S2 Ep 3. The Accidental Pivot: The Entrepreneur's Journey with Jason Andrew

What If the Opportunity That Changed Your Life Landed in Your Inbox by Accident?

That's exactly what happened to Jason Andrew — and he said yes anyway.

After two decades in financial services, a detour through an organic juice business in Samoa, an Executive MBA from one of the world's top-ranked business schools, and the sale of his own financial planning practice, Jason was doing business consulting and staring at his pipeline wondering what came next.

Then a government tender for the Department of Foreign Affairs landed in his inbox. A visa support program across 10 countries in the South Pacific and East Timor. Nothing to do with finance. Everything to do with purpose.

He had a crack at it.

In this episode, Sean and Jason trace the full arc — from a Samoan upbringing and a love of rugby union in Melbourne, to investment banking, MLC conference rooms, a juice that "tasted like crap," and ultimately, a business that has helped over 6,000 people apply for permanent residency in Australia, changing thousands of lives in the process.

🎧 In This Episode

The unlikely path that led Jason to Island Spirit Australia — and why "left field" opportunities are worth taking seriously.

Why he does an MBA when people say you don't need one — and what structure and discipline actually gave him that passion alone couldn't.

The Noni Juice lesson — Jason's first entrepreneurial venture was a Pacific Islands organic juice business with Australian distribution rights. It taught him more than any MBA chapter on product-market fit ever could.

People are everything — How Jason built a team of locals across 10 countries who work from the inside out, not top-down. And why getting the right people eliminated the management problem almost entirely.

The coaching analogy that reframes financial advice — Serena Williams. Roger Federer. Tom Brady. The best in the world all have coaches. So why wouldn't you?

The "rules of the game" framework — Sean's concept for what separates entrepreneurs who thrive from those who struggle, and Jason's take on what happens when you don't know the rules before you start playing.

Sport, discipline, and showing up — Why Jason believes organised competitive sport translates directly into entrepreneurial mindset, and what the drop-off in youth sport might cost the next generation.

Is entrepreneurship for everyone? — Jason's answer breaks the pattern. Eight out of ten guests say no. His answer is more nuanced — and more empowering.

💡 Standout Moments

"My mother always said — whatever you do, try and work your way to having your own business. And for some reason, that just resonated."

"An entrepreneur is someone who has their own business. The local fruit store owner manages stock, manages staff, manages customers — they're entrepreneurial."

"If you want a successful business, treat it like a professional athlete treats their trade. Do the research, do the training, implement, and have accountability."

"I'd always thought there was more to life than buying something for a dollar and selling it for two. You've got to make something for yourself." — the movie line from Meet Joe Black that has quietly driven Jason's career.

"If you're comfortable being uncomfortable, then entrepreneurship is for you."

About Jason Andrew

Jason Andrew is the founder and CEO of Island Spirit Australia, a Pacific engagement and visa support services business operating across 10 countries in the South Pacific and East Timor. With a background spanning investment banking, financial planning, practice management at MLC and NAB, business consulting, and even a Samoan organic juice venture, Jason brings a rare blend of financial rigour, cultural connection, and genuine purpose to everything he builds.

Island Spirit Australia supports applicants navigating Australia's Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) — a permanent residency ballot program designed to strengthen bilateral relationships across the Pacific region — helping them understand the process, secure employment in Australia, and prepare for the move.

Since launching two and a half years ago, the business has helped more than 6,000 people apply for permanent residency, with a team of 35 staff embedded across local communities throughout the Pacific.

🌐 Island Spirit Australia

🔑 Key Themes

• The messy, non-linear path of entrepreneurship
• Purpose-driven business and its compounding returns
• Why structure and discipline are entrepreneurial superpowers
• The value of coaching — formal and informal
• Transferable skills from sport to business
• Knowing the rules of the game before you play
• Building teams rooted in community and culture

📌 Resources & References Mentioned

• Pacific Engagement Visa (PEV) — Australia's ballot-based permanent residency program for Pacific nations and Timor-Leste
• IE Business School, Madrid — Ranked 6th globally (Executive MBA)
• Meet Joe Black — The Anthony Hopkins film with the line that shaped Jason's entire philosophy
• Wheel of Life framework — The life-balance tool Jason still uses from his MLC days
• Values-Based Financial Advice — The Back Rack program Jason referenced from his advisory career

Connect with the Host, Sean Dunne:

Website: https://dominiumcapital.com.au/dominium/

LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/sean-dunne-76067429

Thank you for tuning in to Origin to Ambition!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe and leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen. It helps us reach more aspiring entrepreneurs just like you.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi, I'm Sean Dunn, and welcome to this episode of Origin to Ambition: The Entrepreneur's Journey. In this episode, I speak with Jason Andrew. This is a fascinating conversation. I've known Jason for a very long time, although it's been quite some time since I last spoke with him. His journey over a course of a couple of decades of trying different things and working in different corporate roles across different industries is really interesting. It's a fascinating story. His current business, Island Spirit Australia, really makes a big impact on communities throughout the South Pacific. So I think you'll take a lot out of this episode in terms of learning about being an entrepreneur and learning about how to get your business up and about, but also about having an impact on community. So I invite you to please sit back and enjoy this episode of Origin to Ambition. Welcome to Origin to Ambition, the show where we explore the small business entrepreneurs' journey in business. I'm your host, Sean Dunn. Let's get into it. Okay, Jason Andrew, thanks for joining me on Origin to Ambition on this episode.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

Thanks, Sean. Great to be here.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

I've known you for a long time actually, but we haven't spoken for a long time. So uh it's been quite a spell between drinks.

SPEAKER_00 1:13

Yeah, I'm really looking forward to today. Thanks for inviting me onto the show and sharing the story. Thanks, Sean. Really good to see you again as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Absolutely. I appreciate you doing it. So mate, we'll dive straight into it. Can you just take us back through a little bit of background, go back in time, all the way up to you know before starting your current business, and then we'll talk about the business.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Okay. Yeah, sure. That's uh that's a couple of decades in there, Sean. So I'll try and I'll try and condense with a couple little started early. So look, I was actually born in New Zealand and I have a Samoan background in Samoa, and uh then I moved to Samoa before I was one year old and lived with my grandparents for a couple of years whilst and then came over and joined my mum and dad in Melbourne. And when I was five, and I've done all my schooling, all my you know, primary school and high school in Melbourne and grew up here. And effectively when I was younger, I just loved playing rugby union, and although I wasn't allowed to play that until I was year nine, mum wouldn't let me. And then so I went to went to uni and yeah, we did university here in in Melbourne, uh La Trobe Uni, did a Bachelor of Social Science, and then really wanted to further my rugby, you couldn't get paid in those days, so I had to move up to Sydney and I did a master's international studies in Sydney Uni, and where I was playing there in and out of first and having a lot of fun, not getting paid, and then realised I had to actually start thinking about my life and what I'd like to do. And it just so happened, you know, when I was at uni, I wanted to work for the United Nations, I wanted to go for the UN. That's why I did the masters in international relations. And it just happened though that one of the old guys around the club at Sydney Uni, he was interested in in getting me on board to work for him, but his job was the honorary consul of SARM, um yeah, using so because I had the international relations background, but his real gig was an investment banker, and that's how I got into finance. I sort of thought, okay, UN's probably not gonna get me so far. And then in terms of where we wanted to go, and got into the investment banking side and he did a lot of private equity in Sydney at the time, and he ended up making a few big deals and one didn't quite work out, and I left and I had to leave because he just couldn't keep it going. So it was a big huge thing to go through to see that as a as a young guy. And then I moved to London, worked at Goldman's for a little bit just in in that you know, back office and further to finance degree, and then I came back to Australia and that's when I became a financial advisor. I think that was in 2001. Yes. And met my wife on that course. It was a lot of fun, though. In the heady days, Sean, we were flown up from Melbourne for six weeks, you know, every week. We'd fly up to a course. Uh then I was at Nabin MLC. Yeah. And as an advisor, then I was financial advisor for a few years there. And that yeah, so that was a great time.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Well, I started my financial advice career in 2000. So it was so yes, I recalled the times very well.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

They were they were fun times. A few people ruined it for everybody. Yeah, it would be great to have those kind of conferences. Not that I could do them now, you know, with a family and but yeah, they were good times. So I was working for NAB and MLC, we were going out and seeing private clients. But it was even then at that stage that I wanted to do something different. I kind of always thought, you know, maybe I should have my own gig. So I left advice and moved into practice management for MLC. And whilst I was there, I was just always exploring and thinking, well, how else can I do something on my own? And that's when I got in my first business. And again, that was very totally different to financial advice. It was actually an organic juice business. So I don't know if you know that. I was uh I didn't know that part actually. No, so I've learned something new already, yes. Yeah, it's a bit left field. So my wife and I went to Samoa, Samoa, there's this juice called nonny juice. So at the time it was doing about 700 mil US globally, and we went to a Samoan supplier who gave us a distribution rights for Australia. It was organic and did really well in the first year. The catch though was that the juice really tastes like crap. I thought it was good, but yeah, a lot of people didn't like it, and it was we had to put a lot of funding into the repeat sales and the advertising. We didn't have that, and so I ended up coming back into financial advice in the industry after that. Yeah, yeah. So lessons learned. Yes, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Well, that's already the first entrepreneurial tip we've had for today, so uh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:54

Yeah, yeah, definitely keep learning, and then I realized because when I was in that, I was you know younger, that was before kids, and happy to take risks. And what I realized there was that I'd benefit for a little bit more structure and and process. Not so much because I um you know I'm a process-driven person, but I had a a coach at the time, a personal development coach, and she was trying to get me to diarise everything. I said, Listen, I just prefer a bit more, you know, flexibility. And she said, Well, do you like achieving things? I said, Yes. Yep. She goes, Well, you know, putting down goals and structure helps you achieve things and you tick things off. So then I became very structured orientated, and then I decided, well, I need to take that to the next level, and went and did an executive MBA to further that structure and that thinking. And that was a great experience. So then, yeah, at that time I was in the industry. I think that was one of the times we caught up. I was working at a financial services partner as a regional manager, and that was just me just building up my skill set to be ready to have a business again. And then at that stage, myself and a good friend of mine, we bought into a financial planning practice. I would not have done that if I didn't have that MBA and that history of you know, of that loss and gone with that approach to be able to go in in partnership and build up a financial planning practice.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

Yeah, it's a couple of interesting things you've said there. So a quick one on the MBA, and I'm not saying this to talk about me, but sometimes you hear comments around, oh, you don't need the MBA, you don't need to and I'm not saying you have to have an MBA either. I'm not suggesting that, but it's interesting what you just said because I when I did I did an MBA and I found it was exactly what you just said. I've always felt that what it taught me was to be structured in my thinking and structured in my approach to things. Like that's what I took away predominantly from doing it. And it's interesting, you kind of just touched on that yourself, that it it offers a framework, I suppose, for operating.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, that's right. It's the discipline that you get back from going through that process. So this one was based in Madrid. I'd never heard of the school, but it was ranked sixth in the world, i.e. business school, and it was over 13 months. So you're doing seven subjects a semester. So you've got a young family, you've got a job, and you go do your MBA and you've got a you know handy and assignments every week. It's going through that disciplinary action again for a purpose, I think, just sort of helped just put you back on track, I guess. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I was gonna say that you're right, a lot of people say you don't need an MBA. It's really interesting, right, at the moment, just as a different tangent. Like our oldest son is doing first-year university, and people saying you don't need a university degree these days. It could be the same as saying you don't need to go to school, really. I mean, you could just go out and start a business like Richard Branson. But it's really just using the tools that are available to you, if you don't have that, you know, if this non-educed business were going gangbasters and I was turning over millions of dollars, then yeah, I wouldn't have needed the MBA. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you've just got to take stock and say, okay, well, what do I need to do to keep moving?

SPEAKER_01 9:08

Well, and then that feeds into my second question that I had for you, just off what you were talking about. It sounds like there was always this intention or idea lurking in the back of your mind that you were going to go back to doing something for yourself. It feels like it was just always chipping away there for you. Is that a fair observation?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

Yes. My parents were a little bit entrepreneurial. So my dad was a doctor, had his own practice, mum used to do the finances and manage the practice. Yeah. The um dad was a fourth-generation farmer as well, so ran the farm. They had investment properties, so they had that in them. And it was actually my mother who always said to me, just whatever you do, try and work out a way to have your own business. And that just resonated with me. I mean, she said a lot of other things at the time, but ignored as a teenager. But for some reason that just resonated with me, just having that. And I've been thinking about it in preparation for today. What is it? What was that? Especially when we talk about, you know, why would you want to start your own business and what is it about being an entrepreneur? And for me, it was really just having control of your own day, let alone your direction or your, you know, where you're heading. It's just that sense of control.

SPEAKER_01 10:20

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

That financial planning business that we had, we grew that and we ended up selling that to a group, and we exited for various reasons, and it could have gone a bit better, but yeah, there's a lot of lessons learned at that as well, in that partnership. And then that was in 2019 when I finally exited that. So it what got me to where I am today was that I'd always been doing education. So with the dealership I was at, we went over to Stanford Uni a few times, we went to the UK, Hong Kong Business School, just keep furthering that education. So I got into this cycle of wanting to provide better tools and advice for people and did a little bit of a fintech for a cash flow tool as soon as I finished. So that was good, but then I kind of quickly realized that not as many people, and you might see this yourself and other advisors, not as many people are as excited about cash flow management and savings as we are. So in fact, the amount of businesses that have spent money on developing tools that have gone under for that. Yeah. So I decided to uh just do business consulting for a couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 11:28

Yeah, I mean I'm laughing. It's funny when you sit with a new client and talk about cash flow management and it's like it's a good cure for insomnia.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

I mean, everybody knows it's a great thing, and the the stats are there, you know, the savings are the people that save are the ones with the more money, but you know, it led me to do business consulting in small business. And it was just one day I was just sitting there and was looking at the pipeline. You mentioned, you know, pipeline, I think, in our earlier conversation and uh keeping that going. And then I came across a tender from the third D FAM, the Foreign Affairs Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. And it involved providing services in the Pacific, South Pacific, and East Timor. So with my background, I've always wanted to do something for the region, and I went, that's one of the reasons I did that juice business. And then I I said, you know what, that looks quite interesting. I might have a crack at that. And it was a large tender to provide support services for this new visa that class that the Australian government brought in. It's like the green card, it's a ballot system, and you run a visa support services throughout the Pacific region, plus you have marketing services. So it was really a left field thing that came to me. There was no rhyme or reason. I just saw it, just came into my inbox and I thought, well, I'll have a go at that. Now at that stage, we didn't have the resources to be able to tender for it, so I had to find a partner to go and create that tender dock with.

SPEAKER_01 12:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:57

So yeah, I knew somebody in our rugby club. She was always talking about how you know their work, they're always doing government tenders. And so I I just said to her and I approached her boss and said, Do you want to have a crack at this? And they said yes. They're a marketing agency. Remember, they said yes. Okay. And so, yeah, it took us a few goes, a few rounds. We didn't get it the first time because in this space, and I had no idea that in this space where you look doing development work, there's billions of dollars of funds flying around, and there's huge organizations that are doing that kind of work. And of the top four, it's a different kind of area. And so one of those guys got it, then we were approached again because they couldn't make it work, and so they really liked what we had to offer, and then we got that, and that was two and a half years ago. So, yeah, gone from pretty much 20 years, you know, apart from the little stint notty in juice, um, 20 years in financial services and business consulting into a completely new field. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, completely new. So now can you take us through that now? Yeah, so we've got a team of people across 10 countries and in the South Pacific and East Timor, and our role there is to provide support services to people who are going through this visa that's called the Pacific Engagement Visa. Uh, there is uh 3,000 permanent residence visas available that they've opened up. So it's really they've opened it up to increase bilateral relationships in the region, because obviously there's other, you know, other countries in there. And so part of the permanent residence is you need to find a job in Australia to be approved for a visa. So our role is to one market it, we help people understand what they need to do, and then we also help them find a job in Australia and then get ready to move over once their visa is approved. So you're very, very different to financial advice. Yes. Although I have put in a lot of the learnings that I've had in advice and also from the MBA into this process. You have to give us the name of the business. Yeah, so my the business is called Island Spirit Australia. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:00

Thanks, sir. I do say that in the intro at the start of the episode, but you I have to have you tell us it.

SPEAKER_00 15:08

Thanks, Sean. Yeah. Yeah, that's the business. I guess we've in the last two and a half years we've grown a little bit. We're a small team still, like 35 staff, a lot of the people offshore. Yep. And what we've done though is we've built it up by people who want to do something for a reason, for purpose. And that's really, really helped because everybody in our team are locals. They all live inside there. So what we do is we employ experts and people who can converse and speak in local, they understand the nuances, and also if there's things that need to be delivered in a certain way, they can do that, you know, without it looking like it's oh, here's Australia coming in telling us what to do. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:49

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 15:50

Yeah, so it's quite a very involved process in terms of running that as a business versus a financial advice business. Yes. The the differences are that you've got a lot more stakeholders and people you report to at like a higher level on a weekly basis. But however, things like the compliance, note-taking, they really, really help and they've helped take us to another level in our relationships within the region. So it's been really beneficial.

SPEAKER_01 16:18

What so just take me back to the very start. I know you sort of landed on your desk, your inbox, and thought, I'll have a crack at this, sort of thing. But so once you've had a crack at it and you might not have got the first one and so on and so forth. But what was it like early on? Like what were your challenges when you first started with Island Spirit?

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Yeah, so the main challenge was pulling together the actual a workable business plan to put into the tender. Uh so what it was was that we needed to have a team in the islands, plus we needed to have some strong governance and marketing awareness in Australia. So the biggest piece for us was actually getting the right people in the roles. And so, my role, I took this to the company and said, look, I can sort the Pacific out, I can get the team there just through contacts, but it's going to take some time. And for me, that was the biggest thing, really, is just getting the right people. Because everything else is really just business. You know, everything else that you do, you build your processes, everyone does all that, you do your strategy maps, everyone does that, your value propositions. But it's really getting the right people. That was so there's a lot of transferable skills within business, but if you don't have the right people on the ground, I find you can spend a lot of time and you know managing. And I've been really, really fortunate that we've got an amazing team. We don't have to do any management really in terms of implementation. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:40

People hard. You've got to be uh well, it's hard if you can't get it right, it's really hard. Yeah, so I hear what you're saying. You just touched on something though. Uh it's interesting you said it because I think we should circle back a fraction. You talked about strategy and developing strategy and all the things that you'd normally do in business. And I want to touch on that because my specialization, or one of them, is I provide financial advice to small business entrepreneurs. That's what I do. So I'm often surprised when I meet a new client that a lot of that stuff hasn't been done. You know, they might have what's at its core really good business, but it's not operating optimally. So I often encounter people, this is not a criticism, it's an observation. I often encounter people that have started a business either out of passion or just transferring a skill into doing it for themselves type thing. So it's almost like by accident to a degree, and then they realize they're in a business. So a lot of that work hasn't done, but your sort of prior couple of decades of study, working in business, having a crack at one or two things that might not have gone quite to planned, and therefore, you know, you're winning or you're learning. So your thoughts on that? Uh because you sort of said that like that's normal, and I agree with you, but I sort of see that it's not normal sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 19:00

That's a really good point, uh, Sean. For myself, it was really way back in 2003 when I was a practice manager at NLC, we had a strategy map process that we went through in the cloud value proposition that we do with financial advisors, and I still use that document and that process. And I've used that in all my businesses. And it's just a template. There's a lot of there's no, you know, there's lots of different ways to do it, but for me, I just find that easy, and I guess it also comes to the fact that uh my parents are always big on education, so it'd always been always try and better yourself. That's why I've had business coaches, why I still listen to those personal development podcasts, always trying to find ways to better myself. So maybe that's why it's in there, and then for me having a business plan, what I had to do that at the beginning uh in previous businesses to get funding, for example. Yeah. Just part of that process. But I can totally understand. I'd love to be in a position where I just fell into a business and I was doing so well I didn't have to worry about it. That would be great. But I think uh when you have to, and especially when you go through a response, a tender response or a pitch, you've got to have some structure and thought process into your delivery. And yeah, and completely understand.

SPEAKER_01 20:20

Like, and look, when I started Dominion Capital, my business, you know, I I wrote a lengthy business plan and strategy document, you know, for that. Did it all go exactly to that plan? No. But what I found useful was that you could, you know, that the idea of reviewing your plan and coming back to it and you sort of go, Oh yeah, we said we were going to do that and we haven't done it. You know, maybe that's something we need to fix. You know, like so just having that discipline to come back to something, and you might even look at it and say, look, that's not relevant. We've now found that we're operating. That's not relevant and we don't need it. And you can take it out of your plan. But just the fact that you've done that work at the start, it gives you something to fall back on.

SPEAKER_00 20:58

You kind of can't avoid it if you go into all these seminars and you know, you do all that training. Even when I was at advice, we got into the values-based financial advice with your backpack. So we joined that program. I flew over to the States a dozen times to do his academies. I guess once you start on that process, you don't want to become a personal development junkie. You've got to implement. There is an underlying, I guess, focus on self-improvement.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah. Yeah. Sean Dunn here, and thank you for watching this episode of Origin to Ambition, The Entrepreneur's Journey. I'm a financial advisor who specialises in working with small business entrepreneurs and high-income earning executives. We analyse cash flow, build assets, and protect those assets to help our clients do what they want, when they want, with the people that they want to do it with. So if that's of interest to you, head over to our website and book an initial discovery call, and I'd look forward to speaking with you. That's another interesting. One, I think you've already really answered it just through telling me your story. But I find a lot of business owner entrepreneurs do have a growth mindset. And part of that, when I say growth mindset, and that might sound a bit cliched, but and it might not be formal education all the time, but always learning. Like I find a lot of entrepreneurial types are constantly looking to improve and learn. And I made a bit of a joke earlier, but we use that saying in our house with our kids all the time, you know, you're winning or you're learning, you know. So I is that something you found true with the people you like potentially with yourself, obviously. I mean, not in potentially, it's it's obvious in the story, but even the people you work with, do you find that is a trait of success?

SPEAKER_00 22:40

Yes, if I look back at the advisor days when we were going to conferences, you know, in those conferences it's the people that turn up to all the sessions, they're usually the successful advisors. Yeah. They may have been out until all hours of the morning, but they're there the next day. No, financial advisors. You're kidding. That's right. No, they're home early reading a book. Yeah, but they, you know, they're there because they want to better themselves and better the business. So yeah, I find that. And also within our organization now, within Island Spirit, it's the people that we have, they want to be better. I often get requests from staff who want to do courses and want to do an MBA. So it's just that mindset. And you see in the way that they run their country versus other ones, uh, you can see a clear difference.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Yeah, that's interesting. Yeah, really interesting. It's probably a bit of a loaded question for you. You're probably the only person I've had on this podcast who's was previously a financial advisor outside of myself. So it's probably a loaded question. But the value that you see, and maybe it's something you see in the work you do versus your own business at this point in time, your own venture, just the value of advice for small business owners, even starting out, and I'm not necessarily referring to financial advice, but I'm really also bringing in all advice aspects, you know, having a team around, you know, a good lawyer you can speak with, a good accountant who understands how to keep your books in order, that type of thing. Can you articulate that for me, your thoughts around?

SPEAKER_00 24:12

Yeah, we had a process when I was on my business consulting side, and I do this with our team. We've got a new program we we're bringing out for the Pacific Islands for about thousands of workers. So personal development program. And it's around the concept of being a coach, like a financial advisor at a coach. Yeah. And the one slide that we have that helps people understand it is we've got, I put up Serena Williams, Roger Federer, and Tom Brady. And then we say to people, these guys have been the best at their game for decades, not just winning one title, not just winning one Super Bowl, they've won multiple for decades. And the one thing that they all have in common is that they have a coach. So if the best of the best can have a coach to help them keep there, stay there, then you know, anyone should have a coach. Everybody has a coach where you want to be better in something. Just trying to think of anyone who's never had one. I'm sure there could be examples, but they're pretty rare. But everybody's got someone to call upon. So I think it's just having that other person to bounce ideas off, to be able to help you realize what it is you really want to have in life, and then give you some structure on how to achieve that in terms of advice, financial advice. I mean, if you have a coach you get along well with, that's pretty invaluable.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

Yeah, absolutely. But talking about coaching, especially for anyone listening who's maybe starting out, so this is new for them, they want to be a business owner or start an entrepreneurial venture or project. Sometimes it's difficult to get that coaching team around you because you might not have the capital or the you know, you haven't got the income coming through the door. But usually you can lean on people that maybe, you know, you peers, colleagues, people have come before you. I still think that that's an important part of starting your business process.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yes, to reach out to people within the industry if you're trying to learn about it. Uh you find that people really love helping.

unknown 26:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:14

Reach out to somebody, and especially they especially love helping new people into their industry. Yeah. And as well as that, I mean, we live in the uh the most intense information age in history. There's no shortage of resources that people can access.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yes, well, that's true too. Yeah, absolutely. I'm gonna circle back to Island Spirit again, if that's all right. So just on a personal note, what drives you to do everything that you do every day?

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Good question. I often think about the I don't know if you've seen the movie Meet Joe Black. It's um yeah, so there's this scene there, Anthony Hopkins, he's a media mogul, and he's about to die, and then there is I think Joe Black is the who would you call it? Reaper kind of thing. Yeah, yeah. Saying, okay, your time's up, your time's up. And he's having a chat to him, deep, deep and meaningful chat. But he's this billionaire, and there's one line of that movie that always stuck out with me, and that was that he said, you know, I'd always thought there was more to life than buying something for a buck and selling it for two. You gotta make something for yourself. And for me, that I think comes down to a little bit of my upbringing, the a little bit religious, so maybe there was this sense of needing to save, you know, to help people, but there's always or someone background, but there's always been this family and this desire to help others, and it really comes from that space. So everything I've done has always been had that underlying factor, well, how does it actually help people? How does it make a contribution? And how are you bettering the world rather than just you know doubling something that you're buying? So I think that's been a a factor since the beginning. That's why I got into wanting to join the UN. And now in the work that I'm doing, uh we've been able to help over 6,000 people apply for a permanent residence into Australia, and that's changing uh thousands of people's lives because they get to come and have a better better life. They have a job, so and they're structured, so they're you know, I know that's a sensitive topic in some respects, but the people are coming over with a job and contributing to the economy. They're putting their kids through school in Australia, they're sending money back home, yeah. And it's that's kind of the impact. It's nice to come full circle back. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So that's always been a driver, just trying how to make a difference.

SPEAKER_01 28:36

Yeah, absolutely. And it's quite powerful that impact, like the ripple. There's more to it than just getting somebody to Australia and giving them a job. Like the down the stream impact for their broader family and communities, even back home, is quite powerful.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah, that's right. Yeah, and and I think also in doing that, the other driver for me is my family. So I've got three kids, you know, Matt's University, Austin Sylvester twins, they're in year nine. So just trying to live by example and giving and stilling them those values. Uh so my wife, Katrina and I are very big on that side, on the values-based approach. And that helps me do other things like on the you know, in community, other committees. And you see that, you might you see I've seen that on other committees on whether it be sport, boards, it's people who want to have an impact to make a difference in the bank of service. Yeah. And that's kind of where that I find that more meaningful than just going out doing something to increase a bank account, which obviously is good, but unless there's got those values underlying it, then I feel empty. That's more of a personal thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

So this is another thing, and I'm not sort of going down the path of saying, you know, the cliche of, you know, find your passion and you know, those things. Although, you know, if you can find your passion, I think that's fantastic. But there is an element of if you've got that underlying meaning to what you do, there is an element of the dollars will come. And we have to talk about dollars because at the end of the day, you know, people can say money isn't everything, but you can't do much without it either. So you you know, y you have to get the dollars, that's just reality. But yeah, the dollars can flow if you've got meaning or you feel meaning in what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

Yeah, I mean, it's a hard one to crack. I mean, you have a lot of people in the philanthropic world who haven't got the dollars and struggle to pay their bills. And you have a lot of people in the world who you wouldn't want to be friends with who make a lot of money. Yeah. It's really a a hard one. And um, yeah, yeah. So to be honest, I'm not so I'm still on that journey as well in terms of where I want to be with it. But what I'm really finding is that with the enjoyment, you're right, there's a lot more opportunities that are coming up. So with this business, um, because we're having an impact kind of business, we're getting other opportunities and people ringing us up to see whether we can partner with them. So I had an email this morning from the US at a major development company that does hundreds of millions a year, wants us to help them do something in one of the countries. So yeah, the opportunities start to open up. And they were harder before. That's a very good, yeah, very good point.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

Yeah, good. Well, good luck with that one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, actually that one comes off. So if you were talking to somebody now looking to start their own business, and it could be in anything, whatever it would be, it might be hard to pull it down to one piece, but what would be the one piece of advice you'd give them that maybe you wish you'd received on your first venture?

SPEAKER_00 31:30

I was originally going to say never give up. It's a little bit cliche as well, but I think treat your business like a professional, or like a professional athlete would treat their trade. So if you want to have a good business, like an athlete does all the training, they do all the research and they implement. If you want to have a successful business, do the same thing. Do the research, do the training. Like actually, the one good thing that we did with the Baccarack program was we would do role plays, and we would have done the same thing in the early days. You do the role plays. I don't know whether they do that these days. So do the training, implement and have that accountability. So just treat it like a professional athlete would, fair trade.

SPEAKER_01 32:12

I'm going to go off on a slight tangent. I also find a lot of people I speak to on this podcast have had some level of sporting background, and it might not be that they've played at a national or an international level, but they've played sport at a fairly high level or in an organized competitive fashion. And so where I'm going with this is do you feel that, and you may have inherently had this, but do you also feel that your love of playing sport and playing organized club sport? And I'm not saying that this is mandatory for an entrepreneur, but I find a lot of entrepreneurs have done exactly that, played sport, often team sports, and at a competitive level. Do you think that one that that again doesn't mean you have to have done it, but do you think that it does help? And how do you feel? If so, do you feel that that's what's helped you translate that skill or transfer those skills and that mindset into business?

SPEAKER_00 33:07

I think it certainly helps if you can do it. I mean, there's obviously people where they don't do sport and they've done really well. But for myself, I mean other people have been through sports, it just gives you not just structure and the ability to follow a program, but just the discipline to do things when you don't really want to, and to turn up. And there's that saying that 80% of success in life is just turning up. If you don't turn up to training, well you have to turn up to training, you know, you don't get picked. You've got to turn up to the game, obviously, otherwise you just get from the club. Yeah. So there's that sense of responsibility for others as well, in whether it's and I guess if it's an individual sport or it's like a tennis, there's that sense of responsibility to yourself, to the opponent to turn up to the game. So there's definitely skills in there. And I do see that. We see that professional athletes who go off and start off their own businesses, yeah. They just maintain that level of intensity, yeah, and and they just transfer that into their business. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

That was not a planned question, Jason. But you've touched on coaching and uh that mindset, and you mentioned earlier that you've you you played rugby and you loved rugby. So I'm not surprised, is what I guess I'm saying, is that you know I often do find that those skills do come across into uh the broader business world or entrepreneurial mindset. They're quite transferable, and for all of the reasons you just said, so thank you for that. But um it's an interesting one. It seems to be coming more the norm with these chats that I'm having with uh people. Maybe I gravitate towards a certain type, you know.

SPEAKER_00 34:39

I think the other benefit of it is that not just an entrepreneurial, it just could help you as a person. And you see now the drop-off in sport for young people and the impact that has on them a lot more than you know, when we were younger, you it'd play right through school and was just normal.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Yes. It's interesting. I won't mention the school, but my my kids go to a school where sport is compulsory, so competitive sports compulsory, and it is interesting because I think even the school sometimes battles, you know, with even the kids and their own parents not really committing to the competitive sport side of things, you know. Um and it's funny that battle with kids oh, sorry, now I'm going off on a complete tangent.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

I think I know where you're coming from. I think uh yeah, I'm the same. Yeah, kids go to schools where they have to play sport. And I think the school just says if your child plays sport, it's healthier for them, and that's it. Kind of, you know, it's it's gonna happen.

SPEAKER_01 35:37

Yeah. I'm an advocate for organized compulsory sport, you know, because I think it carries you through a lot of things in life, you know.

SPEAKER_00 35:48

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I agree with you. So that health base. Having just that health base, that respect for your body as a young kid that carries through in life.

SPEAKER_01 35:58

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely great. It kind of touches on this. I was gonna ask, uh, how do you balance today, you know, your work life and your personal life?

SPEAKER_00 36:09

It started again back in, I think I got a lot to thank MLC for. So back then, my manager at the time, we got in a guy called Ian Hamilton with the wheel of life. Oh yes. Right. Yes. So that just started me on this habit. So what Ian does, he distilled everything in life into ten sections. No, work, finance, family. So there's ten of those, and then made you choose three things that are important to you in the week at that time, yeah, and then choose three things activities. So I still do that to a degree. So it's basically understanding what's important and structuring things out. So I'll have in my diary gym time as an appointment, and I'll have email time and do it 100% of the time, but at least it's a guide. And then I can reflect on okay, I didn't go to the gym, then I gotta go to I've got to go for a run or yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:02

I do a similar thing myself. I structure most things into my diary and I say it's a clients, you know, even put it in and and maybe put it in two or three times for the week, you know. If you've got to do it once at least or twice at least, put it in three or four times. Because if you miss a couple, you'll still maybe hit your target if that makes sense. You know, it's sort of having the permission to sort of give yourself to say I might not hit every single one of them, but if it's not in there, I probably won't do anything almost, you know.

SPEAKER_00 37:29

That's right. It's a reminder, it's there, it'll pop up on your phone, maybe and you think, oh no, I can't do that right now, but at least it's in the back of your mind. Yes. And then you you go the next day and say, Oh, geez, I didn't do that yesterday, so I should do something about that.

SPEAKER_01 37:40

Yeah, it's good advice. Good advice. I think we've touched on it to a large extent just through our discussion, which I've thoroughly enjoyed, Jason. Mindset. If you could just still down into the mindset of wanting to be an entrepreneur or being an entrepreneur and wanting to start a project or a business, what would be you know the one piece you might say to somebody about their mindset? You have to want to do it.

SPEAKER_00 38:04

I'd kind of been thinking about you know, entrepreneur is a word that gets used a lot. And I think that that maybe people think that if you start a business, you've got to scale it and sell it for millions of dollars and you know, down the track. That's what being an entrepreneur is, so I can get my name on the list. But if you have a look, for me, an entrepreneur is somebody who has their own business. So the local fruit grocer, yeah, he or she is an entrepreneur, they've got to manage stock, they manage staff, they manage customers, they're entrepreneurial and they've got to be thinking on their feet all the time. The key thing that every entrepreneur has, and a business owner, is they're the boss and they're they're they're controlling their own destiny. Yes. So I think that if you want to be an entrepreneur, one you want to have to want to do it. It's not uncommon. There's millions, there's like 2.75 million operating small businesses in Australia. Like 15% of the workforce. We employ more of the employees than the big corporates. Yeah, yeah. So it's a very common part in Australia, so I wouldn't be daunted. So that you have to want to do it and then just have a go and maybe just start small if you're a bit nervous because you don't have to give everything away all at once. Don't do what I did and resign from a nice corporate role at NLC and throw money into non-ajuice.

SPEAKER_01 39:21

And then do it bit by bit if you want to. I'm feeling like you've still got some mild scarring from non-juice.

SPEAKER_00 39:32

It was a good learning experience. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I'd say, yeah, there's there's lots of opportunities to be entrepreneurial as well. These days, you can even if it's starting a an online shop or something, yeah, uh, just get a taste for it.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

I'm with you because I use entrepreneur a lot and I talk about my clients as entrepreneurs. And it's interesting, in one of these chats, I spoke with one of my clients, and it was interesting that she said she didn't see herself as an entrepreneur. And I have heard that from a couple of my guests that they don't see themselves that way. And when you dig into that, it does feel like there's an attitude. Um, not saying that they're wrong, but it's like in their mind an entrepreneur, someone that's founded Tesla. You know, like like that, that's an entrepreneur type thing. Like, you know, and it's interesting because my definition is clearly the same as yours. You know, I think if you're running your own show and if you're employing people, you know, if you're an entrepreneur, in my view, you know, you don't have to be, you know, founding the next Apple or Microsoft, if you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_00 40:29

Which might be a trap as well if you're starting out like that. You're thinking, okay, I'm gonna be, you know, some 20-year-old from Silicon Valley with this startup, yeah. Looking at series funding and that kind of pathway. Yes. Sure, yeah, that's there's people who like that, but that's not the path for most entrepreneurs, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 40:49

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. That leads me to the one question I ask all of my guests, which is is entrepreneurship for everyone?

SPEAKER_00 40:58

I think that anyone can do anything if they're in the right circumstances. So if somebody had to be an entrepreneur, they'd do it. Like if they their only choice to feed their family and to put a meal on the table is to be an entrepreneur, then they would do it. Depends on people's level of comfort. So if they're willing to be a little bit uncomfortable, and comfortable in the uncomfortable, then yeah, that's it's for you. So I wouldn't limit it to anybody really, because humans are capable of anything if they put their mind to it. Just need to work on that bit.

SPEAKER_01 41:33

That's an interesting response because I would say eight or nine out of ten of my guests' first response is no, it's not for everyone. And then a couple have sort of said something reflective along the lines of the know. But I guess what you might be, I'm not trying to put words in your mouth, but kind of paraphrasing a little bit, but it can be learned.

SPEAKER_00 41:52

You know, if you want it, you can learn it. If you want it, you can learn it. So there's a lot of people in corporate world who do extremely well in the corporate world and have wonderful family lives, they're happy, they're earning lots as well. So that's certainly a path.

SPEAKER_01 42:17

Yeah, yeah. And actually, and I'd probably hasten to add, and you just touched on it, I I'm not suggesting that if entrepreneurial pursuits are not for you, then that's okay. It's certainly not a criticism, it's more just a case of it's horses for courses.

SPEAKER_00 42:31

That's right. Yes, that's right. I mean, how good is that? There's so many opportunities out there that people can can utilise and uh different pathways available.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

I talk about um I've I talk about this personally. I don't know if I've really touched on it on this podcast before. I'm not saying I've coined this phrase, but it's a term that I use that if you are going to be self-employed or be an entrepreneur or start and open a small business or consulting firm or whatever it might be, that I think the successful people understand the rules of the game before they start. And the rules of the game might be, you know, I've got to be responsible to staff if I hire people. You know, I've got to make sure money comes through the door so that people can feed their families. So I call that the rules of the game. And I think if you understand or you accept the rules of the game, and over time, if you're successful, you're probably able to sort of bend the rules to work your way more. You know, you get that flexibility into your game, I suppose, to put it in that sort of terminology. But do you think that's a fair call? Like, you know, I think if you're going to go into it, you'll be more successful or more likely for success if you understand and accept the rules of the game, whatever the rules of whichever game you've picked, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 43:40

It's a fair call, because you do find out, don't you, if you're not playing the rules of the game, if you're not paying staff, if you're not, you know, getting the right regulations, what do you need to do just to be at the table? And these days, I know compliance is a bit of a burden, and people think, oh, just do we have to do all this. There's certain ways around it, but it is what it is at the moment within our environment, and you just need to develop the tools just to do it effectively and efficiently. And they're out there now. You know, we've got AI coming in helping out certain business areas. Yeah, I agree with you. There are certain rules of the game, and you might not like the rules in that game, but I guess there's lots of games you can choose to play if you don't like those rules.

SPEAKER_01 44:19

Well, that's the thing, isn't it? You know, choose a different game.

SPEAKER_00 44:23

That's what I did. Yeah. Non-a juice. That's right. Nona juice and now with the island spirit. So yeah, I think a lot of people try and pigeonhole themselves or try and say there's only one way that I should do things. And I think from the conversation today, it's helped me also realise that there's so many different pathways, so many different opportunities and things that people can do, and people can lose sight of that to get boxed in.

SPEAKER_01 44:50

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I'll stick with Island Spirit for this question. So it's specific to Ireland Spirit. What's the one thing you would sort of say you're most proud of in that journey so far?

SPEAKER_00 45:02

It's really being back to what I wanted to do as a kid, as a young teenager, and living my core values of helping others and having a team around ten countries that are doing the same thing. Because everybody there is really there to help people. So I think it's really that. It's given me a lot more spring in my step, a lot more purpose than because I'm doing stuff for uh that really impacts thousands of people. Yeah. And yeah, that's quite meaningful.

SPEAKER_01 45:34

Absolutely. Jason, I think that's the perfect note to finish on. I really appreciate you coming on. As I said, a long spell between drinks. Uh I haven't seen you for a while, but I really appreciate you. It's been awesome to talk to you. I've really thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and uh I do appreciate you coming on.

SPEAKER_00 45:50

Thanks, Sean. Thanks for having me on and ask me on really great to see you and all the best and to all your clients. Go with Sean, he's one of the best. I didn't even email you prior to this for you to get that one. I know. I mean anybody that does this kind of extra work and to get out there for others. It's fantastic. Good on you, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

Thank you. Thanks, mate. All right, well, I'll leave it there and thank you again, Jason. We'll see you again hopefully on another season.

SPEAKER_00 46:17

Yes, fantastic. Good on you, Sean.

SPEAKER_01 46:19

Good on you. Thanks. See ya. And that's all for this episode of Origins Ambition. Thanks for tuning in. To make sure you don't miss our next conversation, be sure to subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen in. For more information, you can visit us at dominiumcapital.com.au and we'll see you next time.