When you get into business, it’ll be one of the biggest personal development journeys of your life because it constantly will push you to grow and learn new things about yourself. And the more that you can grow, the more your business can grow and that was something I think I learned from Jim Rome. And so if you stop growing as a person you can’t expect your business to grow because your business can only grow as far as your mind can, can grow and so you’ve constantly got to keep your education, keep your learning, keep your network growing, constantly refresh your ideas, challenge your ideas. So if you’ve been doing the same thing for the last couple of years and you haven’t changed anything, you need to take a step back and go what else could I be doing? Could I be doing things smarter better more efficiently is a better technology out there. Could I be partnering with better people, you know, should I be changing my message a little bit? Has the world moved on and maybe I haven’t because again if the world constantly moves and you’re not, you’re actually going backwards just by default just by standing still Thomas Green here with ethical marketing service on the episode today we have Gavin Sequeira, Gavin welcome.
Thank you very much Thomas pleasure to be here. It’s a pleasure to have you, would you like to take a moment and tell the audience a bit about yourself and what you do. I run a business called break free from corporate where we help people typically that are in corporate jobs or working in their 9-5 that are not happy little bit disillusioned looking to get out of that rut and start something where you know, perhaps more passion in what they’re doing and it’s not easy to quit one thing and start another because I’ve been there and done that. But you know, we teach people how to transition. So remove the risk, do something on the side, build it up, scale it with the right help and guidance and hopefully over time you can make that transition. So that’s what I do. And I like seeing people kind of achieve that state where they’re doing something that they feel good about. They can sleep well at night. They know that there’s light at the end of the tunnel and um, you know, that’s what I do these days. Thank you for the introduction. Um, I certainly fit into the criteria of a person who perhaps didn’t do it in the most intelligent way because I handed my notice in with basically nothing to go to.
So I had no websites. No, I had a skill if you like, but I didn’t have any kind of plan in place. I just knew that enough was enough and that was it. I wasn’t gonna do it anymore. So for those people who maybe don’t have that, let’s say if I say that that’s the wrong way to do it. If you could say such things, what would be, what would be the right way to do it? Look, I really don’t know if there’s a right or a wrong way. I think you’ve got to find something that you’re comfortable with and for a lot of people that I talked to, you know, quitting something and jumping from the frying pan into the fire, so to speak is quite daunting. So, you know, if most people have family commitments and a mortgage and all the usual stuff that comes along with life and you know, suddenly quit your job and go into something where you’re not sure how things are gonna turn out. You’re not, you know, there isn’t a track record or history and maybe you’ve never done anything like that before. It can be quite daunting and most people put off the idea because it’s just too scary a prospect.
But I think if you find yourself in the right environment where there are other people that are doing something similar, why not be exactly what you want to do? But you can share stories, you can talk about how they did it, you know, what were, what were the challenges they faced and how do they overcome it? I think you start to feel a little bit better within yourself and then you, you might be more inclined to to learn more, maybe grow some skills, take some baby steps, try some things that don’t put you at risk or harms way and if it works, it works. If it doesn’t you haven’t lost everything. So you’re not betting the house on on the on the stock market, so to speak. Yeah. So yeah you’re kind of, would you say it’s fair that your your target market is for people who want to to do that, want to get away and want to start their own business. But actually they see it as too risky and therefore you’re there to help them do that. Yeah, I would say that’s right. And sometimes thomas some of the people I speak to, they don’t actually know that they want to start a business. They know they want to get out of this current situation they find themselves in, it’s a bit like a trap and they don’t know what else they can do.
But they have all these skills, they have all these experiences, they have all these talents and gifts but they’re not sure how to make use of it, they’re not even sure how to package it, how to offer it to the market or or anything like that because they’ve never ever gone there before. So I guess one of the things we do when we talk to people right off the bat is to say what do you enjoy doing? You know, what do you like doing, what what do you do in your spare time? What are the conversations you have with friends, what do you read, what do you listen to all those types of things? Open up all these opportunities and then we start to narrow it down and I guess it’s a bit of soul searching, but at the end of the day, if you’re gonna do something you’re passionate about, you want to take the time to figure it out. So we take people on a journey once they figured out one or two or three things that they could do, then we pick one and we put some some some brains behind it, we set some plans in motion, we help them figure out a game plan and and off they go. But again, if it doesn’t work out, we’re not putting everything at risk and we’re certainly not risking their current job in doing that.
Well, it definitely sounds like an intelligent way to do it in my view anyway, but I’m interested to know what your experience was. So did you come up with this particular business as a result of going through it yourself or did you look at the way that you did it and thought there’s a much better way of doing it than that? Yeah, good question. Look, I, so when I was in corporate and I left the corporate world 15 back in 2007, so this was the time around the GFC or the global financial crisis And I’ve already been in the corporate world for about 11 years, so kinda shows my age a little bit, but I was, I was on top of the world with my job, I was doing really well and you know, there was no need for me to quit, but I have started a part time business really just out of fun, It was a hobby, it was something I just wanted to do on the side. There was no for me there was no, I needed to get away from the corporate world at that point. However, having then done that for about a year and a half to two years, I started to see all the things that didn’t fit right for me in that corporate environment.
Suddenly I didn’t like the politics involved. I didn’t like, you know, having to constantly report to people and and deal with bad bosses or you know the toxic world culture in some cases or just the unhealthy side of that I was traveling a lot etcetera. So then I started to figure out well if I need to make this transition, how do I do it? And I didn’t know how to do it thomas that’s the truth. So I when I was actually made redundant and it forced me out and I went into business pretty much because I had to and I made a lot of mistakes. My 1st 1st business was a franchise and I made money, but I didn’t know the first thing about running a business, I’ll be honest. And once I started making a lot of mistakes, I started talking to people who had done it, I realized what I was doing wrong, I got out of that business and then I started to do another business which was a consultancy business where I sold my services and that was great. But then I realized I don’t have systems, I don’t have anyone else it sold me.
So if I don’t go to work, I don’t make any money so I can take time off. And I’ve created this hectic lifestyle now where I’m a prisoner of my own business. And so again back to the drawing board and I kept doing this um this merry go round and figuring out what I was doing wrong and then getting help getting mentorship and coaching which then got me back on track. And in that process I was talking to a lot of they kept coming up to me and saying Gavin how did you do this and how did you solve that problem and how did you fix that? And when you were doing your marketing, what did you do there? And so I started giving out advice thomas and accidentally I became a business coach and a mentor. And again I loved it but I didn’t know what I was doing and I had to figure out a smart way of doing it. And I guess that was about six years ago I decided to set up a business in that area and put some programmatic approach to it. So the systems behind everything I do and again this was stuff that was taught to me, so it all evolved over time.
It didn’t just happen overnight. It sounds like correct me if I’m wrong. The actual the business coaching side of things, it is active work, meaning that you are the one that has to do it, but it is still quite rewarding for you because I mean you can make the decision between having a systemized business that other people do versus doing something that you enjoy anyway. So, but what’s your take on that? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. So look, there are coaches who like doing purely one on one work and it’s very time consuming and it’s very busy because you can only solve or work with so many clients in a day. Right? What I do in my case, I have a bit of a hybrid model where I do some one on one with my higher level clients. But I also have a group or a programmatic approach where people come into a system and there’s resources, there’s help, there’s a community and we’re able to help them and there’s a there’s a team around us and for those that want the specific one on one that’s where I stepped in but I enjoy doing that part.
Now I could outsource that but I wouldn’t have much to do if I did that. So for me that’s something I actually enjoy doing. But the vast majority of the work is systemized and done on the side, but it took a long time to get to that point and I guess I’m still working on it, but that’s part and parcel of, I guess the evolution there is um I did have an interesting conversation about because you know, there is an approach to, you know, you have to be able to take yourself out of the business if you’re the business owner and the conversation was around well what do you do if you actually achieve that you haven’t got anything else to do anymore. So have you given any thought to what you would do if you did take yourself out of your business? Well, I guess, you know, like, like entrepreneurs who you know, move on beyond their business, they either own it and they just let it work on the side and they’re happy with that and they then go on to build a second or a third or fourth business. That’s one option.
Um in my case, I don’t really have grand plans to take over the whole world. I love what I do, but you know, I might get to a point where you’re right, I could do a second or a third business and that would be fine with me, but for me, I’m at a stage in my life now where it’s about lifestyle and I built the business so that I can not have to do a whole lot, you know, I like doing other things and I’m involved in my community, I I play a lot of sport, I love to travel, me and my wife we have an active lifestyle, so it’s, it’s gotten us to a point where we just were building towards lifestyle decisions, not necessarily building business after business after business. Whilst having said that it does, it is an interesting prospect because when you either get bored of your business or you’ve got to a point where you don’t need to be there every day, what are you gonna do? You know, and you need to keep your mind active and I’m always talking to my business friends and my business mentors and there’s always opportunities out there and there’s so much to be done to be done, so I never say never.
But yeah, I think I think there’s definitely options there you mentioned in your background about the franchise, what what was that business? So it was basically a nutritional company um over here in Australia and they were selling products like weight loss products and um and they were also selling um supplements and all of that sort of stuff and we worked with a lot of sports stars and you know, we, it was a pretty good business, my partner and I did really well in that, but it got to a point where that the owners of the franchise were in our minds a little bit unethical in the way they did business and they got into some shady dealings and after a while I, you know, when I looked at my values and their values, they didn’t align and I just, I couldn’t be a part of that organization anymore. And it was, it was sad because, you know, we just had to walk away and I guess that’s the other thing that we learned because if someone said to us, you know, if you get into a franchise business that’s fantastic, everything is already built, the systems are there, you don’t have to do a whole lot.
But the problem is, you don’t own the franchise, you just, you lease it out for a certain number of years. And the problem is, you can’t make a lot of choices around, you know, product and pricing and all of that. And so these are the things we learned over time that we didn’t want to be in that position. And so, um, that, that was the franchise experience I had and when you left that one, were you able to sell any of it or was that just like you said? Yeah, yeah, yeah, we sold out. We sold a bit. There was still a couple of people that were in our team that moved on to other teams because they loved what they were doing and we didn’t want to hold anyone else back. But for us or for me particularly, I had to do something else that was better aligned with where I was at that stage of my development and I was reading all the books like Rich dad, poor Dad by robert, Kiyosaki and All of that. And I’m talking about this was 16, 17 years ago for me, uh and I straightaway figured out that there are so many other things I could be doing, I don’t need to be trapped in this business, even though it was a business of mine.
I just knew there were other opportunities and you know, when one door closes, another one opens and I was prepared to close that door because I knew there were other opportunities that lay ahead and it was business consultancy after that, what did that look like? Yes, so I basically decided selling products wasn’t necessarily my thing. I wanted to go into the services business and I thought, well what am I good at? I’m good at sales, marketing, strategy, business, consulting, that sort of thing. And I did that for large companies like IBM and oracle and I thought, well, okay, if I packaged myself in such a way, I could help other businesses out there, um, that didn’t have the skills or maybe needed skills where I could just come in and advise them or help them for a certain period. So I took on clients and I basically put it under my banner, created my own brand and again, I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I was just, I was winging it right and uh I did this for in the environmental space.
Um, so a lot of green companies were coming up about 89 years ago and it was fantastic and got into the whole solar energy and renewable energy sector and all of that has helped a lot of businesses grow because I was able to give them help and advice and strategy and guidance and things I was good at. But again, the problem thomas was I was all of it, it was me or nothing. I didn’t have a team. Um you know, there were days I didn’t want to go to work and you know, if I didn’t get up and go to work, I didn’t get paid because I was on on retainer and commission, so I wasn’t on salary and you know, I did all these things because I wanted to to grow and develop skills, but I wasn’t, I wasn’t doing in a smart way. And so the consultancy kind of platitude and I transitioned from there into building websites, building apps, working with local businesses in the areas like restaurants, cafes, um you know, small boutique shops and I showed them how to market online, grow their business online, help them on those sort of areas.
And that’s where I started meeting a lot of business owners and I developed these relationships and even when they stopped being my client and we were friends, they would come back to me, you know a year or two later and say Gavin, you know, we’ve got this problem, can you come and help us for a couple of months or for three months or six months? And so that’s how I became a business coach and really by accident, but end up being a really great thing in the end, what distinction would you make between coach and consultant there? Look, a consultant is someone in my opinion who sells their time, a coach’s someone or a mentor is someone who guides someone on how to get to the next level, you know how to improve what they’re doing. So if you look at a sporting analogy, someone like a Tiger Woods or Roger Federer has a coach to help them continually hone their skills and get better and better, even if they’re at the top of their game. So it’s not someone who’s selling their time, it’s really helping someone else and get to a better place or fine tune their craft and so what I was doing as a coach was helping the person I was working with all the business to really get to that next level because I could see things they couldn’t see because they were stuck in the business, whereas I could help them work on the business.
So that was the difference. Um and I guess what I do now is I help people really in that area for the first time. You know, these are brand new entrepreneurs, they’re they’re stuck in the corporate world, they’re trying to break out, they really don’t know the first thing that they need to be doing and a lot of them make a lot of basic mistakes and my my goal is really to help them um reduce the pain, You’re still going to make mistakes, but really learn from things I’ve done learned from mentors that have taught me and we can show people a better way and a safer pathway if that makes sense. You referenced mistakes that you’ve made and then also mistakes that other people make when they start and when I ask you about that, what springs to mind. Look, one of the biggest things I learned thomas very early on was how to, how to manage cash flow. Um You know, you hear about businesses managing cash flow and looking at their financial statements when you’re in the corporate world or you’re working for a paycheck, you don’t really think of that as much, you know, you get paid every month, you get used to it and you just balance your life around your paycheck because it’s fairly steady when you’re in business, especially at the early stages businesses like this right?
And in some cases it can stay like this and stay down for a long time and you need to be really good at working out what is necessary, what is urgent, what’s important, What’s critical learn the art of saying no, that was something I found quite challenging because, you know, when I first started any of my business is I wanted to say yes to anyone who would pay me. But I had to learn that sometimes saying yes can cost you more in the long term and you have to be very strategic on how you did that and you needed to make certain tiny decisions. And so and also the other thing I would say is investing in yourself in your education so early on in the first, maybe three or four years of my business experience, I didn’t have any mentors. I didn’t really do a lot of personal development or education from a business point of view. I thought I knew all of that because I’ve got an MBA and I’ve worked in the corporate world, but that didn’t really translate to practical stuff in the in the small business world. And I had to learn new skills and I had to talk to people who’ve been there and done that and I found the most useful people who talked to them are the ones that made the most mistakes, believe it or not.
So, um I don’t know if that answers your question, but you know, making mistakes is a good thing, as long as you learn from it. I’ve referenced learning from other people’s mistakes is the smart way to do it. But learning from your own mistakes means that you never you never repeat it again because there’s there’s no way you’re going through that again, Right? But the reference something about saying no, and I think it was in the context was to new clients essentially. Can you give me an example about when you have said no to a client and the reasons why? Yeah. Look, I’ve had, I’ve had people who’ve desperately wanted to join or or take up my services, but they weren’t in a good financial spot. You know, they were going through a divorce or, you know, I’ve had people who are on the on the verge of bankruptcy or, or, you know, people who are just so time poor because of things that are going on in their life that they just wouldn’t have the time to dedicate to starting a business.
So if I were to take them on as a client, even if they could afford to pay me, the problem would be, I wouldn’t be able to help them get results because they’re not in the right mindset. And so when I talk to people and I’m really up front about it, I say, look, I’ll, if you take five steps forward, I’ll take five steps with you, but you’ve got to take the five steps. Otherwise what happens is I’ll be moving at a faster pace than you and it doesn’t work that way. You know, it’s your business. You’re the, you’re in the driver’s seat. I’m really there to make sure that you’re looking at both sides, you know, the front and the rear vision mirror. I’m there to guide you to make sure you don’t get off the lane and you’re focused on your goals and your vision and you’re doing all the things that count, but you still got to do it. And so when life throws a spanner in the works, I’m there to help you make sure that you stay on course. And when people have too many things going on in their life and they can’t dedicate the time. Um, that’s a red flag for me. You know, I did pick a couple of clients early on, they said all the right things to me and they could, they just couldn’t turn up on time, they couldn’t commit, they couldn’t do things and six months ago by and they weren’t getting results.
And then unfortunately I had a client turn turn around and say, well this isn’t working, you’re you’re coaching isn’t working. You know, whatever you’re you’re teaching or helping it just isn’t working. And I, you know, I had to I had to lay down some hard truths with that person. And I think we both came to an understanding that they just weren’t in the right place to do anything. And so yes saying no, sometimes can just save you a lot of time and hassle. You gotta be prepared to do it. It’s not easy but look for the right opportunities where there’s a fit and you’re going into a business relationship. So if you take on a client it’s going to work for the client and for you as a business owner, if it doesn’t work for you how can you then help other people if it’s very draining on your time and energy, maybe that’s not the right client, maybe that’s not the right opportunity for you. So you gotta factor these things in. It has somewhat come back to your answer about the difference between a coach and a consultant because a consultant presumably would just say well you paid from the time the time is done and the coach I think you said it’s about the investment in the outcome of that person.
So um as a coach you need to make sure that you well you you you care about the outcome as much as they do and therefore if they’re not going to get the outcome then you don’t take them off. Is that fair? Yeah that’s 100% fair. I totally agree, 100 for prep for the episode. I went on the on the website and checked out. I think if I’m not mistaken there are eight different businesses that someone can go into. Um Or at least there’s eight that you perhaps recommend when they’re stuck in the corporate life. Um do you um can you share a few of what, what might be in terms of, let’s say what’s in demand at the moment or perhaps where the least obstacles are? Well, I can tell you what a lot of people come across, these are the most common. They all have pros and cons. I’m not going to say which one is better or not. It really depends on on your circumstance, but you know, some of the easy ones to get in are the ones that require the least amount of risk and capital and especially if you’ve got commitments, uh you know, some easy type of business is to get in are for example, um like an a network marketing business would be one.
Another one could be something like an online amazon or Ebay store or something where you’re selling a product, but there’s not a there’s not a huge commitment that you need to, you know, by tens of thousands of dollars of product because yes, you can do that, but that that can also be um you know, quite a hindrance drop, shipping is another one I’ve come across where you can make fantastic money, but you need to know what you’re doing. Um And again, I see a lot of people getting into these types of businesses and they lose everything, they lose most of what they invested. I see people investing in stocks. Cryptocurrency, uh you know, these are things more like investments and unless you know what your strategy is. Again you can make plenty of money but you need to know what you’re getting into, how long you’re going to stay in it for. What are the goals behind it? Because if you need quick money in and out, you know, it’s a risky business. I see people sometimes getting into property investments and things like that flipping property and and all of that again for something like that thomas that’s high return, high risk unless you know what you’re doing and you’re prepared to put in the time, wait it out because economies can go up and down and we’ve had all sorts of things in the last couple of years happen as you know and so you need to be able to weather the storm when it comes to those type of investment or business decisions and I would put franchises in the same bucket.
So you know, I had a family member 2.5 years ago literally just before Covid hit by a franchisor jim and that jim was making good money, you know that this guy was set if he could just hold out for five years and you know, six months later the gym had to close down, lost all his clients lost a lot of income and lost his house and his marriage and this is someone I personally know. So you know that you’ve got to balance the risk with the, with the the gains or the returns and if you’re prepared to manage the risk then then go for it. If not and you think it’s too risky, go for something that’s less risky. Get get the appetite where you know get some, get some wins under your belt even if it’s a small time business and it makes you $1000 sell something on Ebay. You know, you know I joke with people like sell sell a service, you offer a service, package it up, see if you can sell it, get a climb if you can, if it worked, could you do it better?
Could you grow that? Could you put systems behind it? Could you um you know monetize it in a different way and you’d be surprised what you can do these days with technology so there’s many options I guess it’s a longer conversation. I do like the amazon Ebay business just because if you decided you wanted to sell a product on a website for example on your own website, the difference between that and the monstrous traffic that amazon and Ebay get is just, it’s so so different. The gym example. I do feel a bit sorry for gym owners because there’s no no way or at least it’s improbable people would be able to predict that the pandemic came along. You completely agree and again, you know sometimes it’s the unpredictable nature of the economy business in general. I mean even what’s going on now in the world today, you know geopolitics and all of that when you take it all into account um you really you want to just work out I guess the big question is You know, what are your goals, what’s your vision and where do you want to be in a certain time frame and then you start there and what are all the ways you can get there?
There might be 10 different ways for you to get there. Three of them are anti business. Two of them might be investments took like five of them might be a different type of job or opportunity. One of them might be moving to another country and doing something different. I mean how can you get to that goal? What are all the ways that you can get their work out the pros and cons of each and and then make an educated decision on that. So you know, don’t take the first thing off of a suggestion from a friend because that’s just one point of view. Talk to a lot of people get a lot of different perspectives and and and do the numbers and if everything stacks up and you’re prepared to roll the dice and it’s not a lot of risk and you know, you’ll still have your house at the end of the day, good for it. You know life is short. So I always say don’t hold on too long because you’ll have regrets if you never try something. And so a little bit of risk is okay, you know, as long as you can manage it. Are there any businesses that you, let’s say if someone came to you and they wanted coaching, are there any businesses which you would be like, Yeah, I’m not I’m not going anywhere near that business.
Anything spring to mind for you. Then look to be honest, uh talking about amazon or you know the drop shipping or or that those types of businesses, I must admit they are already heavily systemized and you know, it just requires someone who is willing to, you need to enjoy it, you need to really want to do that kind of business for me that’s not particularly my cup of tea, I can help someone in there, but it wouldn’t take a lot to get that person started and then they are often running, you know, and so online stores and selling products is great. It’s not really my forte. I’ll tell you what is though services and online education and solving problems and providing help to either other business owners or communities or just people in general. There are so many things that need addressing. There’s so many problems that need solutions, any, any number of them can be done and you can make money out of it.
And you know, I I believe if you can help someone solve a problem and you can make a dollar out of it and keep within an ethical framework, I’m all for it. And that’s that’s what I like, teaching people not necessarily how to sell shoes on amazon, it’s just on my thing. And why do you think that is only because I I I I value the contribution I can make to someone else’s life and what that then has on the community. And if all I do is teach someone how to sell something online and they’re making plenty of money, it’s I’m helping one person in isolation. Whereas let’s say I helped someone as an example, I’ve got a two teachers to school teachers that are in our program right now and they set up their own online education platform where they’re helping students right now. And during the pandemic, when schools were closed over here in Australia was pretty bad. We’re probably one of the worst in the world. You know, we had curfews where you couldn’t even go five km outside your house. The schools were closed.
If you were a tutor, you couldn’t go to someone’s house to tutor them. So kids education really suffered. And my two clients, their businesses went through the roof because they provided an online service where they could help students couldn’t otherwise travel and they couldn’t travel, but you could do it and they were able to keep up with the school curriculum. And so, you know, they made money, the parents benefited, the students benefited, I felt that’s a more worthwhile contribution rather than just helping someone sell something online to make a few bucks so you would focus or what’s what’s meaningful to you is to make a contribution rather than just helping in a business sense. Yeah. And look I’ve you know prior to me setting up this business, one thing I didn’t mention was I when I got into business coaching accidentally, I loved it and then I realized what is this, how do I get better at it? So I started looking at people who were doing this really well. And here in Australia there’s a guy called Dale Bowman who runs a A business blueprint program.
It’s the number one business training program in the country. And then there’s action coach which was started by another Australian called brad Sugars and it was the number one business training program worldwide. And I actually did business coaching and mentoring for both of these businesses and end up working with about three or 350 individual businesses that ranged from startups to several million dollars. And I can tell you where I found pleasure and Joy was in working with those business owners that we’re making a difference to their community as opposed to ones that were just selling products online, you know, and they made millions of dollars but I just didn’t feel the connection, I was helping them. But I I personally didn’t feel I was making a worthwhile contribution, you know beyond them. And if that makes sense. Yeah, it makes perfect sense. Is there any way that you could potentially turn those businesses into ones which are making a contribution like that? So for example, I spoke to Mark and john Cronin and they run a business called john’s Crazy socks.
And so it’s essentially a sock company that they support people with differing abilities. So it’s basically, it’s a business, but at the same time it’s a business that focuses focuses on a social cause. Would you see that as, um, what are your thoughts then? Well, I think social causes are fantastic. Um, you know, one of the causes, we support our kids in Thailand who, Uh, we’re stuck during the tsunami without uh, without, well, basically when the tsunami hit in 2004, it devastated that whole part of the country. And uh, you know, I’m part of an organization now that does a bike ride in Thailand and raises money for these kids and build orphanages. So, you know, obviously we couldn’t do this in the last couple of years, but we contribute to organizations like that. So we like to support kids. I love supporting kids and, and, and things like that. I do believe social causes are a great way for businesses to give back.
So even if their business doesn’t do much for the community in the actual business sense? They can take the proceeds of the profits even if it’s a percentage and give it towards a worthy cause. And suddenly it becomes a whole different ballgame and personally speaking thomas, you know, if you were to say that to a client and say, look, the only thing that’s different between us and them is when you work with us, we help these people and we helped this organization, we help, you know, this course. And that can be a difference in winning a client sometimes because they go, well, I’d like to work with thomas because of is what he does with his ethical nature and what he does to help kids and he’s just a better human being. And so therefore people make decisions based on the heart, you know, and even if you are more expensive than the guy next door, if that makes sense. So I I fully support encouraging business owners to think about contributing to social causes. I think it’s a, it’s great for the whole planet. Well, I like the approach to social causes, but I’ve got to admit, I just might have to take that snippet out of what you just said there and just sort of take it out and say thomas is a better human being and just leave that as it is on its own on its own video.
Is there anything I should have asked you about today? Look, um, I mean, I think you’ve covered some really good, some really good points. You know, one of the things I will say to anyone listening to this is business is not easy and um it’s a journey, it’s development and I was told very early on, I think I read this and not reach the airport and maybe think and grow rich or one of those books, it’s when you get into business, it will be one of the biggest personal development journeys of your life because it constantly will, will push you to grow and learn new things about yourself and the more that you can grow, the more your business can grow. And that was something I think I learned from Jim Rome. And so if you stop growing as a person, you can’t expect your business to grow because your business can only grow as far as your mind can grow. So you’ve constantly got to keep your education, keep your learning, keep your network growing, you know, constantly refresh your ideas, challenge your ideas. So if you’ve been doing the same thing for the last couple of years and you haven’t changed anything, you need to take a step back and go, what else could I be doing?
Could I be doing things smarter better, more efficiently? Is there a better technology out there? Could I be partnering with better people? You know, should I be changing my message a little bit, has the world moved on? And maybe I had, you know, because again, if if the world constantly moves and you’re not, you’re actually going backwards just by default just by standing still. So you never want to stand still because guess what? You know, there’s other people that will come and take your place and so you want to constantly keep refreshed, keep on top of that education. Um, get good mentors, get good people around, you, build that community of like minded people and sharing the success that you have. But also when you have, you know, tough times, you can talk to other people and learn from them because business can be lonely and you don’t want to be stuck in an island all by yourself figuring out where did I go wrong? Because just because you might stumble and fall down a rabbit hole, there’s many ways to get out of it. You just need to talk to the right people. So that’s probably something I’ll share. Just, there’s something I learned the hard way.
Well the personal growth side of things leads me nicely onto my next question, which is what your goals are, what, what’s next for you? Yeah, look, one of my goals a few years ago was actually to get to get out of the rat race and have my own business and then move into the move to the country, Get out of the big smoke, the big city. So I live in the country right now in south Australia, which is a beautiful part of the world and I’m 2.5 hours away from Adelaide. So Adelaide is the capital city and I’m in the country, you know, and I’m enjoying it, I love it, but that was a lifestyle choice and so that was one of my goals and you know, I guess that’s come to fruition other goals to ensure that you know, the clients I currently work with can also achieve their goals and you know, to set up not just my, my clients but people around my community, you know, I’m very close to the people in my community and I like to get involved and the more I get involved, the more I’m able to help and provide services and all of that.
So you know my goals are constantly involving, but it’s to to be in touch with the people that are close to me and help make a difference in their life. And I’m not just insular with my community, I talked to people around the world, so you know when I’m talking to people in other countries, if I can pass on some knowledge or some information I’d like to keep abreast of that, I run a podcast thomas just like yourself and that’s one of the ways I can share other people’s stories, you know, to inspire individuals who are thinking along these lines. So they don’t just have to listen to my story, but they can listen to other people’s stories and when you start piecing together all the little nuggets from other people, you’ll see there’s a pattern and there’s a trend and my goal is to get information like that out to more people. So I’m constantly doing more work in that area and I guess just, you know, really just educating, I’m moving more into the education field. So my goal is to continually drive that speak at more events and I guess just help people along that journey and how’s the podcast hosting going for you?
Yeah, it’s going good. I’m enjoying it. I actually really, really enjoyed, I focused on talking to people that have left the corporate world and they’re doing their business now, whatever it might be, and it’s it’s irrespective of how much they earn or how big it is. It’s the fact that they are doing something that they’re passionate about and something they enjoy. And if they’ve made that transition, I want to find out how they did it and I want them to share with the rest of the world how they did it. So, You know, if they made $1 million book, you know, they’re, they’re doing something, they love doing fantastic share your story with us and you know, I’m happy to pass it on to to our audience. So maybe I’ll get you to to do the same. Well I referenced how how mine looks. So I’m not sure it would be a particularly in depth episode, but I’m sure we can have a good chat just before we conclude, you referenced self development as being a big part of your life.
I suppose a couple of times in the episode. When did that first start for you? Look, it started a couple of years before, well actually it’s the whole personal development journey started a couple of years before I left the corporate world and this is what actually got me the question why was I in that environment? Was it meeting my needs? Was I happy? Was I fulfilled? What, what are my values? Did my values align with the company’s values, all of those things and you know, I did all the Tony Robbins programs. I walked on fire and I walked on broken glass, I did all of that. Every time I did stuff like that, I came to another realization and to be honest, it was very confronting because I felt very lost after doing all of this personal development, I was like, where am I, who am I, where am I going? And and the more the more I read or the more I listened to, or the more things I attended, the more questions I had and I guess the way out for me was to figure out a pathway and for me it was about, you know, doing something that um made me feel good, made me feel like I was contributing, made me feel like I was providing value and again, business became a vehicle for me to, to try and express that again.
When I first started, I didn’t know what was going to be my final business and even what I’m doing now, thomas might not be my final business, you know, this is my evolution. So I’m constantly asking myself at this stage of my life, what’s the next thing, where am I heading? Where, where do I want to be in five years time? And I do vision boards and dream boards and all of that and I’m very big on manifesting. So I, I always look at this stuff and I try and visualize and going, is that still where I want to be going? And if the answer is no, I need to, I need to figure it out. Yeah, well I think people can sort of walk into jobs and everything and not really know what it is they want and then as soon as you start actually asking those questions that can lead you to want to exit, so totally understandable, you’re in that position. If people want to learn more and maybe check out the website, where do they go? Yeah, look, there’s a couple of places, I’d probably point you out one, you can go to my linkedin profile, probably the best place to connect with me and just all the links to what I do, all the videos, all the, you know, all the information is on my linkedin profile.
Look up Gavin Sequeira or break free from corporate if you want to go directly to my website, it’s break free from corporate dot com and there’s lots of resources there, there’s webinars, there’s books, there’s a book, there’s a program, there’s all of that. But really if you just want to connect and even just have a chat, I’m very open to it, you know, come on their say good day, right. You know a little message. I’m happy to have a little chat with you and we can see you know, what would make sense for the next thing for you to do? Is it to read something, Check something out, talk to someone and you know, we’re happy to help Well for those watching. Please review the links in the description. Gavin thank you for being a great guest. Very welcome. Thank you Thomas. My pleasure