Gold Nuggets
- “With a good team you can be anywhere.”
- “The important lesson for all of us as entrepreneurs: it’s always a work in progress.”
- “It’s not about technical skills. It’s obviously important to have a qualification to do what we do, and the knowledge and some experience with the body, but really it’s all about the soft skills.”
- “Most entrepreneurs at some point or another, regardless of who they have behind them, have felt like they have been on their own.”
- “With a great attitude and a willingness to learn, it doesn’t matter if you’re the most junior practitioner – if you want to get better and you’re willing to learn and overcome some bumps in the road, you’ll get better.”
- You know you’re making progress and learning when you’re not making the same mistakes over and over again.
- “Trust your instincts, and if there’s something that you believe in, really go for it. Be the person you want to be, and give it your all.”
- Understand what the values are of the people you want to do business with.
“If your values are aligned, and you find the same things important, the relationship tends to be a better one and a longer lasting one.”
- “Don’t be upset by the results you didn’t get by the work you didn’t do.”
Meet Luke Fuller
Our guest is Luke Fuller, Co-founder of Ace Sports Clinic. He holds a BSc in Human Anatomy and Physiology, Master’s Degrees in Osteopathy and Physiotherapy, and is an NSCA-certified Strength and Conditioning Specialist. Luke has a passion for helping others with their health and wellness, which allows them the freedom to do what they want, when they want.
Smart Man, Smarter Woman References
We talk about a lot in each episode; however, we don’t want you to miss a thing! Here are some key items were mentioned if you want to take a closer look.
Website Recommendations:
https://www.acesportsclinic.com/
https://www.acesportsclinic.com.au/
Book Recommendation:
Legacy, James Kerr
Who Not How: The Formula to Achieve Bigger Goals Through Accelerating Teamwork, by Dan Sullivan
Stay Connected:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/acesportsclinic
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/acesportsclinic
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/acesportsclinic
Learn more about our Cloud Accounting Services here
Transcript
Steve Loates (00:00):
Hi everyone. And welcome to our podcast, Smart Man, Smarter Woman, a podcast for entrepreneurs by entrepreneurs. And thank you very much for joining us today. I am Steve Loates.
Juliet Aurora (00:15):
And I am Juliet Aurora.
Steve Loates (00:16):
And we are your co-hosts. But before I introduce today’s special guests, let’s hear from my wonderful cohost, that smarter woman, herself, Juliet. She does love it when I say that. How are you doing today, Juliet? It always brings a big smile to her face. You can’t see that, but I can.
Juliet Aurora (00:35):
I am excellent. Thank you. I’m actually going to borrow a phrase from you. Not that I ever borrow phrases from you, which would be that if I were any better, I couldn’t stand it. So no. Everything’s going really well. We had a big project that was due for our business. The deadline for it was tomorrow. And our rockstar team came in ahead of schedule, a whole day ahead of schedule, even hitting some glitches yesterday where I was worried we weren’t going to make the deadline. So I’m feeling great about everything right now.
Steve Loates (01:10):
Awesome. Awesome. So they must have had a great leader then if they are a rockstar team. Is there any truth to that?
Juliet Aurora (01:18):
I have no idea.
Steve Loates (01:21):
Not usually without words, but okay. Let’s move on. The people didn’t tune in to-
Juliet Aurora (01:26):
Let’s move on.
Steve Loates (01:26):
They didn’t tune in to hear us anyway.
Juliet Aurora (01:29):
Yeah.
Steve Loates (01:29):
So today we have a great show for you. We have a special guest all the way from Down Under in Melbourne, Luke Fuller. So let’s bring Luke into the show. Welcome and thank you very much for joining us today, Luke.
Luke Fuller (01:44):
Hi Steve. Hi Juliet. Thank you for having me at this early hour in Melbourne.
Steve Loates (01:49):
Absolutely. Thank you for being awake and joining us. That is awesome. Really looking forward to our conversation today. We get to speak with a global entrepreneur and we don’t get an opportunity to speak with many of those. He’s built a very successful business here for himself in Canada, which is how we first met him. But now he’s also building a business in Australia. And for you geography wizards out there, you know that those two places are not exactly close neighbors. So I’m sure there’s been some interesting challenges in doing that, which we’ll get into, but maybe in the first few minutes, Luke, if you wouldn’t mind, if you could share a little bit about your own entrepreneurial journey, what you do, who you help, and how did you get to where you are now?
Luke Fuller (02:43):
Great. Yeah. Thanks, Steve. Well, thanks for the introduction. I’m a physiotherapist and osteopath. I travel the world with the men’s ATP professional tennis tour. So that’s part of what I do, but also we’ve got some clinics that help everyday people, Ace Sports Clinics. As you mentioned, located in Toronto, in Midtown. We’ve got another branch in Oakville, and now a new branch in Malvern, which is a suburb of Melbourne in Australia.
Luke Fuller (03:16):
I’ve always been someone that’s really enjoyed sport fitness and been fascinated by the human body. So I know what it’s like when you get an injury and/or something with your health stops you doing something that you love. So, that’s how I first got into it. I always wanted to be in that space. And yeah, after a long student career, I was lucky enough to start applying the skills and getting some experience and more and more, I found out how much I love to help people and I guess restore their freedom to do what they want when they want, because your health is so important. If you don’t have that, whether your business or family or any other aspect of your life really struggles.
Luke Fuller (04:05):
So essentially that’s what we do. We have two main, I guess, tag lines at Ace Sports Clinic inspiring high performance. We try and help people be better than what they are today, whether that’s recovering from an injury or performing at their best to win a grand slam or getting out of pain, and empowering their freedom to actually do what they would love to do, whether that’s a different activity, gardening, going for a run, turning up to work, whatever that is. So essentially, we help people with their health and wellness and that’s what we’ve endeavored to do in our clinics.
Steve Loates (04:50):
Awesome.
Juliet Aurora (04:51):
Have you always wanted to be an entrepreneur? Have you always wanted to own your own series of clinics?
Luke Fuller (04:59):
I think so. It’s really come to the fore in the last couple of years, mainly due to a frustration. So, I did a lot of training and traveled a lot. And then once I was traveling with the tennis tour, I had a really strong following of clients. One of the frustrations for me was that when I would go away. So if I was in Toronto and I’d fly to Wimbledon or back to Australia for the Australian open, I’d be gone for three or four weeks. Communication is obviously really important. So I’d let my clients know in advance and get them in as much as I could or they needed before I went. But one of my frustrations was that when I would leave, some of them wouldn’t see anyone, so I’d recommend them to people and they’d come back and they’d say, “Well, you know, I was waiting to see you.”
Luke Fuller (05:53):
So, taking emails and calls from Australia, wherever I was on one of the time zone, and it really didn’t sit well with me. So I wanted to get a team that could help people and that they would be a step ahead, not a step behind when I got back. That was how we’ve started. And with Chris, my business partner, we’d work… He’s a great massage therapist and we’d work together for a long time. We just found that when we referred people out, they weren’t getting the same care and they weren’t getting the same followup and they weren’t getting the same results. It was born really about that frustration that we wanted to build a team that really cared for people that wanted to help them. You know, it was a relationship more than just a tick the box sort of transaction.
Luke Fuller (06:49):
We just found people were coming to us and they’ve seen people three times a week for months and got nowhere. So I’d say it was born mainly out of that sort of frustration. But then once we got started more and more, we did some, I guess, personality tests. We also did some different cultural things and learned about each other with our team. And more and more, it sort of came to me that, Oh, this was really something that I enjoyed and really had a lot of energy to do. That’s how the clinic started.
Juliet Aurora (07:31):
Excellent. We do hear that often with the entrepreneurs that we interview that they’re either trying… They start their business either because they’re trying to fill a gap, something that they see that they can’t get that service or out of frustration, that they’re just not happy with what’s out there or the way that other people are delivering the service, and so start the business. So it’s interesting that that is also the reason that you have.
Steve Loates (08:02):
That’s great. One of the things you said there, Luke, I’d like to touch on a little is you talked very, very briefly about culture and your team. I know one of the things when we’re talking to other entrepreneurs, you meet people who really believe culture is an important part of their business and building a team, but then you meet others where you know that, ah, no, that culture thing, that’s too touchy-feely, that you don’t need that, just come in, do your job and go home. That’s what I paid you to do. Right? You hear that. In your experience, how important do you think culture is to the growth of a successful business?
Luke Fuller (08:49):
I think it’s hugely important, Steve, and it’s something that I’ve done a lot of talking with different people, entrepreneurs, rating, and I’ve also been lucky enough to be in some sporting teams and high performance cultures myself to learn from. But I think it’s incredibly important. Some of my experiences, I worked with the Cleveland Clinic and one of my mentors is Mike Kessel. I took a number of trips to Cleveland with him and just talking to the different health providers. It was phenomenal how to a person. I was so grateful to work there. You know, different stories we hear from great organizations. It’s really all about the team and how we can help each other. So, we’re huge on the culture. We’re huge on the client experience.
Luke Fuller (09:45):
So the experience the person gets when they come in. All our clinics are filled with natural light. They’re inviting spaces. We want on our team and our clients to feel great when they’re there. And the culture of setting a good example, following through with what you say you will, and delivering, that’s so important. We do a lot of training with our team on that, that it is the small things that make the big difference. Because if you say that you’ll send someone some exercises and you don’t follow through with that, well, that’s a break of trust right there. So it’s little things like that that we need to uphold. With our team, we do a lot of training on the soft skills. People obviously come to us in pain and sometimes not in their best state. And we do a lot of training on the soft skills, how we talk to people, what sort of hope we give them.
Luke Fuller (10:45):
We try and be really honest and transparent, so they know what’s ahead of them, but also encouraging and put the most, I guess, realistic but positive spin on what we can help them achieve to show them where they can get to. Because ultimately, we’re a team, we need the folks’ buy-in as well. If it needs exercises or some sort of activity modification or whatever it needs, we need buy-in from them. So it’s really important, I think, the culture and I think it starts at the top. I try and lead by example and always set a good example for our team. We try and elevate other people that we identify as leaders. I think really that’s part of our job to grow more leaders that can actually take out your message of health and wellness, and in a high performing team to your clients and everyone else that they come in contact with. So, it’s more than one person. And I think it’s a conversation that we could talk about all day because the culture is huge.
Luke Fuller (11:57):
One of the books that I read that had a huge impact on me early on was Legacy by… I think it’s James Kerr that talked about The All Blacks and how they’ve been so successful for so long, and any person will do anything for the team. So it doesn’t matter if you’re the captain or the coach or whatever, the expectations are the same. I think a lot of that we’ve tried to embrace. We haven’t got perfect. We’ve had a lot of challenges along the way. We’ve had some turnover and things like that, which are normal for any business, but we’re trying to get better every day. I would say the culture is really at the center of that.
Steve Loates (12:41):
Excellent.
Juliet Aurora (12:45):
As Steve mentioned earlier on in the episode, you started your business in Canada and have now moved to Australia and you’re opening clinics in Australia. So with you being so far away and with the last seven months of being unable to travel and come back to Canada to visit the businesses, how has that impacted or what has that changed, or do you feel that it’s changed anything with the culture of your organization and amongst your team members?
Luke Fuller (13:16):
Well, I think we went through a really tough period where we weren’t able to open. And so that was challenging, but I think one thing that has been apparent through all this, we’ve had weekly meetings and stayed in close contact. But we have got a great team on the ground there. They’re doing a great job and they’ve come through this probably more with more skills and more… You know, they’ve overcome more challenges. So, I think they’re a stronger team and they’re doing a great job. We’re not back to the levels that we were pre-COVID, but we’re moving in the right direction. And yeah, I think so grateful for our team there, because as you say, it presents a lot of challenges from when do you talk to people. They’re awake when I’m sleeping usually, but the time… You couldn’t be in more challenging time zone, but we’ve made time to connect every week, and often multiple times a week.
Luke Fuller (14:13):
We’ve had a lot happening here as well with the new clinic and we’ve basically built out and fit it out a new clinic. We’re hiring, and so there’s lots of moving parts here. So yeah, they’ve adapted well. I’m excited about what the future holds. I guess there’s been some real challenges, there’s no doubt, the last few months, and we’re still not through them, but the really great thing and something we’re really grateful for is that our clients are coming back and we’re more focused than ever than helping them. We know this is a short time, and there’s a lot to think when I’m flying. It’s sort of turbulence, it’s a bit bumpy and you can have a few little butterflies, but there’s blue skies out the other side.
Luke Fuller (15:02):
I think a lot of my travel that I’ve done has really been helpful for this because just dealing with different things that don’t go as planned. You can turn up and hotel is not booked or it’s booked out, or the flight connection doesn’t make it, and you have to sleep in a hotel airport for two hours and then still get to the meeting on another flight. So yeah, that adaptability, I’ve been really proud of our team. It’s a small team, but growing and yeah, we’re really committed to coming through this in flying colors. So I guess to answer your question, Juliet, I’m really grateful, and it sort of, if anything, shown me that with a good team, you can be anywhere with the right people that understand the company and their own values and can drive the impact that we can have on our clients.
Luke Fuller (15:54):
So it’s been scary at times, I won’t lie, and there’s been a lot of work, but we’re coming out now, and we’re optimistic about some things moving forward. We’re still here, which is a good point.
Steve Loates (16:09):
Excellent.
Juliet Aurora (16:09):
Definitely. Because there’s a lot of businesses that have had to shift to a remote setting of some sort over the last seven months. So, your organization is definitely remote with you on the other side of the world. And being able to still maintain that business and have it moved forward, says a lot about the structure that you’ve got in place that you’re able to run it from the other side of the world, or even be able to be hands off because so many business owners try and accomplish that where they want the business to run without them, but it has been a test of whether or not your processes are in place to be able to do that. So, kudos to you because it’s a difficult thing to achieve.
Luke Fuller (16:52):
Yeah. Thank you. Well, it’s really about the right people. I think that was one of my, and still is one of my things that I’m working on, but definitely one of my flaws early on in my journey where I was so driven and so yeah, everything had to be done at such a higher standard that I’ve had to learn to really give the reins to other people and have that trust. That’s still a work in progress, but we sort of pivoted in the sense that we did some Ace virtual care. We did some Zoom. We have been connecting with some clients back in Canada as well, as well as here in person.
Luke Fuller (17:35):
So there’s a lot of moving parts, but there’s so much you can do. And I think just the new skills that you learned through this, and just when you think you’re broken, you come out the other side. So it’s a great learning experience I think for our team to go through it and get through the other side. They’re only going to be more galvanized by it.
Steve Loates (18:00):
Absolutely. Absolutely. You mentioned that it’s a work in progress. I guess the important lesson for all of us as entrepreneurs, it’s pretty much always a work in progress and I’m not sure it ever ends. It might be working on something a little different, but it’s always a work in progress. So absolutely.
Luke Fuller (18:24):
I always think that’s part of the joy of being an entrepreneur, and most of the time, I think it is a joy.
Juliet Aurora (18:33):
Yes. Joy and frustration. I think both sides of the equation come from it always being a work in progress.
Luke Fuller (18:40):
Yeah.
Juliet Aurora (18:41):
I have a question which we wouldn’t be able to ask of other guests. So I want to take advantage of this opportunity of having you here to ask this guest or ask this question. So can you share with our audience, if there are any similarities since you’ve been up close and personal with Wimbledon and Australian Open. Are there any similarities to the high… I can’t even come up with the wording for this. For the big name events, so sporting events versus running a small business, are there similarities or are they completely two different worlds that you live in?
Luke Fuller (19:19):
In terms of the events, I think there’s similarities. I guess I’ve worked at a lot of big events around the world. Even when I was studying, I worked in the Melbourne Grand Prix. So I think there’s a good organization in the way things are run. It’s so important for everyone. I think there are similarities. If you don’t get some of the basic things right, the bigger things don’t happen. So from an organization level, I think absolutely. I mean preparation, making sure you’re ready, and making sure you’ve thought of most things, I guess, in terms of whether it’s the sports person that’s there, how it runs from their perspective, how it runs from a fan’s perspective. It’s probably no different in business. We think about how it runs from a client’s perspective and their experience, but also from our team.
Luke Fuller (20:20):
We’re always looking at ways we can make things better for our team, whether that’s with technology, to do their notes when, you know, or whatever it is. So I think there’s a lot of similarities in terms of the organizations. There’s definitely a lot of similarities in terms of the top players and the top athletes. I guess we called it the big four for a long time, but Roger, Rafa, Novak and Andy, I think seeing what they do and how they prepare and what they do when no one else is watching, and repeatedly do consistently is the reason why that they are the best in the world. Yeah, I think there are similarities whether you look at it from an organizational perspective, or an individual sports person sort of high performance perspective. They’re always trying to get better.
Luke Fuller (21:21):
They’re never satisfied. They’re doing… you know, what I call the one percenters. You know, you look at them and you think, well, they’re small things, but when they’re done over and over and over and over again, they become big things. So I think that’s probably some of the similarities in the lessons that I’ve learnt, and really aspired to, and tried to bring into our organization because you can’t plan for everything, but preparation and being in a good state. And that comes with your health. That’s why we’re so big on health and wellness, that if you’re not physically fit, if you’re not mentally fit, it’s all encompassing. And with that, you can do so much more.
Luke Fuller (22:04):
So, yeah, I guess there are similarities, Juliet. It doesn’t matter what sort of business you’re running. I’m sure the experience is everything and that’s when people will talk and refer and they’ll remember how they felt or what result they got. It helped them. Our biggest referral source by far is word of mouth, and we’re so grateful for our clients that actually have a great experience and then refer a friend because it ultimately gives us more opportunity to help more people.
Steve Loates (22:42):
Yeah, [crosstalk 00:22:42]. You made some great comparisons there that I hadn’t even thought about. That was good. Just to move in a slightly different direction. If you met someone who is thinking about opening their own business, becoming an entrepreneur, what advice would you give them?
Luke Fuller (23:06):
Firstly, it’s not about the technical skills. That’s for sure. I mean, that’s important and it’s obviously important to have a qualification to do what we do and the knowledge and some experience with the body, but really it’s all about the soft skills. I think that’s something that’s so under appreciated. So, I would definitely start with that. We do a lot of training with our team on that. Hey, you’re a light to people just listening to them. I mean, the amount of times that people come in and the answer is there, they just haven’t… And they’ve got the answers themselves, they just haven’t been listened to. So simple things, but I would always start there because the longer I do this, the less, I think it’s actually about technical skills.
Luke Fuller (23:57):
If you get a person to believe and you believe that you can help them, there’s so many ways to do that. There’s so many ways to get them out of pain or get them to do a grand slam final or get them to get back into the garden, whatever they want to do. So it’s really listening to what they want and then getting their trust and confidence that you’re the person to help them. I think that’s something that more and more every day, Steve, becomes apparent to me because 95 to 100% of practitioners, they’re trying, they’re intelligent people, but I still think the biggest thing is that their soft skills. So that would be the first thing I start with.
Steve Loates (24:50):
Yeah, no, again, I think that’s a great example. We can all learn technically, right, the skills of what we need to do. But why is one person so much better at it than someone else, whereas the technical skills may be very similar? So there has to be some things that do separate them. As you said, I think you call them the one percenters, and absolutely, it’s certainly very obvious in sports and certainly obvious in sports like tennis, right? Where you are out there on your own. I mean, you may have a team behind you, coaches, managers, physiotherapists, but when you’re out on the court, you’re out there by yourself. So that’s great.
Juliet Aurora (25:37):
I’m pretty sure that most entrepreneurs, at some point or another, regardless of who they have behind them, have felt like they’ve been on their own as well.
Steve Loates (25:49):
Yeah, for sure.
Luke Fuller (25:50):
Absolutely. And it just more and more highlights to us the importance of team, and in an individual sport, which you know I’ve worked with many of the best tennis players and golfers for that matter in the world. They’re both individual sports, but they’ve got a team behind them. And that’s the key thing that on the day obviously they have to perform, they’re amazing athletes, but there’s a team behind them. And really there’s nothing in life that we don’t have better results or even to share with a team, you know. That the individual may win the US Open or whatever, but they’re still sharing it with the team. There’s so many people to be thankful and grateful for that have sacrificed lot to get them there. So, yeah, the key thing is the team.
Luke Fuller (26:48):
That goes back to the culture again and the collaboration of people working together in the best interest of their client, and which is what we’ve been strong about. It goes through every part of the organization, the hiring. I mean, we’ve got a very rigorous work in progress hiring system where we use… All the resumes are pretty much the same because they’re all qualified, intelligent people with those degrees. We do use the culture index, which is a personality profile and just tells us how proactive or detailed or patient a person is, which has been great. But more and more, as I do this more, the few things that come to the forefront and because anyone can learn anything at the end of the day, what we’re looking for now is really three things.
Luke Fuller (27:40):
It’s firstly, a great attitude. It’s secondly, gratitude, and it’s thirdly a willingness to learn. That’s been something that’s morphed about because with a great attitude and a willingness to learn, it doesn’t matter if you’re the most junior practitioner, if you want to get better and you’re willing to learn and overcome some bumps in the road, you’ll get better. So rather than having someone that’s stopped learning, comes into the interview and is just talking about themselves all day, how great they are, we’re looking for people that want to be there and actually help people. Because a lot of the time we find like going back to what we said before, that the answer is very obvious when you listen to the person. The person I always say knows their body better than anyone else. So they can give us a lot of information. And when we listen to them, the answer is there.
Luke Fuller (28:40):
So, I guess that ties into our earlier discussion about the culture, but it’s just so embedded throughout any great organization, I think. And it’s something that we’re trying to get better at each and every day. I mean, we’ve made hundreds of mistakes in the four or five years that we’ve been going, but hopefully we’re getting better and making less of them. And it’s an evolution as you say.
Steve Loates (29:08):
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and hopefully they’re new-
Juliet Aurora (29:08):
That was beautiful.
Steve Loates (29:08):
Hopefully they’re new mistakes. Right?
Luke Fuller (29:12):
Exactly.
Steve Loates (29:14):
That’s when you know you’re making progress and learning when it’s not the same mistakes over and over.
Luke Fuller (29:18):
Yeah.
Steve Loates (29:21):
Anyway, that brings us to the part of the show where we ask you some questions, which is we do with all of our guests and we ask everyone the same questions. So if you’re ready, Luke, I’d like to get started.
Luke Fuller (29:37):
Absolutely.
Steve Loates (29:39):
All right. What one word best defines an entrepreneur?
Luke Fuller (29:46):
Freedom.
Steve Loates (29:48):
Okay. What profession, other than your own, would you like to attempt?
Luke Fuller (29:56):
Emergency physician. Mainly because I’ve worked in emergency in my earlier days and I guess I liked making decisions, and I guess the ability to make quick decisions that could save someone’s life or not. So high pressure environment and quick decisions and action needed. So yeah. Why not have a go at that?
Steve Loates (30:22):
Okay. What profession would you like never to attempt?
Luke Fuller (30:30):
Never to attempt, I think that would be bookkeeping because we’ve got a great team and we’ve delegated that out and they are doing such a good job that, yeah, it saved a lot of frustration from me and time. So I’ll leave that to the experts. Thank you.
Steve Loates (30:54):
Awesome.
Juliet Aurora (30:55):
I appreciate that. So full disclosure, Luke is a client of ours as well, so thank you very much for those kind words.
Steve Loates (31:02):
Yes. Thank you.
Luke Fuller (31:02):
Thank you, Juliet.
Steve Loates (31:03):
What sound or noise do you love?
Luke Fuller (31:07):
Waking up and hearing my kids playing downstairs.
Steve Loates (31:11):
Excellent. What book would you recommend every entrepreneur should read?
Luke Fuller (31:20):
We talked about the Legacy before, but there’s a book I’m reading. I haven’t quite finished it yet, but I’m really enjoying it. It’s the Who Not How by Dan Sullivan. It’s just that, and I’m really enjoying it. I think all entrepreneurs should read it.
Steve Loates (31:43):
Awesome. When your own entrepreneurial journey is completed, what do you hope your legacy is?
Luke Fuller (31:54):
That we just were able to help and inspire people to improve their health and wellbeing. That’s the space we’re in. That’s probably the legacy we would like to leave, so, yeah.
Steve Loates (32:09):
Okay, perfect. For those in our audience who would like to contact you, what is the easiest way for them to do that, Luke?
Luke Fuller (32:20):
Probably through our website, www.acesportsclinic.com, internationally or .com.au for the Australians. Yeah. I’m always happy to connect with anyone and I welcome any questions. I’ll always get back to people. So if anyone wants to learn more about what we do, feel free to visit our website, Ace Sports Clinic.
Steve Loates (32:45):
Okay. And we will make sure that your website is in the show notes. So people will be able to… They don’t need to remember it or make a note of it. They’ll be able to find it in the show notes. Before we conclude our episode today, Luke, do you have any final thoughts you might like to share with our audience of entrepreneurs?
Luke Fuller (33:09):
Basically just to trust your instincts, and if there’s something that you believe in, really go for it. Life is short, as we know and we’ve seen throughout this time. So be the person that you want to be and give it your all. Invariably we’ll all going to come across some challenges and fail at different things, but it’s just really keep going, I think. By doing that, you overcome some obstacles and you build more confidence in yourself and your team. And it’s so true. I think you’ve just got to have a go and that’s one of our great, I guess, Australian sayings is that really have a go and see where it takes you. So that would probably be my advice.
Steve Loates (33:59):
Yeah, no, I think that’s great. I think the just have a go covers just about everything in business and life.
Juliet Aurora (34:07):
Exactly.
Steve Loates (34:09):
What about you, Juliet? Do you have any final words for our audience before we close out the episode?
Juliet Aurora (34:15):
Actually, I do. I do have a couple. So one of the things that… It came up in a conversation that I was having with some colleagues yesterday as well, where we were talking about who an ideal client is for you, who were good, how to find the right clients, and how do you determine who you want to work with in your business. One of the people talked about understanding what the values are of the people that you want to do business with, and if your values are aligned and you find the same things important, the relationship tends to be a better one and a longer lasting one.
Juliet Aurora (34:53):
And spending the last 40 minutes with Luke and listening to him talk about the importance of culture and the importance of team, and even some of the ideas that he brought to the forefront between the analogy with Wimbledon and high-performance sports reinforced for me that because… I mean, it was like conversations that you and I have had, Steve, about how important the culture is and that as long as we have a good team behind us, there’s not anything that we can’t do. And it just, I guess, reinforced for me that when we choose to work with people that have those same values, that we both win. So, that was kind of my insight from the last hour as well.
Steve Loates (35:35):
Awesome. I think that’s a great insight. I think it also ties in, I think, with something Luke said, where he said, life is too short, why would you want to work with someone or a business that doesn’t share the same values and the same outlook? We should, as much as possible, try to enjoy working together, right? We spend a lot of time doing it. I think that’s really important.
Steve Loates (36:05):
That brings us to this episode’s words of wisdom. And I love this quote and I could not find for the life of me who said it. So if someone out there knows who did say this, please shoot me an email because I do like to give credit where credit is due. I think this is a great quote, but Mr. and Mrs. Google would not help me with who did this. So I’m just going to share the quote. “Don’t be upset by the results you didn’t get by the work you didn’t do.”
Juliet Aurora (36:41):
Very true. That’s like a sports quote.
Steve Loates (36:44):
[inaudible 00:36:45]. The other thing I was thinking of too, that now we have a client in Melbourne, and we never did before, and we’ve talked about going to the Australian Grand Prix. Is that a business expense if… Because we have a client and we could visit the client’s place of business. Would that work, Juliet, or am I [inaudible 00:37:10]?Juliet Aurora (37:10):
I’m not even going to touch that because you never know if CRA is listening to our podcasts. I’m not going to touch that one. So no, it would not be a business expense.
Steve Loates (37:18):
It was just an innocent question from someone who doesn’t know better. That’s all that was.
Luke Fuller (37:24):
You’re most welcome. That’s the most important thing. So you’re most welcome. It’ll be warmer here in March, and you could do the Australian Open in January and then the Grand Prix in early March. It would be really nice. I’m sure we can find some work here for you, Steve, as well. So yeah, thanks very much and really grateful for the opportunity to come on. It takes just finding good people and the amount of heartache and hours and time, and that we had with our bookkeepers before we come across you. Really so grateful for you and your team and thankful for Dan who I think you both know and worked with our action coach for recommending. So, yeah. It’s good to find like-minded people that have similar values, as you said, Juliet, and really set high standards in what they do.
Steve Loates (38:27):
Thank you very much.
Juliet Aurora (38:28):
[inaudible 00:38:28].Steve Loates (38:28):
Thank you for the kind words again, and thank you, Juliet. Thank you, Luke. But most importantly, thank you to you, our audience, for tuning in and giving us a listen. We sincerely hope you found some value here today, and we would love it if you would subscribe. We’re in all the normal places, iTunes, Spotify, Google, or you can go to the website, smartmansmarterwoman.com. So thank you. Until next time. Take good care of yourself and those that you love. Bye for now.
Song by Adam Vitovsky / CC BY 3.0
