she was in marketing and we sort of fell in love at work, workplace romance, and the 17 moves that we've done since then have really been, that kind of pattern playing out like, okay, this has been great. It's been exciting. I've got 70% of that now. Okay, what's the next thing? What is, if it requires a new location, great. Like how exciting? Let's just go.

[00:22:30] Jaemin Frazer: Were you aware at the time of the beliefs you had about yourself that kind of underpinned that? Because you know that as an idea is quite risky. You have to embrace a high level of uncertainty to do that and a high level of confidence in your own ability to make that work. So were you just kind of living in that experience and watching it happen or were you aware of really being clear of what you must believe about yourself to make that work. How did that play out for you as a young man?

[00:22:57] Sean Steele: I think it was twofold. On the one hand, I think my parents had really instilled a belief in me that if you really want to go after it, just go after it. Like you'll be fine. Just back yourself. Even if you fail, you'll be fine. You'll pick yourself up. But on the flip side…

[00:23:10] Jaemin Frazer: Just before you go, don't forget what you're going to say, your parents actually didn't instil that in you. They didn't have that power. That's an important distinction that is credit to you because if you, like most people imagine parents have that direct ability to just implant, meaning and story and beliefs, but that's not true because if they did, then every child would turn out the same. If you have four siblings, same parents, same conversation, same thing. One goes this way, one goes this way, one is confident, one is shy. It's like, I love Don Miguel Ruiz’s work, the Four Agreements, and he says, look, “It's not the word spoken to you that change your life. It's just the ones you agree with.” So, you're actually at the centre of your life. You are the one with the pen. No one's writing the script for you. And if you can see that, do makes a difference in your ability to then alter that. Because if your parents were the ones that installed a belief, great. You think they installed a good belief. But what about the people who think parents installed a bad belief? If it's the parent's fault, then you got to wait for the parents to fix it. And what if they can't or if they won't? But if you kind of realise, no, I agreed. I thought that work, it made sense to me and so I signed off on it and that's why it became part of me.

[00:24:30] Sean Steele: Yeah. That's interesting.

[00:24:31] Jaemin Frazer: Carry on. 

[00:24:33] Sean Steele: What you said also reminded me, that one of the things that Anna and I that really built our relationship in the early days, it really sort of unite us was, we were going to seminars and stuff together and I really wanted to learn about neurologists,  neurolinguistic programming, NLP, you know, stuff that Tony Roberts used to do because he was into it. So, I needed to be into it. And we went to our first training and I remember one of the things that, I remember this sort of “aha” moment where I realised that whilst yes, I believed in myself, I also had a really strong driver to prove myself to, and I sort of uncovered in this session. I remember think, who am I app proving myself to? But I had a really strong, because I'd had some success quickly, I then built this persona in my own mind that like, well, if I'm succeeding like that, I've got to succeed like that all the time. I have to keep proving myself and keep leveling up and put a lot of pressure on myself. And I realised it was probably only a couple of years later that a big part of that was doing that for other people. But I didn't really know who other people were. So it wasn't all, you know, positivity, just go after it. Sean. I definitely felt I was competitive and I wanted to win. Not to the detriment of other people, so it was never a win lose. But yeah, because I think I had a bit of a… I don't know, I don’t know if it's a chip on your shoulder, don’t know if that's the right word, but I wanted to prove myself to something or someone. 

[00:26:04] Jaemin Frazer: Yeah. And great self-awareness to notice that and make an adjustment, when dealing with that, with the insecurity piece in my line of work, I would say it's almost inevitable that young people have that proven defend energy and it actually is like rocket fuel for a season. It just is quite destructive and toxic at the same time. So, it certainly makes you do some amazing things, but at some point it will cost you and ruin your life if you don't become aware of that and upgrade the motivation of something more sustainable and authentic. So, credit to you that you are able to pull yourself up. Notice that, and adjust that strategy. Yeah, carry on. What happened next?

[00:26:48] Sean Steele: So yeah, went from sort of senior sales roles, making heaps of money, and the general manager that I'd sought out said, yeah, I have got the… You want to be a general manager, you need to learn the rest of the business. Like not many general managers are just going to come straight up the sales chain and become a general manager. They actually need to learn about customer service and data and quality and finance and all this other stuff, and I was like “Okay, so how do I do that?” And he said, “Well, I've got a terrible job for you in Melbourne. You've got to move from Sydney to Melbourne.” He goes, “It's an awful job. There's this team of people where there's all this work going into it and nothing seems to be coming out the other side. No one has any idea what's going on in this group of people. It's causing a huge bottleneck. You're currently making close to a couple hundred thousand dollars a year as a sales guy because you're making all these commissions. This job's about 45 grand a year. So, you'll be taking a pretty material haircut, would you like to take it?” And I was like; “Wow. What a choice. Sure. Yep, let's do it.” So we moved.

[00:27:45] Jaemin Frazer: Hang on. Why did you say yes to that opportunity? What made you, what were you intrigued about?

[00:27:51] Sean Steele: I think I was probably, because I'd been so, you know, Tony Robbins had always said, and I'm definitely still a Tony fan by the way. Tony had…

[00:28:01] Jaemin Frazer: Me too.

[00:28:02] Sean Steele: … always said that modelling was such an important skill. And so, I looked for people who already had what I wanted or had achieved what I wanted to achieve at a certain age. And then was like, well, tell me what to do and I'll just do it. Like, I don't really, I'm quite happy not to spend much time talking about it or guessing it or thinking, oh, should I, shouldn't. I'll just get on with it and do it, which probably aligns with my, I guess my kind of learning style. I can be quite good at learning and implementing things even without a really strong reason why just because like, I'm happy to take the lead. Sorry. Happy to be led. So, he said “You should do this”, and I said, “Okay”. Did a data gig, did a quality management gig. I think there was a customer service gig in there somewhere. And then Anna and I, you know, it was clear that she was great at Project management and business analysis. Really good at like pulling apart operational stuff and fixing things. I was really good on the people side, so we then sort of moved around the country with the company solving people and process problems kind of together. So, it became like a partnership. You know, take me, take Anna, take Anna, take me, kind of model. So that's cool. So anyway, that sort of brought me all the way up until probably 2006. Stayed in this company, hopped around, and then eventually we wanted to create a business together and we were on business Plan 13. I remember when Locky had just been born. We moved from Adelaide. He was four weeks old. We moved from Adelaide to back to Sydney and there was a point where Anna was going to have to come back off maternity leave. And we were like, well, it's now and ever. Like, are we just going to jump in the deep end? Or what are we going to do? We were like, yep, let's do it. And we'd saved up all this money. And we had a terrible idea for our… the current model that we were on because we had just been through a pregnancy, of course, was pregnancy related, which was about having a retreat for couples to come to and do like pregnancy yoga, and pregnancy photo. Basically had their last holiday together before they sort of lose their freedom for a pretty long time. So, we went all in. We quit our jobs, we put all our money that we'd been saving for years into an, what do you call it? Like a bed and breakfast up in the Central Coast, Invoca Beach. And you know, feeling like a complete imposter and also knowing I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. Like I'd been succeeding in sales, basically you plus a few other leadership roles. And now I was going to be running this like pregnancy and parenting retreat. I don't know. So anyway, six months in, and that was probably one of the hardest periods of my life, no question. Because six months in, I remember, I'll never forget this night where Locky was downstairs. He was 6-7 months old and he was in bed asleep. And I was crying up in the office because I'd realised that basically we'd burned through all the money. We had to get a credit card, so we're now like we'd max the credit card. It was like 20 grand or something. So we're 20 grand in debt, which we'd never been in before. And I knew that if I didn't make, I think it was like $1,300 or something that I know I needed to make about two grand. And we had a $1,300 a week mortgage and I had no idea what bankrupt was, but I realised if I don't make $2,000 a week, like we are screwed. I don't know like someone just comes and knocks on the door like we were in our sort of mid-20s. But we had to trade our way out of it. And I realised I'd been spending all this time focusing on something that wasn't, something that I was great at, something that I loved, or something that people wanted, needed and were willing to pay for. And. I heard that somewhere in a book or something. And so, I drew these diagrams, okay, what do I love? What am I great at? What do people want, need and willing to pay for? And I quickly realised that sale, I was good at sales. I loved training. Why aren't I doing sales training? People pay for that. And I was like, huh. So, the next morning I just got my phone out. I went through every single person who had a sales team and the first call I made, I had a $20,000 sales training booked for the following week, for two days. And I was like, I'd spent six months with just all the money flying out the door, not a single sort of inquiry that I could convert. And in like in two hours I had $20,000. I was like, huh, okay. That's a pretty big learning. And I then had to trade my way out on sales trading for the next couple of years

[00:32:16] Jaemin Frazer: Amazing story. But I imagine you didn't have a website or a sales training business already. You just kind of said yes and then backfield work out how later.

[00:32:31] Sean Steele: Well, everybody

[00:32:32] Jaemin Frazer: …necessity is the mother of all inventions.

[00:32:34] Sean Steele: And sort of sales and sales training and sales leadership. So, I was able to just call people and that kind of got us started on the next business.

[00:32:42] Jaemin Frazer: So, that sounds like your first real failure to a degree, almost catastrophic. Did that linger with you? Were you able to bounce back quickly? How did you carry that experience? What was the impact, good or bad, from that?

[00:32:59] Sean Steele: Yeah, that's a good question. There was two major things that came out of that, one, I realised, if I'm put into a corner and my family's threatened, I will do whatever it takes to, I will come out swinging. Like there is nothing that's going to stop me making sure that I sort of play my role and protect my family. So, that was one thing that really became a strong piece of evidence for me that I knew that actually there's nothing that you can do to me. You could take everything away that I own, as long as I have my family, I could happily just go live in a caravan as long as I've got my family there. Fine, no problem. Like and I will fight, I'll do whatever job I need to do, which became required several years later in the probably second biggest failure, more difficult year of my life. Didn't know that we were going to have a therapy session on this one, but the other thing that came out…

[00:33:48] Jaemin Frazer: Hang on. Wait. What you didn't know were having a therapy? Of course, we’re going to a therapy session. That's where this was going from the start.

[00:33:54] Sean Steele: And then the second, so one was that sort of resolve that I'll do whatever it takes. And I know that and I've now proven that to myself, and that I can succeed in doing so. And then the second thing was that, that it's very easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And I see this in people's career changes regularly, where they're like, okay, I've spent 25 years doing X, but I really need a change, so I'm going to do Y. And it's got absolutely nothing to do with all their networks are going to disappear and I just think there's a lot to throw out there. Like, there's always ways to create newness, but not to get rid of everything that actually has already become, you've already got a brand, you know, people trust you for a reason, doing whatever it is that you do. So sometimes there's ways to leverage that. So, anyway, that took us into a period where we were in our own business for a while. And led up to this really fascinating, really to the step back into working for other people and sort of rapidly climbing into being a CEO. The first gig was a general manager's role where company had just Board and education business needed a turnaround. Well, they didn't tell me that needed a turnaround. They said, oh, it's amazing. We just bought this fantastic business. And I walked in the door and a really good friend of mine became the CEO. I was the general manager. And we became partners in crime very quickly and realized on day, I don’t know, it was like day seven or something that they were supposed to have 300 and something students. We did the headcount around all the campuses 107. And I was like, as we're doing the numbers and I was like, this business would be losing $350,000 a quarter. It's definitely not profitable. It's a long way from profitable. So, we went to the MD who just paid for this business. I was like, did you guys do any due diligence? Like what's going on here? And they're like, oh, didn't realise it was in that bad state. Well, it's now March. I know you've just left your business. Sorry about that. You've got till August to put it back in the black. And if you do, we'll keep it open. If you can't, then we'll just shut it. And I was like, wow. Okay. So, we got it back into the black by August, and we did a great turnaround on that business. And in a couple of years’, it was doing really well. But that created some amazing things. It created this incredible passion for education and to work in education, which I've spent the last 15 years doing since then. I had the most amazing learning experience working for the CEO, really good friend of mine, Ben, who's just transformational in his ability to bring people together around a sort of, you know, to unite people in a crisis situation. And I learned a lot about how to build culture from him but then at the end of that job, the end of that job represented the worst 12 months of my life. So this was after the difficult period. Yeah. It kind of led to this really difficult period in 2011, which was probably the last time I had a really awful year. So, I've had a pretty great run for the last 12 years or so, but after doing this turnaround, and we built the growth plans, you know, we got it back to, I don’t know, 6 million in revenue and it was healthier and profitable. And the ne next year it was going to 10. And I got made redundant and it was the first, and I was so shocked. Like it literally just destroyed, you know, somebody said to me, there's a point in your life somewhere, usually in your 30s or early 40s, and I know that you talk a lot about the sort of key transition stages where the universe just needs to deconstruct you and sort of put you back together and you've got to put yourself back together again. This for me was this like six-to-eight-month period where it all happened all at once. It was the first time anyone else had actually made a decision about my future that I didn't feel like I was in control of. And it just shook my confidence to the core like I was like, oh my God, somebody else can influence what my life looks like. And I spent all of this time trying to build my life by design and all the rest. And I was stuck in Canberra because we'd gone home to be, you know, my dad was dying and so it was a tough period for the family anyway. And then, I was then without a job, I was stuck in Canberra, which was the worst place I could possibly be for somebody who was in kind of commercial education, because there's pretty much no industry at all. I learned a few tiny businesses at a TAFE and then about four months later, so I was struggling to find a job that was of any interest and was and meaningful. Four months later my dad died which was just awful. And I was so struggling to find a role. I had to go back. This was, I don’t know how old I was, I guess I was… 2000… anyway, I was probably early 30s or something. I had to go back to a commission only sales role. Basically, just sucking eggs every day for this awful owner of a terrible magazine selling space in a magazine just to put food on the table. So, it was like the second time, or I'd had to just do whatever it took to look after the family, but it was just like eating rice blades every day, was awful.

[00:38:44] Jaemin Frazer: Just to highlight the difference with the second time hearing you say it was, I mean, the first time you kind of were to blame that you couldn't really point the finger anyone. You'd had a great idea, which in hindsight wasn't such a great idea and okay. Yep. And you found a way out of it. Second time you had done great work, you'd brought your best skills to the game. Experienced, extraordinary success, exceeded other people's expectations, done what you were best at and then got punished for being awesome. Then like the injustice of that, that to me seems like much more catastrophic experience than the first one because you are like, well, hang on a minute. I get it. If I make a mistake, yeah, I should experience negative consequences. But if I do awesome, wouldn't I be entitled to expect awesome results and good things to come my way. So, that sense of…

[00:39:43] Sean Steele: It was so cold and like, logical and clear. The business had gone well. They needed the money to support another business that they had. And so, I was just the most expensive cost. And they're like, “sorry, you are just too expensive and you've build a great team and a great process and we can take it from here.” And I was like, “Really? Okay.” But yeah, it felt so cold. And of course, I'd become best friends with the CEO and he had to find me. And that was very difficult for him too.

[00:40:14] Jaemin Frazer: So, you know, those kind of turning points when people get deconstructed, they face injustice. It's a shock to them. They didn't see it coming, they didn't imagine it was possible. Hard not to take personally, there are plenty of people who don't recover from those kind of experiences that does take them out of the game for good and they end up bitter. They end up lonely. That injustice kind of rules their life and hardens their heart. So, how did you not lose yourself in that process?

[00:40:46] Sean Steele: Well, I remember in the middle of the, I was getting abused by the owner of this magazine who was a drunk, and he just used to come and abuse, even though I was making the vast majority of the money there so that I could put food on the table. And he just used to abuse me on a regular basis. And I remember thinking, how did I end up here? Like, this is just such an awful place to be. And so, I just knew, and my dad had died, and so I was like, my ties to Canberra are now complete. We don't need to be here anymore. We just need to find something different. So, I just hunted really hard for the right gig and found an incredible, wonderful CEO, like my next sort of main mentor in my life. There's probably been three that have really just transformed the way that I thought. And he gave me an opportunity to come and build all the sales and marketing capability for a large education business. Moved to Sydney. So Anna was happy because she didn't have to live in Canberra anymore either, she's not a huge fan of the cold, and that kicked off a trajectory of like, that was my first proper large scale executive role in a big company. And that was the first of probably the four sort of mini chapters if you like, that led to creating a hundred million in additional revenue in four companies in eight years with my teams. And I think I was just so grateful to have an opportunity for, again, to be back with someone who backed me, someone who really challenged me to think bigger and just gave me lots of rope to sort of go after it. So, I think I was so determined to create a better situation for myself and the family because I'm pretty values driven and I couldn't even consider the thought of just doing a sort of soul-destroying job. We'd made all of our decisions based on values. We were just jumping around all over the country. It's like, that sounds interesting. Yeah, let's do that. That's going to be adventure. Let's do that. And so, yeah. So that was definitely the lowest point I've ever been at. But I was super fortunate to find something to help me bounce back off it.

[00:42:45] Jaemin Frazer: I mean, hindsight's wonderful, isn't it? Because I'm sure that you'll look back now and go, okay, the obstacle was the way that built resilience. And then, you've got a bunch of experience to share with others when they're going through similar but in the midst of it, it's very dangerous and no guarantee you're going to come out the other side and certainly doesn't look like the obstacle is the way you'd prefer the obstacle just to be moved out of the way. It seems like an unfair and unnecessary obstacle. So good for you that you came through it alive and intact and without having lost yourself. It's no small achievement.

[00:43:24] Sean Steele: And I think you know that the majority of the credit goes to Anna because we had built such a strong relationship. I knew that she had my back no matter what. And so she was like, “Hey, if the opportunities in Brisbane, we'll go to Brisbane. If the opportunities in New Zealand, we'll go to New Zealand. Like, let's just follow your heart, find something that inspires you and we'll be fine.” So, she's always backed those kinds of big decision.

[00:43:49] Jaemin Frazer: Lovely. Okay, where's the story go from there?

[00:43:54] Sean Steele: Well, I guess that, so that was kind of Sydney in 2012. So, the next that really yeah, led into the kind of the four really interesting jobs I guess, you know, one was that education business we are to take from 80 to 123 mil over three years by, I was lucky I got given sales and so we were acquiring all these businesses. I had to bring all the sales people together and all the marketing people. I got the marketing opportunity, then the product development opportunity and business development opportunities. And so, it was sort of building a better product strategy, building optimising sales and marketing. It was building new channels to, you know, leverage and create delivery of our products, other people delivering our products. But ultimately, we were able to grow from 5,000 to 12,000 students over the next three years, which really just catapulted the revenues, which was amazing. But for me, and I got lots of learnings around that. But when I think about, the kind of conversation we're having, you know, when I think about how I felt about that period, like few things; one, I worked for the smartest person I've ever met, like Warren, who I'm sure hopefully will listen to this at some point. And he knows that I feel about this way about him, and we still catch up on a regular basis. Just inspiring, intelligent, so supportive, just backed me to the Hilton, gave me room, and gave me space. But I also have never worked harder than that period in my life I was living in Brisbane. I was getting up at three o'clock on Tuesday morning, flying to Sydney. I'd just have back-to-back meetings all day, all night, you know, work three days, sort of just super hard. Come back 10 o'clock at night on a Thursday night. And my life was just so intense. I remember about two years into that, and that was my first sort of executive role, if you like, and thinking how do people do this? Like, how do people do a lifetime of this? I thought I literally could not do another two years. I would fall over and die. I was so, I had this moment where I was at work one day and I had to just run to the bathroom and throw up, and I knew I hadn't had any, there was no food poisoning or anything else. And I realised I was actually just so stressed. I was so stressed with the volume and the speed and the pace of work that, and I had to, it was really hard to wind my way out of that and to create space to be effective. But it was incredible learning process and a big journey and lots of success, which kind of then led to the next big kind of CEO role.

[00:46:29] Jaemin Frazer: Well, you know, another pain moment you broke your mum, that led to some change. Then you break yourself, to notice that, again, it's no small thing. I watch people go past the point of breaking themselves because they can't afford to listen to that pain. They're like, yeah, but this is me and this is what I have to do. So, I have to find a way to dig deeper and to dive into reserves of energy that aren't even there. So, yeah, again, credit to you, your emotional intelligence, your relationship with yourself to listen and move on. So, what was the next opportunity that came off the back of that?

[00:47:07] Sean Steele: Well, what it really led to the next major one conscious amount of time we've probably got. But the next major one, which was really the last sort of four years before I started my own business was building an education portfolio for a public listed company, which is still there today. It's called Venture Co. A team that I recruited,  are still there and kicking goals and doing a great job. But you know, it started as a kind of 3 million worth of revenue with a couple of tiny trades, training businesses, teaching people brick laying and carpentry and a bunch of other things. And, you know, we built out a portfolio around particularly IT training across the Asia-Pacific with, you know, joint ventures in the Philippines, acquisitions in New Zealand and all over the place. But for me it was this incredible job where I learned a huge amount about mergers and acquisitions because we were out there, you know, looking for businesses, buying businesses, trying to raise capital, all that sort of thing. But the thing that I loved about it and how it sort of turned into today, because I'm always a big believer that each one of those chapters of course is something that you take forward into the next one and not just distinct chapters. That one I fell in love with Founders with these seven figures sort of businesses, you know, like one to 10 million type business, where I got the opportunity then to either replace the Founder or the CEO with our own management and then help basically mentor those leaders and their leadership teams to develop strategy and execute it or to, yeah, so whether it was our management or it was the acquired business. But what I loved was that this great opportunity, probably going right back to the sales days. I was able to absorb every possible model I could find on how to scale a business. And I was just applying, applying, applying, applying, applying, applying, applying. So, I was just ruthless in how much practical stuff I jammed down the throat of the team, the poor things. But we learned a huge amount as a collective along the way, and it just turned into some great outcomes. That business, today is doing 70 plus million, it's doing really well. It's continued to grow. It's continued to acquire, but what I'm thrilled about is that the team that I recruited the vast majority, all the kind of key people. They're all still there. They're all still kicking goals. And when I realised a couple of years ago that I just didn't want to work for anybody else anymore, and I wanted to do my own thing, and I found this special space of working Founders who had this sort of level and helping them with all of these things that I'd app learned and applied with my teams to scale a business up, that there was an opportunity to help people who've never built a business bigger than the one that they're doing today. And to bring some of that capability and that framework and that rigor to help them fulfill the potential of their businesses, um, and create more value in the world. And I thought, well, that just fits every part of my DNA. Like serving others, helping people create value, getting to make my own decisions, getting to create a lifestyle where I can choose to be in different locations where I can continue to create adventure without having to be constrained by something. And so, all of that is happening now. And we're just about to release, I spent the last couple of years doing that as sort of. Sean Steele and advising Founders on my own. But we're just about to launch, at the time this goes live, I will probably have already launched. I'll be very close to launching Scale HQ, which is a new brand. There'll be a new website. We've got courses coming, got a whole bunch of stuff, but that's this next big chapter of 10 year, at least, 10 years plus. I don't intend to do anything else other than build and scale this business, so that we can help more Founders in that category fulfill what their ambitions are.

[00:50:42] Jaemin Frazer: It's always a gift to hear someone's story because I don't think, this is not a typical conversation you get to have with a human being. It's “how you going?” “Good.” Oh yeah. “I am.” “How you been busy?” “Yeah. Geez. I've been busy.” “All right. Catcha” And so like to hear a person's story, I just think it's one of the all special experiences we get to have as humans. So, thanks for allowing me the opportunity to be the one that got to hear your story. And I'm sure your listeners will be loving this and just, because you're an extraordinary human being like that to have gone through what you've been through and to be who you are in the world today. Like, you clearly are showing up making a difference, and you do that out of the overflow of who you are. So, when you hear yourself tell your story the way you did, what stands out for you? Like what do you think has been the themes, the key learnings, the, the stuff that's really been the bedrock of how you got here and the success stuff, the stuff that's really made the difference for you?

[00:51:46] Sean Steele: Well, I think the, obviously, for people who haven't heard about you before, you've got the podcast - Unhindered and you've written books on insecurity and all sorts of stuff, and I was thinking about. How much insecurity I faced over that time and that it's very easy to look at people who, you know, you can put on a pedestal and go, oh, they've made it in some way. And think that somehow, they didn't deal with all that stuff. And when I think back on this journey, the things that really jump out to me are the relationships that I've built along the way, but also that each one of those opportunities came from a willingness to get into a really uncomfortable place and feel like an imposter for ages in every one of those. So, every single job that I had to level up for, you know, how do you get to being a CEO? Well, no one's told you how to be a CEO before you get to being a CEO, I just go, oh, you're going to be the CEO in three months; time? You're like, oh my God, what does that mean? Like, better to start reading. Every one of those opportunities has come from being willing to take that risk before you're comfortable. And so I think that probably stands out at me as something that's really bounded together. And that willingness to be uncomfortable enough to learn and, and trust that actually it may not be perfect and it might all go to shit, but you'll actually be okay, you'll still be all right. Like as long as you've got the relationships that matter still intact. Like I think, you know, I spent a fair bit of time with really successful CEOs around the world and, and particularly in Australia. And just because they've got a lot of money, don't fall under trap of thinking they've got perfect lives, because they absolutely do not. And it's probably one of the most startling things I've learned along the way was that people who had just incredible financial and work success just had the most broken relationships you've ever seen. And I thought, you are going to have some unbelievable financial event in 5 years or 10 years’ time, and you're going to be so excited, you're telling me that you do it because you know you're doing it for your family and you're going to turn around and it's just going to be tumbleweeds and no one is going to be there because you have ignored them the entire time. And the only thing they want from you is time. So, one of the things, I think one of the… probably the thing I'm proudest of is that through that process and all those different challenges and the changes and, and all the rest is, I have managed to keep my values around how much time I spend with my family, how I spend time with my family, broadly speaking, intact probably other than the 3:00 AM, the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday period, that was pretty hard. But broadly speaking, they've all that relationship's always been protected because I thought, I don't want to get to any level of anything and find that those people aren't there.

[00:54:33] Jaemin Frazer: Back to your dad being a priest, a biblical quote, “What would a prophet man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?”

[00:54:41] Sean Steele: Yeah, that's nicely put.

[00:54:43] Jaemin Frazer: Is there a question that you were hoping I would ask you that I haven't yet got to? Feels like we've come to a really lovely place in the end of the conversation, but is there anything else that you'd like to share about the journey that I haven't drawn out?

[00:54:59] Sean Steele: Not really other than I feel that it would be really appropriate for me to just express my gratitude to the people that have inspired me the most along the way. Anna, my wife, no question. The absolute bedrock of my life and has just always been the best coach and consultant and pushing me back against my own stuff along the way, and not just accepting whatever crap I came up with along the way. And probably the three or four leaders that have just had the biggest influence, you know, Ben Faro, who was just, I learned everything about transformation from Warren Jacobson, who I learned so much about how to elevate to a CEO mindset. Reid Meldrum, who I followed around for years in census and other places who just had an incredible approach to execution and humanity in the way that engaged with people. And I just really tried to absorb as much as I could from those mentors. So, thanks to those people, been a huge part of my life.

[00:55:56] Jaemin Frazer: Great place to end.

[00:56:01] Sean Steele: Thanks so much, Jaemin.

[00:56:03] Jaemin Frazer: My privilege. Pleasure. No worries.