The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
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.
The "Level Up" with Duayne Pearce Podcast
How I Took Ownership for my F$#k Ups and Kept Moving Forward.
#152 Michael O'Sullivan (Sully) shares his powerful journey from near-burnout to recovery, revealing how community support and business education transformed his building career after hitting rock bottom.
check out MCO Building Services here...
http://www.mcobuildingservices.com.au/
Check out Duayne's other projects here...
Live Life Build
livelifebuild.com
D Pearce Constructions
dpearceconstructions.com.au
QuoteEaze
quoteeaze.com/Free-Offer.html
#builder #construction #building
Check out the Duayne Pearce website here...
https://duaynepearce.com/
Amelia going to me challenging me, which is great. I love it. Do you want to be a builder? And I was. I didn't even take a second. I was like I love the challenge and that was like I've got to keep going with this. I just I do love being a builder. I love the challenge of it and I think you know having challenges good and grit and pushing through stuff. And if I hadn't found you a podcast, you know I don't think I would still be balanced.
Speaker 2:Cheers, mate. G'day guys, welcome back to another episode of Level Up. We are back in the shed this afternoon for another cracking episode with a guy that I've been trying to get on here for a very long time. He's been pretty nervous, but we finally locked him down and got him sitting in the seat. So a big warm welcome to Sully, or Michael Sully as everyone calls you. Sully from MCA Builders. How are you, buddy? Good, good.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just a little bit nervous, but we're getting there.
Speaker 2:You'll get there, mate. You've got a good story to tell, so I'm super pleased that you've taken the time to come and have a chat today. So sully is another live life build member. He's part of our elevate program. I believe you've got a really good story to tell, um, so I'm hoping you you're keen to open up and share. Share it, because the other thing that I hope you're open to sharing is how far you've come in the last two years, because I was trying to. I was thinking about today how long it's been since I've you signed up to live life build, and it's two years yeah, it's like just on two years ago, a few weeks ago yeah, yeah, um, and like your turnaround's pretty cool.
Speaker 2:I know you're very humble, you don't put it out there, but your turnaround's been pretty significant. Still a lot of work to do yeah, we've all got.
Speaker 1:Every day's a school day.
Speaker 2:We've all got to keep learning but we'll talk about where you come from and how you got in the industry later. But, like, take us back to two bit over two years ago, like, and where you're at, where your headspace was at before you reached out well, two years ago I was not in a good headspace.
Speaker 1:I was, yeah, I was, I was cooked, I was, I was trying to find a way out of the industry. Basically, I'd just come off the end of a job that was 10 times bigger than we'd ever done through COVID and that basically lost me a lot of money and struggled through that and then had a lot of problems with the client at the end of that, and that was a lot of my own doing. I let myself get in fair positions, um, and then, yeah, I was trying to sort out a master bill was the way to get, get through this defects with his clients and all this client and um, and he was just, yeah, he was doing everything he could, just not to pay us and finding everything he could find basically to justify why you didn't want to pay us. Basically, um, and that was causing me a lot of stress and um, I think I'd I'd reached out. Uh, I was talking back, basically forwards with um, the tech, tech, talk people at master builders and um, they, they were giving me some advice here and there and I was talking their lawyers and then I had engaged a lawyer and um, yeah, a private lawyer through Masterbills, but independent.
Speaker 1:And then, I think, tony Mitchell from Masterbills, I was talking to him one day and he just said to me he goes oh, and how are you doing for all this process? And I just broke down, I was just I, I was just I don't, I didn't know how bad I was, and I was, I was cooked, I was just stressed and eyeballs and and I was just, yeah, I was in tears just on the phone with Tony and yeah, it was. It was sort of like shit, I'm not right, and I think I was just saying before to Shay that you know, it's just, you don't know, I think sometimes you're not right and I think that's. Um, I think I was just saying before to Shay that you know, it's just, you don't know, I think sometimes you're not right and I think that's. I think I'm probably more aware of it. I think if it happened again, but yeah, I was in a really bad spot.
Speaker 2:It's a hard industry, isn't it? Oh?
Speaker 1:yeah.
Speaker 2:When you don't know what you don't know, it really sucks the life out of you. Yeah, don't know it. It really sucks the life out of you. Yeah, I feel like there's so many people coming into the space now of trying to mentor and coach and help the industry that haven't lived it. Yeah, and I don't know. I like I don't know. I've been through similar to what you've been through.
Speaker 1:I think it's why I resonate with you, because you've been there, you've been in the dumps, you've lost almost everything and bounced back.
Speaker 2:It's hard to explain, isn't it? Unless you've actually done it and been through it and felt it. People don't understand. It really does suck the life out of you.
Speaker 1:That was the first time in my life I reached out to get counselling. Tony put me on to um mates in construction I didn't know tx back then. Actually, um, and they were really good. They're just on phone counseling, uh, once a week, I think from memory, yeah, for a few months, and that was just um the rebuild from there, I suppose. But I but I was, yeah, I was cooked. I was like I'd be reading through in the books to the kids at bedtime and I'd be reading and I would just stop. I didn't know I'd stopped and my wife would be like Sally, what are you doing? Like I can't read him? I was, my mind was, I was so, was so stressed yeah my mind was somewhere else.
Speaker 1:I was trying to read a book, but I couldn't even concentrate on that. I was. I was absolutely fried so because you made.
Speaker 2:One reason I'm really proud of you is because you, like I, get people every single day reach out um, whether it's just on instagram or um email like they. They find my email through my building business and send me an email or whatever way it comes through Live Life Build. There's a lot of people going through what you've been through but they do nothing about it. They have a chart. You give them some solutions and they just don't take that next step. You took that next step. You signed up to Elevate and I remember even in the early days of Elevate, when we first met face-to-face, you were still struggling. I know.
Speaker 2:It was hard to get two words out of you. You didn't really know where to start or what to do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, I'm pretty shy generally, but I remember we met up. I think it was after Nathan from down in Sydney came up for a podcast. We met up and I just joined up, I think a week before, two weeks before that.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, nathan from Newfound, yeah, newfound, we went out to dinner.
Speaker 1:I remember walking down there on the story bridge there on the new area there, and I was just walking around trying to find some faces, like your face, because I didn't know. We were roughly at this huge barrier down there and I was just walking around trying to go. I was probably walking around for 10-15 minutes like geez, I feel like an idiot here. I'm trying to find a face or two that I know. And then I managed to see I think it was Nathan or Brett. I'm trying to find a face or two that I know. And then I managed to see I think it was Nathan or Brett in those ones. And yeah, and that was.
Speaker 1:I think I talked to Nathan right then and there and he said, oh, you know, he's sort of explained a little bit while I was in Live, life Build and he just said you're in the right place now. And yeah, he was 100% right. Like you just got the community of great humans, like just, yeah, awesome people, like I don't think you'll find a better bunch of people and not just saying it because it's my business, but I just, I just don't, I don't know like the community we've created just unbelievable everyone's so willing to help each other, because I think we've all been there, we're all, we've all got the same stories, just on different times and different, slightly different versions.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so take us back a little bit more before that all happened. Like why? Because I know you've you've taken a lot of ownership for what happened. From what I've seen over the last two years, like, how did you end up in that position?
Speaker 1:I was probably trying to be the nice guy. I was trying to please everyone and to my detriment. I was just trying to keep everyone else happy. Trying to be the nice guy in business, that will kill you. Yeah, I was try not to upset anyone and put myself in bad positions and and yeah, didn't realize how bad it was until, I guess, people turned the fork on me and that's when, yeah, I found myself in trouble so it was like a lot of things, like not choosing the right client, not understanding your, not understanding your numbers as good as you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, not executing my contracts, good enough, yeah, I was doing variations and stuff, but I wasn't doing every single variation. I was probably just definitely, definitely, just, you know, kept doing this and then, yeah, hopefully get some money back for it later on. I probably did about 89%, so it wasn't too bad, but I was just under the pump. It was me, me, and then I had five of us and I was trying to do and that was through COVID I was on site One day. I was on site and it was just me and all the subbies because I had guys out with COVID and it was like I think back then it was just me and my all, my all the subbies because I had guys out with covid and it was like I think back then it was like 10 days yet to disappear from work.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was just me trying to do a two million to two million odd job, pretty much by myself, um, and then trying to do all the office work at night time and, yeah, just just under a lot, and then had a very good you know an architect who was very good at um, working me over um, and I was just I was. I didn't feel I was, I was a professional and I was. I was getting screwed over by very, two, very good professional people um do you think that had a lot to do with you?
Speaker 2:like you said you, it was 10 times your biggest job. Do you think you went too big?
Speaker 1:too quick. Oh yeah, sure, 100. I love a challenge, um, and I'll fight to death um for a challenge. But yeah, I, I definitely wasn't. I didn't have the business built up, built to where it needed to be, to handle that. I needed office staff. I needed I a supervisor. I needed probably another two or three chippies. It was really struggling to find people. To be honest, I'm pretty shit at hiring people. I'd just no, I'll be all right, I'll do it. I'll just work Saturdays. I'll work Sundays, I'll get the job done.
Speaker 2:That's what most of the industry does. I was just head down bum up. Days I work, some days I have to, I'll get the job done.
Speaker 1:Um, it's what most of the industry does and I was just head down, bum up and you know, yeah, oh, and when we handed that job over, I was I was in tears because it was just like, fuck, we did it, got the client in the house for christmas. I was all I wanted to do was get them in for christmas and give them the christmas they wanted. And got them in there and I was just like, all right, I did it. Then I went, I took a whole month off. My wife goes no, take a whole month off, you're buggered.
Speaker 1:Usually you take two or three weeks off and I was, like you know, knackered and came back and the problems just grew from there with the defects that we had to do. We were there and we were doing them and we were working through them nicely with our trades and stuff. Every time we finish a defects, he'd just throw us another 20. So it was just like, okay, so you fix them and then throw us another 20 and it was just like okay. After about six months of going backwards and forwards, it was like, yeah, this is, this is, um, this is, this is the way it's going to go.
Speaker 2:There's no, there's no end to this, because you, you didn't have a handover process and no, yeah, yeah look, we did have the architect did go through and do a defects right before Christmas.
Speaker 1:So we had a good list to work through because we were rushing. We've been through like three different painting crews because we just couldn't get people in sight, so it was just the painting was probably one of the worst ones out of all of them and yeah, I fully admitted the painting was great and took accountability for that and and we were and fixing everything we could, um, but yeah, it was just. Yeah, my, my handover process was just rushing to get into christmas and get the clients in there and you let him move in without paying the final bill yeah, well, it was just a bit of him.
Speaker 1:He was moving in, he knew where we were hiding the key each night and he was, um, he was in there with his family and and then things were good. Then he was, we were working together, help, yeah, he was, he was helping us and he was happy. He knew the construction. He was not in a good shape. He knew. He basically knows prices have gone up by 35 through through that job. You know, he was understanding. But later on it just yeah, turned to shit, turned to shit, spent a fortune on lawyers and then I just, you know, we come to a resolution, right, well, it took me almost 12 months to finalise that and, yeah, that was just through the lawyers and QVCC, a mediation through Qb, qbcc. My lawyer didn't want me to settle. He, he just said no, look, you're in a really good position here and I was like for my mental health, I was just like I need out I didn't I don't, I need, I didn't go for another christmas without my plate.
Speaker 1:So he just, he, he, he basically, um, offered to take, pay us a certain amount of money and we're like get this prick out of my life and move on to I remember you talking to me about that and I think it was a big move, like sometimes you just got to cut your losses and move on, I just need that in my life I was.
Speaker 1:I was like oh yeah, I've got young kids I don't want to be stressed for the next six months and potentially going through two years of court and spending. You know, yeah, possibly could have won everything, but possibly could have spent everything on Lewis yeah so, yeah, I didn't want that stress and I didn't.
Speaker 1:I didn't need that. I was really mentally struggling, so it was just the best thing I could do just move on and learn from it, learn from your stakes and try and grow from there and, um, take ownership, take ownership. And yeah, but I was I. I was talking to master builders how do I get it like the only? I was trying to find out how I get out of this because I was trapped, like I had a job that I'm still liable for seven years and I I was like, and I was like I said to master bills, if I for seven years.
Speaker 1:And I was like I said to my spouse, if I just close the business down, I was just like I just want to close the business down, I'm done. And they're like you can close the business down, but you're still liable personally. So I could have closed the business down. It doesn't really matter, I'm still liable as the director. So I felt completely trapped and it was. It was a good place, it was a good position to be in, it was, um, he can. When you can't see a way out, it's pretty tough so it's.
Speaker 2:I think it's an important story to share, because there's a lot of people in the industry be dealing with this right now, like um, when we release this podcast. But, um, and I'm really proud of you for speaking out about it because it'll definitely help a lot of people. Uh, before we move into all the good stuff, like take us back like, how'd you get in the industry? Like, have you always wanted to be a chippy builder?
Speaker 1:um. Straight from school I went uh, oh yeah, I grew up in new zealand, spent first 25 years in new zealand, um, so I went to what called tafe over there. It was polytech, but tafe, tafe over over here. Um did a six months course there. Didn't really know what I wanted to do, um, and yeah, just did that. And um, oh, my teacher there he said you know, basically he said to me that you're my success story. You've gone from a 17-year-old, 18-year-old who couldn't do anything, couldn't read a tape type thing, to after six months was doing really well. I was like maybe I should kick. Yeah, I should keep gas going.
Speaker 2:So why did you do an apprenticeship in carpentry? Like is that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so yeah I went.
Speaker 2:Why yeah, like is it something you wanted to do, or just that?
Speaker 1:was it? Yeah, I think I kind of like woodwork stuff at school and that kind of stuff. And, yeah, my man he's a sheep and beef farmer in New Zealand, so we were always on the farm and fencing and doing shit on the farm, getting up to mischief. So, yeah, I was always loving outdoors. I can't sit at a desk for more than an hour, which I've always been saying. I'm slightly better these days, but I really struggle to sit down.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, no, I just just like the outdoors and and just, yeah, just I guess, just fell into it, I guess, and um, that was late 99, um and um, yeah, I started my apprenticeship I think early 2000, so, um, and then, um, yeah, four years, and um, that was that was for a big change in new zealand, in the building. That's when they brought in the leaking syndrome. Stuff came in around that, oh, just, probably in the end of my apprenticeship, so that was when they all went um the cavity system and and bit of wraps and that kind of stuff, like like you guys are doing here now.
Speaker 1:25 years later yeah, 20 years later, probably realistically, um, which is quite interesting.
Speaker 2:I've, I've, I've forgotten a lot, a lot of that, because I've been, I've been building, I've been building new zealand for since I know, and so it's crazy, isn't it, that they, like other, so many other parts of the world, have been through all the condensation, the mold, the leaky houses, and yet australia is literally well, it's not even, it's not even in yet.
Speaker 1:No, that's right, yeah, it's just. You've just done a lot more down south, I suppose, and obviously you're starting to do a lot up here, which is great. I do renovation, so I haven't figured out how I do that yet it's hard when you're not doing a whole house.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's, that's why yeah, I make sure we insulate properly and I think insulation is. I've said to clients if you want to spend some money, spend, spend on insulation, do that properly, because that's the cheapest thing I think you can do a property, make it function yeah, it's hard, but when you're putting insulation in walls that haven't got a proper wrap, or or even a wrap on them like we, um, we've made a like.
Speaker 2:Our standard now is if we're doing a renovation or extension, um, like a major renovation or extension, then we we tell the client the only way we'll do the job is if we strip the house like and do it properly like you've got to put your wrap on, I think I think they would like I.
Speaker 1:I was involved in that in new zealand back then, but I think that's what they were doing a lot of like late, probably later on, after I was sort of left. You see the you know. I don't know if you've been over there, but you'll see a construction, yeah, a construction site with a huge scaffold, but it's like a big dome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's um. I'd even, you know, seven, eight years ago I went over so in auckland I was like how's that? And then I was like, oh, so that's probably a leaky building syndrome. And yeah, just doing that to get the work done.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they put the big igloo over it, similar to what they do in Europe, and then the clients can still live in the house and they strip all the outside and get the work done.
Speaker 1:I think it's a great idea, yeah, yeah, I don't know if it works that well. With the storms here, I'd be interested. It's, it's, I don't know how, I don't know if it works that well. The storms, yeah, but being interested in someone see one of those fly away. I don't know how they hold them down, but I guess it's been things possible, isn't it?
Speaker 2:yeah, and then? So what? You finished your apprenticeship and then you moved over here um, yeah.
Speaker 1:So I finished my apprenticeship uh, what was that? Oh three, oh four, um was really dead set on doing an oe, um and um. Next thing I was a dad, um then had planned all that, um. So I was a young dad, um, and I was still itching, itching to do an oe. Oh, yeah, my mom, what's oe? Uh, are we or it's what? Somebody's saying? It's overseas experience. Yeah, live overseas. Yeah, usually uk um type thing, what we call in New Zealand an OE. So, yeah, my mum was born in the UK so she was a 10-pound pond that came to New Zealand so I had a British passport through her. So I actually ended up going over to work in London. I just really wanted to sort of experience working in a different country as a builder and a chippy, before or after you had your child, after, after. I waited till his his first birthday and I went for about six months. Um, did I? Um?
Speaker 1:on your own yeah, yeah, I wasn't, wasn't with my partner at the time. It was, um, yeah, tricky one, um. So, yeah, I, I just I just needed to get out of my system. All I wanted to do was travel and experience other countries and whatnot. So I did a contigy and worked in London probably only about three or four months, but traveled for about six months, I suppose, on and off through that time.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And then came back from there and, uh, what was that? Oh, oh, five later, five, probably six, um, seeing all these images of, uh, the aussies and that that I met over there and traveling, you know, on beaches, sunny beaches, and here we were working in london. It was, you know, daylight at 8 am. You didn't put the milk in the fridge on site, it was just it was dark by four o'clock. Jesus boy, yeah. So I think sometime in December I was like, yeah, I'm going back.
Speaker 2:It's. Oh mate, I've never noticed it before. I'm really struggling this winter, like it's really. The last three weeks has just really hit me. I can't. I'm really struggling this winter. The last three weeks has just really hit me. I'm not motivated. I'm struggling to get up in the dark. I'm hating that it's dark in the afternoon. I can't play outside with the kids and the dog. I don't know how they do it over there.
Speaker 1:Yeah look, being brought up in New Zealand, we were probably about 7 o'clock, we'd start work at 7 o'clock usually. Sometimes we'd have to wait until 7. Of it was probably about 7 o'clock, we'd start work at 7 o'clock usually. Sometimes we have to wait till 7.30, sometimes till it was light enough, and usually by sort of probably depends on where you are in the country. New Zealand's quite a long country, so you know, you could have.
Speaker 1:You know, in summertime it's light till 10.30, down the bottom, 10.30, 11 o'clock and then you, um, yeah, up where we're on from which is, um, you know, to our south auckland in the work today, um, it's yeah, nine o'clock, so I think it was in the summertime, but wintertime it's probably five ish and yeah, so june, yeah, um, but you know, I love winters. I, I actually love winters here. Obviously there's a few days you go, oh, she's a bit cold, but no, I, I think you, I think anyone who doesn't, he's not from queensland or from southern states, whatever, probably live in queensland for the winters it's not so much the cold, it's just, it's just it's a dark.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's the darkness like and not seeing the nice bright sunshine it is like you get up at yeah well, I know you get up pretty early, about five usually, and it's just so dark at the moment until probably 6 now, isn't it really?
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, this morning I pulled up at a job at Habas 6 and it was still cloudy and dark and miserable.
Speaker 1:I'll be jumping my plunge pool at 6 am.
Speaker 2:Very good, you've got your own ice bath now.
Speaker 1:By plunge pool, I just mean plunge ball wind stored up, probably up the coast.
Speaker 1:I've been jumping there around a quarter a half-hour, five, quarter six, usually much to my guys that I work with. They're like, what are you doing? But I think I only jump on that bad wagon. Probably only about a month or so, a few months ago now, I started doing it. But I'll get really when I get really cold. My body gets really itchy when it warms up. I don't know if that's something doing my skin or something and I've struggled with doing that. But I think now it's having the cold showers, like you know you say to do, and I'm doing it because I just just you wake up, you're obviously tired still, you haven't probably slept as good as you should be and you just just that mineral tool in the shower just wipes that all away and you just like you feel alive. Good start to the day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just. Yeah, it doesn't seem to. I know. I think it's maybe a mental thing as well, maybe it's just I don't seem to get as itchy as I used to get. I don't know, some reason.
Speaker 2:Your thing as well. Maybe it's just I don't seem to get as itchy as I used to get, I don't know some reason. So your skin's getting more hydrated, mate, probably, yeah, probably, um, hot water, warm water, hot water, like it it takes all the goodness out of our skin, like cool water, like just keeps. Like you think about, you have a a lot of time when you have a hot shower. You a lot of people get itchy all the time. It's because it's dehydrating you. You're probably right, yeah, but um, I'm definitely no expert, but I do the same. I for a lot, like if I um, I've well, I've hardly had hot showers um, for a long time, but now, on the odd occasion I have a hot shower, I itch for a couple hours interesting, yeah, well, yeah, I'll get a real itchy neck around here in summertime.
Speaker 1:I don't know if it's due to the sunscreen and that and the sweat, and I've noticed a little bit through the winter too, which is unusual.
Speaker 2:But yeah, I should be an expert on that, because the things we talk about on this podcast ain't itchy skin yeah um, so yeah, when did so? When? At what point did you end up in australia and becoming a builder?
Speaker 1:um, so I went back to new zealand. Um, you know I want to be obviously spend a bit more time with my young son. Then um and um ended up working back for the same company I worked, did my apprenticeship with yeah, I didn't really leave them really, I just sort of went on a sabbatical. I suppose um and um, we end up. The last job I did for them was 06, 07 was a pretty cool job working on Mount Rupai, which is a big volcano and sort of ski fields there in the North Island and we actually got the contract to build the big new Heinen Express chairlift and I was given the bottom terminal to build as my job. Um, and another, another young guy actually who lived, actually grew up down the road from me he got to give the top job, um, the hot the top top terminal for the building, building for the new chairlift.
Speaker 1:Yeah and um, that was, uh, that was a helicopter to work every day, which was pretty cool. Um, yeah, or a cheer lift. So it was we. We got basically given, you know, thousand dollar jackets and pants and every day we go to work with seven layers on. This is the middle of summer but we were working at, we were building the highest, which is pretty cool, and um about two, I think it's around 2400 meters, so not not crazy high, but high enough where the choppers were struggling to get gear up yeah everything.
Speaker 1:everything came up pretty much that, pretty much by chopper, um, a little bit on the cheerleaf and a little bit diggers or something might bring it. But that was a very slow process, very, very slow process. And the normal choppers they could carry about 900 kgs of gear. So any cronkering we'd do they'd be like a big hopper and I think I can't remember it might be half a cube. No, maybe half a cube, maybe a little bit less 15 years ago now, a bit more.
Speaker 2:That's a pretty cool experience it was unreal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I look back and I just, yeah, it was, that was. Yeah, that was probably the hole in my career. I'd say, um, like we, we were above. We were above the clouds a lot of time, like the clouds would be down low below us and we'd just be like blue, blue skies. We could see mount taranaki, which is, I know, a few hundred kilometers away. Probably, yeah, we could see for blue, yeah hundreds of kilometers.
Speaker 1:It was amazing, and we, we had big russian hay cops that were coming. I think that well, they told us at the time we were the first to lift precast like concrete panels off a chopper. Yeah, so we were choppering these. I think the maximum we could do on this big russian helicopter was three and a half tons um all right and um, we were placing those.
Speaker 1:So the chop was coming in, placing, dropping, placing them in position on the building, um, yeah, big steel, steel and concrete precast building. Um and um, that's what what there's, one day we're doing it and, um, cloud comes in really quick. After that, while you don't really see the cloud coming, it just comes in. And I just look, look, lifting this panel down, and I was talking to the chopper on the radio, just get a position in it. And I look up and I couldn't see the chopper. It was just going in the clouds.
Speaker 1:I could see the chain coming out of the clouds with a big concrete slab and, uh, I was like, oh shit, what do we do here? And so, um, I only had like walkie-talkie. I got a massive chopper above me, the, the proper hit, the proper headset one, the go on the bottom of the top soon, we had that so he could hear and talk to them and he could hear better. I just had a normal walkie-talkie, that's all he gave me. So I couldn't hear a thing they were saying. So I had to run into the site shed and try and hear what they wanted to do, because they were just hovering and they can't see a thing.
Speaker 1:They wouldn't be able to see more than a couple of meters and they're in a massive chopper, so they wouldn't, they wouldn't be packing it and um, and they probably hovered there for probably 10 minutes or so and um, I managed to get you know, talk to them on the radio backs and forwards, and and we just dropped this precast panel, basically placed it on the ground, knew we weren't going to get in position. I thought we'll just have to get digger to sort out later on or something, and luckily it wasn't a big one, it was only it was a small size panel and um, we just unhitched the chopper and um, basically he hovered there for another 10 minutes or so and then he slowly moved, it sort of got you see the light coming through a little bit, you know the blue sky a little bit, and he managed to chop her out and and get down, but it was um, it was interesting at times the choppers in the cloud came in fast. Another time the chopper came up and picked me up from the bottom terminal and we had to go pick up about 4 or 5 guys from the top terminal and this was just a normal chopper and our pilot he'd be one of the world's best pilots, I would say. He'd come in the cloud land and it wasn't too thick where we were at this time this day and we just went up and it was probably about, I think it was another 300 or 400 metres above us in height and to the top terminal. And, yeah, we just went into the cloud.
Speaker 1:And when you're in the cloud, you don't know which, you don't know upside down or sideways You're just like, holy shit, I'm sitting in this chopper and I'm just I'm talking to Pete going, do you use your instruments? Like how do you know? Like you were using instruments and you knew your altitude, because we couldn't see like two meters in front of us and we were a chopper, and he's like, oh no, instruments don't really help you too much around mountains, too much. Um, you're too close, so you just gotta. He just went up and he just knew you had to go up so high and you had to go forward so far and we just like, probably about 50 meters out, this building just opens out in front of us in this rock face and we just drop onto this rock and the guys just jump aboard and then we just went up real high to get it sort of and then just try and get out of the cloud and yeah, it was. It was crazy.
Speaker 1:He was, he was an exceptionally good pilot, he was really good. And another time he was, um, it was thick, thick cloud. There's another day and I could hear this chopper and there was a I could hear it probably about 100 meters away and I was like and I radioed. I radioed, I said pete, I think you're just out from us here at the bottom terminal, and he said, oh, awesome, thanks, sally. I knew I knew roughly where I was, but didn't know where I was exactly. So that's great. So he was. He was on one of the other. He was just falling down the cheerlift, so he had the foot of his chopper about a couple feet off the chairlift cable and he was just going so slow, like like real slow. Yeah, because he was just obviously real cautious, he couldn't see a thing and he was just made his way and weighing his way down real slow. That was like the stuff that he did was he was a very experienced pilot he was.
Speaker 1:He was probably the best in the country, in the world, I'd say um. But you know a lot of those parts. They don't live forever because, as you know, choppers um go down. He actually, funny enough, my old man actually, um, he used to trap deer um with it would when it was mates back in the day, because he started his mate started deer farm by trapping deer in the middle of the bush and he'll bring a chopper in and they trap and make up a trap, basically like a sort of system, a fence system I suppose, and trap them in there and then they'd don't really know how they got them out, but they'd, they'd get them out in some sort of nets or something, fly them out, but pete, pete flew for him, like my, my dad, and that probably about 20, 20 years before yeah, right it might, yeah, actually, so it was interesting I know what you mean with the cloud cover.
Speaker 2:When I went to everest, that um, we got stuck in um I think I forget the names lookla, the um, yeah, that world's dangerous airport. So we flew to cut from Kathmandu to there in a chopper and then did the walk and then flew back to Kathmandu in a chopper, because it was quicker, because the chopper will fly as long as it can see the ground, but as soon as the cloud comes in, the planes won't fly so you can get stuck there for six weeks in the cloud and the big walk.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a long walk, but uh, yeah, when we first got back to look after doing the walk, um, they were saying the clouds coming, like we got to hurry, and only half of our group got out and the other other half just got stuck there for another two nights. Oh, wow and um, yeah, we come down in the morning or the next. They said make sure you're here 5 30 in the morning and if like, we'll go. And we couldn't then the next day. But, um, when we got on the plane they're like, yeah, no, the cloud's coming, like we need to get out of here so they had three choppers.
Speaker 2:They're ready to pick us all up and it was the scariest thing I've ever done in my life, mate, like they. Um, we literally just took off and fell down into the valley in the chopperper In the chopper. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:And you could see the cloud just coming in. Oh, and then so this pilot, so we I don't know what it works out to Ks or whatever, but the only way I explain it is from Kathmandu to Lukla, on the way there. I think, off the top of my head, it was around 40 minutes or something.
Speaker 2:No, it might have been about 30, 35, it was around 40 minutes or something. Um, I might be not 30, 35 minutes. You're going uphill, a long way uphill, yeah, but um, on the way back, like the cloud just kept coming in, like we'd be flying along, so they just sort of skim across the tops of the mountains. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and like we'd literally come across the top of another ridge and it'd just be white out like you could not see a thing.
Speaker 2:And he, a couple of times he dove down into the valley and like he would literally get down as low as he could go, turn the chopper on its hard on its slide and like do circles. And he was looking up to see gaps in the cloud far out. And then when he, when he would see a gap, he'd just shoot for it and go and like you'd literally shoot through this gap in the cloud, get across another ridge, and it'd do the same thing again. And so, yeah, went 30, 35 minute trip there on the way back, I think it was over an hour and a half or an hour and 40, oh, wow, and mate, like I don't know how many k's, but maybe five k's, out from the airport alarms and shit start going off and we're all going what the fuck's going on here.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was low on fuel.
Speaker 1:He's like no, no, I've done this all the time, mate, we'll make it like, but I know, like that when they when they wore it out, like it's like we were shitting ourselves, like you, you don't you yourself don't know which way up or down. It's, yeah, like you, just really surround by white it's. It's crazy like if we still have a lot of whitewater kayaking and you'd be under these waterfalls, basically bailing out of your kayak, and you were going down and you just saw white water around you and you were down pretty deep and you're trying to swim but you don't even know which way up is and it's just everything. And then eventually, obviously, your life jacket would start pulling you up, but it was just water, so aerated that it wouldn't happen for a while.
Speaker 2:It was a few tense times for that, yeah, so let's get going, but yeah back back to um.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that that was. That was my last job at a new zealand. Um, well, for this, for the company, I did my apprenticeship with um. I worked for them about eight years up to I've sure had a basic project management with them. And then um, I went to I just it wasn't a good headspace and me and a mate we decided to go to Perth for a bit and we were going to get into the mines. We went to Perth and I met a good bunch of Aussies overseas that lived in Perth and stuff. So I had some sort of connections there and um got out, got my truck license and I was going to go on the mines actually, um, and try and make some good money, um, but we ended up just loving perth and I, you know well, basically was doing form work over there carpentry, which was basically butcher work. Really it was they. They actually hated us carpenters because we would do things too neat. So basically most of the guys we're working with weren't carpenters our ex mechanics, bloody it guys, or whatever, just just anyone that was laboring or hacking up form blow. Yeah, it was like they actually the former hated us carpenters. We were too neat, we would do stuff to the nearest mill and they were just the nearest 10 or 20 mill, you know.
Speaker 1:And yeah, it was over Perth for about a year or so and then moved back to New Zealand to build a house for me, and me and my brother built a house on the old man's beach property in Wombatara, new, zealand, which is a beautiful spot, beautiful area. And then that was GFC. So GFC hit New Zealand pretty hard. It was really bad over there and I think we finished that about June 2009,. And there was just no work around and I sort of wasn't hugely interested in going back to working with the company I worked with and even they said they just had no work for me. They said they would always take me with a heartbeat, but they just said, oh, we've got no work for even our guys. Yeah, and that was just. There was bad, bad times in the industry.
Speaker 2:I think it was bad times everywhere, mate. There was a lot of builders struggling in Australia too, 2008, 2009.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think there was quite a few that took their lives, I think from what I heard. And then I ended up coming to Brisbane because I still have my son there in New Zealand. So I really wanted to go back to Perth. It was just too far, it was just too far away. So I thought, well, I could live in the South Island or basically East side of New Zealand. So Australia was it's two hours or an hour and a half to South Island, so it's like two and a half hours, so it's an extra hour more. So I was like had a few mates or had two mates here, didn't know anyone in the industry in Brisbane.
Speaker 1:So that was interesting because obviously it was a bit skint then for work and I was just, I was just door knocking, basically I'll just go to building sites and um just say, look, I'm a carpenter just moved over from new zealand and um just tried and I ended up talking to a couple of people at, uh, some hardware stores and stuff and I think a couple people took my number and then he said, oh, this guy might be looking for a guy and um just did a bit of work for one local builder down there in um south side of brisbane and then um a few months for him and then um, he sort of ran out of work for me and then um ended up getting a job out of, out of the uh newspaper, basically um, like a job advertisement, and um, funny enough, the guy that actually employed me.
Speaker 1:He used to work for the company I worked for in new zealand and he's seen like job advertisement and, funny enough, the guy that actually employed me. He used to work for the company I worked for in New Zealand and he's seen, I worked for a standing construction. He said if he's worked for them he'll be well trained he'll know shit, because they were a good company.
Speaker 1:they would always have three or four, so, um that I mean they had like 200 acclimates for this job and most of them were just labor hire guys, and so they, I guess they just see me and and I guess my foot was half in the door with that. So, um, that worked out. And then, yeah, worked for this guy doing and that was mainly just sending out slabs. Um, he was actually the boss, was actually a mania steel fixing company, but we were just I was just sending out slabs for them and stuff, and he kind of worked under the concrete crew and I was, yeah, and then so you'll do whatever it takes, eh, yeah then I end up basically renovating it.
Speaker 1:He knew I was a good chippy so I ended up renovating his house on the side in between jobs and stuff and he was based in Clayfield so I was renovating there and um, yeah, and then I eventually he kind of had a full. I think he had a big run in with the unions on his jobs, um, with the steel fixing company, so I think he had the unions after him super work cover yeah, I don't know what it was, but the heavies came around to his house when I was working there one day and, um, it was an interesting conversation.
Speaker 1:Um, because he just turned up and they're like, oh, he's, he's not paying these, whoever he's not paying. And I didn't know, I didn't know what's going on. I was just working on his house and he was like they were like well, he's, he's renovating his house, he's got money. And then he turned up and these guys are at the front, these heavies. And um, I was like, oh, jesus, it's gonna go down here. Introduction to australia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then yeah, and then I ended up, um, um, sort of finished up with them because he he'd sort of he had to move back to melbourne because that's where he's from and I think he got pushed out of working brisbane because the unions are basically I think so, he think so he went bankrupt on that business and then he got out of the state for his life and, yeah, I ended up working just for a sort of high, semi-high-end residential builder, because I'd never done any residential. I didn't even do much in New Zealand, really Built my own house over there, me and my brother, but I didn't really do a lot of residential.
Speaker 2:It was mainly light commercial, um and uh so you got like you've had a lot, you've done a lot of variety of work, like yeah um having your own building business.
Speaker 1:All that helps like yeah, new zealand, as you will back then. I might have changed now, but back then I was a very good apprenticeship. You, you would basically start sending out the job on. You'd have you and your, your supervisor, or you and your carver, and you be as apprentice. You start, you'd be on that job, the whole job, right to the end, you know. So it'd be like, yeah, two, three, four, you're up, and obviously more in different periods, but you'd be like that crew of two or three, yeah, yeah, we start to finish. Um, it was.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you'd learn everything yeah, so having all that experience and like um, I guess, picking up all that extra knowledge from the different people you're working for, like, has that influenced the types of jobs you do now?
Speaker 1:um well, I never. I never worked on any renovations, and that seems to be what I've fallen into.
Speaker 2:So how long after that? How long after that, because they're still trying to get to how you become a builder.
Speaker 1:So basically, yeah, I basically 2009,. Brisbane by I think probably 2010,. I think maybe 2011,. I probably got my building license maybe 2011 or somewhere around there late 2011,. I got my building license maybe 2011 or somewhere around there late 2011,. I got my building license and then I wasn't really going to work for myself.
Speaker 1:I was just I ended up doing carpentry for this company, doing the residential stuff, high-end stuff, and then they basically put me on as a supervisor and then they got a bit low on work and I was, you know, a small crew and I was last one on. So I was like, oh, the boss sort of said, oh look, I haven't got much work for the moment. Um, so I was like I'll renovate my own house, so I'll just go back and do that. So I just was renovating my own house and then, um, I really, I really wanted to lay timber flooring. Um, because I queensland timber flooring, be doing jobs on our um jobs and I'd really love to see natural timber floors. I think it's bloody amazing. So I want to learn how to do that and I need I think there's a reason money in it. But I'm gonna work hard, fucking hard.
Speaker 1:So I did I ended up sort of uh you know, um, yeah, like concrete floor, lay your ply, your plastic, your ply, and then, yeah, yeah, your spotted gum or your black butt or whatever you know, glue it and staple it all down, stick it in there at all. So I end up just going from being a carpenter to subcontracting and just doing maybe one or two jobs a month.
Speaker 2:For flooring.
Speaker 1:Yeah, for Queensland timber flooring. It's basically a subbie.
Speaker 2:What time frame was that? Because I'm sure I've met you somewhere before. Mate you might. We used to call you the same team at Flooring for a long time. Maybe you played at Flooring on some of our games.
Speaker 1:That would have been for 20, maybe 2011 or 2012. No, it must have been more 2012, 2013, I reckon. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I only did about probably 15 jobs then and I was only doing one or two a month. I was just doing a bit of a side well as a bit of a thing to keep funding me, and then I kind of I never I never really planned on being a builder, um, but I was, I got my build license and I was like, well, I'm awesome, and then I just started picking up small renovations decks you know basically just decks and maintenance work and you know that kind of stuff and then obviously doing doing the subbing to Queensland Timber Forum just to get a bit of cash flow coming in.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's important. It's been a long road to get through all your story, but I think it's important to share your story because that's our industry. That's how it is. Most people just keep going from this to that, to that to that and before you know it, you're running a business, all right you've all sleep and you're in trouble, um, but yeah, I, yeah, and yeah, I wasn't ready, I definitely wasn't real.
Speaker 1:I I probably should have worked supervising longer and I probably then should have moved into, I guess, some sort of management in the office of a company to learn the business side of things. I think I could definitely build a house and do everything on site, but I didn't know anything about quoting.
Speaker 2:I didn't know anything about the rest of it. So how were you doing it all Just?
Speaker 1:wing it Like everyone does, isn't it? Yeah, I was just. I don't know. I know I just started. Basically I'll just hand write out all my quotes, basically hand write out. You know, sometimes the plans often depends on what I was doing. It'll just be a small deck or something, or you know a lot of it was. I guess it was deck. It was um all certified that kind of stuff. So I had to be drawn up by someone, um I would even draw up some of my own stuff, um, for clients.
Speaker 1:Sometimes, um, I didn't like that because I had to be drawn up by someone. I would even draw up some of my own stuff for clients. Sometimes I didn't like that because I had to sit down in the office too long.
Speaker 2:So you were drawing plans for decks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would draw some. When I renovated my first house in 2011,. I bought it in 2011, so 2012 probably I drew all the plans, just hand-drawn all the plans for the renovation and that that was quite a good way to learn. I guess Building in Queensland is quite a bit different, with all the cycling rods and bracing and termites. We didn't have any termites in New Zealand.
Speaker 2:We don't have any really New Zealand's got nobody to be predators, mate?
Speaker 1:No, that's right. There's nothing in Newaland that can kill you, or is there really? There have to?
Speaker 2:be things that can, I guess, infect you or make you sick, but there's nothing that can kill you new zealand's a bird island.
Speaker 1:There's nothing. There's nothing but birds there. Before I guess the maoris came apparently. So, um, yeah, it's yeah, so, um, yeah, so that takes it probably took me a good couple of years to learn and it was good working for a residential builder to learn all that bracing, hold downs, all the cyclone stuff. Otherwise, yeah, you couldn't just come from, you probably couldn't even come in the state. It would take you a few. But I reckon, yeah, I think even people from Melbourne that come up that kind of stuff would take a bit to learn all that.
Speaker 2:Um, there's a lot to it. We've recently had a um, a guy working with us from mckay and he he's telling us we don't do enough, like because you get up there and it's obviously full-on cycling. But um, there is a lot to it and and I think that's another reason why it's important that builders do continual learning because, like our tight end bracing, changes all the time.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, I think, like I've learned, live, life, build. You've got to be open to learning. Like you say, every day is a school day. I think there's so much you can learn and with the changes that have been coming in and coming in, it's just um, it's relentless. Really. It's yeah, yeah and yeah, I do struggle with it because I'm trying to do so much um and yeah, and I don't do new homes, so it's, you know, um, just renovations. So for us, it's yeah, it's a little bit different to a point I guess.
Speaker 2:So no wonder it was. It was so hard on you, mate, when you went through your challenging time, because you'd work your ass off and you'd renovated some houses for yourself, so you'd build up a bit of equity behind you.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But what made you think that you could go from doing the jobs you were doing to like doing a $2 million job?
Speaker 1:I was doing lots of decks, carports, small renovations up to sort of two, three, really, from 20 to two, three hundred thousand max. But I was just I think I was just bored and I just I think I just done some some pretty cool work in new zealand. I just, and this, this job got offered to me. I did know this client. I knew her for about five years playing touch footy and yeah, I just, I think I just wanted a challenge and I didn't realize how much of a challenge it was and, yeah, I had a few staff problems then and that was the start of COVID. And so, yeah, it was definitely. If it wasn't COVID, it probably wouldn't have been. It would have been a challenge but it would have been, would have been all right and I would have probably done all right of it. But I, I didn't, yeah, I didn't, didn't pay myself a wage for two years and I've been business. I was just had to keep everything in the business to try and keep paying everyone did you quote the job or was it?
Speaker 1:yeah, no, it was actually I was, for we actually, um, I had had a little bit of business coaching before that and I had had jumped on the whole pay for quotes. So I actually had charged I think two and a half grand for um, a company to price it up, um, and because I wasn't really that, I didn't trust myself to quote that something that size up because it's a full architectural renovation, a very italian style home, um, so it was a lot different to what I worked on and it was all brick and concrete and yeah a little bit of framing.
Speaker 1:We, we put a new level on the top of it and stuff, um. So, yeah, it was, yeah, definitely, definitely, um, it was definitely reasonably well, but there was definitely things missed as well. And I I was picking up things, looking for the plans as they were, as they had priced it, because I found things as well they missed. But there was just we were going for the job and I'm like there's a curved, there's a curved ceiling in this room.
Speaker 2:I didn't laugh at that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I didn't laugh at that, you know, because you just it was just because I hadn't done a lot of architectural work actually as well, so that kind of. You know I'd just been doing standard, you know drafts and top stuff. So the layers of architectural plans were just I was well over my head, I guess, and you just you've got to go through so many pages, as you know, to find the information out. You're looking at one or two plans.
Speaker 1:You've got to go for this you've got to have engineering your backwards and forwards between so much to then figure out steep learning curve mate. Oh yeah, she was. Uh, she was a big one, she was interesting, but um and again.
Speaker 2:All this stuff I think it's very important to talk about, because you see so many young guys these days that just want to shoot for the clouds, like in this game.
Speaker 1:Like you need experience 100, yeah yeah, oh, like good young guy that's working for me and he really great bloke and um, he, he wants to be a builder and um, but I just said to mate, you need to work for someone with 10 years, you really need to. You need, like you've just, you know, six months out of your time. You need to work, you need to work your way. You just finish your print, yeah, you finish your printer. You think you know everything. You haven't even started. Yeah, you've got probably another four years of being a chippy leading hand and then work into supervision and then you know, ultimately, I think if you can work into a business and probably do a bit of project management and learn the office side of things before you really go and be a builder, I think is probably beneficial.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And yeah, probably not as well, probably not too big a company. Maybe it depends on what you want to do, I guess, but if you can learn how the actual business runs, because, yeah, we're none of us taught that well, it's well.
Speaker 2:It's not on our radar, isn't it because you know like you're getting the industry?
Speaker 1:you just want to swing a hammer and shoot some nail guns yeah, and get on site, crank the chains with the boys.
Speaker 2:Have a good day like yeah um the business side and, like you've mentioned a lot of times, you still don't like sitting in the office.
Speaker 2:But no struggle, a different struggle yeah, but you've like, since you're on a live life build, you've implemented a lot of stuff. So let's start talking about the good stuff because, like, like I said before, you're a very humble bloke. Like you've to come from that position where you basically had a breakdown you lost money on a job to now being in a position where you've got good quality work, good clients, and you recently bought an investment property. You're going to Airbnb, you're kicking gulls.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, it's definitely been a good last couple of years or last year or so, and that's nothing to think, but you and your podcast to then find Live Life, build and then start implementing some stuff. And I've still got so much job. I've definitely not run the business anywhere near I want to yet. I've got so much I want to do. I'm just struggling to find the time to knuckle down and get that kind of stuff done.
Speaker 1:But yeah, the pack process has been great. I think I've done about 8 pack processes. I think the only one that hasn't stuff done, um, but yeah, the pack process has been great. You know, I think I've done about eight pack process. I think the only only one that hasn't really ventured because, like, the cost was just, I just just as they just weren't ready for that kind of job, um, that's what we didn't even really, we didn't haven't continued much without the moment. They probably will come back to us in a couple years they said yeah and finish off fully doing plans and stuff. But every other pack process I've done has gone ahead and I've only been doing it probably a year. Yeah, got a couple that are coming up that are pretty keen to get going, just got to formalise a whole lot of stuff, so yeah, that's definitely helped.
Speaker 2:Your confidence is definitely, definitely back, but, like you, compared to where you were when I first met you oh, going on, uh, what drive 23?
Speaker 1:um, that was like I definitely quite taking a week off to go and do that was a big, big call. Um, but just having you know the small group of us and have so much time with you and amelia was, yeah, ellis world, it was. That was life-changing. Um, you know, I was still very, really new to live life build then, um, some of the other guys have been there for a while and that you know, just to get to know brett and eric and you know the lukes and yeah, it was bloody. You know everyone sort of bonded. They're amazing and um, you got.
Speaker 2:You went pretty hard after that, didn't you like?
Speaker 1:you got stuck into things and yeah, well, I remember sitting in the hot seat on the bus and and I sort of remember looking back now, amelia going to me, challenging me which is great, I love it um, like, do you want to be a builder? And I was. I didn't even take a second. I was like I love the fucking challenge and that was like I've got to keep going with this. I just I do love being a builder. I love the challenge of it and I think you know, having challenges, good and grit and pushing through stuff, and that's that's probably what's kept me going is, yeah, just, you just got to find your way through it and yeah, otherwise I probably would have given it. If I hadn't, if I hadn't found you a podcast, you know, I don't think I would still be building, to be honest.
Speaker 2:I was.
Speaker 1:I was like, yeah, there's so much I got out of that podcast. Just that resonated and I I think I was saying shade um the other night, um that I, you know, I really started this podcast probably around 2019 and just you can get so much growth, listen to podcasts. And I was had been hunting, looking for an australian building podcast for so long, because obviously you found some american ones and it didn't really you know, really sort of resonate with, I guess, the way we've been in australia and that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1:So I think I just come across maybe amelia's undercover podcasts through a facebook group someone mentioned something about it and then I think I found you on through that. I think you don't mean doing them, maybe six months before, maybe I'm not sure yeah, the podcast.
Speaker 2:I mean, was it two and a half years, I think?
Speaker 1:um, so that was, and then I don't, you know, it's quite funny looking back at all your podcasts and then I've obviously met you and and now a lot of the guys I've met that you've done, probably back then I probably met half the ones back then yeah um, ryan brown and a number of guys.
Speaker 1:It's like I've sort and it's quite funny. Yeah, probably helps me being Brisbane based and 10 or 15 minutes down the road from you. It's, I think, a lot of the town players you held there the Steel Razor, all sort of had talking with a lot of them over the years. It's just, it's a small town.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, mate, the world's a small space. You've got gotta look after everybody, do the right thing by everybody. But, um, I appreciate the feedback, mate, and definitely, um, oh, it's changed my world like I would.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would still be running a shit show and yeah, I still am to a certain point, but um, yeah, I've still got so much work to do, but just yeah, I think just well you're.
Speaker 2:You're part of it now, mate, you're sitting here telling your story, so you're a part of the journey now for this way.
Speaker 1:I was, you've, I think you've asked me a number of times and I was like you know, I don't think I'm ready yet, I don't think I've done enough. And then I think I'm talking to the boys the other night at dinner and um, that just came up, um from melbourne and sydney and stuff, and I was like shay was hitting me up again and I was like, and I think you just missed me out of the blue the other monday and I was like you know what, fuck it, let's do it. It's just um, I'm sure we'll help someone somewhere that might be going through hell at the moment.
Speaker 2:And um, yeah, if that it's crazy the power of a podcast mate like we. Um I, I get a lot out of it now like I like I look forward to the days we're going to record I I think it's a. I just love chatting to people in the industry that are willing to share their stories, because I stories are what helps other people oh well, it's raw and it's it's well people connect with it.
Speaker 1:I don't, I think, I don't think, I think there's a lot of this bullshit. I think, you know there's obviously a lot of bullshit, but, um, I think, I think when you talk to someone for an hour or two, it's, it's pretty raw and emotional sometimes and yeah, I think the people connect because they can hear the emotion and um, but I think by telling stories you get to like you resonate with people like you can
Speaker 1:you can go oh shit, I've been through that shit, I've done that, oh yeah, um, oh yeah that's that's why I listen to your ones was like you know, I think um brett's podcasts, um, that's what pretty much like he was talking about getting out of the industry and he pretty much found jobs for all those guys and and, yeah, he was, he was done, he was cooked, he was, he was out, and that. That was like. That was exactly how I felt at the time and I was like I need to do something here. And then, I think that's when I joined up to elevator no, sorry, launch pad and um, yeah, then I was like, as soon as I, I think you talked to me on the phone, um, as you do with, and I was like, yeah, I'm 100% joined up with all that. I think that would help me massively. I just think you know just what you guys are putting out. There was just exactly what I needed to hear and there's a way through it.
Speaker 2:Oh, mate, and look, I don't want to keep banging on, but you've got to. I tell people all the time like it's just an Aussie thing, I think it's good to be humble, but you've got to celebrate your wins.
Speaker 1:Yeah, look, I've been a lot of reflecting over the last year or so, and Apple's been great for that in the platform. I look back 25 years ago when I started I thought I'd be a chippy and that was it. I never even thought I'd be a chippy and that was it. I never even thought I'd be a leading hand. I never thought I'd be a full builder. I just was happy just to be a carpenter one day. That'd be me. I'd work for someone for 40 years or whatever. I wouldn't change anything now.
Speaker 1:I love running a business. If you set it up once. You do set it up properly, and I'll still want to go like I say, but I can actually pick the kids up from school. I can work my days around things. If you've got a half-decent team, you can work around. You can catch up the hours after. You might need to do a couple of hours in the office here and there, but that's the kind of stuff you can do. It needs to be done, but it doesn't need to be done right now. So I think it's something that you can just work. You can do that after the kids go to bed and you know I try not to do too much of that these days, but I do find myself always trying to catch up on off-shoot at night time because I still am on the tools, probably about 8% of the time.
Speaker 2:I was going to say so. What's the structure at the moment? What's your team look like?
Speaker 1:It's only me and a couple of guys. So, yeah, just me and a couple of guys. And yeah, we try not to use a hell of a lot of subbies. I think that going through that period of covid, I got burned by a lot of subbies and it was like I just was like that's why I scaled right back from you know four to five blokes down to just it was just me and one guy, um. After that period for about a year or so, I mean, I mean matt rowan, um, he was yeah, it's a cracking dude, um, and he was an adult apprentice and he just finished up with me in the year. So, and then actually one of my guys is actually a plumber by trade, so that's quite handy. And yeah, we're just a small team. I pretty much do everything in the office.
Speaker 2:So do you do own plumbing?
Speaker 1:No, I'm not. We do do a little bit, maybe stormwater and stuff on site, but no, we're too busy doing that carpentry side of things and and I'm sort of teaching what he's my plumber he's actually come becoming a pretty good handy. Um, he's been a really good ta. He's actually starting to pick it up pretty good now. Um, he's worked on enough for us doing plumbing. He was our plumber as well. We were two plumbers and he was one of them for years. So he always done a bit of plumbing on site for us as a subcontractor and then always and he was picking up a bit of laboring work with us as well from time to time as a business.
Speaker 1:Um, so yeah, no, just just a small crew. Um, and I don't want to, I'm not really interested in getting too big. I probably would love to have someone in the office helping me. Got to put in the over-the-cackel out of it, yeah that's it.
Speaker 1:I have been thinking of, you know, trying to get some part-time help from like you know, like a mum or something like that that needs a few hours or half a day here and there, you know, working around school kids and that, or a VA. I just haven't taken that dive yet. I think I'm still. I've still got to define the role, I suppose.
Speaker 2:The overhead, understanding your numbers, your overheads. Has that been it?
Speaker 1:That's something I've never done, luckily. I'd always done at least a 20%, as the master contract was always well. The ones done at least a 20% as a master builder's contract was always well. The ones I use is always 20%, so I was never doing 10%. I think early on I probably did do a few at 15% just because I was trying to get work.
Speaker 2:Doing work for free mate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that was it, and I was like I don't have any overheads.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't have overheads, it's just me. That was it, um, and I was like I don't have any overheads. Um, yeah, I don't have overheads, I'm just just me. But until you actually do that calculating, you're like, oh, and she has quite a lot of overheads, um, yeah, everybody's good, and not yeah, I don't have any other stuff. It's like yeah, I think I'm about eight, eighteen percent overheads, um. So you know it's um, yes, interesting when you like it. You know insurances and people do not understand.
Speaker 2:It's so much. There's so much there you don't even think of that's an overhead and you know everything's so bloody expensive at the moment and that's all got to get built in somewhere yeah, that's right it's a big one, but I know you spent a fair bit of time on that, figuring that out and working oh the yeah, the over here calculator is probably great.
Speaker 1:The 6p wheel that we do in an elevator is, I think that's just. That's probably the first thing to do to to isolate where you start what you start doing, to look at um, because, um, you just I guess you want to do so much you don't know where to start sometimes. So I guess, do that 6p wheel, gives you an idea what you're going to work on and it's just you still do that regularly probably your last one did was three or four months ago, so I'm definitely overdue for another one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, definitely need to do another one. I probably don't do enough and I probably don't do my OV calculator enough. I need to sit down and do that again.
Speaker 2:Are you a visual person? Do you get more out of seeing things?
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. But those 6P wheels I've got a heap of them in the drawer on the side of my desk, but generally when I do one, the most recent one is blue-tacked on the wall and it's where I can see it all the time.
Speaker 1:It was interesting doing the call a few weeks ago on your launchpad and just while you guys were talking, I was like I found. I went to the filing cabinet I found, um, my first six-speed wheel and I showed it and she was very jagged but that was, that was quite good to like. I hadn't got, I hadn't looked that far back, um, so that was that was good to look back and that was something else came up two years around that time. So, um, yeah, like I know, I just I think I think people just gotta, I think people look at the money. You know this coaching type stuff that's.
Speaker 1:I think if you find the right coaching, you just I think money, the money you spend on it, you're going to give out. Yeah, how many years going to be a builder? Yeah, think about that. Oh, you're going to be able to have next 20, 30, maybe 40 years. You know, if you can start setting yourself up that 10, 20 grand over a couple years, whatever you spend, that's going to be nothing like your business you'll get. You'll get that back in well, it should be so many jobs it should like.
Speaker 2:I think I believe now that, like everybody should have a coach constantly, you might move on from Live Life Building and go somewhere else to another specialist in something else. But, like I, I've dropped back to at the moment. But, like, for the last 18 months or so, I've had 5 coaches. I've got 3 at the moment.
Speaker 1:I think you need to be accountable, don't you?
Speaker 2:you've got to be accountable one thing that's really, I just think, been a huge part of my um, everything like my wealth, my businesses, everything just really growing rapidly the last couple of years is I'm making sure that I'm using coaches that are achieving what I want to achieve To me. I'm big for it myself. I make sure I practice what I preach. If I tell someone to do something or talk to someone about something, I've done it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's reasonable.
Speaker 2:And so for me the proof's got to be in the pudding. So there is no way that I would work with a coach that hadn't achieved the things that he or she was telling me to do. That's right, and I think there's a lot of. It does worry me a bit. You see so much shit on social media with all these influencers trying to sell courses and stuff, but they haven't actually had made money from doing what they're saying.
Speaker 2:They're making the money from people, paying them to be told something, yep. So I think it's something that people need to be aware of, like you've got to.
Speaker 1:I think, yeah, like I've only done one coaching before this and definitely it was just all about sales and this and that I didn't the guy had never been a builder, this and that, but it was just just. It was just there was no real, it just got got so far and it was like I spent a few months on it. So it was wasn't. I wasn't in a deep hole, but, yeah, definitely got something out of it. Um, and I think you know you get something out of everything. Like I said, I think, I think, talking to other people, even you know one of our neighbors. She's she's high up in a mining-type company and she's got a coach. You know it's just.
Speaker 1:I think it's just, you just need to push in the right direction sometimes, I guess, like a personal trainer type does to you, makes you accountable, gets you out of bed in the morning type thing, I think, because when you're the boss, there's no one. There's no, really, apart from your client. There's no one there to kick your ass, really, is there?
Speaker 2:yeah, and you've got to. There has to be accountability. Like you can't. So many more people would be so much more better off if they had some form of coach, like you, just setting goals or having goals in your head and meeting with your accountant once or twice a year. And like you, you, you can't just rely on cruising through life and making a bit of money at the end of financial year.
Speaker 1:Like you, you need people to help guide you yeah, well, even even through, um, the mates of construction and counseling, they put me onto a financial advisor type person. Just it was just an on-call thing for half an hour an hour every couple weeks, whatever it was. But even that I got out of. That was just you know, these high interest savings account that you know you put money to those and it was you know making money in the background that helped us buy our investment because we were looking for another property to uh, to up and you know buy and um, that definitely kicked us on, um, just just by one conversation.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Unless you're looking for that stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You won't find it yeah.
Speaker 2:Well shit, does something happen. If how you're living your life now is not how you want to be living, you have to do something about it. It's not just going to all of a sudden one day change or get better. You've got to make it happen.
Speaker 1:And you've got to, I think. And one thing you can't just listen to it, you've actually got to like, for me, I'm probably pretty stubborn and probably very slow to pick up on doing things, because I'm pretty stubborn Most blokes are, but you know, it's just there, we are, mate, but you, I think, I think I could. I could hear this thing in the back of my head and I'll hear it again a few months later and then it might take me three, some of six months to start going in that direction properly. But it's probably like the stuff we learned if I build it's, it's a slow. The stuff we learn to live by build it's, it's a slow, gradual. I think I can't change overnight, you know, but I think, um, I think if you just slowly, you know, you just in the back of your mind, that's probably what I want to need to do, and then you slowly figure out, I suppose you find the right path to get to there but do you get a lot out of?
Speaker 2:because I like, a lot of people come to live, life, build because they want our systems or they want our overhead calculator or something, but then it becomes all about the community.
Speaker 2:So when you've got access to all those things, but then you've also got a community that's supporting you. But it's funny talking about. Like you've got to make shit happen. I was having a good conversation with a good mate of mine today, um, and he was telling me a story that he's great. Um, his grandfather told him before he passed away and it it was so true. Like you, like everyone thinks the milk comes from the cow, yeah, but like it doesn't, yeah, but you've got, you've got to make it happen. That's right. Like you've got to look after the cow.
Speaker 2:You've got to support the cow you've got to make sure it gets fed and watered, and and then doesn't grow into trees yeah, but then even after all that, like the milk just doesn't come like you physically got to get the milk? Yeah, that's right so it's not, it's just like life, yeah there's a process to it and to get something you've got to put in the effort to get the results. So milk just doesn't come from a cow.
Speaker 1:There's a process and there's effort that has to be put in to get the milk, that's I think it's what's forgotten about. Sometimes it's yeah, you've got to move in that right direction now. You've got to put things in place to make you accountable to go in that direction yeah I think it just takes. It does take time for me especially. You know a lot of people will be way faster than me.
Speaker 2:Um, but that's okay yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Everyone, even I think we're, we're probably a similar age. I think, um, but you'll, you probably started building a bit before me and and you build up and I'm similar age to you but we're doing similar stuff.
Speaker 2:But you've got a pretty big team where I'm just got a small team and like, well, it's just, we're just different people, but well, that's something as you can, would attest to, like that's something we're huge at live life, build on like, but you've, like, you've got to figure out what success looks like for you that's right everybody's got a different level of stress and anxiety and like all that type of stuff.
Speaker 1:Don't worry about what's on scram and everything else. It's just I think, yeah, like you gotta, you gotta run your race, so you gotta. There's no point looking at someone going, oh, he's doing well, and like you said, because he's maybe doing well but he may not be.
Speaker 2:Yeah, he may just be up to his eyeballs and yeah, well, and that's the thing you never, ever know. But, um, maybe we'll start to wrap it up. But I really, like I said, you're very humble, we've talked about a lot of stuff, but, um, I I like your new venture. Like you've, you've reached out. The building business is now sort of cruising along.
Speaker 1:There's always going to be things to improve on, I'm sure, yeah.
Speaker 2:But yourself and your wife have now taken the leap and you're doing something that is worthwhile doing for your future family. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that? I'm excited I see your post on Instagram. I think it's bloody awesome.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, we always wanted acreage somewhere I'm a country boy, um. So we managed to to get six acres up the sunny coasts, um up yandina ways, and it's got a 150 year old queenslander on there, so it's bloody. I love it. I've been up there every weekend, apart from about three for the last six months.
Speaker 2:Well, mate, every time I speak to you, that's where you are, and so that's the proof's in the pudding. Your business is obviously running well because you get to duck off up there and do what you want to do and renovate that so you can turn it into this.
Speaker 1:Yeah, like yeah, we're just the kids. Yeah, my kids my youngest two are 6 and 8, so I want them to be able to enjoy country, not be in the city. We live in a good place in Brisbane. We've got a big block and we're back on the Kedron Brook and we've got acres around. I don't feel like we're in the middle of the city, to be honest, where we are, but I'm having the six acres up there and I see a rainforest and it's magic. It doesn't. I don't feel like I'm. I feel de-stressed every time I go there. I feel it's even though I'm doing some work there. Most of the times I'm there and cutting trees and yeah, but you're doing work for a different reason.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right. It's just, You've got to run this as a business, aren't you? Airbnb?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're building it up. Just, you know, airbnb out um over time, um, we want to be able to. You know, we want investment. Probably we want to be able to use it too. So we want to be able to thought airbnb is a good way to go to block it out yeah for ourselves to to utilize it.
Speaker 1:Um, and then to you know, we could block out if we want to do different work to it at different times. If we got to a point where we need to do some more stuff to it, we can just block out time for that. So I think airbnb gives you a bit of flexibility yeah, definitely definitely gonna be a learning curve, but you know it's, it's. Yeah, it's just been. Yeah, it's been.
Speaker 2:I love it um where can people uh find the airbnb mate, what's it called?
Speaker 1:um well, it's not on airbnb, yet it's but on instagram instagram it's um called fairburn.
Speaker 1:Fairburn cottage um airbnb. I think it's called fairburn cottage airbnb, I think, on instagram, um, but if you if you search fairburn, underscore fair, under burn, underscore burn, you'll find it. So you know it's just yeah, we want to have somewhere where you know we can go, kids people can go, and just you know what a nice fire, put a plunge ball putting in um, you know, just just to go and chill or want to, I like to put a sauna or something in one day, you know that kind of stuff, just to be able to go. And it's just surrounded by, you know, rainforest and trees, it's on sort of mountain indory, so it's. It's, yeah, 20 minutes from the beach, you know, an hour from brisbane, an hour and five from my own house, so it's yeah, it's awesome you should be really proud like.
Speaker 1:It's a massive turnaround in two years 15 years ago when it came to brissy, all the wonder was acreage up there and it probably took a bit of a hit there through the covid period when I lost a lot of money and, um, yeah, a lot of work for nothing, um, and I'll you know. I guess now we're realize the dream and you know eventually, yeah, eventually we'll probably move out there eventually.
Speaker 1:I just it might be after schooling the kids and that kind of stuff. But, um, yeah, just, yeah, just so happy we're found and finding our feet again. And our wife, she runs her own business too, a photography business. So she's, you know, we're both self-employed, so it's, you know, we can sort of be flexible around there to a certain point. So, yeah, um, try and structure that around and we're both, and my wife she's, she's, she's doing the kids mostly, and I'm, but I'm just trying to take on a lot more these days, picking up from school once or twice a week these days, and that's stuff I wouldn't have dreamed of. I was just working from 6 to 5.30 on site and going back and doing the office work. It was all about.
Speaker 1:Someone once told me you're young, you've got to go for it. So I think me like, you're young, you've got to go for it. So I think I had that in my mind that you've got to go for it. But I think you've got to go for it in the right way. Yeah, definitely. Otherwise you just, yeah, you just, there's so much work. Yeah, I think there's so much work out there for us builders. But I think your young guys probably want to jump on the builder bandwagon pretty, pretty early on. But I think you, just you need to make your way there in the right process.
Speaker 1:You gotta get an experience, otherwise you're gonna go through hell and yeah, there are a lot of like tx and mates in construction, that kind of stuff doing wonderful jobs these days and helping out. So I think that's really important because, yeah, the suicide stuff is bad. I've lost a, a really good mate, so the use of suicide that fucking hurts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's not good. No, mate, look, I really appreciate you coming on and sharing your story because, yeah, as we said, stories is what's going to resonate and help with other people, and I think it's really important that, like, people are a bit vulnerable and they share the hard times and the troubles and the stress and all the stuff they've been through. So, mate, take my hat off to you for coming in and sharing with us today. I really appreciate it. Um, where can people find you on with your building?
Speaker 1:business um instagram. We mco builders um my website, mc. My website is still my old business name, mco building services, but I'm but I'm terrible with updating my website, updating photos. I'm very, very slack at Facebook and Instagram my business but I'm slowly getting better. But I just spend so much time working the business to actually provide all our works word of mouth, so I just try and keep doing a good job for my clients and you know, 95% of our work just comes to us through word of mouth, so try and keep doing a good job. But yeah, I know I need to focus more on social media and update my website, which is about eight years old.
Speaker 2:Once you get this Airbnb business up and running, you need to get in your scheduling and smash it out, Yep that's it.
Speaker 1:Schedule thing, scheduling has been a big change for me. I'm using my phone and diary a lot more than the schedule and that's definitely up. I'll definitely listen to what you say there. Scheduling days are a lot better meetings and everything. I think that's key. It's just taking that time to the start of the day to do that.
Speaker 2:Follow it up, mate. No, look, keep smashing it out. Really appreciate your time this afternoon. Look for everybody that's listening. Don't forget to go to duanepeircecom. Check out all of our merch. Now it's running out the door, so get yours now so you can help support my mission to improve the construction industry. Yeah, like, subscribe, comment all those things so that we can continue to be Australia's number one construction podcast. See you on the next one.
Speaker 3:Are you ready to build smarter, live better and enjoy life? Then head over to livelikebuildcom. Forward, slash, elevate to get started. 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.