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Bringing Business to Retail
Academy Award Winner Greg Van Borssum Talks About Pushing Through Barriers
Bringing Business to Retail Podcast Episode 2 with Greg Van Bawesome. Welcome to the Bringing Business to Retail Podcast on SelenaNight.com. Stay ahead of the competition by opening your doors to business experts so you can learn, grow, and be inspired. Passionate about bringing business strategies to independent retailers. Please welcome your host, Selena Knight. Hey there, welcome back. I'm excited to introduce today's guest, Greg Van Bawesome. Greg's in Academy Award-winning serial entrepreneur. He's a screenwriter, a competition shooter, an animator, a motivational speaker, and also a dad. But the reason that I wanted to have Greg on today was so that you can hear his story because I find it so inspiring. Greg's going to tell us about being disruptive, perseverance, choosing your path, and working out your value. All of this while you're hustling your butt off to achieve your goals. I'd love to say what his next project is, but he's got so many going on. I'll let him tell you about the host of projects that he's involved in. Oh, and when you hear him talking about George, he's talking about George Miller, the Australian film director, screenwriter, and producer of movies like Mad Max, Lorenzo's Oil, Babe, and Happy Feet. So let's hear Greg's story. Welcome to the show. Today's guest is Greg Van Bawesome. Greg is a serial entrepreneur. He's a screenwriter, a competition shooter, a motivational speaker, a director. He's been the world's youngest pro body builder at the age of 20, and he's even worked with George Miller. I'd love to say his latest project, but he has so many going on, I might not be correct. The project that I recently learned about is Team Infinity, a bunch of influential Aussies using their stories to help people find their inner strength to find the first step to succeed. Greg and I met at Toastmasters, and I have the pleasure of listening to him recount numerous inspirational stories on where his life has taken him. As I mentioned, Greg's a bit of a jack of all trades, so I'll let him tell you about the host of projects that he's involved in. Well, where do we start? I mean, realistically, the main project, my main industry for years, 15, 16 years has been filmmaking. And I started writing. I was a self-taught writer, self-taught filmmaker. So I started doing that. I couldn't get an opening in Australia because I didn't have certificates. People wanted to see, so I had to go to Hong Kong and start doing stuff over there with people with the likes of Jackie Chan. And I started building a name for myself. I learned Mandarin. I learned how to speak the language so I could actually give myself a start. And it was from that that I came back to Australia and people started to know who I was. And that's what got me in the door, because I'm not qualified to film. I'm a carpenter. And that was the second step. My first step was when I was 13, I was a very skinny kid. I decided I wanted to be a bodybuilder. I bought a magazine. I showed my friend's parents. They laughed at me so hysterically that I was absolutely devastated. I left their house and went to the gym and I sat on the bench of the gym and just looked around at what the champions looked like and thought I'm going to be one. And I fought my way through it. I had no idea what to do, got to my first shows. I was glowing white. I don't tan well at the best of time. So I was white as it goes. They were all brown. I looked kind of, at least I stood out. But I came fifth in my first show and I kept coming back and eventually fourths and thirds and seconds and then when I was 20, I finally won the Nationals and then I went pro and I went to three missed universes by the professional by the age of 21 and final and each one of them. So then I retired at 23 because I didn't like what the sport was heading. I got out of that, came back and thought, what do I do? And this is, you're talking about low moments. That was one of them. When I retired from bodybuilding at a very young age, I was very lost. And then lack of direction can really quickly lead to depression really quickly because you don't have a purpose and you don't think the world has a place for you and suddenly very quick to slip into a low point and to fight out of that is tough. And it took me 12 months of wondering what I was going to do. And so I fought back from that and I thought, well, what was my other passion as a kid? And I remember as a child recounting to my parents when I was, you know, because I was a failure in school, if you read any of my reports, you'll fall over laughing. You know, the best one I got said on satisfactory. I tend to find entrepreneurs have, you would do better if you applied yourself. Yeah, I had all that. But I got creative. This is when I created, so I came out. I got so good with liquid paper, that I could liquid paper the uns and the things that some mum would read it. My mum was a teacher and she said, how can this be a satisfactory report? It's just, and then my sister will hold up for lunch. She goes, look, I'm liquid paper. He's liquid paper out the arms. She goes, I thought the gap looked too loud between the words and that was like, and all right, accidentally fall off my bike on the way home and suddenly boil. You would be torn out of the report never to be seen again. And for all these things I tried to do to hide the fact that I wasn't a great student. And the teacher said, I'd be dead by 21. They had a really bad outlook for me. And, or I'd be in prison. That was their whole view of me because I was so bad at school. And I wasn't stupid. I was really intelligent, but I had boring teachers. And the biggest thing for me, and I had one teacher in third grade, she took me from the last and second grade to second in third grade in a whole year because she was inspiring. She actually captivated me and made me want to learn. I gave me a reason to learn, and from that I just went boom through the roof. And then next year I got a bad teacher against a boom down. I went again. And so I came to realize very quickly what paycheck teachers were. You know, people have done inspire. And if people don't inspire you, especially as a kid, you want to be taken somewhere new, you've captivated and taken other planets. And if they don't do that, well, then that's a really bad time. And you just find you're starting to become disruptive. And I'm really good at being disruptive. So I did that with a fashion, but that was a low point that, and that's happened through my life in numerous times. You know, when I was in carpentry, I got really dejected about being a carpenter because I didn't want to be there. And I got to a very low point where I just thought, well, you know, I wanted to make movies, I had no skills, qualifications, nothing in it. And right at that point in time, my family offered me the business. And I thought, if I take this business now, my dream's gone. So what do I do? Is that a carpentry business? Yeah, it was a successful general business. And so I've been going for 30 years on Northern beaches. So it took me six months to say no. But I knew if anyone would understand it'd be my father, because he was always a dream catcher. You know, he, you know, my dad can't swim, but he holds a world record for crossing Cook Strait and a kayak between the North and South Island. And everyone said, you're a drown kind of guess, well, I just stay in the boat, won't I? And so he still holds that record since 1963. And he came out and started a business with no experience. And this is business my old man had no idea what he was worth. Probably one of the greatest carpenters in the world joined as anything in timber, but didn't know what it was worth price-wise. So he would price jobs at probably $100,000 for $30,000. You know, he was never making money. He always struggled. The family was never wealthy. My family's not wealthy far from it. And they always struggled financially. And it wasn't until I came into business with that. So we'll hang on, your hourly rate should be this much. And now we should be charging this much. Suddenly we've got less jobs, but we made more money. And that's one thing I think as an entrepreneur, sometimes you can't realise your value. But on top of that, sometimes you have no idea how to price. You're always trying to price to be the same as the next person. Instead of actually appreciating that what you have to offer can be completely different to what the guy down the streets offering. Exactly. And the minute you start comparing yourself, you put yourself in the same league instead of actually trying to excel and do something different and proving that you're actually worth more value. And I learned that in film, I had no idea I came from a carpentry background into a film. And my first price in film was getting paid about $1,200 a week to write. I thought, "Oh, that's great." And I was just happy to learn. I had no idea. So when I started getting gigs, I thought, $1,200 is good. Then the first feature film I ever made was Happy Feet. I made three short films, and my third one won the New York Film Festival for Best Action Film. And I was lucky enough to use the Australian SAS Canada Terrorism Unit, and we actually blew up a house and did a whole bunch of stuff, you know, because we had access to stuff we can do. And it was a great little film, and it showed me that I could really direct. And, you know, I moved forward in film without it and realized what I was worth, and then I got into Happy Feet, and they said, "I've got to put your pay up." And I said, "Well, I don't really know. I'm happy to work for it, you know, 1,200 a week." And they said, "No, we're putting it up." I said, "How much does stuff give you a pay rise?" And they said, "It's a $70,000 pay rise for the year." Which I thought was pretty astronomical. But then I found out at the end of that film that my crew was getting paid more than me. So the next film I went up to another, I said, "I want another $2,500 a week." Bang, got it like that. Then I threatened to leave over something else that was really, really frustrating, and they put up another $1,000. Then I get into a flick like Mad Max, and I'm on 9 or 10,000 a week. I mean, it's, and I'm still worth more than that, because I know that there's people out there who aren't as good as what I'm doing who are getting more money than me, and I go, "Well, actually, I could charge that if I wanted to." Look, I love working with Georgia, I'd work with him for free. I really would. I love the guy. We're best at France, and Doug is what I produce of it. At the same time, I realized my value is quite astronomical, because I have very niche skill set that not many people in the world are going. So it took seeing what somebody else was worth for you to work out what you were worth. Yeah, essentially, yeah, it did, because different industries have different value points put on them. You look at the beauty industry, and they get paid very little. But then again, if you run your own business and you understand how to price properly, you can make fantastic money out of it. It's understanding what things are going for, and then you have to understand what you bring to it. If you bring something completely new and different to the table, that people are going to want. It all has a time frame to it, too. It's not an exponential if you don't watch it. People will either jump on board and pick you back and then undercut you on price. So you've got to keep your skill sets moving. Otherwise, it's very quick to go downwards. And it sounds like from what you were saying, and I think a lot of entrepreneurs do this too, is the key here is to be always learning. You need, like you just said, you need to be on top of your game. You need to be top of the industry. You need to know what's happening. So how do you stay on top of your game? How do you keep learning? I never think I know enough. What are your favorite ways? Deep end learning, that's me. If I don't, I normally start something with no idea. I mean, literally. When I decided to become a motivational speaker, we sold our house and everything else to move so I could actually do it. And I had never done that before. But I knew I had something to give back. And the learning curve for me has to be deep end learning or I don't learn. I get very lazy in that respect. So same with filmmaking. When I decided to make a film, I put everything into it. I went broke to do a short film. And I literally put like $80,000 in a short film, but it won. Tell us about that. Well, I decided I wanted to make a short film called Method of Entry, which is based on MOE stuff, which is how to get into a, seriously, like a kill house in an essay situation. And I converted that as part of a video game, which is actually children across the world using live soldiers to hunt each other down. And which became part of a game structure, which if you got up to next level, you were, you know, so you could be hunted from all over the world by professional soldiers being controlled by a kid in a computer. And, you know, so it was an interesting story. And I like to tell very intricate stories in a short period of time just to see if I can do it, if I can challenge. And so it said work, and it captivated a lot of people, and it really made George sit up and take notice that I could do that. When I decided to write a screenplay, I had no idea what to do, but I just wrote from my heart what I could write about if I was put into a situation, how I would deal with it. And it was because it didn't follow a same three-act structure that every other film followed, that's why Kennedy Miller put it into pre-production. They said, this thing's just so out of the box unusual. It's like when they did seven, you know, that the killer normally is revealed at the end. But when the killer comes out in act two and goes, this is me, I've done it. Where do you go from there? And then you find out it's pre-planned. So it's a different take on a story which hasn't been done, which is what it makes them successful. So, but like Happy Feet One was my first feature film, and I was one of the directors. And I had an aim as a kid. I was going to be the first film I ever acted in was going to be a Hollywood feature film. And I was never going to do anything other than that after my short films. So the first film I directed was Happy Feet One, which won in Academy Award, which is still sitting at home under the table. And Happy Feet Two was the second one, and the first film I've ever fight choreographed fully. It's Mad Max, the new Mad Max Fury Road film, which is opening May next year. Congratulations. So, thank you. So to jump and congratulate you for makes money. To get involved in that and suddenly being controlled 350 of the world's greatest stunt performance, designing it and dreaming up all the most intricate fight secrets is on top of moving vehicles, doing 80K to 100K an hour, risking people's lives day and day out to make sure your dream becomes realized, flame throwers and all kinds of stuff being used, keeping people alive, having never done it before. To walk into that and do that and command it and walk in and go, "Right guys, this is how we're going to run this show." Having never done it before, man, it's, you know, you don't sleep much. And I was getting home and it was 150K to the set each way, you know, each day. And there's no road, it's just salt. So, I'd leave at three in the morning. I'd be home at about 10, 30, 11 at night. I'd finish emailing at about one, I'd be back on the road three. And that was every day for like nine months. So, it was a really long, long journey. And, you know, when I was sleeping, I wasn't sleeping because it was so much to... Too much going on in your head? You know, you're going, "Oh, if I can prep that up and do this and I've got this set to run, then I end up controlling the whole film at one stage because George was having a hard time controlling all the action. And he said to me, you know, "I need you sitting with me. I need you to run the sets because we had multiple sets running." And the action wasn't matching on the sets. He said, "I need you here to watch this and make sure it runs." And that's what I ended up doing. So, I not only designed the film, I also have weapons advised in time from the design of the gun fighting sequences, trained all the actors, trained all the stunt performers and ran the sets. So, it was a huge job having never done that before to walk in and do that. And then hopefully if it goes well and makes wonderful things happen, well, then I'll be happy. You know, it means I've actually done something worthwhile, but then it doesn't matter. It's like the Academy Award doesn't matter because it's done now. It's old. Let's move on to something new. You can't live on your own successes because I don't get you anywhere. Which is where I'm going to stop you there because I have to admit I'm the exact same way. I struggle to live in the moment. That's my project for this year and next year is to live more in the moment. I have a thing I want to do and once it's done, it's done and I have a new project to move on to. So, it sounds like your head works a lot like that too. But just coming back to the Mad Max film, there was not a lot of sleeping going on there. So, what did you actually do to keep yourself healthy in that time? To keep your mind healthy? I was training too. Same time. You don't, you just do what you got to do. I mean, when I decided I wanted to make movies, I was building all day. I would go home at night, have dinner and I'd start writing at nine o'clock at nine 'til two and three in the morning and I'd get back out of five to train and go to work. I did it every day. I just do what I got to do. I don't care about the sleep. I'll get enough sleep when I'm dead. I mean, essentially, like I get up three o'clock in the morning now. Well, make sure we don't bring you on when we talk about burnout. No, but I don't burn out. I love it. I don't need the sleep if I'm doing what I want to do. If you get me doing something I don't want to do, you got to drag me there. You know, I need to do what I want. But you're obviously a fit person and you train and do you... One feet the other. They feed each other. So, this is where I was going to go. Are you really fussy about what you eat? Are you fussy about how much time you spend training? Like, what's your... Yeah, there's a time frame in training. I mean, it depends on what you're going for. Like, I've got it in my head now that I want to climb Everest in a couple years' time because a friend of mine's done it. I don't want him out talking with dinner parties. So, I did find the back door to winning that beat without going to Everest. There's another... There's two points in the world that are higher than Everest. There's one Hawaii, which is a mountain that actually starts from so far, but all over the ocean. The actual point, if you measure them from point to point, is higher than Everest. And there's another one, which you can almost drive to the top of, which is the furthest point from the center of the earth out. Which isn't too difficult to climb either, but it's actually geographically 200m higher than Everest. So, I thought if I do one of those, I can wiggle. There's always something to do. There's always something to do. I mean, sleep is overrated. I mean, I worked out very... When I was very young, if I get two hours extra a day of work or of something worthwhile in, that's 728 hours a year. That's another month a year. If I lived another 60 years, that's an extra five years a life. Oh, I can't agree with you there. If I don't get 7-hour sleep, I am cranking each. He cranking effective, you know what I mean? I sometimes do my best work when I'm cranking. But that's what it is. It's having the drive to do what you love. I mean, I'm up at three in the morning, writing my book still. I'm trying to get that finished. And I took... And I have the tenacity to rip it apart. I mean, I literally shredded the pages apart there. They're very organized. They didn't like it. And, you know, that's one thing about successful. If you want to be successful in anything, you've got to have the ability to start again. I mean, Andrew Stanton is a very, you know, the colleague of ours who runs Pixar with John Lasseter. And he directed all the finding Nemo's on those films and wrote them too. And he said to us one day, he said, you know, you've got to have the... Basically have the nuts, but walk in and go, you know what? It's not working. Throw it out and start again. And that can be so hard with... Five. If you put your passion and your time and a lot of times your money, you do have to actually sit there and go, is this working? And it can be so easy to be biased as to whether it's working or not because of the amount that you've put into that. And people surround themselves with yes man or yes women. They're friends, "Oh, you're brilliant when actually you're crap." And you sit all the time on those TV shows, and my family told me it was a great thing. I said, "No, you're terrible." They should have told me it's true. So you didn't have to be having it happen on the air. And that's what happens. People get, they tell each other how great that. It's like, "No, you suck. Start again. Be honest with them." I mean, honestly, if I have my friends that I've always had in my life that are in pretty much every film I've ever made, I even got them into happy feeders, right police, just if they didn't help me at the start by making my films with me. If they weren't honest with me and pulled me into line, and tell me that that's not working or you can do better with this, then I mightn't be the person named now. So I mean, I rely on my very dear friends to bring me back. And I do that quite well. So on that, if you sound like everything works, everything you do seem to turn to gold. Not always. Tell us about something at a time when you failed. I mean, almost everything fails up front. Everything. I've never done anything that's worked up front. Because you've just got to bash it out again and again and again. If you knew how many drafts of warriors lost to what we call trial as our working title of my screenplay, you would fall over. I mean, I did three months of work months and George just put a red pen through it. It was right now and threw it back at me. So how do you make that decision on whether to keep going or not? We're talking here. How much do you want it? No, seriously, how much do you want it? That's what you do. If I don't like something, I don't want something. I don't do it. I walk away. And I mean, that's mediocre. Like when I decided, when I took up shooting, handgun pistol shoot, from the day I started, and I was terrible. And I remember the German team, when I first met the Germans at the first world shooting, I was just there sort of trying out, you know, having a go for the first time. And then lastly, "Oh, you pay for the whole target. You may as well use the whole target." I was terrible. I looked at the machine gun and shot it. But I decided on one day, I said, "You know what, I'm going to be world champion. Let's do it. What car are they? What makes them any different from me?" You know, so I put the work in. And this year, I won the world title. You know, I mean, that's what it took. It took me six years. I mean, if you actually looked at how long it was going to take you when you started, you wouldn't do it. Because bodybuilding, from A to Z, I started lifting weights when I was like, a little kid. I saw some muscular people walking up a set of stairs once on my paper, and I went up, and they said, "Oh, if you want to learn to train, we'll teach you." And I learned with a broomstick. They wouldn't let me touch weight 'cause I was too young. But I stuck it out. And I went in my first shows when I was 16, 17, 18, 19, 20. I won the national's 20. I went to the universe's 20 and 21. And because my aim at 13 was to win the nationals, and I won that. And that was once I went past that, I've gone beyond what my dream was. I've done now this move on. Then I decided I'm moving. I'm going to make a move. It's when academies, let's do good stuff. Let's win stuff. And we have. Same with shooting. I decided that it took 15 years. The shooting has taken me once in 2006 now, whatever the hell that is, probably eight years more. So it took me that long to win. And I just won the nationals again. So we've done it multiple times now. But if you looked at how long it was going to take you to do it, you wouldn't do it. But if you immerse yourself in it, and the time doesn't matter, and you're making the progress every day towards your goal. I mean, time goes away. And I love to speak as you know now, because you met me at Toastmasters. I mean, my aim, Harriet, was in the guy's thought that I was a professional speaker. When I joined Toastmasters, that was because of a failed speaking engagement when I was 20. I'd just come back from the Mr. Universe of 20. I could ask back to my old high school, which I never thought I'd get asked back to because I was the worst kid on the planet. Because of all those report cards. Yeah. And they asked me, and the reason they asked me is because they asked him Bailey, where they go, you know, Mr. Crimson, to come in, and he could make it in the last minute. So they rang me, said, "Would you do it?" Now I had no idea what a keynote speech was at the time. I kind of thought, "Oh, wing it. I'll be right." So I was meant to be a 30-minute spot. I got up, and for the first time in my life, and I thought, "Well, I've been treading the boards for ages, I'll be sweet." I got up there, and I froze. And it took me about a minute to actually say my first words. And I spoke about it the most like godly stuff, like having kids with all kinds of weird stuff. You would never speak of the high school graduates. And stepping back a notch before I'd gone to the Mr. Universe. And this is a true story. We went to a Chinese restaurant. Is this me and all the rest of the stories were made up? No, no, no. Most people don't believe this little story. It's a true story. We went to a local Chinese restaurant at May Road, which our family's always gone to. And I got a fortune cookie at the end of dinner, which I opened, and then I really quickly tried to hide. Mum had seen it. Mum's got glasses, but she's got eyes like a hawk. And this message said, the fortune message said, "Listen to your mother's advice." And I thought my life went over the same again. And she leads across the table because Mum had a very bad childhood. She suffered from agrophobia. Her father came back from the war. She was a very highly decorated soldier. My grandmother was very violent to them as a young girl, because she basically raised all these kids to the depression on her own. And Mum got, had a very bad good growing up. And so she was very afraid of open spaces, afraid of speaking. So she went to Toast Mistress, which was before, or separate, to Toastmasters back then. And she learned to get over her fears by just learning to speak. And she said to me, on the cross the table, she goes, "If I can give you one piece of advice, she goes, go to Toastmasters and learn to speak." And I ignored that. So now I'm talking about a little bit. "Listen to your mum." So I've been on the stage for years around the world. I'm doing all kinds of stuff. I don't need to do that. I'll be fine. I went there in a froze. I literally froze. And whenever I got out, I couldn't wait to leave at the side. I didn't even stay. I left out the side door and I took off. Once it was over, I was so ashamed of myself. And Mum had found out the next day what had happened. And she came up to me. She tapped me on the shoulders. She goes, "Listen to my advice." And it wasn't until something bad happened after Mad Max, actually, with the film itself, got stopped. When we came back from Africa, the film wasn't finished. We got stopped by the studio. We'd gone over the budget. And over time, they'd go, "Boom, that's enough." We all lost every bit of income. Everyone lost a lot, you know? And so it could have got really bad. If the film wasn't allowed to be finished, we all would have pretty much lost area. So it was rough. And I had to go back in the building for a period of time. And it wasn't until I was on the building side. I got to a really low point there. Because I'd gone from working with Charlies Theron and Tom Hardy and Nicole. Oh, really? Great actors. Just suddenly, shoveling as a laborer to keep money coming in at the bottom of a lift shaft and knee-deep mud every day. And I thought, "How about what happened?" You know, "What happened to bring me to this point?" And I got bad, man. That was a very bad point in my life. And that was only the end of 2012. It's not long ago. And so what did you do? You said right at the beginning of the interview that when you were four, you had goals. So how does someone who is so on the go and even at the age of four wanted to be an award winner get to that point? Because sometimes life blindsize you. It really does. And you can't be ready for everything that happens. You just got to be able to react to it, roll with it, and come back from it. And sometimes it'll change your direction on things. You know, I've still got a passion and love for film. And hopefully Mad Max does wondrous things and we can make my movie. That's my angle. I don't want to make anyone else's film ever again. I love George like a brother. I really do. We were in contact today. He's been in space. He's mixed down with stuff. He's a genius. And one of my dearest friends always will be. Taught me so much. But I want he and I to make my film. That's the next step. It's got potential to be astronomical and video games a lot from that. And to go into the point where we got to is just I had to keep money coming in. You know, that's just what happens. You got to keep paying bills, paying homes off and that sort of stuff. So what do you do to get out of it? It was tough. No, I had to keep the money coming in and then work out how it's going to get out of it. And it was tough on doing 70 hours a week digging, re-physical labor. No, that might love physical hard stuff. I'll do it all day. And the greatest pleasure I got in that situation was two things. It got me to the last point in my life where I actually felt suicidal. So I was very close to wanting to neck myself because I couldn't deal with what I'd become. I'd gone from being this amazingly well-known person to suddenly bottom of the world, pretty much, and below the bottom of the world because I was digging out a lift shaft. And I was there for months. And it took me to get to that point to realize there was something more for me to do. I thought, well, I've done what I said I had to do to film for the moment. I thought, what do I do to get out of this? Where do I need to be? And I had to listen to what my voice was saying inside myself. You know, where is there for you to go now? Because I knew I wasn't going to stay there. I had two choices, knock myself off right and move out of this. And I sat on the bed one morning and I looked at the kids and I thought, you know what? I've got to do this right for you. And I decided to make the big changes. So I started writing again. So I started writing not just screenplays. I did write another screenplay called "Caging Mouse Trap" while I was doing the lunch break. So I just thought I was going to start writing again. Then I started writing speeches and I thought, you know what? I should have the Toastmasters. And that's when you first met me. I joined Toastmasters in November last year. And I started working my way back out of this. And then I started listening to motivational speakers. I started listening to how people structure their speeches. Then I started listening to probably 12 to 14 hours of speeches a day, every day. So I could learn how the best speakers speak. I watched videos of how I knew how they used their hands, how they used their body motion, how they paused, how they did all that stuff. And I out-studied everybody on it. I really did. And I still do now. I've probably got 160 hours to 180 hours of speeches in my phone as we're here. And I listened to them non-stop because I want to know what the best they're doing. Then I want to know what the worst they're doing. And what happened from that was it started getting me out of this. I thought, you know what? I really have something to say. But it wasn't until a guy committed suicide on the side. And I've been involved in lots of suicides in my life. When I grew up in a narrow end, it was a pretty rough area. A lot of my friends went to prison or they shot themselves. They, you know, I had quite a few friends die. Probably seven of them was all up now. They've killed themselves. And it wasn't until one of my work colleagues then took his own life on the building side where he jumped 40 meters down onto concrete to his death. That I realized it was something more to say. They got all the people up or there's like 1,000 workers up into this one area. And they all sat there. So I straight away got on the phone because I started working with a company called Mating Instruction, which is a charity. But like a counter-suicide group. I called them. I said, we need people here now. I said, there's been an incident. No one knows what to do. I'm going to talk to the guys. You get your people down. And I got up and spoke for about half an hour. I said, I've been through so many of these and how quickly they can cascade into this. And this is what you need to do. And we need to start speaking as men, as mates, as friends. We need to start talking to each other. And if you see the signs of something going wrong, speak about it, please. Come and see us. Tell us whatever it takes, have the goal to get up and say, you know what? I have an issue. I need help. And at the end of my speech, six blokes came up to me and said, we're thinking and killing ourselves. And they were from drug abuse, gambling problems, all kinds of stuff. And so I got those guys and I said, you are coming with me now to help. And the Mating Instruction team had brought in psychiatrists and counselors. They went straight into them. And that day we lost a life of a safe six. I know we did. And that was the start of me speaking. And that's when I went to Toastmasters. And I started from that. And I started writing speeches to help and starting to build people and help people. And the biggest thing I did on that site was got a bunch of people out of that site who had dreams to follow. You know, and I have connections still through film and different areas and through people that I work with. And there was people who wanted to be child guidance counselors and this and that. And who had a rough childhood. So I said, right, if you can prove to me, you can do the course. I'll hook you up with a fantastic position. And I put them on the phone to the people that are ahead of the tree. And I said, this is my word to you. And you'd speak to them now. And if they can do that, and these guys are now doing that stuff. They've moved out of that laboring world into other areas and making a lot more money. A lot more happy and they're changing the place. And that was my greatest time there. It's helping people get out of it. And I realized, well, that's maybe what I've got to do more of now. That's what started me speaking. Fantastic. Back to the lift shaft and the ride in the speeches. I noticed on your blog that you say, each day I rise and repeat this statement to myself. I will not be a disappointment to my life. When you were sitting there, you were saying it for that you have goals. So did you go, this is where I'm going to be? This is what I'm going to do. You sound like you're... Life malleable. You can't. Goals. I had dreams when I was a kid. I had the dreams that I had. I just got on pre-realities to become an actor and a film director, a film maker. And I did, I'm acting in Mad Max as well. So it was my first film to act in. Did you write it down? No. Not as a kid. I write down other things, but I don't write down my goals. I keep me in my head. I know what I need to do. And I don't rely on anything electronic to do that. I've really nice down here. Oh, school. I have the best mod flunks and all the rest of the stuff around modding wrappers and I keep beautiful fountains. And on my paper, hand made, everything I write up is really nice. Because I think that's more important. Because if you write it, you reinforce it. Yes. I don't think you reinforce it the same way. You type it. And except when I type a screenplay, I think to my fingers. And it's... The goals have to be shiftable. You can't be locked on certain things completely. And I mean, I've done all the goals I set out to do. Been done. Now there's more. You know, and I didn't think of being a speaker as a child. I thought of being a film director. I'm done. I've won tons of stuff. I've done tons of stuff. There's more to come. I'm sure. But the goal itself has been attained. You know, my dream to mum, I stand in the kitchen of braved mum. Oh, mum, when I'm a man, I'm going to be rich and famous and be in movies and I'm going to be a professional athlete. I'm going to take care of the family. And I mean, all that stuff. And I used to repeat it all the time. And that was something they realized that was going to come true. Eventually, I just kept at it. My friend saw it as an idiot when I was a kid. He said, "What are you doing? Get a job." And then I was going to mess it up. And I just kept doing it. And I never had money, so it didn't matter. I didn't have any more bands. No difference. So. Given that you are a doer, you've just moved from one project to the next. Do you stop and actually celebrate the success? No. The wait to start. I mean, really. I mean, it's done. Move on. I mean, I like accomplishing stuff. You know, I mean, things come to me like when I started this speaking thing, I just started doing it. I started learning to speak. I started rehearsing training. When I first started a Toastmaster, I would be at home doing four hours of actual rehearsal speeches a day. I've got a room set up at home where I sit and I'll practice. And I'll get everything really nice. And then effective. But when I speak on stage, I don't rehearse. I can do an hour off the top of my head. You know, like my very first keynote speech, my very first professional keynote speech, they flew me to Queensland to speak for the World Sales Conference of a 4,200 company. So Henry Shinehallath, which is the world's biggest medical dental company. I speak to 500 of their executives from around the world on how to run a better business, how to work better with their people. See, I'll get an expertise that I learned from a happy fit one or two. And also from Mad Max, I've had to work with people. They don't work for you. No one was ever allowed to call me the boss. No one was ever allowed to put me on any other pedestal or anything like that. We did it together. My team stayed till midnight at one or two in the morning. I stayed with them. Even if I couldn't make a change for the shot, I stayed with them. I'd get them coffee. I was never above them. But my responsibility stopped with me. I would never pass blame and I would fight for them. And that was what I always did. It made me a good team leader. And so I don't think that you can sit there. You know, when you get to the end of a goal, I don't think you can sit there and go, "Oh, this is fantastic. How great it works." That's just something I don't do. I think once you get to a point and you've done it, what's next? What can I take from these applied learnings and move them on to the next thing? In everything I've ever done, I've taken what I've learned and I've used it in the next thing. Like I knew nothing about film. I didn't know how to build. So I thought, "How would I build a film? If I put a film together from the ground up, how would that work structurally?" "Okay, then how would I run a team from that? How would I build this, you know, how would I run a speaking company?" And when we decided to set up the team infinity, Cameron and I had been friends since we were kids. And I'd watched his career skyrocket. He'd watched my career skyrocket. But we got together. Just off the cuff one day, he said, "I see you're speaking." I said, "I do a bit of speaking too. Let's get together and meet." And when we sat down for lunch at Palm Beach, we said, "Well, let's not talk about it. Let's build something." And so we did. And so we got Steven Bock on every summit here. He's another amazing human being. And then I spoke to my good friend Angie Anderson. Angie got on board. Then my mate Tim McEwan, who started Supernova. And all with dreams. Everyone started with a dream of something who just made it happen. And everyone, if you speak to anyone on that, everyone, I'll tell you that they couldn't do it. People said you couldn't do it. You can't do it. Now they want jobs. How can we work for you, Tim? Can we get a job working at Supernova? Can we help? And we'll make sure we put a link to the team infinity website in the show notes. We're getting close to the end of our time. So I know that you just said that you're not a big techy person. Do you have any favourite apps, books, business planners, apart from your Mont Blanc pen and some handmade paper? All my prep is done via pen and paper. Everything I write in, I've got a journal every day. Actually I've got two, ones from my thoughts and ideas, ones from my planning and my aims. So I write down my shooting aims every day. So when I'm going through to try and win something, I write it as if I want it. And I write it one paragraph every day, the same paragraph every day until I've done it. And that's goal setting it itself? Yeah, because it makes you stick at something. And I write everything in a positive way. If I don't do something so well, I go, today was a tough day. We've got more to work on. Let's get there. We'll do it tomorrow. And so it's never written like it's accomplished. It's never written badly. It's always done in such a way that it's going to build me when I read it. That tomorrow you'll build on it? Yeah, and everything I start today. I mean, when we start, you know, even speaking, I just, when you're not, I'll do it. Let's do it. So I always think about that I've already got it. I've already achieved and attained it in the respective. I will learn it on the way. The details don't bother me. You know, I'll figure them out. If you put it out to the universe, it's the universe's job to work out the house. Yeah, you just got it. You just need to work out where you want to be. Yeah. I mean, that's exactly it. If you put your heart in it, you'll get there. And you just got to fight through. I mean, you know, I'll do whatever it takes to get to where I got to go. I'll make the contacts. I mean, Toastmasters are doing a worldwide story. I mean, January. It comes out in the magazine and I think they're four or five pages of my journey into Toastmasters. And I want that to escalate into the next level so I can go across and speak at the states. I want to push it, push it, push it, because I think there's a, and it's not for anything. I mean, I would gladly give the money all the way if they were paid. Because it's about getting a message out, they're getting something out that's worthwhile to help people get someone better. Because the downfall we have, everyone's so negative these days and people come out if you're smart, people will be weird. You know, and they do. And so it's something that confuses people if you're positive. And if you can tell people they could be good or someone looks good today, do you look good? Really? What? People don't know how to take a compliment anymore. Nothing. There's so much negativity around it. If we just put a slight change on it and actually spin it into the positive effect, the world will change. I agree. It's definitely about mindset and like you in the lift shaft, sometimes you can be in a bad place. But if you work at it and you maybe don't write the goals down. But if you know when you head where you want to be, as I said, it's your job to work out where you want to be. It's the universe's job to figure out how you're going to get there. But you need to be, I think you need to be completely positive about what it is you want. I go to immerse yourself in it. I mean, there will be times that will be negative. I mean, there's days I get up and I go, "God, what am I doing? I'm going to get this is never going to happen, is it?" And then I go, "Well, don't mind if I don't do it." You just have to start. Yeah. And the way I figured if I just keep out of long enough, everyone else will fall off and I'll be the only one left so that will be the way I'll be there. It doesn't matter. There's always a way, you know. When I didn't make any film in Australia, I went to Hong Kong and said, "Well, I've got martial arts. I'll learn the language. I'll do this stuff and I'll do martial art films." That's a start point. Might get me in. See what happens. That led me to the Shaolin Temple in China. I ended up training in the Shaolin Temple. A high priest of the Shaolin Temple, Northern Southern Shaolin brought me into the temple. I have now an official Shaolin passport, which is really rare to get. Things that have happened because of just passion and following things and just keep on moving. It's like a pinball machine. You'll bounce off things, but you'll keep going in the right direction. And eventually, you know, the passage will narrow and you'll just get your eye on the prize and you'll know how to get there. It just happens through time. I'm going to have to. We're getting to the end of time, so I'll wrap this up. I always like to finish on a retail-based question because we're about bringing business into retail. So I will ask you, what makes you go wow when you walk into a shop? You don't look like a big shopper, but I'm sure you have to even go into a gun shop. There's some things I'm a watch fanatic and stuff. And there's certain things that it's got to be set up in a very interesting way to want to leave me in there. I mean, if I see a shop that's all cluttered up and it's not inviting to get inside of it, and I feel like I'm not going to fit, you know, it's, I won't tend to go in there. But if a shop has a, I don't know, if it doesn't feel fake, I'm very much on things feeling authentic and real. If it looks like someone's attacked a whole bunch of stuff on the wall because it felt like it needed to be there, then I can feel that. That's always been me. I can sense when it's real. But when someone's done it because they really feel that it needs to look this way and it has to have this realistic feel about it. And someone does it for the right reason. And it has a different, a totally different spin on it. And you can sense that when you walk in, it either feels like it's tacked on or it feels like someone's actually placed something in mind. They know their target market. That's right. And I'll walk in there and go over here. This is good. This is nice. And even if I'm not going to shop there, I'll walk in and look around. It'll get me in the door. And that's the start point. Fantastic. Thank you. I really hoped you managed to gain some words of wisdom from Greg. He's one of those people, when he gets up to speed, you just have to listen. His stories are compelling. If you love today's episode, don't forget to subscribe to our podcast. You can do this on iTunes, Stitcher or for Android users. I recommend podcast addict. It's always helpful if you leave a review on iTunes. Tell me what you're going to implement on listening today's, after listening to today's interview. And if you've got a topic or speaker you'd love to know more about, let me know. So, what did you think? Are you inspired? Isn't it great hearing about how someone can go from failing at school to working with the likes of George Miller? Going from having his best school report being unsatisfactory to being a champion bodybuilder and amongst other things, an Academy Award winner. If you missed him mumbling somewhat under his breath, Greg mentioned that his Academy Award is currently sitting in a box under his desk. And isn't it interesting hearing about how you can take a situation where you failed and turn it into a learning experience and then eventually into a business? And I'd love to hear your views on sleep. Like I mentioned, I need seven hours, but Greg says he can work on just a few hours a night. And if you read about the habits of successful people, one of them is about waking early and getting started before everyone else wakes up. So, tell me, how many hours of sleep do you need to be effective? Leave a comment on the blog at selenenight.com/2, where you'll also find links to all of the resources that Greg mentioned. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be really grateful if you could leave a review on iTunes or Stitcher. This helps other people find the Bringing Business to Retail podcast. And it also tells iTunes and Stitcher that you think this content is valuable. And remember to share the podcast with your friends. If they need some help working out how to listen to a podcast, you can send them to my link selenenight.com/listen. See you later. [Music]