Connecting the Dots

Connecting the Dots...with a mountain climber (Adi Koszta)

• Adam Leishman • Season 1 • Episode 46

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Adi joins me for Episode 46 of Connecting the Dots and proves that accountants can be adrenaline junkies. We talk about:

  • His journey from Sunshine Coast student to global advisory leader
  • How he balances family, business, and mountain climbing
  • Training under world-class alpine guides
  • The three buckets of life: how he manages competing priorities
  • Why risk mitigation is as vital on the mountain as it is in the boardroom
  • The wild story of showing up to a glacier in Aldi boots
  • And his wife Robyn’s world-class performance in 24hr obstacle racing!

This one's about finding your edge—on every front. 

#ConnectingTheDots #MountainClimbing #BusinessAdvice #WorkLifeBalance #HighPerformanceLiving #PodcastAustralia

Speaker 7:

Episode 46 of connecting the dots with people I don't know or do know. This is somebody I do know, but I did not know he had so much stuff going on. He talks about the three areas of his life. He's excelling in all of them. We're gonna find all about that. But the main reason I got him was'cause I wanted to talk to him about this alpine mountain climbing stuff that he does. So let's go check that out.

Speaker:

This is Adi. We met probably over a decade ago, chamber of Commerce. And you are an accountant.

Speaker 2:

Yep. In about 2010 or 2011, I would've come on board as the treasurer of the Chamber of Commerce. Quite fitting

Speaker:

for an accountant.

Speaker 2:

Yep, that's right. So

Speaker:

they, they always get shoehorned into that role, don't they? Have you been in a, a, a treasurer for any other organizations along the way? That was my

Speaker 2:

first and and then. Just subsequent ones were boards of directors for community organizations and that kind of thing, but not treasurer. Yeah. For, for any kind of entities again.

Speaker:

So let's start with accounting. How did you get into accounting?

Speaker 2:

That's probably slightly an embarrassing story now, but back in grade 11, I think it was I was running AM mark in my biology class, in, in school, and I actually got kicked out of biology and needed to select. Another subject for the following year that was in the exact same spot in the timetable. And the only thing that was in the same spot as grade 12 biology was year 11 accounting. So I got jammed into year 11 accounting when I was in grade 12. And and then sort of had a knack for it. And then, yeah, when, when the end of grade 12 rolled along. And you had to apply for university or what you were going to do? I kind of just applied for the accounting at Sunshine Coast University. Yep. The back then you were allowed to put in six, six six options for, for your course. And I just put the one in and thought if I don't get into that, it's not meant to be, and I would go do something else. But it was meant to be got in and yeah. Knocked it outta the park in terms of the. The undergraduate staff and then the postgraduate staff, and then, yeah. Opening up the business.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. Where where did you go to school? School was in roi. Okay. At Musa District High School and, yeah, onto university at Sunshine Coast at Sippy Downs. Right. So how did you end up in Caboolture then? Yeah, so Caboolture was a bit of a halfway point between Brisbane and where I grew up in, in Noosa. I'd moved after finishing university and working in a, in a firm up in Newville. I was kind of ready to take that next step and outgrown any of the firms that were on the coast and at the time anyway, and moved down to Brisbane for work and just renting down there. But when, when myself and Robin were ready to buy a house. We got priced outta the Brisbane market. It was like 2008. Mm-hmm. Getting like just before GFC. So interest rates were, were high and property prices were high. So couldn't afford in Brisbane, couldn't afford up on the Sunshine Coast. And Caboolture was that sort of midpoint. Yep. That yeah, we bought our first house there, so we were still able to commute into the city for work and get up up the coast on the weekends. Yeah.

Speaker:

Awesome. And tell us about your firm now.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Laslo Grace. Yep. We are the Queensland member firm for Impact Global, which is a global alliance of accounting firms. It's a non non co-branded. Alliance. So where you've got your Pricewaterhouse and KPMG and Ernst and Young and those kind of things. Those firms are all co-branded alliances. Ours is not a co-branded alliance, so our alliance is impact global. And in every major city around the world, I think we've got about 165 cities and locations covered. We've got a, an impact global member firm and that just helps us look after our clients who have either overseas distribution chains or other bigger businesses that are expanding into Australia. And specifically for me into the Queensland market.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

So, mining support services are really the, the, the major ones that we do the international tax advisory for through Impact Global yeah, just that's if, if there's an overseas company expanding into Australia via Queensland. It's usually mining support.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

But other than that, we do wealth management and from an investment point of view, and also tax advisory and tax compliance. So if we're doing tax advisory for someone making sure their business structuring is all done correctly and minimizing their tax and protecting their assets. We roll on and do the, the tax returns and financial statements as well.

Speaker:

And typically your clients would be business owners? Yeah. As opposed to, you know, employees, I guess

Speaker 2:

Definitely business owners and also high net worth individuals. Okay. So if someone we do a lot of self-managed superannuation funds, so, they're not exclusively for business owners. If someone's got. That has been earning a lot of money and having a lot of superannuation contributions over the year, or sold assets and dropped money in to, to offset capital gains tax. Yep. They might fall into a category of a self-managed super fund. So we do that as well. But yeah, primarily yeah, businesses and tax advisory.

Speaker:

Yeah. Awesome.

Speaker 2:

So you've been an accountant since when started straight out of

Speaker:

uni in 2004. Okay. So. O over 20 years now. Yeah. What, what still gets you going in accounting? What, what excites you? What's your favorite bit?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's it's a bit different for where I am now. So what excites me now is different than what excited me earlier on. We do a lot of. We can add a lot of value in a very small breadth of area. So with, with businesses like there'll be accountants that have touch points on mergers and acquisitions or or the yeah, other minor parts of the business but where accountants can have really major influence on the business. Is in things like like the, the business structuring, like even going from when to use a company, when to use a trust. So if someone comes to us with a great idea that is going to be effectively patented or from a intellectual property IP point of view, then. We wanna make sure that we're looking forwards to what the value's going to be. And we'll say, okay, well you want to wrap up that IP in a trust because that's the thing that's gonna go off in value and then license it to a company. And that's the thing that's going to save you tax in, in operational, in an operational context. So in that little example, we're we're both minimizing potential tax in the long term. Minimizing operational tax, like tax on, on your normal net operational income in the short term, which allows them the cash flow to reinvest in the business and, and really get it from where they are now to where they want to be. Yeah. So it's, it's that type of stuff that I think is, is really beneficial. Yeah. Awesome. And I touched on mergers and acquisitions before. That's probably something that that we actually do end up having a bit more. More influence over especially now we're seeing just, just we're over the hump of all those baby boomers that are starting to exit the, the industry and anyone in that sort of age category are looking at at, at their exit strategies properly. Yep. And starting to get a bit more of the, the management of. Those businesses doing exit strategies and the acquisitions or mergers in, in some cases that, that they're doing for that business to continue or become a part of an another business. And that's, that can be quite interesting with, with cash flow.'cause not everyone is doing mergers and acquisitions with cash. Yep. Or, or, or lent or borrowed money. Sometimes there's equity. Positions there. Sometimes there's vendor finance. There's a mix of all of that. And sitting down at like a board level with the two different, two different businesses involved and making sure that every, like, every, it's a good outcome for everyone is is interesting as well. But that's something that is growing at the moment for, for me and my firm anyway. Yeah. Rather than, something I've done over the last 20 years.

Speaker:

Yeah. Awesome. There's a lot of baby boomers out there that somewhere along the line built themselves some big businesses. Yeah. Almost without any procedures in place. Yeah. Stuff like that. And I guess they're getting swallowed up because there's, you know, I. At a raw level, some great businesses that even if they tinkered with some processes would be even better.

Speaker 2:

Yep, yep. And that's, that's the other part of it as well. We, you've just hit it on the head there, it's getting something ready for their exit strategy to, to actually be implemented in one or two or three or five years time.

Speaker:

Yep. Now, if I went to your Instagram, I would see nothing about accounting.

Speaker 2:

What would I see? So yeah, my personal Instagram, my Laslo Grace Instagram has no posts. Don't, I don't follow that one. Yeah. Yeah. So for the last few, several years, I. I've been getting involved in rock climbing, alpine climbing, high altitude mountaineering.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

And, and that kind of thing.

Speaker:

And it's not just rock climbing. I mean, I guess you start off somewhere like, you know what's, what's an entry level into rock climbing kangaroo points or something like that. Yeah. That's not the photos I see on your Instagram.

Speaker 2:

No.

Speaker:

What's the tallest mountain you've been on?

Speaker 2:

Tallest mountain that I've summited. It was just a mountaineering objective, so a non-technical, still on a glacier, but, but hiking up, it was called me Peak. Okay. In Nepal. It was just a bit over 6,500 meters. So that's gimme some context. You'll start to feel the effects of altitude and altitude sickness at about 4,000 or four and half thousand meters, right? Some people are less, some people are more, but about that, so we're another 2000 meters on top of that. So it's full acclimatizing staying at specific camps for, for a day or so, right? And yeah, the, the actual climb is a full day going up the glacier to a high camp. And then an what we call an alpine start. So starting at one or 2:00 AM and doing the full, you know, 10 or 10 or so hour slog up through the snow and on the glacier up to the summit. So a lot of

Speaker:

planning,

Speaker 2:

Yeah, yeah. Oh, that, yeah, in general, a lot of planning. That one for me was non-technical. So, even though we're in boots and crampons and roping up, because we're on a glacier and there's the cava danger. There was no technical gear as in cams and devices that we're, we're using for rock climbing and protection and that kind of thing. Okay. Belay devices and whatnot, which I can get into. But

Speaker:

so there's different types of,

Speaker 2:

so there's so technical and non-technical. Yeah. So that, that was the high, highest one that I've summited. But that was non-technical. From the top there. Being in the Himalayas, you could see all of those bigger 8,000 meter mountains like Everest and Laze and Yep. Show ou and those, those kind of mountains. I, the, the biggest technical one that I've, I've attempted was about 6,200 meters. It's called Kajo Re in, in Nepal, and that was. Proper ice tools out, ice climbing, ice screws cams for protection and everything like that. We didn't actually summit though. I think we got probably 200 vertical meters from the top and had a bit of a wide out. Okay. Yeah. And, and is

Speaker:

that where you just, it's

Speaker 2:

packing, you know, turn around and go home? Well, yeah, we tried to bunker down bunker down for about an hour, but, I was just getting too cold. Yeah. Like I was, I was in a down parker and everything, just shivering. And what's the temperature in something

Speaker:

like

Speaker 2:

that? I can't remember that exact day, but yeah, e between negative 20, negative 25. Right. So, yeah, definitely cold. That was the highest technical mountain that, that we tried. And then other ones, so my mountaineering started at Mount Everest. I didn't summit, but it was one of these training climbs. So I went up to camp three. Yep. Which is 7,000 meters. Okay. Which is a long way up. And yeah, definitely feeling the effects of altitude. But at the time there was the permit costs were, were too much and the timeframe was too much to do, to go any higher.

Speaker:

Yep. So how many times have you hopped on a plane to fly to another country? To climb a mountain now?

Speaker 2:

30

Speaker:

or

Speaker 2:

40. Yeah.

Speaker:

Yeah. I wasn't expecting that. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

It's,

Speaker:

So clearly a deep passion.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. And over the last couple of years, I've started the formal training in, in that as well. So from a guiding perspective. Yep. Because I, I realized there was a gap in. My knowledge and what I could achieve in Australia because we, we've got a lot of rock climbing and really good rock climbers here, but from an alpine point of view, we've got no alpine environment. There's no ice, there's no big mountains, there's no altitude or anything like that. So there, there was a gap there. And there was also a gap in my ability to climb with other people because what I'd found is in terms of the alpine. Realm, so, five or 6,000 meters technical climbing with ice tools and and mixed rock as well. I was more experienced than any of my immediate friends, so I couldn't drag them along. Also, more experienced than anyone would climb with me, but not experienced enough. For that next level of people who were capable of doing those sorts of things. Yep. So that, that gap there, the best way I could, I could work out to, to bridge that, was to do formal training. So, in the guiding sense there's an international body called I-F-M-G-A, which is the International Federation of Mountain Guide Associations. And they, they provide the best level of training in the world. I figured if I can get into that system, get trained by these I-F-M-G-A professionals. I would also be going through the programs with people at my, at my same level. Yep. And and then be able to climb and progress with people at around my same level or even more. And I am kind of happy'cause just after the last trip I was, I was in Colorado in in February, I started to see the fruits of all of that over the last couple of years because there was people who were in that area who I'd met and done courses on courses with before that we were able to go out and climb climb with them and and other professionals that are at the, are already fully qualified guides. I, I'm going out and climbing with them and being able to tag along on there. Their own guiding company development days as, as like a trainee guide or assistant guide or something like that. So I am seeing the fruits of all of that. Yeah. Wow. Now, after a couple of years of doing it formally, how did, how did you, how did you get into this? Where do, do you how the yeah. The best I can come up with is, so about 10 years ago as a Father's Day present, I. I kind, I went over to America by myself. So Robin looked after the kids who were young at the time, and I just planned to go over to all the different national parks and just do hiking.'cause I was not into climbing. I wasn't into anything else. I was just going to do a bunch of hiking to all these cool places. So Yosemite and Yellowstone, and up into the Canadian Rockies. So I, I did all of that and when I came back down out of Canada, I came through Washington State to a mountain range called the the North Cascades. And it was May or June, but it was after a big winter. So there was lot, lots of snow there. And I arrived at the carpark in in snow boots that I got from Aldi or Anaconda or something like that. So just the ones that you're supposed to go to, like the ski village in and walk around town. So those, because I had no idea. So I rock up in the, in my, my Aldi boots and and I had a, an idea on where I wanted to go, but I really didn't have, have an idea at all. And there was some back country skiers in the car park. And I asked, oh, can I tag along with you? And they sort of looked me up and down and looked at those boots and they're just like, oh no, I don't think you're really prepared.'cause they knew what we were getting into. And and I'm like, oh no, it'll be all right. Like, and can I just follow along until it's, it's unsafe? And they're like, yeah, okay. And we started to go up, so they were skiing up in their skims and everything and I was just sort of following them. And it got to the point where we went up the side of this mountain and got onto the ridge line. And after the ridge line there was a big there was a glacier. And I know now that I shouldn't be, shouldn't be up there by myself. Like they're okay'cause they're on skis and they're not gonna go through any crevasses. But I was following him up and I got to about a hundred meters from from the top. And and over the back of the mountain,'cause it, it all got ridge lining. Over the back there was a crew of people who were on a course, like an alpine, an alpine skills course or something like that. And they were all decked out. They had the boots and crampons on. They, they were harnessed and ropes together. Had their ice tool like mountaineering ICE tools out for, for safety. Helmets, everything. And they came over and whoever the guide was, the trainer, he just looked at me and said, what the hell are you doing up here? Because by this stage I'm in the sun. I'm in a t-shirt now.'cause I've got my, my jumper wrapped around my waist and he's seeing me and he's like, what are you doing? Like, you are gonna get yourself killed. And I'm like, oh, what do you mean? He started talking about crevasses and, and, and everything, which I know now is super dangerous. So I turned around before getting to the top and but when I turned around, I looked out and we were, we were above everything else, like North cascades for hundreds of kilometers, all these Snowcapped mountains. It was a beautiful day and yeah, it was awesome. And I sort of half slid back down back down into the tree line and, and back down to the cars. And by that stage, the guys who I was following up had skied up to the top and then down and around and were back in the car and basically went into the boot and grabbed a tinny of beer and, and threw it. And it was like, oh, you know, good job today, or whatever. And I cracked open a tinny and, and had it there in the car park with them. And I thought that's the that that's, this is the sport that I want to be in, or this is the, the type adventures that I want to be in. So.

Speaker:

Dangerous. What? Make, what? It, it it's a dangerous sport. Yeah. What, and not just from obviously falling, but temperature,

Speaker 2:

What are some of the dangers? Yeah, yeah. So obviously the idea is to mitigate danger as much as prof. As much, as much as possible. And the more I go through this, especially in a professional sense.'cause like I said, I'm getting the, these programs. Are I-F-M-G-A world class programs that I'm going through for rock and alpine and avalanche danger and all this sort of thing? Yeah. So the first thing is mitigating danger as much as we can and then but there's always that that subjective versus objective danger as well. But yeah, to answer your question, does that, does that

Speaker:

make it exciting? Is this what accountants do for their excitement?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I could, I could die in, in general, but if I do these

Speaker:

things to mitigate it, yeah. It's like risk mitigation. It sounds

Speaker 2:

like tax minimization. Yeah. I take, I take risks. I mitigate risk at work and I mitigate risk outside. But it's, there's all, there's also that that danger when you're on the mountain. So, avalanche is a huge thing. The, the cold weather isn't such a huge thing unless you've got. Unless something else has gone wrong and then you end up there overnight and you haven't been planning to end up there overnight and you have to vivy or whatever. Yeah. For, well, they, they look at I. The, the three falling dangers when you're actually climbing, you're gonna, are you gonna fall off the mountain? Are you gonna fall into the mountain as in, go down a crevasse, or are you, is the mountain going to fall on you? So rockfall and avalanche Yep. And that kind of thing. So, they're probably the biggest three dangers when you're at altitude. So, in Nepal, and I've been to Pakistan as well you've got, altitude sickness and, and that kind of thing. I've been up to 7,000 meters in, in Nepal, and I think it must have been a bit over 5,000 meters in Pakistan. And just the, the experience helps with that because, you know, not to push too, too high, too fast.

Speaker:

Yep. And what is altitude sickness?

Speaker 2:

The, the symptoms are headaches and nausea and. Not wanting to eat and yeah. Throwing up and, and just feeling, feeling crap. Like the worst hangover type thing. But my understanding is that because the air's thinner up there every time you, you're taking a breath, you're not getting as much oxygen. Yeah. And so it's, it's the lack of oxygen in your body and your body just isn't able to operate.

Speaker:

So it's a, it's, it's an oxygen thing, not that the body for some reason knows it's up high.

Speaker 2:

Yeah.

Speaker:

It's yeah, you're exactly right. Okay.

Speaker 2:

But.

Speaker:

Otherwise we'd get in, in a plane, wouldn't we?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Well, the planes are pressurized. True. And, and I've heard some high altitude mountaineers, like after getting back from Everest, flying and going, oh, if this plane depressurized, I'd be okay. I wouldn't need the mask. But your body adapts to it, but it, it's slowly. So, when you are adapting to the. To the altitude, your body is physically developing more red blood cells per liter or per unit of blood. And also like your, your resting heart rate goes up and to, to make sure that you can get the required level of oxygen through your body. Yep. It's doing these types of metabolic things and it just takes your body a few days to

Speaker:

Yeah. Wow. To do

Speaker 2:

that.

Speaker:

Um. I guess the question would danger was does that play a factor into what, what drives you to do it? Or, or if not that, what, why do you, why, why, why do you climb the mountain?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. Is it really for the view at the top? No, I think it's it's, it's pushing yourself. Yeah. Okay. I think it's seeing what, what that limit is to, to what you can achieve.

Speaker:

Yep.

Speaker 2:

For me anyway, you know, for other people it, it's different. I didn't get into it at an early age. Like I'm not a super climber, I'm not a super athlete. But I can do a lot of things above average and high altitude high altitude, alpine technical climbing. Is that, yeah, you gotta be able to climb well on rock. You don't have to be world class. It's, you gotta be able to climb ice. Well, you don't have to be world class. Ice climber. You gotta be really, really fit to deal with that altitude side of things and be able to get up and get down and, and everything like that. So, there's that fitness as well. And there's the, the non-physical parts of it. It's the, you gotta have your life set up. In a way that you can go away and your business is looked after and your family's looked after, and your financial matters are all, are all sorted. While, while you're not there, you've gotta have the right teams in place. That's both from a per, like your personal set of team, like your wife and, and network and then your business team. So you've gotta have the right team back at the office to make sure that everything's getting handled. So there's a lot of things that come together to be able to, to. To do that. And I'm, I'm still not there, but I'm really excited to see where that where that limit is.

Speaker:

Yeah. Awesome. You mentioned family. You're not the only adventure person in your family. Yeah. The tell talk, tell me about your family.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So Robin, as you know her, or you know her she is an obstacle course athlete. Mm-hmm. So, uh. Things like Spartan and Tough Mudder, and she's been doing that for about 10 years as well. A similar amount of time that I've been doing the, the, the mountain climbing. She goes really well. So thing, the obstacles are things like rings and monkey bars and rope climbs, carrying buckets of heavy rocks. Even things like she's, she's traveled overseas to do events. That they've had like a dam or or water where they've sat in a, a fence just on top of that water surface. And you've gotta go underneath it, but it's too far for one breath. So the only way to get your breath is to come up and breathe through the fence, and then you gotta go back down underneath and then keep on going. Oh, wow. And. In in those, in the events that she's done, that one in it's been 24 hour events, so where you go around the same eight kilometer loop with the 20 or 30 obstacles each time. So then doing that overnight and after fatigue and everything. Yeah. Wow. But no, she's done really well for two years in a row. She won. The Australian 24 hour championships. Yep. And that qualified her for world championships. First time she unfortunately had a medical DNF. And then the second time, which was the end of 2023, she came sixth. Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Six female in the world covered about, I wanna say 140 kilometers of, of obstacle course racing. And that, yeah. And.

Speaker:

You guys were obviously together before you went down these paths of extreme sports. Yeah. What, what, what did you just do before? How did you, how do you go from not doing these things Yeah. That you both pick extreme sports?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. I'm not a hundred percent sure. I know for, for me, I was so focused on getting my postgraduate qualifications. And and then the further qualifications I needed to get a certificate of public practice to open an accounting firm myself and and then start and grow the accounting firm. I was really focused on that. And then we had kids and Robin was you know, just, we were just battlers really. You know, Robin was just jumping from, from the jobs or casual jobs that she could get. Until we, we did have Dylan and then after we had both kids, that's when so I went away on that hiking trip that I was talking about and really got the love for, for the mountains. And I think it was either when I got back or shortly after that Robin was worried about her weight after having kids. And I suggested to go to one of the the, the ones in the park. There was. Like it was a Saturday morning. Oh, the park run? Oh no, the the park workouts like Right, okay. Yeah, people would just bring down kettlebells or something like that and you'd be able to pay your five bucks and and do a workout with, with the group. And from there she joined a gym and did an obstacle course race, and now she's into running

Speaker:

and, yeah. Wow. Unbelievable. Before we, I hit record, you were talking about your buckets.

Speaker 2:

Tell me about your pockets. Yeah, yeah. So, like I was saying, I've I talk to a psychologist every, every couple of weeks we've got this standing, standing discussion. I think that's, it is really important just like you keep your body physically healthy. I need to keep my mind physically healthy.'cause like, I wouldn't be able to, to get through the quantity of workload that I do if, if I wa if I wasn't mentally healthy, if you know what I mean? Mm-hmm. And I've suffered from anxiety before, previously, and, and I try to keep on top of that as well. But yeah, my buckets. So, it's a, it's a fairly common analogy I know, but in every area of your life, you've got you, it requires a certain quantity of your time and effort and resources, but you've only got a certain limited number of time and effort and resources, so. The the analogy that, that I use with the psychologist is that he gives me the three buckets, which are family, business, and my own ventures, but only gives me like 20 balls to put in the buckets. But each one to, to fill up requires 10, 10 balls, right? So no matter what I do, I can't maximize my efforts in any, at any one point in time. In across all of them. And it's really important for me to always come back to that knowing that sometimes I'm in training mode and like I went over to Colorado and that was every single day we were doing well between four and 12 hours of. Of outdoor training with professionals with other people who were just climbing with recreationally. And in that, that's great. I can put like 10 outta 10 in there. Yeah. But I'm away from the family, so I'm not spending as much time with the kids and all that sort of thing. And I'm mainly dialing in remotely for work. So those other kind of areas are suffering. Or not having the, the maximum level of attention given to it. And then there's gonna be other times, like during tax season for me, when there's a lot of things going on at work that I've gotta throw 10 outta 10 effort in, in there. Yeah. But it does mean that I'm I might not be home for a couple of dinners a week, and it might mean that I'm not training and I'm missing a couple of training sessions and just understanding that, that, while you've got multiple priorities you've gotta allocate time and resources between those.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Awesome. But like I said, it it's not always at the front and center of my mind. Yeah. And then that, like, when you're stressed out with not being able to do everything that you want to do for me it triggers anxiety and I've just gotta come back to, you know what, like the reality is I'm trying to do three things, but I've only got enough time and.

Speaker:

And

Speaker 2:

resources for two things.

Speaker:

I saw a quote years ago, which, and, and I've, you know, danced with anxiety over the years as well. And, and you come across lots of quotes. And the one that resonated the most for me was, this is what you think you should be doing. This is what you're doing. And anxiety's the gap in the middle. And that one just seems to just live rent free in my head now.

Speaker 3:

Yeah.

Speaker:

What's on the horizon for you? What's in the future?

Speaker 2:

So, from a consulting point of view it is all about increasing performance and output for people. And it's something that we do almost passively in, in a work sense at the moment because we're, we're so focused from a work sense of, here's your business, all right? And it's how do we increase revenue? How do we increase that gross margin? And then how do we decrease costs like the discretionary costs that aren't going to affect the overall core business, and that that's gonna increase net profit. And it's, it's all about these micro percentage increases that will add up to a lot, and then that exponentially over time. In 10 years time, you, we'll, we'll be at a much better place if we can, you know, do these things increase gross, gross profit, percentage and, and revenue. But I want to expand or extrapolate that same quantitative and objective analysis into a greater range for someone's life.

Speaker 3:

Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2:

And. And overall wealth and portfolio and time as well. So, if you look at the, if you look at a percentage, right? It's say 10%, what does 10% growth in your business look like in, in this year and then in 10 years, and where are we going to be if we can grow 10% a year versus if we don't grow 10% a year? And also there's that inflationary context as well, or component because if you do the same thing that you're doing. You're actually going backwards both in the value of money as well as you're going to naturally lose customers over time. You're going to naturally have attrition and naturally competitors will, will come up as well. So you've gotta improve just to cover the inflationary component. And then there's there, there, there's these fourth multipliers as well. So in a business sense, it's. You can increase revenue and keep the same, for example, 50% gross margin and and that will give you better net profit overall. But if you can increase your revenue by 10% and increase your margin by 1% from 50% to 51%, well that extra 1% is dollar for dollar on that, on that revenue increase. So it's a force multiplier you're going to to increase your profit by more than that. Yeah. Why? Because of your, because your margin increase as well as your revenue increase. And I, I wanna be able to roll that out for, for people as a whole and go, Hey, you might spend 40 hours at work, five hours in transit, 15 hours with your family 10 hours doing your cooking and cleaning and yard work and all that sort of thing. You might end up with 70 hours a week and. Saying to someone, we want to increase your output by 10% to make sure that you can get 10% more value out of all those different areas is hard. Because finding seven hours a week is hard, right? Mm-hmm. Next to impossible. So it's, it's a case of, oh, sorry, and I'll take half a step back. It's not just doing seven more hours, as you know, it's gotta be quality seven more hours at, at the, at least the same level that you're already doing with your output. So it's about finding efficiencies. So if you've got some kind of you know, you can, if you can find efficiencies for four or five hours in that, and that's across all of those. Those core, core areas of your life then you might be able to find four or five hours of efficiency, which means you're only having to increase by two or three hours of, of output, and we're all of a sudden increasing our total output by 10%. If we're. Using force multipliers and as an example is if you've got your business humming correctly, then maybe you don't have to go into work five days a week. You only go into work four days a week and then you're saving time on your transit. So there's, there's this, these force multipliers as well. And if we can do that at the right level of output, we're gonna be better off for it in a month. We're gonna be better off for it in a year and exponentially better for it year in, year out.

Speaker:

Yeah. Awesome. And I

Speaker 2:

wanna be able to, to roll that out for people.

Speaker:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Awesome.

Speaker:

And what about for the bucket of mountain climbing? What's on the, is there, is there, is there a goal? A pinnacle goal? A pinnacle mountain? Shouldn't use the word pinnacle when it comes to mountain climbing. Yeah. Is there a pinnacle pinnacle

Speaker 2:

there? There is. I've got a vision for, for what that looks like. Which is far too far too advanced for me to to be even thinking about at the moment. But it's high altitude technical, big wall climbing in Pakistan. Yeah. Wow. Like over 7,000 meters. And the, the trip I did last year to Pakistan was reconnaissance for that. Okay. So, firstly working out the permit system. Going up the valley the top end of the valley was, was by myself.'cause we'd, there was a day out of base camp. We set up a base camp. I went up to, to where the mountain actually starts. You know, it is feeling the rock and knowing how, like if you're gonna put a piece of gear in there, is that gonna hold if you fall? And, or is it just gonna crumble around around your piece of gear? But, yeah, there, there is a, a major goal there. Awesome. But I'm a long way off that unfortunately. Thank you very much for chatting with me today. Yep, no worries at all. What's your next trip? Next trip. We're going over to Europe with the family.

Speaker:

Right? Okay. Yeah.

Speaker 2:

So no mountains, no mountains at all. Although we're taking the kids skiing. What's your next mountain trip? Mountain trip. I do a a, an alpine guiding course in Boulder, Colorado. Okay. In July? Yeah. Awesome. So that's eight days in, in July. It's just my next course in the, in the progression there. What's a cam? A cam. Okay. So a CAM is a removable protection device for rock climbing. So, it's you squeeze it like a syringe and it, and it, it, it comes in. Yep. And then when you let it go, it expands out. It's like a spring loaded sort of sort of thing. It has aluminum lobes that, that come out. So as you're climbing, if you've got a crack in the rock Yep. You can, you can squeeze it and it'll tuck itself up and you put it into the rock and let it go, and it'll come out and jam in Okay. Into that crack. And it's got, it'll have a carabiner on the end, so then you, then that's all jammed into that crack and you can clip your rope into it. So as you continue to to climb, if you do have a fall you're only gonna fall down and the rope will, will grip in onto that.

Speaker:

And they hold on. Yeah, they grip like they, you depend on them sometimes, I guess.

Speaker 2:

Yeah. It's it's similar to an ice screw. Okay. Where you, where in that it's as, it's definitely strong enough to hold any kind of fall you can throw at it. It what the variable is, is what you're putting it into. So if, if you are in crappy rock, that's going to crumble. Or like if you're in a crack that's flaring outwards or something like that, it'll pop out and, and yeah, if the rock is, is crumbly rock it, it, it'll just, there'll be too much pressure by the time you fall on it. And, and you pull down on it, which is com which is making that those cams go outwards and compress against the rock. If that then blows the rock, then, then it's no good. But if the rock's good. It'll hold. Like you, our body will break, like our back will break right on a fall before that pulls out. And same in ice. So if there's a if you are putting your ice screw into good quality ice, there.

Speaker 4:

There's a lot more that is very

Speaker 5:

bad that's going to happen before it pulls out. Yeah. Wow.

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Adam Leishman

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