Level Up with Duayne Pearce
I take on the role of an authoritative voice that fearlessly communicates truths drawn directly from my lived experiences. With a genuine sense of ownership, my insights are free from any hidden agendas – they truly belong to the audience. My stories and journey add remarkable value, the key now lies in harnessing its power effectively to help others.
My purpose is to create a new residential building industry. My mission is to inspire unshakable self-confidence in my colleagues in the industry, empowering them to orchestrate prosperous, enduring, and lucrative businesses that bring exceptional projects to fruition for our clients.
My goal is to foster a deeper comprehension among clients about the identity and functions of builders, redefining their perceptions.
Level Up with Duayne Pearce
Am I the Real Deal or Full of Shit??
If you're a custom residential builder looking to build smarter, live better and enjoy life then head over to "Live Life Build" now for more info...
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In this weeks episode Lewis Dawson, a builder from the Central Coast reached out to Duayne on socials to interview him on his own podcast which Duayne agreed to. Lewis then put a shout out to all builders if they had any questions they would like to ask Duayne and the result of these questions even took Duayne by surprise on stuff he'd never talked about to anyone else, so strap yourself in for an all revealing Level Up.
check out Duayne's other projects here...
QuoteEaze
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D Pearce Constructions
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There was plenty of days that I could have, f***ing, just thrown a rope around a tree and it would have been a lot easier.
Speaker 2:If this bloke's going to build a new building industry, maybe I could like that, maybe I could love that.
Speaker 1:Never got taught about money and so I wasted it all. You're about to get letters from banks Like they're going to repossess it all. You've just got to f***ing follow through.
Speaker 2:Why am I about to?
Speaker 1:make sure you work. G'day guys. Welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We're back in the shed today for another cracking episode, and this is going to be an absolute cracker. I actually couldn't sleep last night.
Speaker 1:This is a bit of an unusual one. We're doing it on a Friday morning, not a Thursday afternoon, which is when we normally record. But to give you a little bit of backstory into the guests we've got on today so well, we've actually got Lewis from Lewis Building here. So if anyone that follows me on socials they might have seen some stories that I shared. But to give you a little bit of a story or background to this podcast, this is a message that I received on tuesday, so four days ago.
Speaker 1:So hey, mate, loving the podcast, the way I found you on was sorry. The way I found you on was a post on social media that you did about losing a couple of hundred grand on a job. I love the honesty and could relate heaps to it. I would love to see an episode about your full story. Success, failures and the raw side of the ego and the nightmare clients, the legal battles all those types of things Show everyone what happens when you get it wrong. I love the stories on how you just drove around getting nothing done because of the shit show that was going on. This was me. I feel like so many young builders rush into it saying I'm trying to get, struggling to read this is the microphone we are builders.
Speaker 1:I apologize I'll have to write it I feel like so many young builders rush into it and any of the older builders don't want to share their experiences. This is what happened to me. I rushed into it and started to hate it and fucked people over and fucked me over. So I stripped it all right back and started a carpentry business again and folded my building company up. Now, from learning and following your story and your content, I'm ready to give it a go again, this time the right way. Ps, I'll be signing up to live life builds toward the end of the year.
Speaker 1:The struggle is real. Also, thank you for creating your content. It's actually real that many fucking frauds are trying to sell themselves as coaches and mentors with no experience. They're just selling a fucking dream, ripping people off. Uh, I have ripping people off, I have. I have a saying that before you become a builder's coach, show me your balance sheet.
Speaker 1:Anyway, I messaged lewis back and said hey, mate, thanks so much for sharing with me. Um, you should come on and do a podcast interview with me so you can get the answers to your specific questions. Do you mind me sharing your message? Hey, mate, here any time to help and he's like mate, that's fine to. I would actually love to come up and interview you. So I said, sweet, let's hook it up.
Speaker 1:And literally, this is only, I think not even an hour or a bit over an hour from receiving the first message, you've messaged me back and said, mate, we're actually heading up to the Goldie tomorrow or Wednesday, let's hook it up. So, look, you never know what happens. From reaching out on social media and, uh, look, in the last couple of days, um, I passed my number on. We've, uh, we had a conversation on the phone. But the reason I'm so excited about this, mate, is because your, your passion and your that comes through the phone was infectious and I feel like this podcast could go all day and we're going to get on really well. But to give people a little bit of, before you get into asking me questions, can we get a little bit of your background and a bit more in depth? Like you said there, you got into building and it was a bit of a shit show and you wrapped it up.
Speaker 2:So yeah, first things first. I probably shouldn't have a couple beers and uh, go on social media and write some emotional messages to people, but it's all for a reason, but um so pretty much, because I think that was like called out in the morning, but it might have been someone else.
Speaker 2:I messaged nah, nah, just um, just joking, but um, yeah. So pretty much my background is um, I kind of started real young, kind of became a father really young, and that um kind of kicked me into gear, so finished my apprenticeship Actually didn't finish my apprenticeship. I had to move when I was young and I was still a third year apprentice and I moved to the central coast where I met my beautiful wife and so I tried to get into finishing my apprenticeship. I couldn't get anyone at the time, was a bit slow, couldn't get anyone to put me on as an apprentice. So I just um forged my boss's signature, went into fair trading and, uh, got my license, started subcontracting, as probably many people out there did. I still, I still had completed my TAFE and all those things.
Speaker 2:Does your boss know you did that? Um, probably not, it's probably. No, he probably. I did call him at the time. It was a bit of a. We had a bit of a falling out at the end because, as I say, I, my, my partner, got pregnant and I was really young at the time and I said to him look, mate, I've got to move back to where she's from and he I was kind of like his main man at the time. We were really really really close, like really close friends and and um, but at the time he kind of got a bit upset that he put this much time into me and I had to move away and um, I really had no choice at the time. But now, looking back at the situation I'm in now with my young guys, like I can understand the stress and the pressure he's under and the reason why we had had a big falling out. So yeah, long story short, I kind of rushed into everything chaotically as I did and worked really really hard and had a bit of success early.
Speaker 2:I actually kind of bought into property really young when it was easy to get in no deposit, home loan stuff like that and kind of threw a bit of money at it and renovated a few properties and I got on, ended up getting on with a few really good builders on the Central Coast who kind of threw me in the deep end. One in particular he like let me become a foreman straight away, and it kind of threw me in the deep end. And then I realized, look, it's um, you know I can do this. So I kind of took all that into my own building company and I loved it at the time like I really really loved it. I was on the tools and you know, being in charge telling people what to do. Who doesn't like that? You know, like really young, like I kind of. I got a big, big ego out of it and like a real big head and you know all my mates will second that than everyone that works for me and it's um, only recently got that ego under control and that pretty much drove me to where I am now. So I started the building company, went guns blazing and then I just kind of the shit show that you talk about. That's kind of why we're here.
Speaker 2:So how did you get your builder's license? So out of a cereal box, pretty much, my association I won't name a name, but um, they doing a promotion in the in the area that I live, like a rural new south wales become a builder and they subsidize the course. So I'm pretty sure it was down from like six thousand dollars to one thousand dollars. Actually I stopped you there.
Speaker 2:I started doing my builder's course at tafe when I was in sydney before my partner got pregnant. That was three nights a week like the traditional, you know builders course, and um kind of got a year into that and I had to transfer over. When I moved to the central coast to to do the builders course and this, this, this thing came up where it was like well, you can come up here every second weekend, second or third weekend for six months and you become a licensed builder. And I was like no brainer, like it's quick and easy, instead of three nights week, I'm going to go that route. So pretty much went there, got given the answers, got given the builder's license, didn't learn anything, didn't really network with anyone there. I'm all there for one reason.
Speaker 1:How old were you at this time?
Speaker 2:I was 21 years old at that time, so I got my builder's license. I'd say, yeah, 22 years old, so yeah. So I was 21 when, yeah, my son was born and then I got straight back into it and then, yeah, I was about 22. So, like when you say young builders out there, now, like you know, traditionally a young builder is closer to 40 than 20.
Speaker 1:But now, like the demographic is getting, these days, everyone's trying to get their builder's license in their 20s Straight away.
Speaker 2:So I always wanted to be a builder, like yourself and I've followed your story. I always wanted to be a builder, like you asked me when I was this big, like I asked my sons now what do you want to do? And stuff. And they're a bit unsure, you know, and I'm like, oh, that's cool, but if you ask me, I was like like a carpenter. So when I look back on it, I wanted to be a carpenter. I wanted to physically. I didn't want to be a builder, slash psychologist, slash accountant, slash project manager, slash client liaison, all that stuff that comes with it. I didn't know. I just thought I was going to be out in the sun with me kelpie and me truck and live in the dream, like you know, like and then you find out.
Speaker 1:It's a good dream, yeah, it's a good dream. Most young people these days can't even figure out their male, female, dog, cat, correct? Yeah, yeah, figure out what career they're gonna have yeah, no, that's yeah, that's a.
Speaker 2:that's a whole nother argument. But, um, yeah. So pretty much I found myself my building company. Um, like it just wasn't for me. I fell out of love like I fucking. I became one of those blokes, with all the young blokes that were working for me a lot of the young guys I say working for me, a similar age to me. But I was just explaining that same story. Don't do this, get out where you can, go west, get in the mines, don't you know this is? It's a trap, it's blah, blah, blah. And I was just telling that story and I just fell out of love with the building industry.
Speaker 2:And then, if you read out before my message I gave to you on Instagram, if you scroll back two and a half years before that, I actually was on a holiday. My wife has this convenient trick of booking holidays at the busiest time of year. Two weeks before Christmas we're up at Byron Bay you know the busiest time of year, and I never used to go away and really be present there at the time and I was there stressing because I just hated what I was doing. I wasn't making any money. The whole story goes on, as half the people here listening know exactly what I'm talking about. And then I reached out to you on that saying hey, mate, I'm thinking about pairing it all back, just going back into carpentry trying to get the love back. And you actually rang me then two years ago. So I actually, when I got your number a few days ago, I actually had your number saved in my phone.
Speaker 2:I wish I did, because there would have been a few more drunken texts later that night before that. So text later before that.
Speaker 1:So, um, I wish I knew but, um, it's, it's lucky that I didn't know. Actually I said so well, you mentioned me the other day that, um, you couldn't believe that. But, man, anybody that reaches out for me, I'd generally either say send me your number and I'll give you a call, or here's my number if you get stuck, give me a buzz so that's why we're here, because I got like a little notebook down here, so the the realness, realness right, and the relatability.
Speaker 2:So I found you, you put out a post, you lost a lot of money. I was in the same position as you. Um, you, just you, you said it how it was and, um, I messaged you on Instagram and I was kind of on this search where I was like I hate the building industry. And then all of a sudden I see this bloke standing up there saying, um, or, recently it's just changed the narrative, that instead of fixing the building industry, you're going to build a new one. And I was like, well, I, I hate the fucking building industry and I could talk about it all day. So if this bloke's going to build a new building industry, like, maybe I could like that, maybe I could love that. So, yeah, that's kind of why that's what we're doing, mate.
Speaker 1:We've done it. We've myself and hundreds of builders like we. We're running our own show, we're attracting the right clients, we're knowing our numbers, we're learning from our experiences. So, yeah, helping everyone else from it too.
Speaker 2:So pretty much I wound down my building company and then I just went back into. I found a bit of a gap in the market where I was working for a lot of high-end builders at the time as a form and doing my own. That was my background then. Doing my own builds was sometimes you needed 10 chippies, sometimes you needed two chippies. So I was like I might start a bit of a um, a contracting crew, and fill the gap for other builders.
Speaker 2:And I've been doing that now for say, three to four years and it's been working really well and um, and then I was like I'm going to just kind of relearn, start, go back to basics and relearn what I should have learned be patient instead of becoming a builder at 21 22 thinking I know everything. Go back to the basics, learn how to run a crew of chippies and a crew of employees and manage tasks and then possibly then have another go at building, when then you can manage all the rest of the, the stuff that you need to learn. So pretty much that's my story. You know I'm getting to the point now where I'm ready. I'm feeling like I'm ready to go again and I've been listening to all your content and then like like I love all your content, but you're such a like a humble guy, like even here this morning, like you're bit of a quiet guy, like you definitely don't have a huge ego or anything like that we come here helped you unload the truck.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm sure your wife would have a different opinion, but we come here, you were unloading the truck, you were on the forklift, we all you know chipped in and it's just like this guy's real and that's the content that you share and that's pretty much. It all just happened and now I'm here, but that's yeah, the journey that I was on was I needed to start again and learn properly, and part of that is kind of getting the right mentors and the right kind of stuff around the right people around you, as you said. Well, mate.
Speaker 1:Look I'm, I'm actually I'm actually a bit nervous, like for the, for people that are listening, like with this, none of this is um, like I don't know what lewis is going to ask me. We, uh, we had a phone conversation the other day, just so I could get a bit of a background about him, and uh, we chatted about a few things but and we ended up sort of both saying, like I don't want the questions, like the um, I'd rather just be real yeah, make it real.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I respected that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to have time to think about things because I don't want to tell bullshit. And then, yeah, it actually really humbles me hearing you say that, because that's the way I want to come across. I don't want to. One thing I really hate uh, what you see on social media is and and I see more and more of it now I've I feel like emilia and I have been very successful with live life build.
Speaker 1:She's incredibly successful with undercover architect, my like my building businesses. Everything I've been doing is turned around. It's very successful. And I feel like there's a lot of people trying to get in the door with coaching, mentoring, stuff, and they've only had a couple of years success or they might have had a couple of good jobs and they just don't have the runs on the board. And my biggest fear is it's only going to be more detrimental to the industry, because we're going to have people putting their own opinions across that haven't got the runs on the board, haven't had the experience, haven't been through the failures to learn what you really should be doing, and now they're out there telling other people what they should be doing.
Speaker 2:So so that's yeah. So pretty much we'll get to that actually. So what's happened here is that you're.
Speaker 1:You're in control. Now I'm in control.
Speaker 2:We're flipping it over. All right, live, laugh, build. That's what we're going to call it today. So so I we put it out there, you put it out there, and I got in influx of messages, just unbelievable amount. My inbox is just. You know, my ego is flying off. I couldn't sleep last night reading the messages from everyone.
Speaker 1:What they want to ask, duane well, sorry to cut you off, mate, but just on that, you followed through. Like the amount of people that reach out to me, call me, me, I'll give the advice. We have conversations, even go to Live, like Bill, booking scheduled calls with me and call me about their business, tell them what they want to do. No, they don't follow through. Yeah, it's, it's, it's actually. It's actually very, very simple to be successful, reach your goals, be financially stable, stable all those types of things. You've just got to fucking follow through. Just got to do it. Hey, you just got to do it.
Speaker 2:Just got to do it all right, so yeah, so, like I said, heaps of questions. I can't get through them all, otherwise we'd be here for days. You know I've got to run a marathon in a couple of days, believe it or not. So you know we can't be here all day. So we'll start with. There was one condition from duane and his um team, that there was one condition, one thing we didn't really want to go down when a path we wanted to go like kind of off limits question. So I'm just going to start with it and just we're just going to get it out there and it is so. You talk a lot about scheduling, overheads, time management, the beard where does it fit in the schedule? What's what's? What's in the overheads? Where, like what? That's just not a natural beard, mate, like I'm here sitting in front of duane, like that's what's going into that. How many visits to the barber a week? What waxes creams, mate?
Speaker 1:honestly, it gets fuck all like I actually I've um after this podcast today, I'm actually me and a group of really good businessmates sponsor or do some work for it. Sponsor a charity go to a charity lunch every year. This is our 14th year, so I actually made an effort yesterday to go to the barber and have a trim up, but, mate, literally it gets a comb each morning.
Speaker 2:Was that an invite for me then? Just a slight did I hear an invite? Yeah, come along. Nah, nah, just kidding Good afternoon.
Speaker 1:yeah, come along, just kidding good afternoon literally gets a comb rubbed through it and probably gets washed fucking once every two or three weeks once every two or three weeks.
Speaker 2:And there's another trend with the beard right that I've noticed personally, like the amount of questions about the beard. I can't grow a beard. You know, this is it, this is me, this is this is it, so I'm jealous of.
Speaker 1:Do you want to know how the beer started? Yeah, I think I've mentioned on the podcast once before, but we, nine years ago, we had a. Actually seven or eight years ago we had a client. That well, we did the job seven or eight years ago, but prior to that we'd been working with these two doctors through the design process of a job, for it had gone on and on and on for over three years, over three years and uh, just at one I think I'd been training or I'd been away or something, and at one of our meetings we had the lady said to me oh, um, duane, you haven't had a like, you're not clean, shaven today, like um. And I didn't think anything of it, but I just made a joke and said, oh, I'm not gonna have a shave until we start your job yeah and we haven't started.
Speaker 1:No, so the job, like literally, it still took another 12 odd months. And before we started the job, I had a bid. Yeah, and I actually didn't mind it, so I just kept it yeah, no, it suits you.
Speaker 2:That's good. It's good. What would it take to get it off? You reckon what you know. There's a charity event coming up. We could get a bit of you know?
Speaker 1:oh man, I reckon it'd be a bit I fall maybe diet.
Speaker 2:Maybe keep it because you could have a I dyed it for Christmas A bit of a double chin or something you're hiding under there.
Speaker 1:Well, mate, I've thought about getting rid of it a couple of times and I actually do really like it, but the main reason it hangs around is because my wife and a couple of people told me like fuck, don't get rid of the beard. Have you seen yourself before you had a beard?
Speaker 2:and then, yeah, so with the beard trending, what I was going to say is something I've noticed is it's actually it hasn't made an appearance today, but it's the hat, so we're thinking as the beard gets. You know, are you trying to take attention away from possibly something missing up here? Is that what's happening, or yeah, no?
Speaker 1:mate, the last couple of podcasts I've um, I've forgotten the hat. So the hat I do like my hat, yeah, um, so it's not just to hide anything, it's just that you like your hat. No, I've always had hats, even growing up, mate, like in the, just like cars and motor racing stuff. Like I always had hats to do with something I like, yeah.
Speaker 2:So long story short, you just kind of it's not too much time goes into the beard. Fuck all mate, Fuck all. Yeah, fair enough, all right.
Speaker 1:I don. Yeah, fair enough, all right. So I don't believe I actually get people message me on instagram quite a bit saying what do you do with the beard? No, I look at the beard and go fuck like. I look at other folks beards and go, man, you got a nice beard like, how do I get a beard like that?
Speaker 2:and I just think, fuck, mine's just an old scruffy I could get a sponsorship deal out of this, I reckon if there's anyone out there. It's a barber got some beard creams or something, duane, you know, imagine how good it look if you took care of it. Yeah, yeah, right, so well, there we go. That's the. That was the bit I wasn't allowed to ask so about. So now the first question is who is dwayne pierce without all of your labels, without your businesses, without? Who are you without all of that stuff? Who's dwayne?
Speaker 1:mate, I'm just a. I'm not mad, I'm just a bogan from way back. Yeah, I, there's a, there's a lot of stuff that I could put on socials, um, and I, and I probably should, I, I think there's a lot of stuff that I shy away from because I don't know, maybe people, what people are thinking that but made at the end of the day, well, you can see them in the shed here, like I love a good shed skid.
Speaker 2:Yeah, shed skid, you like to hang on to a lot of things, like in a lot of sheds that may never be used again, but just in case you've got them.
Speaker 1:But, mate, I love cars. Well, I love anything that's fast, I love adrenaline, I love burning rubber. Yeah, like, I've always had tough cars. Um, even, uh, like, for a while I had australia, sort of. It used to go between sort of first and second fastest aspirated street car in australia, like um ran eight ones, eight o's, at 168 mile, 170 mile an hour, naturally aspirated big block, camaro, um, and, mate, I used to people used to have a go at me at the track because I would.
Speaker 1:I just love skidding, mate, like, and the thing I had just under 1400 horsepower, aspirated, so I would, uh, you'd just roll through the water, like it had um 32 by 14 and a half inch tires on the back, and I'd just roll through the water in second gear, literally just tap the sack accelerator, hit it straight into third and just put my foot flat to the boards and I would skid the entire track and the blokes I was racing would always get the shits because their car would be sitting there getting hot while I'm still back and back. I love a good time, I love like all my mates back in the day and we're cruising around. Uh, they'd love going fast and cruising around. I'd be the one that was looking for a back street or a back road where I can just go and cut hoops and some blow ties off.
Speaker 1:I had a vyss ute for a long I probably it was the first new car I ever bought. Um bought it when I was 22, I I think, and mate, I owned that thing for two years and I think it had 10 sets of rear tyres on it. Yeah right.
Speaker 2:So you're a menace? I just love fun. I love having fun.
Speaker 1:I mean like now we've got the farm A mate of mine's into his guns and stuff. I love shooting shit. Yeah, love motorbikes, love the beach, love fishing, love camping. Love motorbikes, love the beach, love fishing, love camping. I just love having a good time, mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1:And for me, a good time is all about the people you're with. Yep, it doesn't matter what you got, how much you're worth. For me, a good time is all about cranking the tunes with good friends, family mates, having a few drinks, sometimes a few too many.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you've got a big circle of close friends around here is this kind of where you, where did you grow up? Where, uh, mate, I grew up, uh, mostly in redcliffe on the north side of brisbane. Yep, how was that like? How was your? How was your? First of all, here's another big question when were you born, duane, uh?
Speaker 1:mate, I'm a 1980 baby, baby. Yes, I'm 43 43.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, nice, that's.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a myth out there, had a hard life. No.
Speaker 2:I reckon you're going all right for 43.
Speaker 1:Um, but, mate, I look to be honest I don't. I look with what I talk about on the podcast and stuff, like I've cut a lot of shit out of my life. There's probably there's a couple of guys I went to school with that I randomly will message or light shit on social media. There's actually probably there's actually only two guys that I went to school with that we still talk on a regular basis.
Speaker 2:I just I don't, I can't stand the shit, mate, yeah because as you grow I guess your circle gets smaller and that's kind of like people just not on the same journey as you Is that what it is, or mate?
Speaker 1:I just got sick and tired of like you wouldn't see people for years or months, or whatever the case may be, and when you caught up, we were having the same fucking conversation we had when we're 18 out on the piss yeah, and I'm like fuck me like you're whinging about your situation and what's happening in your life. Fucking, do something about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. It becomes a bit of a drag.
Speaker 1:And so my circle now, mate, is all like I hang around genuine people. I love my work team Don't spend enough like I'd put my hand up. I don't spend enough time with them. I really enjoy. We do an annual trip every year. We go away for four or five days. I really enjoy that time with the team, having a few beers and that type of thing. But other than that, my, the group that I hang around or the mates that I have made are all we're all very similar, we're all passionate, we're all on a mission, we're all growing, we're all successful. And that that on a mission, we're all growing, we're all successful and that that drives me. I think that I think the people you hang around are a huge influence, um, in the life that you have yeah, what do they say?
Speaker 2:you want to see your future, look at the people around you something along those lines so so you're a 1980s baby where? So you're born in red cliff. What was your childhood like? What was your your family life, childhood stuff like that going, uh, going all out.
Speaker 1:Um, mate, I had a incredible childhood. I my old man worked his ass off, um, to give us like we didn't have have much. He, uh, and that's he's definitely the one that installed my work ethic. Yep, um, he, my old man's a painter. He's actually still painting now. I'm on his back all the time to fucking give it up. Do you use him? We used him, yeah, a lot.
Speaker 1:We had a fallout a few years ago which we didn't see each other for a long time. But, mate, he was gone a lot of the time before I got up home at dark, just worked his ass off a lot of time, working six, seven days a week. And that's where I really like I got my passion for being a builder from hearing stories about my great granddad on a farm building like chopping the trees down the woods, dragging them back, cutting the timber, building the old house that we spent some time in. But also, mate, I couldn't even tell you how young I was, but I would have had to have been 86, 7, 8 years old If my old man was working on a weekend, which most of the time he was. He had a Trayback Hilux three-seater. He's off-sider. He had clay, which I actually ended up becoming good mates with.
Speaker 1:He's the one that got me into fishing and created the passion I had for fishing and being on the water. But like, yeah, I'd sit in the middle. It wasn't a three-seater, so I would sit on the centre console and, yeah, dad and Clay and I'd go to work and I just loved it. I loved that it had the tunes on at work and then I'd have my BMX in the back and like, in those days they were doing a lot of work up around Redcliffe days, um, they were doing a lot of work up around redcliffe, up around burping area, kibbutz and arangba, those areas and new housing estate. So basically, mate, we'd rock up the site. My push would be straight out the back and I'd be riding the neighborhood, I'd be stealing shit from work sites nails and timber and shit and then going back to the old boys site and fucking making go carts and just yeah, I just love it, the real, true childhood.
Speaker 2:I try to get my young fella and his mates in the school holidays. They come and give a hand on site and I give them a little bit of cash and just get them out, because what do you think about these days? That that the society's kind of missing that freedom, aren't they?
Speaker 1:oh, definitely, mate. Definitely, the safer we try to make things, the more unsafe we make it, I believe yeah like if you keep telling your kids it's, it's.
Speaker 1:They can't go down the road on their bikes, they can't go to the park their own because it's dangerous, like it's only getting more dangerous. Because they're not building up any resilience, they're not learning what they should be looking out for, they're not. Like common sense is out the doors these days. Like and then, and not only that mate like um in the in the neighborhood where we grew up. Like it's, I've actually I've got to reach out. I've actually just been given the number for a young um, so people don't believe this.
Speaker 1:When I grew up, so from uh, five or six through to maybe 11 or 12, there was me, so there was duane, dane, kane, bane, and the one guy that was out was mark like so we would literally get on our pushies. Uh, we lived at rothwell um and we used to back track it through this um cow paddock down to the back of the red cliff aerodrome. We'd jump the fence at the red cliff aerodrome, go down the back, get into the mancliffe Aerodrome. We'd jump the fence at the Redcliffe Aerodrome, go down the back, get into the mangroves. There was a creek that came up the back and mate. We'd spend the entire day there fishing crabbing. I built this little timber trailer that I used to tow behind me pushy, with like four crab pots, all the fishing rods, and then we made them for me mates, and we just had an absolute ball. But we had like we had to be. The rule was you had to be home.
Speaker 1:Um, when the street lights come on yeah and so we had, we had these boundaries, and as long as you're stuck to them, there was the odd time where we didn't. And fuck man, did we get a kick up the ass. But that's made me who I am today. Like I, my childhood was amazing man.
Speaker 2:I've, uh, I wouldn't, uh, I wouldn't want it any other way, like so you saw your dad out there working six, seven days a week doing what he had to do. So like what do you reckon? What effect did that have on you? Like him, did that?
Speaker 1:that's why I'm doing what I'm doing today, mate. So, without going into too many details, like I love my family to bits, my old boy worked his ass off and he was he was the best painter I've ever come across, even when he was, uh, painting our jobs like other builders. Mates of mine would come to our jobs, or we'd catch up or whatever, and they'd say me like check out that gloss work, how the they do that?
Speaker 1:like he's an incredibly skilled painter but couldn't run a business yeah and so I I got to see growing up like him, always striving to achieve more. Like we would, he'd work his ass off and then we'd drive around on weekends. Every now and then Mum and dad would be looking at new housing, estates and ideas. Mum's right into a house. She loves it. She should have. I still wish she had done something with the architectural design, but she didn't. She just stayed at home and looked after the family and never got a job. And so I got to, like Dad, would work his arse off and then, like we sold our house and they bought this block of land and then, like every weekend, he was getting other tradie mates in to build our next home, and one of those was Des and Bob, which I ended up starting my apprenticeship with incredible old craftsmen. Really grateful for my apprenticeship with those guys.
Speaker 1:But it was just always pressure, like always never enough money in the bank, always money struggles, financial struggles which I saw my dad have to deal with, which um, knowing what I know now, like he was, he dealt with a lot of anxiety, a lot of stress, a lot of depression probably used a bit of alcohol to um fix that every now and then which led to him and my mom having problems over the years and I I never sort of understood what was going on.
Speaker 1:And then it was actually. Then I then I um, like I started work. I got, I got expelled from school about four weeks before year 10 finished for fighting, and then I just I wasn't going back, um, and my dad said to me, like you're not fucking sitting around home, like you're going back to year 11, like unless you're not fucking sitting around home, like you're going back to year 11, like unless you get a fucking job. And I was straight on to the like I didn't even know what to do. I'm like well, how do I get a job? So dad put a call out to people he knew and at that point in time it was very slow. No one was. People were struggling to get work, let alone employ people.
Speaker 2:So how old were you then? When you like?
Speaker 1:uh, although I just turned. So I turned 15 in september, yep, and I got expelled from school in november yeah right, fighting a common pattern of no, I'm definitely not a fighter.
Speaker 1:I hate fighter. I actually got. I got teased quite a bit at school. Yep, um, I hated school. I hated it with a passion. I never put my hand up, I never. The only things I was good at was back in the day. It used to be called graphics. It was shop a and shop b, which was metal work and woodwork, like a physical learner like you got to see touch, yeah, which.
Speaker 2:What was the teasing which?
Speaker 1:most of our industry is. I was. I was just super shy, mate, yeah, super, super shy. And then uh, and did really struggle with anxiety. Yeah, like I remember through, uh, year eight and nine, like mate, I just there were a lot of days where I just could not go to school. Yeah, like I'd just work myself up so much and I'd be in the car. My mom would be telling me to get out of the car and I'm just like I'm not going to school, like um, and so that put extra pressure on, because then the days I'd go to school, people would bag me out for not being at school, and that was what the fighting was always about.
Speaker 1:So the fighting would always start because I was a shy guy that had anxiety and I didn't like fighting, but if I got pushed I'd retaliate. The one that I got expelled for was a bloke had been given it to me and I gave my. I ended up giving him a hiding in the paddock after school one day, and then we were having an end of year assembly and I walked out of the hall and I've lent down to pick my bag up and he's run over and fucking kicked me in the head. So it was on for young and old and, uh yeah, I got expelled yeah but um and yeah, so I I asked.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I couldn't get a job through my old man's mate. So shit, mate, getting a bit emotional about going back to all this old shit.
Speaker 2:It's good, because the reason I asked this is because, um, I've actually been for a bit of my life and you know you get help in these, these questions that come through like so you're a very resilient person and you do a lot for a lot of people, right, that's just what you do, believe it or not, and a lot of that resilience comes from going through childhood trauma and things that you're going through like you talk about your dad working his ass off, not being, you know, being in fights at school because you're bullied, like.
Speaker 2:That's just the way that I've got young boys that'd be. The biggest fear of mine would be for them to suffer from anxiety and to be bullied by other kids, you know, and to be able to push through that like that's a big deal, you know, like and get to where you are now.
Speaker 1:I thrived when I got away from it. So I couldn't get a job. So I was told to read some papers and just only literally like 10 minutes from where we are now at Brendale, it used to be called Northside Trusts and Frames. They had an ad in a paper for just a person to help in the yard and I rang them up, went for an interview and they're like oh, you're really young, dwayne, and blah, blah, blah. Do you feel like the anxiety dropped away a bit when you know it's easier to be in the workforce than at school? Oh, 100%. But um, it was there for a little while. But I they said, oh, what you, you young Dwayne? Like why don't you want to finish school? And I said, mate, all, all I ever want to do is be a builder, I want to work with timber. And I said I can't get an apprenticeship, so I'm going to do whatever it takes until I can get an apprenticeship. And they basically just put me on because of my enthusiasm and so obviously I didn't have a license at that stage.
Speaker 1:So my old boy at that time had got out of painting and had bought a Tormunds franchise and was running a paint shop at Lawton. So I would have to get up like 4.30, 4.00, 4.30 every morning, drive with him to the paint shop. Then I'd have to help him set up the shop, put out the signs, pull the roller doors up If there was orders to get ready, get orders. So I learned how to tint, paint and do that sort of shit. And then, very on the odd occasion, he could take me because the trust I think we started work at 6 or 6.30, which is only 15 minutes from where he is. He would drive me, but most of the time it was the BMX out of the back of the ute and I'd have to ride to work.
Speaker 1:And then my first job was they'd just installed this back in the day, like it was the duck's nuts, like it was this computer-operated saw that sort of went in and out, had four blades on each end and I had to load the trolley. So there was a guy on the other side operating it and the timber would come through the saw and we would basically cut all the top and bottom cords for trusses. And then I had a sheet of paperwork on my side. The machine would spit the timber out. I had a sheet of paperwork on my side. The machine would spit the timber out. I had to load it onto trolleys and mark it what member it was. Then I'd push the trolley out into the yard into a line where the guys that assembled the trusses would pull the timber out.
Speaker 1:I did that for ages, mate. Literally I would just stand at the end of this saw. That for ages, mate. So literally I'll just stand at the end of this saw and like, um, if for those? So when you, when you do trusses, so you have, uh, all your like your truncated and your hip trusses and your valley trusses, like they're all, so most of them are very different. So you, on some jobs you might have two or three the same, but if it was a, say, a large gable roof or when you got to your standard trusses and I don't know, you might add 20, 30, you could add 100 of the same truss.
Speaker 1:Fuck, mate, that saw would spit out those sticks of timber like flat out, and I would be, you wouldn't catch them. Oh man, it was a mission. And basically, and then when the guy on the other side, when each job would stop and he was laden timber or whatever, mate, I'd have a broom. My area of where I worked was spotless, I'd be shoveling sawdust. I'd get the guy on the forklift to drop a bin off. I'd shovel the shit in the bin and mate. It literally only took two or three months and the owners of that business. Even though I was young, I worked my way through there. So, even though I was young, I worked my way through there.
Speaker 3:So I ended up. So what's this about 15-year-old? Yeah, I was 15. 15, yeah.
Speaker 1:I ended up moving out to the yard and I helped stack timber and mate. So I was 15 and it blows my mind. I see it these days and it was like I didn't need to go to gym, like by the time I'd been in the yard for a couple of months. Mate, I could walk out to a pack of timber and I could put my hands around four 6.0s 90 by 35 M12, and I could just roll them over onto my shoulder and I could walk them back to the saw.
Speaker 2:Do you ever get the shits? Now seeing the young fellas on site carrying one at a time.
Speaker 1:It drives me insane.
Speaker 2:I can imagine you're cracking the whip out there.
Speaker 1:It drives me insane. But look again, I know and I did that because I was I was bought up hard Like you work hard, you show people what you're doing, but reality is, mate, that led to a between that riding motorbikes downhill like I got into downhill mountain bike for a long time, had some crashes but between the sport and working my body that hard, I completely fucked my back and like by my mid twenties I was told I'd be in a wheelchair by the time I was 30 because I'd fucked all me shit and luckily I haven't never had an operation. I deal with it naturally now. But yeah, and then I ended up running a saw.
Speaker 1:I got moved to a huge handheld saw. So it was like this big spider saw that you grab the handle, you pulled it out. It was really good. Like saw that you grabbed the handle, you pulled it out. It was really good like I got to learn a lot about documents, like every trust plan was different measurements, accuracies, all those types of things, and so then for a long time I had my own saw and I would cut all the webs during this period we actively like were you kind of all in there or were you still trying to think I want to get out on site?
Speaker 1:oh, no, I was reaching, I was still reaching out, and then times of times of quiet so then it made it was really good.
Speaker 1:So then back then, like it changed a lot now, but back then builders would still come into that yard. So they, they sold stick framing, they sold timber, they did pre-nailed frames, they did trusses, floor systems, lots of stuff. So I actually got to meet a lot of builds. Like builders would come in the yard and at school I I would never talk to anybody.
Speaker 1:But for some reason, I think, given that the people, like the supervisor at this trust company, the owners of the company, the, the leading hands, like everybody, just kept installing confidence in me, like they saw how hard I worked, they kept giving me a pat on the back and so when builders come in the yard, like I just started getting this confidence, I would ask them how they are and, uh, I cut a job for you the other day. Hey, you got another job coming up. Like I just started these conversations and I actually ended up getting quite a lot of job offers from builders that way. Or people, a lot of builders saying, oh, mate, when it picks up like if you don't want to work here, like I'll put you on.
Speaker 2:It's an interesting point that you make about you know, like with the anxiety and stuff at school and then when your environment changed, that kind of went away, and like for other people to learn from this, that sometimes you know kids, kids, there's a lot of, there's a lot of stuff around at the moment as you know, and and like there is an option that maybe the school isn't the best place for some kids and outside of that, like leaving school to get an apprenticeship isn't to be frowned upon. It can change someone's life. And look where you are now, look where you know people you can get to it's very.
Speaker 1:When you find your place you're a different person and so everyone working at that yard. So over the time I was there there ended up being a few other young guys um, no one was as young as me, there was some 18, 19 year olds. But I ended up hanging out with like guys in their mid-20s, 30s, 40s. They had families, had kids. I enjoyed the conversation at smoko like there was no like mate. We had nokia 3310s. You could send fucking 100 tech. Uh, what are digits like?
Speaker 1:text messages playing snake got to learn a lot, mate. All the boys had all their fucking people in picture magazines, so learn a lot about that side of life from them and their conversations. There was no timber, mate tinder the.
Speaker 2:It's a lot different now with the smartphones, but but and yeah.
Speaker 1:So then it just like it was, like I was with people I could relate to, and so I thrived. And then I ended up hanging out, like these guys were into their cars as well, which I thought was great, because growing up, like my mate's dad or my dad were at Lakeside at the races or the touring cars or the drag strip, and the fact that these guys were in the cars, so like they had the XD Falcons and the Minaros and Taranas and Gemini, like they'd drive this stuff to work, and I was just in my element. And then I started hanging out with them after work. And then the industry picked up and we started doing and they'd put it out there like who we would do overtime, and I started to get.
Speaker 1:I was driven because I started getting right into my mountain biking and so I set this goal. There was this it's actually that mountain cycle up on the wall over there. So I was 16 years old. That bike was six thousand seven hundred dollars, wow. And so I got right into my downhill mountain biking and I set a goal. I used to go to the bike shop because I rode every saturday and sunday and I learned from the guys at the bike shop, like I started putting together what my ultimate bike would be, and they priced it up, and so I had this goal of what I wanted to get to. And then we, the industry, picked up. They started doing overtime and so every day, mate, my hand was up and some days I would do two shifts and, like I'm 15, I worked there until I was just under 17 yep and so that goal setting and that you started at a very young age because that's a to be, that like in that day, back in that day, that's a lot of money.
Speaker 2:It's still a lot of money now it was a huge.
Speaker 1:So to give you an idea here, mate, that was, my weekly pay was a I think it was 194 dollars wow and so I did the numbers, like I knew how much I got an hour.
Speaker 1:I forget what. It worked out to seven to six bucks something or whatever it was. And so that bike like was almost a whole year's pay, like just just over a whole year's pay, wow. And but I worked that out so I took every single bit of overtime. Um, so a normal shift, I think, was 6 or 6, 30 to 3, 30, like.
Speaker 1:We had time cards it was actually the siren would go off, you had to walk to the clock, pull your time card out, put it in the machine. It'd clock it like there's no bullshitting your time. And then when they offered um overtime, so you, the siren, would go, you'd have to go, clock in your card and then you'd have to put it back in to start the overtime. And so a lot of the older guys were doing the overtime as well. So I ended up spending a lot of time with them because, um, we'd stop for dinner so the company would put on dinner, so like whatever it was five third or um, we'd stop for dinner so the company would put on dinner, so, like whatever it was five third or whatever, we'd all sit down for half an hour we'd have dinner and then a lot of time we would work till um eight or nine o'clock at night and then, like, dad had gone home then.
Speaker 2:So then these guys started giving me a lift home, or they'd they'd drop me and my pushy off somewhere and then I'd ride the last bit, but so I guess that that original work culture that you had really set you up well, because if you, you're in a different environment where a lot of people hated their job or into different things.
Speaker 1:They all hated their job. Yeah, they did. Yeah, there wasn't too many of them there, like there was one old forklift guy in the yard made old mel mate. Even with the saws running and the earmuffs on, you could hear this bloke out in the yard like just swearing and going off his nut about shit that was going on in his life and, if anything, I was like fuck, I do not want to turn out like that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, there's some characters at the old frame and trust some companies, yeah, but like, yeah, basically went from the big saw timber yard stacking the timber, got my own saw.
Speaker 1:Um, because the other thing that really ended up driving me was, I learned very quickly it's all about the value you add. So the harder I worked, the more output I had. The supervisor was picking up on this, the the, the owners of that business would quite regularly come down like old don was one of them and he'd come over and stand beside me and give me a tap on the shoulder and like, geez, duane, you, you're going well. Buddy, like you're only uh, you're only young, like you're getting into it, and basically, long story short, I then moved on to trust assembly and worked on the trust assembly, stay uh line for maybe three or four months and then the guy that my old boy had tried that actually built our home that we were living in and my old boy tried to get me on with his business had picked up and, yeah, I finally got an apprenticeship when I think I was just about turned 17.
Speaker 2:17. Right, so young Dwayne, now 17, he's got his apprenticeship um. Explain that. So you're going into that. What was your like through your apprenticeship um? What was your you know your mental health like? What was your, your like that? How was that for you with the guys you did it with? Do you reckon? It, it drives, it seems like at the frame and trust company. You came out with a lot more value than you went in you. You learnt these lessons and stuff yeah. Is that?
Speaker 2:what you wanted to do? Is that how it kind of continued through your apprenticeship?
Speaker 1:Yeah, well then by that time I'd got my licence as well. No more push bike. No more push bike. The old boy had found me, this old HZ Kingswood Ute 253 M21 four-speed, and so we rebuilt that. So, in in the back of my dad's paint shop, him another really good mate of his mark, which I ended up becoming good mates with as well uh, mate, there was lots of late nights mark, and my old boy had been blind drunk. And yeah, we rebuilt the motor, we painted it, we did the whole lot on that thing and then I drove that to work. So when I started my apprenticeship I had a ute.
Speaker 2:Did your interest change at all? Were you still into downhilling, like you know, getting your licence, chasing girls starting to? You know, come and go drinking and that.
Speaker 1:It fell over quickly, mate. So and I put everything. So, without sounding like a dick, I had huge plans. So, without sounding like a dick, I had huge plans. I wanted to be in the downhill mountain biking at the Sydney 2000 Olympics Yep, which I was well on track to. Yeah, wow, they didn't have downhill, it was going to be cross country. I did that as well.
Speaker 2:And I was definitely so. You've always set big goals Like yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But back then I didn't follow through. So I went to a few state titles and things and or like I remember going to one down at Mudra Bar and I just got overwhelmed, got anxiety, fucking my asthma. Like back in the day I used to get bad asthma and I just fucking pulled over on the side of the track fucking puffing my puffer. I'm like fuck, I can't do this anymore. But yeah, basically got my license. Yeah, turned 18. Yeah well before, even before I turned 18.
Speaker 2:Like, discovered alcohol discovered girls yeah, um, see you later. Mountain biking career yeah, and then yeah it was out the window.
Speaker 1:I used to um nothing. There was nothing better, mate, than friday, saturday nights cruising around with me, mates, and now in our v8s and bloody, picking up chicks and, yeah, just having a good time. But, um, my apprenticeship was, when it started really well, like I could not believe it, that I was, I was getting the opportunity to, uh, fulfill my dreams, and des and bob that I did my time with um were just incredible old guys, mate, and look, I don't even know how old they would have been at the time. To be honest, they would have been in their 40s, 50s. I thought they were old, but just absolute craftsmen and I'm so grateful for what they taught me. But mate just pushed me like a dog. So my name was Youngin and just all day, every day, it was just fucking Youngin, where are you? Like, fucking get that back here. Like I mean, all day I had to run and it wore me out and just, yeah, I got driven really, really hard. And like I tell my team now and they think that I'm full of shit, I think half the time, um, but I've told this story a few times like we started off doing a lot of custom work and then things slowed down again and we my boss took on. I think they're still going now.
Speaker 1:It was called villa world. So villa world would actually like develop the estate and then build all the houses, yeah, and then just get contractors. And it's actually how. So todd, my supervisor now he was one of the contractors working beside us. That's that's where I first met him and so we would go in. It was all stick frame and they. They range between 180 and 220 square meter homes and my boss was very looking back. I didn't realize at the time, but he was very systems driven. So he would have a full. We would turn up to site. He would have a full cutting list. I've definitely told this story over again if it sounds like a broken record, but basically we would turn up, he would give me the cutting list and then I would have to cut flat out. Him and Bob would go and flick the slab out. As soon as they flicked lines they would start giving me so while they were flicking lines, one of the jobs. I had to nail two plates together, top and bottom plates, as soon as I finished flicking lines.
Speaker 2:They would give me the measurement, so I had to start cutting plates did you enjoy that.
Speaker 1:I loved it.
Speaker 2:That's good, it's good fun, isn't it? Sticking frames and working out there I loved it man, it's good and look I.
Speaker 1:I loved the, the push um for a while and my aim every like what what wore me out is? My aim has always been and I wish more people had this in them but my aim every single day that I went to work was to impress my boss. Yeah, was to make him think that, fuck, he worked hard today. Fuck, he got done more than he should have got done. I don't see that anymore. Yeah, what's the saying if you work for someone else, like you're working for yourself, you can be successful.
Speaker 2:I used to be like people. People don't see that anymore. Yeah, what's the saying? If you work for someone else like you're working for yourself, you can be successful. I used to be like people.
Speaker 1:People don't realize they can be just as successful as a business owner if they work like the business owner, correct? If my boys did things as fast as I could do them fuck every month I'd be saying hey, you want to pay rise? Yeah, do you want to work your way up to the? Do you want to do this? Do you? Do you want to do that?
Speaker 2:Speaking of that, you reckon you could sling the nail back on and still do. You reckon you still got what it takes? You reckon you still want to do that?
Speaker 1:I'd give it every shot, You'd give it every go yeah Well, I do it now, mate, like I renovate this house a lot of our own house. I'm definitely not as quick as I used to be, but I would give it a red hot crack Because young Dwayne coming out of his apprenticeship being ridden like a donkey, a dead horse.
Speaker 2:I can see you as a young man, right. So you come out of your apprenticeship and what do you do? Straight into subbing. Is that how it works? So I didn't finish my apprenticeship, didn't finish.
Speaker 1:So just to go back a little bit, so that that wore me out, and just to finish that story, basically we would do a whole stick frame, plumb straightened, bolted to the slab with chem, set now bracing ply, nailed off, ready for trusses. Most of the time in a day. The following morning we'd be starting a new frame and then when the trusses showed up, we'd go back and do the truss. We do the trusses in a day so it just packs a timber.
Speaker 2:Everything was cut to measure. It wasn't not prefabbed at all nothing, no, nothing was cut.
Speaker 1:We cut everything, mate. It turned up in packs and like people what timber was it back then pine? Uh, with that, with those jobs mate, it was all 70 by 35 yeah untreated.
Speaker 1:But and then, um, so I, like I said, I loved the getting pushed um because that's made me who I was today. But what? What wore me out was I didn't get appreciated or or dang it. No, sorry, I shouldn't say that he didn't show me he appreciated it. I know he did. Yeah, um, because other people would tell me and he was, he was a great old, like des, was fantastic mate, like I. I loved him. I reached out to him a few years after I um, when I started subbing I I over the years I talked to him and I really um told him how grateful I was for what he did. But it wore me out and I stopped. I just say what happened. Where we're living, there was a builder that lived up the road from me and, um, I used to just catch up with him. I used to mow his lawn. So, as well as being a chippy, like every spare minute I had, if I had some, I would mow people's lawns.
Speaker 2:What was the goal then at that time? Like doing all that extra work and pushing yourself.
Speaker 1:I was just driven, mate. I wanted to have shit.
Speaker 2:You wanted to have shit.
Speaker 1:Well, I think I'd already from the struggles my old man had, like I didn't want to ever be in positions where I had to. If I wanted shit, I wanted to be able to get it. Yep, I didn't want to have to be worried about money, about money, yet. So. But the flip side of that is I never got taught about finances, I never got taught about money, and so I wasted it all yeah and I got myself into debt, which led to lots of problems.
Speaker 1:But so I ended up this guy, david lee, which um again, incredible tradesman and taught me a lot but it and so I just used to. I had this thing in the back of my mind like fuck, I'm gonna go and work for Dave. I'm gonna go because he was always hitting me up, he's like, fuck, you work hard, like come work for me. And I just said to him one day I'm gonna leave Des, um, if you got any jobs. So and, mate, it was so hard like I was, it was so hard for me to tell des that I'm leaving because he and it was fucked because when I told him I was leaving, that's when he told me how much you appreciate too, yeah, too late. And I was like, mate, it's, I've made the decision. But and I went. And so I went and um did another.
Speaker 1:So that was two years, a bit over two years, and then I went and worked for um dave, and the dave was the same as every other tradie I'd met up until then, like face value. I thought he was killing it. But as I started work for him, so before I went and worked for him full time. I went and did some saturdays for him and it was just awesome, like it was me and him, like he was the builder, I was the apprentice, that was it. Um, he had a building franchise, so he had other chippy games, but I was helping him and same deal, cranking the tunes, talking about mountain biking and what we're doing on the weekends. And he had a ski boat, so I got right into water skiing and we were good mates and so I was like fuck, fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I can't wait to work here full-time. This is gonna be awesome. And then when I started full-time and the same shit like the, the stress of him running his business, was put onto me, so like he was running a shit show. So I've talked about this as well before, like I would literally get like. So my job was to back the ute up in the morning, load the gear on the truck here. He had a lot of shit at home like I have here now. I'd load the gear up, get ready. He'd come out of the office all stressed out, always running late. We'd go to the job site. His phone would be ringing and carrying on and then a lot of time we'd turn up to site, get set up and shit would go wrong. Another job job. So he'd leave me and like people think that I talk shit. But like mate, I had to soffit houses on my own like 24 by 12 soffit sheets, doing patio areas. I had to teach myself what to do. That's not easy, by the way.
Speaker 1:I had to come up with ways of props and shit, and that was was like getting into PVC cover strips.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And then again that stress built up and it got to a point where it was all put on me and he didn't show. He didn't like well, he was always telling me that I was an incredible worker. I can't believe you do this and that, but he was also fuck. Why haven't you finished that? Yet? Like, why is this? And like so he would come back after leaving me on a job all day. Why haven't you got this frame finished? Why haven't you got these defeats finished? And like I was never I, I never spoke up, I was never like fuck you, like I'm on my own, I just took it every day.
Speaker 2:And it got to a point where, because you still wanted to impress, didn't you like, like you said before you when he was gone, you were just rushing around skipping lunch going. Fuck, I want to when he comes back and make him say you know, good on you. And then that just never came yeah, and that um and yeah.
Speaker 1:So, and then, because I lived down the road from him and we're in the same vehicle, like it went from being that awesome conversation, cranking tunes, having to sing on in the truck together, having a beer on the way from work, to just being silence. And then you're like this is fucked. And so I only ended up being with him for 18 months and I didn't finish my apprenticeship and, similar to you, like, I didn't fraud your signature, but I basically had to hand him for a little while because he, he was pissed when I said I was leaving. Yeah, he's like, why? Like I remember it. Like why are you leaving? Like am I not? And I'm not good enough. Like he went on with all this bullshit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but again, knowing what I know now, it was all everything that I saw growing up through the trust factory, through my dad going to work with him, through my two bosses I had during my apprenticeship, and then it continued into my contracting career. Was the stress of running business just fucks people up. Yeah, and then I fell into that. So I guess, to go on to your next question, I then, by that time, my old boy had sold his paint shop and was back painting. So even when he had his paint shop, he still had carpenters, painters, running, and so I just thought my old boy was incredible although he is just this incredible person hard worker, business person there's always, always this stress there but he worked for this developer in Brisbane which who I really looked up to as well and wanted to be like, like, so he would buy land, build unit developments and like was in, was it still is very, very wealthy, and so I ended up going and painting with my old boy for 18 months yeah, right and it was actually a good reset.
Speaker 1:Mate like I, would you just go to work. You'd same thing. You'd be cranking the tunes with all the like. I think at the time my old boy had between 10 and 20 painters and you just literally sit on scarf slopping a brush around you can piss, you can paint, just joking.
Speaker 2:And um cruisy, no, that's a different vibe, I guess, to what you were doing before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but same deal, mate. I put everything into it and that developer ended up, just like every time he'd come to Si, I was like, hey, tom, how are you mate? But yeah, he ended up pulling me aside one day and said, hey, dwayne, you're a chippy, aren't you? Why aren't you being a carpenter? I was like day and said, hey, duane, you're a, you're a chippy, aren't you like? Why aren't you being a carpenter?
Speaker 2:it's like oh, just whatever. And he's like do you want to do some work for me? So yeah, I basically took that on straight away.
Speaker 1:So this is like pre-fab work as well kind of uh, it was all stick, frame, frame.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was tan yeah, stick frame in townhouses like new development kind of stuff yeah, but how he worked, man.
Speaker 1:We been going through my whole life.
Speaker 2:This is good. This is your life, mate. This is what we want to know because you're such a private person.
Speaker 1:What's the show on TV? Buddy, this is your life.
Speaker 2:This is your life.
Speaker 1:You're going to bring out all these people? Yeah, but so he, he had carpenter gangs that would do work for him. Some of them would come and go um, but he had a reasonably large team I think there was maybe eight or ten that when there wasn't contract carpentry work would just do everything else. So I ended up getting involved with that. So, like and like mate, he did everything, from buying a block of like I remember being in the valley and like he would buy blocks of old brick units and they could be 6, 8, 12, 20.
Speaker 1:And we would completely refurb them to like buying blocks of land at Bowen Hills and stuff which you talk about now, like these days, you just couldn't do it. Like that'd be $20 or $30 million, like he would buy a couple of acres and we would we would build 80 townhouses, yeah, wow. So as well as doing so, basically we would get um. So how it started, I was just one of the general carpenters. So we did everything we built decks, we did landscaping, we did paving, like whatever had to be done for this developer?
Speaker 2:yeah, he had his own people and he coordinated it all.
Speaker 1:And then, um again, he just saw how it worked and one day he said to me do you want to do contract work? Do you want to? Um? So I I ended up teaming up with one of the other carpenters. We put on one apprentice and um was it like purchase order work or price work purchase order yeah, all priced work, so it was seven. Yeah, all priced work, so it was $7,700, mate we'd get for every three-story townhouse and that was stick frame cladding internal fit out like the whole lot.
Speaker 2:Wow, you've got to be moving fast.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we had to move so same deal, and so I knew the numbers.
Speaker 2:How old are you at this point?
Speaker 1:22. 22, yeah, yeah, 22, probably going on 23.
Speaker 2:Yep. So you team up with one of the other guys, you start taking on a bit of price work and then so that's where we're at now. You're 22 years old, keep going. So we're 22 years old. And then, because here we've got the like, one of the questions that came through was you, you ran a chippy crew of up to 30 yeah, 50 carpenters like that is just like unbelievable. Like it's yeah, like I run between six and ten carpenters and it's that's enough. You know what I mean?
Speaker 1:like it's that's a lot so this is where that all kind of started yeah, so basically I just started doing that mate. Long story short, he couldn't keep the work up to me, so, but even through that, so I teamed up with this guy. Um, were you making money? What you thought was making money well, I thought I was making money but wasn't paying super, wasn't paying work cover, um, didn't have the the business side of things set up correctly, but at the time I thought I was making. Well, I guess I was for my age yeah, yep.
Speaker 1:But, yeah, he couldn't keep up the work so I started. By that time I was really hungry for it. So I started reaching out and people had heard without sounding like a dick, like people had heard about my crew and what we got done. So they're still going. Now they're called GVG Design Construct. We got in with them and that enabled me. So actually, before we got in with them, while we were still working for that other developer, so I was working like a dog mate, so I was still going out and partying. I would go out with my mates.
Speaker 2:Were you still living at home at this point or you got out?
Speaker 1:I just moved out. A mate of mine had bought a house and I moved in with him. But, mate, I would work all day and I can't remember if it was Wednesday or Thursday night. There used to be a nightclub in the city called Mary Street. It was called Scary Street because when they turned the lights on, didn't know what was in there.
Speaker 1:But yeah, a couple of nights a week, mate, Like I was out to all hours of the night, early mornings, drinking, playing up, and I'd still show up to work on time. I'd still smash out a full day's work Like I didn't. I never, ever did not show up to work because I was hungover or whatever. I just dealt with it.
Speaker 2:I remember having a few skews on site. How are the hangovers now? Can you handle them? I don't know. They get worse as you get older.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I've learned to I don't. Occasionally I have a well. Yeah, occasionally I have a big one that hits me hard.
Speaker 3:But I've learned to eat. I'm a two-dayer, I've me hard, but I've learned.
Speaker 1:today I've learned to eat and drink water before I go to bed, mate. But but yeah, then the guy I was partnered with, he he'd want to knock off at two o'clock every day, and on friday I'd want to do a half day, and and then he still wanted to split the profits from the jobs, and then I cracked the with that.
Speaker 2:So then we started tracking hours, like each other's hours, and then was it like a handshake partnership, like yeah, yeah, it was a handshake partnership and then and then I got the shits with that.
Speaker 1:So then I started, we started tracking hours and the profits got split by how many hours you worked and I always did a lot more and at the end of the day he was comfortable doing what he did and I was never going to do that. So we parted ways. He continued, we both still continued to work for the the same developer, but I started my own crew, yep and, and reached out to other builders and basically the rest is history with that mate. Like we just killed it. We ended up doing work for multiple developers. We got him with a few volume builders and I just kept building the team. Uh, people loved it that I was so driven and I was killing it, mate. Well, I thought I was. I was taking all the cash, I wasn't paying taxes properly. Like I said, I wasn't paying super, wasn't paying work cover, all that type of shit.
Speaker 2:That kind of hard-ass apprenticeship, that way that you got dragged through, did you continue that and instill that in your business early on?
Speaker 1:yeah, so I drove everyone like a dog mate. I was a guy then yelling at people like why haven't you got this? I need this, come on, let's get going. And like it wasn't just me then. So as I built up and got, we probably constantly ran it between 20 and 30 chippies for for a long time, like for six years or more at our peak. I can't remember if it was like 42, 48, but yeah, we had a lot of guys and so I had a few good lead guides. But the work that we ended up getting into and so everyone loves. So I was mate.
Speaker 1:I was 24 when I bought my first F truck. I was at the same. I only bought the F truck because I walked into a boat shop down in Gold Coast, wrote a check for $186,000 for a boat at 24 years old and then figured out it was too big to tow with my VY SS ute. So I went and bought an F truck. I still remember the people at the dealerships thinking like fuck, you can't afford this shit. Like what are you doing? Everyone used to think I was a drug dealer. Yeah, even the neighbors, uh, where I lived. Like by that time I'd I'd gone.
Speaker 1:I bought a couple of houses with my parents, and the neighbors told my mom that I was a drug dealer because I was never home yeah, and they couldn't work out why I had this 28 foot boat in the front yard and an f truck, and but what I was getting to with the f truck was boat in the front yard and an f truck, and but what I was getting to with the f truck was I. That led on to because I had a big truck. I built big trailers so I ended up having trailers that had everything we needed for all those groups. So I had multiple compressors, 12 nailing guns like so this is at 24.
Speaker 1:this is you're at 24 years old so you've got about 30 blokes I had enough of everything that the teams had the tools to use, but we also had backup if shit broke. Yeah, and then so that by that time I would go to one job, get the, get one crew set up, and we're still doing so.
Speaker 1:When we, when we were doing whatever 10, 12, 18, 20, 40 townhouses like it was easy to have heaps of guys because a lot of the time you'd have 20 guys on one site yeah, yeah so I would go to a site, get everyone set up, make sure all the tools are all sweet, and then I'd jump in the f truck, drive to another job, make sure that was all going really well. And then that was like so I figured out how I could always get the work. I could always get the work done, had no issues building the team. Uh, looking back now, I wasn't running the team. Well, I was young, so everyone loved working for me because, man, the work parties we had were.
Speaker 1:I'll tell you some stories away from this but it'll change people's opinions on me, but, mate, we had biker gangs turn up, we had my mates in tough cars turn up, we had burnout competitions, we had live bands in sheds.
Speaker 2:Well speaking of the toughness we've, um, we've got one here, the tattoo. Yeah that. What does it say again pay up, pay up so where?
Speaker 1:how old were you when you got that?
Speaker 2:uh, 26, 27 26, so it's a pretty intimidating thing to get that tattooed on your arm, but pay up. So you're obviously you know you're not, don't fuck with me kind of guy. You know you're not don't fuck with me kind of guy, because that's that says don't fuck with me I'm not a fighter mate.
Speaker 1:I'm not saying a fighter, but I couldn't.
Speaker 2:Um, if you've been humble, you would have been like to get that. You know, like young duane, you're an angry man walking around and I can see it in your eyes. You know that you, you would have had a point. You know, don't. You might not be a fighter anymore, but I'll never.
Speaker 1:I never was a fighter. Lots of my mates were fighters, so I always. So what was your?
Speaker 2:reputation you'd say back, then you're 26 years old, you're driving around an f truck your arms hanging out the window saying pay up.
Speaker 1:Like you know, yeah so that tattoo come because I I ended up spending a lot of my time chasing the builders that I was working for for money and I don't know. It was an ego thing, I guess, or a bit of a wank thing, but my missus still gives me shit to this day, mate. It's why I've actually started training again now. She gives me shit that when we first talked up she just used to love my Everyone used to. I was not being a dick, but because I worked so hard I never went to gym. Everything was because I was on the tools and I'll never forget it.
Speaker 1:Like I had this young guy, dan surfy guy, working with me and he was a big lad and we were doing these townhouses and the party walls were tilt panel buildings and between them they had these huge glulam beams like 460s by 85s or whatever. And everyone used to comment because I would throw, I would jump on one end, there'd be two or three guys, the other end, I would put the beam on my shoulder and I'd walk up the ladder and put it on the boot and everyone used to say to me like all, constantly, like fucking, how do you do that? Like I had big arms, big chest and so I looked intimidating. But, mate, I couldn't find my way to a paper bag. And then they're like I, and so I started getting a bit smarter and I didn't like then.
Speaker 1:Then my mates moved in with me and, like it was, there was a lot of partying. Then I started staying home and just getting more business minded and then I'd be the one mate that'd be getting the calls at 10, 12, 2 o'clock in the morning that hey, you got to get down here. It's going to be a big blue and pissy down here. I wouldn't fight, but like, I remember walking into the belvedere pub and there was a bloke there that was well known for giving people shit and I literally just walked through the door, walked up behind him, put my arms like my hands on his arms, picked him up and walked out the front door and threw him out the door and so protective out there for your mates might come back for when you're in school the bullies and stuff.
Speaker 2:You know you probably had that image as well. You just didn't want people to fuck with you anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I believe I look and I can only go back to when I was school because it hasn't happened since. But I I'm very protective of family and friends and I'm definitely not a fighter. But if push comes to shove, mate, and someone's in trouble, I'll fucking beat the shit out of someone if I have to yeah, well, I'll give it a good hot crack yeah, and then that there's that genuine kind of guy coming out again.
Speaker 1:You know like you're very humble, humble dude and you know my mates will be listening to this and laughing mate, because I like, seriously, I'm a lot of my mates are fighters like they were australian champion kickboxers and taekwondo and all this shit, and I was just the goofy guy that'd be sitting there drinking piss and listening to music, like.
Speaker 2:So they're all going to be listening to this and going fucking whatever so another one is that point in your life right, young Dwayne, you got your blokes, your F truck. What do you reckon you'd be like now? Like social media right At the moment is everyone's just got this platform. It used to be years ago. If you wanted to go and advertise and marketing, you needed to go and see experts and build websites and have a real solid foundation to do that on. But now everyone's got this platform. What do you reckon you would have been like with social media back then?
Speaker 1:I'm not sure, mate. I hated social media for years. My wife, we had a marketing lady for a long time working for us, so they tried to get me on social media for such a long time and I just ignored it. I'm not I, even though I had a lot of shit, um, through those times, I was never flashy with it. Like I bought the boat because I loved fishing and I wanted to go to more places. I bought the f truck to tow the boat and then it ended up being a great thing for business, being able to tow a lot of gear around. Like no one knew that I had houses, other other investments and bits and pieces. But and like I said, everyone, it's things that change.
Speaker 1:Like everyone thought I was a drug dealer. Like because I was doing well, everybody, even mates, family, friends they got this rumor going around that Piercy's a drug dealer. And like, mate, I haven't touched. I can honestly sit here and tell you the only drugs I've ever done is weed. Like I've not touched. I've never held a cigarette. I've never held a cigarette in my hand yeah right like I can't stand the shit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's, and it I used to. I just find it really amusing. Um, and a lot of time I'd run with it like, and then when I got the tattoo fuck this old lady that lived down the road for me. I started doing some work away, so we went up to Noosa and down south and so I would be away through the week and then a couple of stints we'd been away for like two, three weeks, I think, one time a month and this old lady obviously hadn't seen me and she thought I'd been put in jail. So then there's this rumor going around in the street that I've and so this is hilarious, man, I can't. I'd forgotten about this, but so I had me 28 foot boat, sport fishing boat parked in the front yard and did you get to use it much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I did, you did. Yeah, I made all this flat out. So it changed from partying. So me and my mates, like we'd get home from work, we'd work flat out all day, get home 5, 5.30, 6 o'clock, whatever. If it was Redcliffe it was like 15 minutes down the boat to the boat ramp, go over off Morton. But, mate, we would drive to Mooloolaba a lot weeks, which is an hour's drive, go out to the Barwon Banks, fish till one, two o'clock in the morning, come home clean the boat, have two hours sleep and go to work next day.
Speaker 1:But because that's so, the boat was going out of a night, this fucking old bag down the road. Mate had, in her mind, built this rumor that I was a drug dealer. How else could I afford what I had? And so I was going out in my boat of a night and picking up the gear. And then, when she didn't see me for a few months, she thought that I'd been caught. And then I got this tattoo and, mate, people would shy away from me because this old lady had basically told the whole street that I was this fucking drug dealer and I'm the shyest fucking bloke you've ever met what's that show?
Speaker 2:you know the tattoo show, the cover-ups. We get a change from the cash flow. That's a good idea we could. We could change it but the thing, is man, if it's things don't happen to you, they happen because maybe after the charity lunch today, a few beers we might be down the tattoo parlor but, mate, I I do like it's a period in my life, like it's actually part of it still isn't finished yeah because I got it when I was going through a period in my life and I was angry with everything.
Speaker 1:And then it's like then we I met up with Camille and started settling down.
Speaker 2:So when did things start going like wrong? When did business? When did that? You know you've mentioned you've nearly had three times where you've nearly tapped out. When did the down spiral start coming?
Speaker 1:So you're partying, you're fishing, you're getting tattoos, and then when did it start going the other way, not long after I met camille where how old were you then, uh, 27, 27, yeah, so basically build up the carpentry business.
Speaker 1:So I I wanted to start building straight away, but I'm not sure if it was different then or maybe it's queensland or something, but back then you had to have a minimum of two years. It wasn't even building experience, you just you couldn't do your builder's license within two years of getting your carpentry license. So I had to wait a while. And then, same thing I actually got put off getting my builder's license because because I wasn't really good at school and I was worried about the study and all this sort of shit. So put it off for a little while. And then a mate of mine, steve, who's one of the mates I still talk to today, he wanted to get his. So we actually ended up doing it together through master builders and it's the only way I would have got it done, being able to go and catch up with a mate. And then we master builders had this guy can't remember name that you could catch up with and like he would like mentor you. So I got through that. So I started With the builder's license thing.
Speaker 2:Do you think that it's enough? Do they teach you enough?
Speaker 1:No way in the world man. No way in the world but the flip side of that is, if it had been any harder, I wouldn't have got it. So I think it's a fine line. Like it's easy for me to sit here these days and go, oh fuck, you need to know a lot more. But that's the reality. Like a lot of people wouldn't get their builds license if it was harder. So it's a bit of a tricky situation, Because what?
Speaker 2:do you think Some changes need to be made to that?
Speaker 1:you think my thing, what I'm really hoping to get across, mate Crossmate, and the whole point of this podcast, is I want to show people that it doesn't have to be difficult, and one of the reasons Live Life Builds so successful is everything that we have in our course platform all the templates, pdfs, everything that we've developed. It's all simple, easy to use, easy to implement stuff. You don't have to be a rocket science, you don't have to be good at school, you don't have to, like, sit in a classroom, and the only reason that we've been able to do that, like I've put a lot of time, energy and money into now figuring out who I am. Yeah, my persona. Like I hate these days how everyone wants a prescription for everything and like I know, I know, if I went and got checked, I've got adhd, like no doubt about it. I've got probably got bipolar. I've probably got bloody dyslexia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I've definitely got a few things I would rather like knowing what I know now, like I deal with it, because I firmly believe that so many people, once they find out, that's it, that becomes an excuse in the back of your mind. It's like I can't do that because I've got this, yeah, and I don't want to be that person, yeah everyone's looking for the, the magic pill, aren't they?
Speaker 2:yeah?
Speaker 1:just. But back to your question. Like so I I think I ended up being in my 26 actually might have been 25 when I got my builder's license and then what happened is, because I was, I ended up getting into a lot of high-end housing with the carpentry business and so when a lot of those developers found out I had my own builder's license, they were getting shit service from these other builders. So I basically went, mate, from getting my builder's ticket to the very first year. I forget what four and a half half, five and a half million dollars turnover like within three years.
Speaker 2:Pushing 10 million dollars turnover was that always the path you wanted to get out of the so-called carpentry contracting into more of the in building.
Speaker 1:My goal was always to be a builder, yeah, and so what happened was, like I, through the carpentry building, carpentry contracting business, I had managed to be quite successful. I bought multiple rental properties, invested in properties with my parents and was just having a great time, had cars, had boats, like I did whatever I wanted to do, had cash in the bank, and then when I started building, basically the the first time was two years. So what was what had happened? Like I didn't know how to quote properly, I didn't know, like I didn't know how to do anything. Like so, all of a sudden because none of it's taught, is it? You don't? Well, it's taught, but it's not it. For me it wasn't taught in ways that I related to. Yeah, like people showed me how to quote.
Speaker 1:I got on like back in the day you'd fucking dial up internet and you'd sit there for hours waiting for it to work and then you do some searching and shit. But so I'm, so I'm one area I'm lucky with. So sharon, that still works for me today. She's been with me I think 20 years, 21 years. She started with me as a bookkeeper and then her and her husband grew their business. They became chartered accountants. So she's basically a full-time contracts manager, does all our finances and everything. So I had her to bounce things off so she would come in the office and help me out. But I would still remember it, mate. I, literally, in pencil, would scribble on a sheet of paper all these lines like trusses, this much framing, this much labor, this much block work, this much, and then she would help me enter that, or she would. I would sit beside her and she would enter that information into what we used to give clients as a quote.
Speaker 1:But the getting the work like same story. Getting the work wasn't an issue and this is what most people are telling me these days. Like I could get the work. I could have relationships with the clients. I couldn't manage those relationships and because I didn't know how to run the business, that relationship would turn sour. So I couldn't manage expectations. I had no like. I was just your typical builder that was taught through my builder's license. That put 10% your jobs, you're going to make money. Um, so in my mind. So how long ago?
Speaker 2:was that? That's what 15, 16 years ago something like that.
Speaker 1:Uh, that is um. Well, I'm 43, so 13, yeah, 16, 16 and it's not much has changed not much has changed. Nothing's changed.
Speaker 2:Like I sit there next to my wife with this hand-drawn document and asking her to put it into a quote. Proposal, whatever they you know, proposal, proposal, that's the, that's the way to say it now, but it's nothing has really changed about there's. There's no real. This is like you're kind of like the leader of the movement that I could find where Number one podcast, mate. Yeah, number one construction podcast. Don't worry, I'll be telling everyone I'm on the number one podcast, but that's, it's still the same 16 years on, like I'm younger and it was the same thing and it was like you're out there just learning. You know baptism of fire. You're just learning by mistakes just learning.
Speaker 1:You know baptism of fire. You're just learning by mistakes. That's so. My biggest failure was in my mind and this is the answer for your question in my mind, through the contracts, I was using what I'd been told getting my bills licensed. What I'd heard being discussed through my bosses when I was apprentice um, even what I'd heard this developer was talking about, apprentice um, even what I'd heard this developer was talking about was 10.
Speaker 1:And so in my mind, like, like I said that very first year as a builder, straight in the deep end, four or five million dollars turnover. I'm thinking, fuck, I've made four or five hundred grand. So I'm, I'm still spending it like I was spending it when I was a carpenter, but I didn't realize that it was taking 15% to run my business and every single job I took on was slowly chewing into my cash and slowly I was going backwards. And the thing is like I touched on earlier we're not taught about money, we're not taught about finances, we're not taught about accounting. We're not taught about money, we're not taught about finances. We're not taught about accounting. We're not taught about overheads and I'm not just talking about building I'm talking about school in life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you've got to learn all these things yourself, really.
Speaker 1:and so the flip side of that is and that's why I got that's where I got into a lot of trouble. So, basically, within two years of getting my builder's license, mate, I remember I'd only been with camille for probably four or five months and, like I'm sitting on the back deck that I'd built on this house that I was living in, crying, thinking like what is wrong? Like why am? Why am I about to lose everything? Because, fuck, I'm turning over $5 million?
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's pretty much. I reckon, a lot of people listening to this podcast right now, people that are in that situation where they're on their back deck crying going. There's a lot of money coming through, but it's, you know, like I've been there before, you think, oh, I made a lot of money. And then you get that tax bill and you're like, well, hang on a second, I actually didn't make any money this year, but I've spent it all.
Speaker 1:Well, your accountant's telling you that you've earned it because you pulled it out of the business and you personally have made money, but you've actually stolen from your business and your business made a loss and, mate, that was a hard time At that point in time. On the money money topic this is another question asked by by the uh, by the followers what?
Speaker 2:was your relationship like with debt and did debt help you grow like? Were you all just purely back then, mate? Debt just got me into a lot of trouble, yeah, so so you wouldn't, yeah, recommend that as a well, factor again.
Speaker 1:We're not taught about it like I love debt now. Yeah, for the right reasons, but but what happened there?
Speaker 2:any sort of overdraft or anything like that.
Speaker 1:So we had an overdraft we're constantly running at overdraft, um, but like it's I don't know. I really I'm so appreciative that you've come on today to get me get all this out of me, because I'd forgotten about a lot of this shit and it's. I hope it resonates with a lot of people. But there's a lot of stuff that's got to tie together. So in my mind I'm thinking I'm making 10%, so, whatever my turnover was, I thought I had that cash in the bank, so I'm spending it On top of that. I'm not.
Speaker 1:I had no idea what overheads or running costs were Absolutely none. On top of that, I wasn't quoting the jobs correctly, had no system in place or no program that made sure I didn't miss anything. But probably the thing that made it the hardest for me two things banks were throwing money at me, like banks would. I would give them my financial. They would see the turnover and the money going through the business, and they were throwing it at me. So I was. I upgraded my F truck, I upgraded my boat, I fucking bought houses. So by the time I was 27,. Between me and my parents we had like whatever it was eight or nine properties, and so every property I bought they were getting rents and stuff. But some of them were positively geared, others weren't, so everything I bought was slowly chewing into the cash that I thought I was making, which I really wasn't. So that's really hard to know that, like what? Like why would I think that I'm doing anything wrong when I've got a bank bank saying this is let's, let's go.
Speaker 2:What do you want like?
Speaker 1:constantly on the phone oh, do you need any equipment? Do you need it? Oh, do you want to upgrade your vehicles? Oh, um, how's your property? Because, like I had a, I had a manager, like I was, I had, I was doing so much like, and the guy rang up oh, how's that last property you go that you bought, you're ready for another one? Like, yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:And it's hard for like being in that situation because everyone's telling you you're doing so well and you and you got it. This is how you do well and all you want to do is you just want to be like I've got to make the most means I'm untouchable. Well, I'm thinking if they're going to lend it to me fuck, I must be in a good position, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But then so that was the first one as a bank. The second one, mate, was I had the industry like applauding me, like I had suppliers inviting me to lunches, giving me bonuses. I had suppliers taking me on overseas trips because I was spending so much with them. I had I was getting asked to speak at industry events like we'll we'll go into master builders events and winning like 2010 to 2012, we were brisbane's most awarded builder. Yeah, wow, um, we had five so the whole carpet.
Speaker 2:At this point the carpentry kind of crew had gone and it's more.
Speaker 1:By the time I was 28, I'd stopped all the subbing work and I had 18 or 20 chippies working in my own building business.
Speaker 2:Fuck, that's so young. Like to have that, that's like you've like, you know, even though that kind of went down, now you back up, but like to get to where you were. Like that's fucking hard work, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so, look, that was the first time and I had to sell. So one thing I've never done. I can honestly sit here, 100% honest. I have never not paid anybody, yeah, so there's definitely been some situations over the years. I remember having to call Hardware's and say, hey, I'm in the shit, the shit I've fucked up. I can't pay you, but I'm selling this and that and this and I will pay you.
Speaker 2:As common as it sounds, that's actually not as common as you think. There's a lot of builders and the industry out there it's very cutthroat. There's people not very many builders would be able to say I've paid everyone and that's hand on heart.
Speaker 1:That's just not. I've always, I've never not paid anyone. So, yeah, I had to say I had to go backwards. I had to sell houses, I'll sell cars. Um, there's been times where I well, so that that was a. That was the first time. But then I didn't learn, mate, like no one, I sold shit and I paid money back. So that was the hardest part. Like I didn't know what I'd done wrong, like I had a like again Sharon working with me, like she was by this time starting to get in my ear and like constantly be telling me you can't spend that money, duane, you can't buy that. And so I started to ask more questions about that. And that's where I started getting a little bit of an understanding, for I guess overheads and tax Tax was a huge one.
Speaker 1:I just had no idea that it's a big wake-up call the tax bill when you're turning over that or you're making that sort of money what was going towards tax and GST and those types of things. There's just so much to know. But that was. That was the first one. That was a small one. Then I had another one. I was actually it's probably been, it's been twice, so so the first one.
Speaker 2:So we're taught you just, you're spending money, you're buying things, you're thinking you're earning money and then, all of a sudden, is it the jobs, the pricing, was it all like you? You're mis things, you're thinking you're earning money and then, all of a sudden, is it the jobs, the pricing? Was it all like you're mispricing things? Was it not paying your tax? You just, your overheads were too high, your personal debts were too high. Is that what it was? Or did you have a couple of bad things go sour?
Speaker 1:The really bad one was a combination of quite a few things.
Speaker 2:I think this is just a really good point, right, because so many people listen to this podcast and they're like we're teetering on. This is what I wanted to talk to you about, and the realness is no one shares this story, no one shares the struggle of like, all right, well, half our misses, drive a land cruise and we've got all these nice things. And people just think builders have bundles of money, right, yeah, and builders think we have bundles of money. That's, that's what's wrong, and it's just there's tradies too mate.
Speaker 2:Yeah, tradies in general, definitely they're always the people you drive past and you look and they've got nice shit. And people tell their kids openly go become a tradie, go be like dwayne, go be like lewis, you'll become successful. Little do they know about the sitting on the back deck, crying, thinking how the fuck am I supposed to?
Speaker 1:do that. I see so many young fellas now driving around these brand new dual cabs, these 20, 30 dollar tool trailers, all their battery gear, and I just think to myself fucking, what are you doing?
Speaker 1:yeah like fucking don't spend all the money on that shit, like invest in yourself, like buy that shit in the future, like so what ended up happening? So I I started to learn a bit more about the tax side of things, the GST, but I just still couldn't grasp overheads. I just like I was getting told about it, but it just it wasn't resonating, I just wasn't clicking.
Speaker 2:So all these master builders events, all these great people that you're meeting, and any of these hard conversations coming up back then, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I was like after that first one, like I was reaching out, man, I was going to every event that I could, but again, I just I was like everybody, I was looking for that magic answer that was going to solve my problems and I just wasn't in the mindset of learning, I think. And so what actually got us through that? So I sold quite a bit of stuff to get out of that situation.
Speaker 1:That must have been fucking painful. Or was it freeing? It was painful. But one thing I was grateful that I was in a position that I had shit to sell.
Speaker 1:And then, like at the time, like Camille used to get a lot of shit for it, like we actually got introduced through mutual friends to sell, yeah, and then, like at the time, like camille used to get a lot of shit for it, like we actually got introduced through mutual friends and it's turned out to be incredible.
Speaker 1:She's an incredible person, best friend. Yeah, I definitely would not be where I am now if it wasn't for her, but she'd and look, one of the reasons I really connected with camille was she was a hard work as well, like she'd worked her way up in corporate with suncorp and with all the shit that I had going on. People thought that she was with me for my money and like we used to joke about it, but little do they know. There was a six or twelve month period where I was living off her, like she was supporting me because I had I was selling shit to survive. Yeah, and look, to be honest, I I take like I can't thank her enough for hanging around like if it wasn't for her, I probably wouldn't have got. Well, I can honestly sit here and tell you if it wasn't for her, I wouldn't have got through it yeah like yeah, I don't think the wives get enough credit.
Speaker 2:They, you know, like how important their role is in helping every, like you know, just actually dealing with us, dealing with the shit and dealing with our problems and look.
Speaker 1:So it kept rolling on and look. None of my team knew all this shit was going on. Like they, the business kept working, work kept getting done, job kept coming in, but what happened? Like the job starting getting bigger and bigger. Instead of being six, seven, eight hundred thousand dollar jobs, they started being 1.4, 1.6, 1.8, more difficult. I still didn't know how to quote properly. So what?
Speaker 2:kind of what was? What kind of hours were you punching out? What was your lifestyle like? Had you given away all your, your fishing and this you were just in uh, I'll still.
Speaker 1:No, I'll still. I was working like I would. I would work from early in the morning to late at night. Camille would as well, so I guess that was a bit of a bonus.
Speaker 2:We were both working, were you loving it, still like you were part of it, still had a passion there for that work I still loved it.
Speaker 1:But then by the time I was so what? 2012. So it wasn't until so. My big crash was between 30 and 32, yeah, and it was huge, mate, like I, I had multiple days where it could. It would have been very, very easy for me to, uh, not be here anymore, but, um and so flowing on from that. So everything, everything got hard. The jobs got bigger. I wasn't quoting them correctly, didn't know my overheads, so I was losing money on jobs before I even started them.
Speaker 2:I how much money worth of work. What's your what's at this point in time?
Speaker 1:like you've got uh projects back then our biggest volume of work. I think we got to like 9.6 mil or something. And and so I and it was like I had this goal mate I wanted to crack the 10 mil. I wanted 10 mil. I thought turnover was everything 10 and it was fucking nothing. Because and at the time I was, I was with my first builders, with my first coach, yep, and so this is you had a builder's coach pre-crash, or yeah?
Speaker 1:during during multiple I tried um so yeah, just tell us 2010, 2012 awarded, going through all the success and shit, but even though behind the scenes it's a shit show, but by the end of 2012 I was out yep I was ready to go and clean toilets, didn't want to do it anymore and started looking for some coaching.
Speaker 1:But what happened at the same time so I wasn't quoting properly didn't know my overheads, didn't know how to run a business, wasn't choosing the right clients, so every day was just dramas, with clients Ended up doing shitloads of variations that I didn't manage correctly, didn't get paid for, had multiple clients over a couple of year period that just refused not to pay us huge amounts of money and when I say huge, I'm talking five, six hundred thousand dollars over multiple jobs over over a few year period. Actually probably wasn't that much, to be honest. I think it might have been around four.
Speaker 2:I just stopped you there you just listed off a few items. Everyone that's listening to the podcast should write that list down in their diary and put a tick next to how many things in their business they can relate to at the moment, because I feel like that point that you were at, not everyone, the volume of work that you had people probably can't relate to, because to get that much volume of work now in the home warranty and just that is that's just that's a big amount. But I think a lot of people have got the exact same problems going on. Now they're listening to someone like yourself to try and get the answers to those problems.
Speaker 1:So there was. There was heaps more on top of them. Wasn't running a team correctly, had no systems and processes. I didn't. I didn't even know what my role was in the business. I was just running around fucking doing everything. We weren't scheduling our jobs. So we're putting dates on contracts that were going over and then clients were like liquidate, like oh, there's heaps of shit going on.
Speaker 1:Like we did a job at new farm which was on a character home which um again, just being young naive, not enough experience like had one side of the house that was not meant to be touched. We had it sitting up on props while we're doing the rest of the work to the house. We got a storm come through one afternoon, did a bit of damage to it. I just thought, oh fuck, we'll pull it down. It's unsafe. Neighbor brings a council. That wall was never meant to like, so that cost us 80 odd grand legal fees and stuff we made. That was a 1.28 million dollar renovation. We made nothing, wow, like absolutely nothing on that job. It I think it ended up well, knowing what I know now with overheads and profit and like that.
Speaker 1:That cost us a few hundred thousand dollars and yet that client and this is the thing that really started to affect me, because that client went on to sell that home um two years later. Record price builders can relate to that where they're like.
Speaker 2:They made a fortune and I did my ass on that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but the and but the. The clincher to it, mate, to the, my big crash was the properties and again, this is a. This is the driver for why this is all happening. So I'd continue to invest in properties with my old, with my parents, with my old boy. My old boy has been on this roller coaster for 45 odd years and we butt heads against it, like to him.
Speaker 1:Everyone's been handed stuff like you do. Well, it's all handed to you like, why me, why me? And so he's always pushed very hard, which I, which I see a lot of bills and traders doing and he's made good money over the years, but then he's done nothing. He doesn't know how to run a business, doesn't know handle taxes and all that sort of shit. Thinks everybody is his mate and that caused a huge fallout between him and my mom, him, my mom, separated for a little while, caused a lot of issues between the whole family. My dad had a bad car accident, got it like drink driving all the time and I won't go into full details. But, mate, I've been through shit that I would not wish on my worst enemy like, and my dad's way of dealing with it was because his old school was always to threaten like fear. So, mate, because I'm the oldest, like I, we went through a two-year period where I would get regular calls like with him pissed, going off, saying it's over, I'm done.
Speaker 1:I'm killing myself. You're going to have to find me. You're going to have to deal with all the shit.
Speaker 1:And that was at this period in time. Yeah, so then this is all leading up. So I've got all this shit going on at work as well. Face value, we're doing multi-million dollar homes, winning awards, and yet I'm dealing with a business. I'm constantly putting out fires, I've got issues with clients, I'm not making money, cash flow shit, not paying taxes, having to go on tax plans.
Speaker 1:So I'm dealing with all this business shit and then, behind the scenes, my mum and dad are going through a shit fight, um, to a point where I had to go to court with my mom, put a dvo against my dad and then and like, look, I hope my um, it really worries me if my family hear this type of shit because I've never spoken about it. Yeah, and I don't want it to affect our relationship because my dad's worked his way through a lot of shit. Now and I, we get on, we see, like I love seeing him with the grandkids and stuff, but we we went through. I think it's important to talk about because there's always a way through. But, mate, I yeah, like I.
Speaker 1:That's a lot of I had to deal with phone calls, mate and my old boy threatening to come and burn our house down, with me and the missus and the kids in it.
Speaker 1:Like there was a lot of jealousy there, I think, because I'd started to do all right, but what happened was which created all this? Being an old school tradie, like he, everyone's your mate, so my mate does this, my mate does that he'd got put onto this accountant. He never had an understanding of business and taxes and that anyway, the accountant was filling it like doing his paperwork, telling him what tax he had to pay. He was giving the money to the accountant and I could I still don't even know the real information but over possibly a four to six year period, he paid no tax because the accountant was a fraud yeah and my old man was paying him and he was taking the money turned out to be a massive fraud over across australia.
Speaker 1:Yep, and so we had all we had rental and developments together. Yep, and so I knew things were getting like. He was getting more depressed. He was not doing a lot of work.
Speaker 2:You had kids at this point yeah, I had my oldest, had your at this point um, and I think camille was pregnant or maybe just had our second fuck mate.
Speaker 1:This is really hard to talk about, but um he.
Speaker 1:So I was taking on more of that repayment and that debt as well. Yep, and it wasn't until I got a call that said hey, duane, like I'm I'm not legally about to say anything to you because I represent your dad, but you're about to lose everything. Yeah, wow, what are you talking about? No, it's everything sweet, like I know. I said, I know it's a shit show, but like, everything's all right. They're like no, you're, um, you're about to get letters from banks, like they're they're gonna repossess it all. Like I didn't know what was happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and yeah, it turned out that, um, yeah, this fraud had been going on. The old boy thought he was doing the right thing, thought everyone was his mate looking after him, but the tax man had come in and like backdated everything and he owed hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax and we had properties that were in both names and it was just like, so, we, uh, so, yeah, that that was the one. So, and home, like that's, when it really hit, home, like that's, I'd drive around my truck, mate. There was, like I said, there was plenty of days that I could have fucking just thrown a rope around a tree and would have been a lot easier. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah, so we lost I couldn't even tell you mate, couldn't even tell you mate, like at the time, probably on property value, probably somewhere between $5 and $7 million worth of property. Camille and I were lucky we kept the house we were living in because it was in my name only and we kept one other rental property because I had it in a trust. Everything else got taken.
Speaker 2:Shows a lot of character and a lot of strength that you didn't become a victim in that situation. It shows there's a really strong character and everything you put out there today. So I came in here today to get deep. We switched to bourbon, sitting at the back of the pub where we're talking about our emotions, and I didn't think we'd get anywhere near that. You know, because you, you are just such a humble person that just wants everyone else to succeed you know, but it's fucked.
Speaker 1:I I only talk about this because there are so many people that reach out to me now in that situation and they don't. They don't push through, yeah yeah, that's right, the and it's.
Speaker 1:It is hard, but reality is, life is hard and you got to push through. So, like, at that point, like, mate, I couldn't even. Like, I couldn't, we could not even afford to. Like, we had this monthly bills and I couldn't, but we couldn't pay them and I couldn't. I couldn't sell shit like I had, I was running out of shit to sell and the shit that I had to sell wouldn't have covered what we had to pay anyway. So I bit my tongue, mate, I started. I actually started reaching out to some of my dad's mates older mates that I knew had money yep, telling them the situation, trying to, trying to to see what we could do. One guy lent us some money, which was awesome. We obviously paid it all back. A member of Camille's family actually ended up lending us a large sum of money, and that was my turning point, mate.
Speaker 2:So this is where we get to next. So your pivot point when did you you like? It's easy at that point there, right, most people would just throw in the towel, I'm a victim, and you'd be sitting there and be a different narrative saying this is what happened to me. Fuck the world, you know, like it's, it's, it's every it's not my fault everyone. But you didn't take that path. You turned, and one of the questions here is um, when did you start like success media? When did you start and what did you start looking for? Like, how did it pull you out of that situation?
Speaker 2:Like with any books and which what age did you start looking into that kind of stuff?
Speaker 1:So the turning point, mate, was like for me it was like I can't even describe it Like to be to have to make phone calls to people to to borrow money when you're a grown man, you got a young family and, on face value for the last, for the previous six, eight years you've been fucking, yeah, killing it like yeah, that's it's.
Speaker 2:I can see it in your eyes, mate, like it's, it's fucked.
Speaker 1:It's fucked. Yeah, Like it's completely fucked and I was like we couldn't afford it. And I think this is a really important point, because I get so many people reach out to me that want to join our Live Life, build community and tell me they can't afford it.
Speaker 1:I could not afford it at all, but I still remember sitting. We had an office under our house, old house. We're living in Myself, my wife, the admin lady that we had at the time and like we're going to have to get coaching, we're going to have to get help, like we don't have the answers, so we need someone to help us. And that was the start of a journey that went for three years, so basically over the next three years, from 2012 to 2015,. So we're only talking nine years ago this isn't a long time ago, mate. I reached out to coaches, mentors that I knew in the industry, and by this time I wasn't on social media, but I was getting shown on Facebook. There were some people on there teaching.
Speaker 2:And in the background, here your business. You're still just trying to claw all through, oh mate I'm, I'm every day is clawing like.
Speaker 1:But every day was fucked, mate, like I, I did not want to get out of bed. And then I'd push myself out of bed, I'd go to site, I'd set up the guys make sure everything looked and sounded rosy, and then I'd fucking go and hide in a car park somewhere or drive out in the country and drive around for fucking six hours. And then I'd fucking go and hide in a car park somewhere or drive out in the country and drive around for fucking six hours because the phone could still ring, I could still give people answers. No one knew where I was or what I was doing, or I was fucking sitting in the side of a cliff somewhere thinking about fucking driving off of it.
Speaker 2:So at this point you're at rock bottom and you choose to fight the battle and go against it.
Speaker 1:I couldn't give up on my family.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like camille and and um starting a young family like there was no way in the world I was gonna fail on that well, you made the right choice because I'll tell you now through this podcast, I reckon you're gonna save a few lives because it does get that low. The industry and that's what people you know like it gets it gets low, it's I can't stress that point enough.
Speaker 1:Like everyone that rings me and says they need help and they want to do stuff and and thinks they can't afford it, you have to afford it. You've got to put your money into. Like, if you don't know the answers, you have to talk, deal with people that do all that have been through it, like this is the only way. But my problem then went on to for the next three years, I chased stuff and I went to people that were supposed to be experts but they're calling themselves builders, coach and building associations and all this shit. And, yes, they helped me out, understand my overheads a little bit better. But the one thing I couldn't stand is well, there's a few things. Most of them were people that had tried being builders or tradies and failed. Other ones were people that wouldn't even know which end of the hammer to hold. And the one that shit me the most was and I tried multiple of them I was just getting regurgitated shit that they'd got from other builders.
Speaker 1:And there's one that I spent a fair bit of time with and this is no bullshit. We did six months, I think, all up with him. Oh, I think about 2015, 16, 15, 16. I still get emails to this day saying, hey, I've got this been given this document. It's got dps constructions on it. What's, what's the guy? I'm like fuck me, like make your own shit, come up with your own systems and processes, like there's a lot of in that coaching world out there, like the.
Speaker 2:The social media is just giving all these people a platform and, as you say, um, a lot of the. It's just about straight out of business books. Let's 10x, let's concentrate on marketing, let's get you more work, because more work, more, more, um more, more, more, more is just the way that they pitch it.
Speaker 1:Well, that's just the recipe for more disaster, yeah. So, yeah, I learned over that period that. So I tried, tried a few, and then I got to this this guy and, um, look, don't get me wrong, I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for him, because he showed me that I needed more than what he could offer. And so the things that he couldn't help like to give people an example like, yes, he gave me a bit of like, all of them gave me a bit of help with understanding a little bit more about overheads. They didn't clear it up for me. They made me learn a little bit about marketing team and all those types of things, but they just could not help me with the day-to-day shit that I was dealing with as a builder. Yeah, like setting managing clients, understanding contracts, like using your contracts as a rule book, understanding your clients expectations, learning more about the design, like becoming more than a builder.
Speaker 2:Like, yeah, they had no real experience, like you said, because, yeah, we mentioned earlier in the podcast. But when I reached out to you, the biggest surprise was you sent me your number. It wasn't just an automatic. I've reached out to a lot of coaching programs for also like property investments and other things and just self-development things interested in that sort of stuff, and you get a generic back saying do you want to sign up for one of our? It's $99.
Speaker 1:You get our one hour consult, blah blah blah and it's like they don't care about me. You sent me your real, your real number and, and and you're a real person. I'll keep talking to people face to face and give my number out, mate, for as long as I can, until there's too many people that I can't, but even then I'll. I'll just I'll do it in groups or something like without going like.
Speaker 1:I've talked about that a lot, so the and that taught us so at that point. At that same point in time, camille uh was just coming off maternity leave with our second child and we thought it'd be like free labor, like free admin, and we thought it'd be ahead of the game and like that was a disaster, like who wants to work in a business that's already struggling and not get paid for their time, and not like feel like you're not appreciated, like and yet rewarded for what you do. So that was that's something we really focus on. We live like bill now is making sure that everyone in the business is getting paid the correct salary. Like so you're valued. But and so, from her background in in corporate world, mate, within a couple of days of her being in the business, she's like fuck, like no wonder, this is a shit show. Like you haven't got kpis, you haven't got roles and task descriptions, like what? What's going on here? And so it was a combination of her experience and knowledge and, to be honest, like my supervisor which I've still got now, sharon, who I had, I got everyone involved and I think up until that point, I was just trying to do everything myself. I thought I knew what to do, and I probably wasn't. Well, I wasn't giving anyone else in my team opportunity to give their suggestions. So there was a lot of things that changed. So, camille, come in her experience. I, for the first time ever, I had a meeting with my team and told them the shit we're in and said to them that, like to me, this is how I tell, even to today, my number one is Camille and my girls, number two is my team, and I'll do whatever it takes to make sure that everybody always gets paid, we always have work and I treat everyone gets looked after, and I take that very seriously. So, yeah, I had a meeting with my team, told them the shit we're in, explained to them that I was thinking about getting out of it. But now I'm not, we're going to soldier on. But from now on, we're going to soldier on. But from now on, we're never going to go back to this situation ever again. So what, what do we need to do to get out of it?
Speaker 1:And then, on top of that, trying all these coaches and mentors that just couldn't help with the day-to-day stuff that I was dealing with as a builder, and so that really pushed, like people laugh at me, like I'm even now, like I'm useless on a computer. Now that I'm half a finger short, I'm even worse. But I used to communities to have to turn the laptop on for me overnight. And so I realized if, if I want to because I used to blame the industry it was always someone else's fault my clients, my team, everybody else but number one, I blame the industry it's fucked. Like yeah, why is it like this?
Speaker 1:And so over the years, lots of times I've thought I'm going to change it, I'm going to change it. And then I'd go back into my old school ways and, uh, like that's stupid, how can I do that? But I got to a point where I'm like I'm gonna, I'm, if, if I want to be successful in this industry, I have to do something about it, yep, and literally camille would turn the laptop on I still, I can see it clear as day right now, like in the lounge room sit on my lap. I would type out, and then she'd spend three days fixing it up and checking or correcting all the spelling.
Speaker 1:But, um, I started by thinking I had to educate clients. So I actually put together a seminar called build your knowledge before you build your dreams actually ended up turning into an incredible marketing tool, went really well. The the coach I was with at the time fucking thought it was great started telling all these other builders to do this. So, um, and basically my sister's got a cafe. We did a couple at the build design center. We would put it out on our facebook page and, free of charge, people come along and I would talk to clients about the design process and the contracts and what happens when we get to site. So just take it back a bit.
Speaker 2:So, after you've kind of hit rock bottom and you're coming out, when did you make a decision? When was the moment where I'm going to help other people, I've got to fix this? When did that moment come, like how would that come about.
Speaker 1:It's still coming, it's still coming, it's still coming, it's still coming, it's on its way. So to let people know from between getting the phone, the mystery phone call, to say you're about to lose everything, going through those months of losing it, not being able to pay our bills in the business, and then making those calls to borrow money from people, from those calls to borrow money from people, from those calls to borrow money from people, so we had no money left in our overdraft, could not pay, like I think we had enough money in the account to maybe pay. Two weeks like had no chance whatsoever of paying end of month, which at that time, with the amount of work we had on, was hundreds of thousands of dollars to having to. To getting back to level was 10 months, yeah, so in 10 months I made the choice to fucking head down, bum up, understand my numbers more, save money on jobs wherever I could. We paid both people back that we borrowed money, paid our overdraft off and got back to level in 10 months.
Speaker 1:And so for me, that was that was just that just started driving me. I was like, fuck me If I can, if I can do this and get better at running the business. I was like, fuck me, if I can do this and get better at running the business, my life will be better forever. And then also, on top of that, having that moment well, fuck, if all these people in this industry coaches, mentors, associations can't help me and just having that committing like I'm going to do this myself. So, yeah, did that. Build your knowledge, because I thought the answer to all my business problems and not making enough money was educating the clients. And then they went really, really well, turned into a good marketing tool. We did. I think it was like on the fifth or sixth one we did of them. I just had this moment where, like fuck me, I'm a fraud.
Speaker 1:Like this isn't. It's not the client's fault, it's me, like I need to be a better builder. So I then put together a seminar called um rules of the game, which at the time I was with uh the builders coach being naive at the time teamed up with him. He loved it, like I was putting all this content together and he was taking advantage of it all yeah um.
Speaker 1:So we teamed up. We did uh seminars, uh, brisbane, sydney I can't remember if we did melbourne, but anyway they sold out like. We ended up with, um, I think we at brisbane we had like 47 odd. Uh, sydney, we got I think we had close or over 100 like, and we charged a thousand bucks a head. Wow, how long goes this? This is. This is Fuck. I could go back through my emails and check, but that would be probably around 2016. 2016. Okay and anyway. So they went really well and I still remember it.
Speaker 1:I remember standing at the front of all these builders on stage and so, to put that presentation together, camille and Sharon helped me. We showed them a heap of our spreadsheets, some of the systems we'd put together in our own business. And I remember standing up there and like these builders just staring at me and I'm like fuck, they're just. They're looking at me. Like who the fuck are you Like? What are you talking about? Like you're just talking shit. But the turn this is. This is the. Actually, I'd forgotten this, mate, like you've got so much enemy today that I'd forgotten about the first one we did in brisbane at the build design center. Yeah, 45, 47, 50 odd builders. We had a break and I'm like I'm saying to this coach guy, and like we had Camille there, our marketing lady was there and I'm like I'm really nervous, this is going shit. They're staring at me Like they're not talking, they're not taking notes. A thousand bucks a head.
Speaker 2:How many people are there?
Speaker 1:It's like 45, 47 something. Yeah, and I'm like getting really nervous and anxious and stuff. Anyway, I kept going, got through the day and then at the end of the day, when it was time for everyone to leave, three or four builders left. Everyone hung around. We ended up getting like they had to kick us out. They were like 8 o'clock. Yeah.
Speaker 1:And this is the turning point which I don't think I've spoken about for years and, to be honest, I'd forgotten about. Builders were coming up to me and hugging me and and Like one guy fuck man, I'd forgotten about this. Like one guy come up to me he was. He said, dwayne, like I'm literally a couple of years away from retiring, I've pretty much lost everything. If I had to come to something like this 30 years ago, I'd still have my wife, I'd have a relationship with my kids, I'd still have a house. And he said I can't believe you've inspired me to keep like to try and make my life back in the next couple of years. And there was, there was like it was all we'll get, we're hugging each other. People were crying Like it was insane and it humbled me Like I got so much out of that.
Speaker 1:But the real one was, um, it was either the I can't remember if it was the following day or the following week and my phone kept ringing and part of that course that all that session that I did was telling people like you've got to set business hours, like after whatever hours you want to finish, you don't answer your phone. And this number just kept ringing and ringing and ringing and I was like, maybe by seven or eight o'clock, camille's like you you need to answer that like someone's obviously trying to get a hold of you. And I answered it, mate, and it was a builder just sobbing on the phone and, uh, he's duane. Like I was at your seminar last week and, um, I just want to let you know you've saved my life if, um, if I hadn't come to that, like your seminar was the last straw for me, like if I was ready to neck myself, wow, and I was like holy shit, like I didn't realize it'd have that sort of impact.
Speaker 1:But, and that's where it all started from. So from that we started getting builders that come to those events started reaching out to Camille and I for our quoting process and we thought, oh shit, like everyone's asking for it, there must be something in it. That's how quote spec started. Yep, uh, quote spec. Then we ended up teaming up with some other people. That now is quote ease. It's best, simplest, easiest quoting estimating proposal software in the industry hands down. Um, need to get on board with that.
Speaker 1:But, and then I just started a journey, but the journey changed because I then realized that it wasn't, I didn't need to get on board with that. But and then I just started a journey, but the journey changed because I then realized that it wasn't I didn't need to educate the clients, it wasn't them. I actually didn't need to become a better builder, I needed to become a better me. And that's where my my journey really started and that's where, like you've kept asking, like where does it all come from? Like yeah, I just started picking up little things and we went to Sydney, for I got asked to speak at a hardware store for some builders Camille, come with me, we'll come and back. And I'm not a reader, and this, when you know little shops they have at the airport when you get on the plane. It was called the subtle art of not giving a fuck. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one uh, it was called the subtle art of not giving a fuck.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, that's a good one and it caught my eye. Yeah, and it made on the I'm from sydney to brisbane. Like I'm not a reader, I think I might have read fucking 10 pages now you get onto audiobooks, that's, that's the guy, and so as soon as I got back, camille's like oh, you should get onto audible and that's the first book I read.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that was a life changer, like I just. And then, since then I've fuck, I've listened to 100 of audible books. But that was where it all changed, mate, and that's where I'm like I'd like to get.
Speaker 2:I'm just one of the questions here was what kind of have you consumed in that? So if you could do a list or a post coming up on your socials and share those maybe top 10 books and what podcasts you know, so we can get a bit of an idea of, yeah, you know what, what helped change you? Because I I do believe exactly what you said you got to fix yourself before you can. You know, like help the industry, or you know, like a lot of these podcasts, that you're doing the sustainable building. All these it's great, but a lot of people are just got to look within before and then, as soon as you fix that, and then it's all you as soon as you fix yourself, then you can you your options open and you can do these things.
Speaker 2:You know, like I would never have been here 12 months ago unless I listened to all your podcasts and stuff. I would have just been like, oh well, I'm gonna go, and you know, and here I am asking you questions you know, and it's powerful stuff, yeah, but it's, and then it just kept growing, mate.
Speaker 1:So then then, from that um, I agreed to get on Facebook. So the marketing lady we had at the time, chantelle, she set it all up.
Speaker 2:And in the background, dps Construction still it's still all going. Yeah, it's still up there. It's just getting better and better, Better, yeah.
Speaker 1:And so once I realized that and I realized it's all me there's a few things like you need to take 100% ownership of your life and what's happening in it. You need to take 100% responsibility. But the two most important things that get overlooked is you have to commit Life's hard. Yeah, like it doesn't matter, life will be hard whether you're successful or not. Yeah, it's how you choose to deal with things. But then the big one is consistency. You have to, and I'll put my hand up like I don't have enough consistency, like I would be worth hundreds of millions of dollars if I was consistent, but I go really well for a few weeks and then I fucking have to fight my demons and shit again.
Speaker 2:I think that's why it's what you're relatable you're like. Well, you're a knockabout bloke. I'm here with you at your house. I just went and used your bathroom, you know like I helped you unload your truck like you were on the forklift, your dog's running around the backyard like you're a relatable guy, and that's why I'm here, because I wanted to make sure you were, because you know, like that's the number one I wanted to make. See if you're one of these fake things. See if the shed was real. See, you know I'm here.
Speaker 2:There's shit everywhere the shed's real it's all, and this has been a real chat and and that's, I think, is the, you know, like breaking down the boundaries for the builders and if I can come here and be on board with what you're saying, like everyone else can, because I'm an arrogant kind of prick and I can be, you know, I can run my, I can do it my own way, but I think, just breaking down those barriers and sharing this because we've got like a generational gap too, and I think that's what I want the whole industry is that I want everyone to be able to just help each other and get better.
Speaker 1:And I think it's all. I've got a lot of missions now, mate, but like you would know from being here today, like my purpose is, hands down now, to create a new building industry and help as many traders, builders as I can. It's my purpose, like it's what I get out of bed every single day for I still like my number one is building. I'll never let my building business go. I love even though I'm not on site a lot anymore. I love the banter, I love the crew, I love taking a piece of dirt or an old home and turning it into someone's beautiful new home. But my true passion is definitely helping people.
Speaker 2:That can come into the next kind of question. Was it out there? Because you've done your tour of Tasmania, you're kind of getting up there now chatting with a few bigwigs and it's getting that way. And what about the future of Dwayne and maybe politics or something like that, do you reckon?
Speaker 2:that's ever there, Because you're there, you're mentioning the housing minister policies. You know things need to change. We all know that the industry isn't just broken. You know all the builders need to sort their own shit out, but also just the actual policies around the industries need to change. What do you see your role in that and how are you going to change it? In that way, because I know you and you're not just going to roll over and let the politicians destroy it.
Speaker 1:You're going to get involved. No, look, this will be my purpose till the day I die. Now, like I really I'm committed to leaving a legacy. Obviously, the building business over time was at the moment like we got a DA at the moment for a really large development and we got a few other things on the cards, but building will always be there. Yep, it might not be for clients. Yep, quote ease will be around. I have no doubt that that software will be, will be, a huge part in the industry. Yeah, we do. We got a few things in the pipeline for that. But live life, build, because when you say, create a new building industry.
Speaker 2:And this is the building industry that you're creating, by the way, is the one that I want to get passionate about. How are we going to implement that in legislation? Like, how is it live? Life? Build will be the thing, mate, like I don't push her.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I don't, I'm not going to implement that in legislation. Like, how is it Live?
Speaker 2:Life Build will be the thing mate.
Speaker 1:Will be the pusher. I don't. I'm not going to get into politics. I believe I can make more change through the podcast and my social media Sharing yeah.
Speaker 1:Look, I was brought up where politicians, like people, voted for people because the politician was passionate about it. These days, every politician correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see a politician that says for a real cause, they change their mind depending on who's going to vote for them and who's going to pay them. Correct, and I don't want to be a part of that. I'm the real deal. I tell it how it is and I believe I'll have more impact doing what I'm doing now. Yep, I tell it how it is and I believe I'll have more impact doing what I'm doing now.
Speaker 1:Live Life Build I firmly believe will be the number one community coaching program for builders in the industry. Don't get me wrong. I think HIA, master Builders, our licensing bodies, they all have their place, but when it comes to actually a community and an education program, a mentoring program, a coaching program for builders, there is nothing that comes close to live life build well, that's why I'm here, because I think I was mentioning the message, like I've been ironing off live, life build for a while.
Speaker 2:Not that I don't have the money, not that I'm too busy, but it just hasn't been the right moment for me to strike that, because I've just got to work myself out, I've got to sort my own problems out and then go all right, I'm ready to take this on. So I'm kind of here to cut through the bullshit, to make sure you're a real person before I make that transaction and sign up to the course. That it's a. It's a tried and tested real thing and I think that if we could push this kind of out to people, so Live Life Build is not like it started.
Speaker 1:It was a lot more like we have everything in Live Life Build, like we basically have a handbook for you to run a successful, sustainable, profitable building business. Everything Like, honestly, like we have the system. We've spent over half a million dollars now building a systems library that I firmly believe like. So it starts at your inquiry handling, inquiry, goes right through every single admin staff, marketing, hr, all your on-site management, all your handout, everything. And it is done in a way that's so easy to use and implement. And I firmly believe that, even if you have never been a builder or built a house before, if you start with the very first system and you follow every single step and you go all through every single system right to the end, not only will you be able to build a great house, you will build a great relationship with your client, you'll be successful, you'll make money, but and then, on top of that, you will build a great relationship with your client, you'll be successful.
Speaker 1:You'll make money, Yep, but and then on top of that, hundreds of templates, documents, PDFs, like we have an enormous amount of stuff. No one can come close to what Live Life Build is Yep, I guarantee it. But we know from my experience, Amelia's experience and the hundreds of members that we've had and still have it's all worth nothing if you're not in the right place yourself. So that's why We've got seven other mentors in the business now. We have leadership experts, mindset experts, mental health and well-being systems and processes. We do breathwork and exercise, and so we're the real deal. We're not just I guess it's how do we?
Speaker 2:we get people to sign up for a platform like this before they fail, before they're near rock bottom and they think there's no way out? How do we make this a cultural change where it's like you become a, you finish your apprenticeship, become a builder, and and then it's like, well, this is one of the. The ways that you've got to run a successful business is to do this. Yeah, this kind of thing.
Speaker 1:That's kind of the thing with everything we do is it's not our way the highway. Yeah, everything we do is done in a way that you can take away and you can implement to suit your personality, your lifestyle, the type of business you want to have, the type of clients you want to attract. But look, I, I get it. It's not. I'm not. I'm not a salesman. I'm not going to sit here and tell every the 180 odd thousand builders there are in Australia that they need to get on board with Live Life Build, even though that'd be incredible.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And look, I can honestly sit here and tell you, like Live, life Build, it's a business and a business has to make money. I'm not doing this for the money. Yep, I can see that in your eyes. I don't need the money. Yep, I can see that in your eyes. I don't need the money from those businesses. My building businesses makes money. We've got other investments that make money. Yeah, but at the end of the day, live, like Build is a business and it's got to make money to survive and to thrive and to be a legacy.
Speaker 1:This podcast, like telling stories being the real deal, being vulnerable, that is how we're going to change this industry. Builders, tradies, designers, architects, like anybody out there, homo, like whoever's in this industry, if you're out there, don't think that you're on your own. Yeah, like, don't be afraid to be vulnerable, don't be afraid to ask questions. Like one of my mottos is no question is a silly question. And look, I see it in my own team now, like my apprentices and my carpenters, my supervisor and my clients. Like it's people find it's hard to break those barriers and I'm definitely I don't push stuff on people, so people have to make their own decision. Like, but a few things, I guess to start wrapping it it up, because we could definitely go all day. If what you're doing now is not getting you the life that you want to have, fucking do something about it. Yep, like you are the only person that can do anything about it. Stop blaming everybody else, stop making excuses and do something.
Speaker 2:Look and I don't care whether you sign up to live life, build or somebody else in the industry Well, you've got a lot of platforms where you share free content, Like everything I know about you and everything I've learned. There's been no exchange whatsoever between me and you and it's like priceless the advice that I've got. So you don't necessarily need to be in that state, you don't have to, I don't have to buy anything from you.
Speaker 1:I've just got to listen to what you've got to say and then my uh, probably my number one advice, and I think it's something we've sort of touched on a little bit everybody at every level, doesn't matter whether you're worth ten dollars, hundred dollars, hundred million dollars, everybody at every level needs some sort of mentor or coach or community, because if, like we've touched on earlier, it's who you hang around, uh, so you, you have to have a community. Whether it's a free community, nine times out of ten in a free community you're not going to get the advice. It's going to take you to where you want to be. You have to pay money to get surrounded by people like-minded that allow you to feel in a safe space, which is what we're incredibly proud of. With live life bill, like, the vulnerability in our community, mate, is off the charts and, as you know from my story, like, once you're in a position where you feel safe enough to be vulnerable, that's where the floodgates open. Yeah, that's when you really start to take shit in and learn shit and connect with people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but if I can give any advice to people, like, before you sign up to anybody coaches, mentors, whoever it may be do your homework. Like I thought I did homework when I was trying people, but I wish I had known more about their background. Like, like your comment about showing me your balance sheet first. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:You should be able to put runs on the board as a coach, like you know, like, and you've got your. You've explained, you've got runs on the board. You've literally explained, then, exactly how your business has flowed. But some of these fake people you kind of like.
Speaker 1:I see so many people sorry to cut you off, but this is something that I'm actually really worried about. I feel like, especially in the last six to 12 months, and right now there is so many builders, tradies, random people seeing an opening in our market, seeing that our industry needs help and starting these coaching, mentoring, business and communities and things and they might have had a couple of years success or they might have had a great client.
Speaker 1:Like they just don't have the runs on the board. Yeah, like I'm a firm believer now, after everything that I've been through a builder especially like you need more than four or five years success to be a successful builder. Definitely. You might only do fucking three, four jobs a year. So in four years you've done whatever eight, 10, 12 jobs and you think you're an expert. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:I think that's the big problem with the industry at the moment is everyone's becoming a builder. You think you're a builder at 25, you can take on the world? Well, really, no, you're not. Yeah, you know like you need to get the runs on the board and to to go out and start these communities. You need to be genuine. So and that's it's hard.
Speaker 1:So yeah, my, my advice is definitely do your homework, like, ask them like, oh, like. So I'd probably have to check a few of these numbers, make sure sure they're accurate. But, like, off the top of my head, being in business like DPS construction has been I think it's 18 or 19 years now Obviously the first half of that was shit but like we got through, like we haven't failed, we haven't gone bankrupt. Like we've made it through and now we are absolutely kicking goals, getting close or over $150 million worth of completed work. I couldn't even tell you the number of clients Like we would be. We would have to be pushing, I would say, somewhere between 150 and 200 completed projects. Like we've got the runs on the board.
Speaker 1:And it's only kind of halfway through this journey that you really realize you're running a shit show and you need to sort it out and yeah well, well, yeah, but look, I guess the other thing to give people confidence, like we've talked about some years through this podcast today, if you take it from when I had that turning point to now, like nine years, and then three of those years were me looking for help, yeah, so you take that out, that's six years.
Speaker 1:And then three of those years were me looking for help. So you take that out. That's six years. Six years is all it's taken me to get my shit into order reinvest in property, create passive incomes, build the business back up Like it's. It's when you get the right advice and the right systems and processes um you hang around the right people. Man like you honestly can have whatever you want.
Speaker 2:That's good. Well, we'll start wrapping it up. A couple of things just to close off. I hope this conversation gets out there. It needs to be, there needs to be more conversations like this and hopefully it sparks a lot of people to sit down and talk to people that are their mentors. You know, because they got to what is it? Never meet your mentor. You know like cause you could be disappointed.
Speaker 2:And I'm not disappointed, I'll tell you, you're the real deal, dwayne, and it's good to meet and sit and chat with you and let us know if you want Lewis back. I think he could become a co-host, maybe a new career. And then just one last question that I've got for you is what's Dwayne Pierce's definition of success? Freedom, freedom, yep, yep, freedom. Success is freedom, freedom, that's it, freedom yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, look I again, mate. We could go all day, and this is another. I used to chase the money. I think that was probably one of my biggest battles, because of what I can we go back a bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, one of my biggest battles, uh, because of what I actually? Can we go back?
Speaker 2:a bit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, we can go back.
Speaker 1:So I've talked about I've talked about my journey at the trust factory. I've talked about what I've seen my old boy go through, talked about what I've seen my my two bosses go through. I've talked about my own experience. I've talked about all the builders that reach out to me now. I've talked about the builders at those seminars. The common thing is this industry will fucking chew you up and spit you out if you do everything the way that you've been shown or the way that, like you don't reach out and get help. So we've got everyone's got to reach out and get help, but everything that I'm doing is because I don't want to see people go through the shit that I've been through.
Speaker 1:And so freedom like I used to chase the money and that was like I saw my I still see my old man doing it. I saw my bosses do it, and so the goal was always more turnover. More turnover is supposed to equal more money. Like more money, you can have more cars, you have a bigger house, all that shit. And I I pushed for the money like we talked about it how I bought the boat, I bought the f truck, I bought rental properties and like the banks were giving me money like, and all that did was get me into trouble.
Speaker 1:And even even now, like I get people reach out to me and say to me, like when I say, say what's your, why it's the money, it shouldn't be about the money. And for a long time I could never give people an answer. Like they used to say, well, what's yours? And I'm not sure you need the money to be able to do things, but for me it's experiences. So, yes, I need money to have experiences, but my drive is I want to have the experiences that I want to have, and whether that's take the kids to school, pick them up early, whether it's take them on incredible family holidays, whether it's like I don't want to be that person that has to save up to go and have a family holiday and then be on that holiday and my kids say to me, oh, dad, let's do that, yeah. And I'm like, oh, fuck, like, yeah, I can't afford that.
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, you want to do what?
Speaker 1:you want to do I want to do what I want to do and when I do it I don't want to have the stress of fuck, I got to get, got to get back to work. Oh shit, are we going to win that next job? Yeah, so structure and I think it's been good for my ADHD as well Like having structure, like knowing what structure to have and systems and processes, has really helped with all of that. So being able to do forecast now, like we do planning now, like we forecast jobs, we do financial planning, camille and I sit down and figure out what our next goals are. How much money do we need? How are we going to get that money? Like yep, it's. And well, you touched on debt earlier on and back in the day, debt became my like. It was, it was my like. It killed me, it was a bullet, like, yeah, because I ended up with too much of it.
Speaker 2:I didn't understand it I didn't understand money, whereas now. Well, that's kind of another question we've got here. I know you mentioned before that you. There might be some something else coming out on it, but I think it's a very big overlooked in our industry is no one talks about it on site. It should be talked about tradies, everything um the retirement plan investing, like what's what's, where do you, where do you stand on that? Just briefly, like where's that?
Speaker 1:well again, mate, I was just a typical trade. He never had super, never, never thought about the future, whereas and I think, if most trades and builders are just living week to like, paycheck to paycheck, and when you're, when you're in that mindset, that mentality, that lifestyle, you know why would you be thinking about?
Speaker 2:you're not thinking. You're gonna make it that because you're struggling to pay for it.
Speaker 1:Now. Yeah, um, yeah, whereas now I don't know, that really changed for me really when I turned 40. Like camille and I um have a self-managed super fund. We've had it for a while, we've got some shares, property and stuff there. But when I turned to 40, I'm like, fuck this, I've got to ramp this up.
Speaker 2:So I think that'd be good for another episode, like I think people get a lot of value out of that because it's just not talked about on any platform. You can't find, um, retirement, super, those things for for, specifically for builders and tradies. I think that would be just something that I'd like to hear from you, because I can imagine that you've done shit loads of research on it and you've you know, and just kind of Well, I don't do I surround myself with right people.
Speaker 1:Like we've talked a lot about people. So, when we touched on earlier about what's my circle, I have multiple circles now. So, like I've got business mates that influence me and I can run ideas by and vice versa, yeah, I influence me and I can run ideas by, and vice versa. Yeah, I've got financial advisor, financial broker, like another circle there. Like, but it's all planning, like it's all thinking ahead, like I've weaseled my way into one of those circles.
Speaker 1:I reckon which one am I in? No, but it's. I mean, look, I honestly can't thank you enough for putting your hand up and coming on, because it's honestly been like a therapy session for me today. I've talked about some shit that I haven't talked about in a long time or to anybody, and it'll be interesting to see the outcome of that once it gets posted. It is what it is, it's out there now yeah.
Speaker 2:I appreciate the honesty and just the rawness and the realness of it all. And yeah, like I said, I didn't really have any expectations on today because I didn't want to be disappointed, but, um, I definitely not and it's just it's been, it's been yeah, awesome yeah is that?
Speaker 1:is that like I? I got quite a lot of questions as well. Um, and look, if I didn't give my questions, but look, we can tee up another one. Um, we're actually coming down to sydney in a little bit. We might be able to do one down there with you.
Speaker 2:I reckon, yeah, I reckon that'd be great because there's a couple things I didn't touch on as well, just yeah. So there's definitely and there's, there's a whole bunch in my inbox I didn't actually get to open, yeah, because it was just kind of, um, yeah, too much, too much to go through. So, yeah, I've had more followers now than ever before, so everyone, keep them coming, because when we meet up next, um, yeah, I'll, I'll have a whole nother bunch of questions for you yeah, well, look, mate, we'll wrap it up.
Speaker 1:I really appreciate you doing it. Um, look, if you're listening to this, you like what's happened today's podcast or um, even I don't know about you, lewis, but we've talked about several times and I've actually put it out there I would love builders and traders to come and sit in the chair and, like coach them. Yeah, like in a podcast, yep, and no one's put their hand up. Like, come and get a free session. We'll talk through some shit, but yeah, for sure. Um, look, let us know what you want to hear, what you like. If you like this podcast today, let us know if you want to hear what you like. If you like this podcast today, let us know. If you want to get Lewis back again and dive deeper, we'll keep it going. But, look like, follow, comment, subscribe all those things, because that helps us get in front of more people, which helps us bring better people to you, better podcasts, and helps us continue to make this Australia's number one construction podcast. Look forward to seeing you on the next one.
Speaker 2:Are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy life? Then head over to livelikebuildcom forward. Slash, elevate to get started.
Speaker 1:Everything discussed during the level up podcast with me, duane pierce, is based solely on my own personal experiences and those experiences of my guests. The information, opinions and recommendations presented in this podcast are for general information only, and any reliance on the information provided in this podcast is done at your own risk. We recommend that you obtain your own professional advice in respect to the topics discussed during this podcast.