Business, relationships and getting your life back, with Michael Clark (Eps. 2)

In this episode of NDIS in the Garden, Matt sits down with Michael Clark from Athletic Koala.

Michael is a former teacher, business owner, author, podcaster, connector and long-time supporter of NDIS providers. He is also a good friend of Matt’s, known for sending books across the country, making people think more deeply, and helping business owners stop letting work take over their lives.

This conversation moves through Michael’s background in teaching, his work with young people, his passion for helping directors get their time back, and what he has learned from speaking with providers across the NDIS space. Michael shares why many business owners feel trapped by their own workload, why strong relationships still matter, how providers can build trust, and why showing up online becomes easier when the focus shifts away from yourself and towards serving other people.

Matt also surprises Michael with a question about Gary Chapman’s The Five Love Languages, leading into a broader discussion about marriage, communication, family, presence and the parts of life that matter beyond work.

This is a conversation about business, but also about people. It is about reputation, relationships, family, self-awareness and the small decisions that help business owners build something without losing themselves in the process.

Find Michael and say hello: https://athletickoala.com.au/

Matt and his team at Steppr offer 'Weirdly Different' Positive Behaviour Support. Find his team at www.steppr.com.au

Thanks for watching!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Let's get back to nature. Welcome to the NDIS in the garden podcast with your host, Matt Sevier. Alright, thanks for joining us again on the NDIS in the Garden podcast. Today I'm joined with Michael Clark. Michael, yeah, this is this has got to be a fun one because Michael's not just someone I found online, he's a great friend of mine. He's the kind of bloke that'll send you books from the other side of the country because he thinks there's something that you'll you'll need to read.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

I do love sending people books, Matt.

SPEAKER_00 0:30

True. Yeah, Michael's, yeah, he you've taught me a lot in terms of things about like how to show up online, how to think about relationships and business and how to communicate in a way that feels more human. He's helped me a lot with my business. Michael, welcome. Thank you for being here.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

It's such a privilege to be here. I'm so excited that people are hearing this podcast. And the remarkable thing is they'll be hearing it today, Matt. They'll also be hearing it in a year. So what you're doing is going to have a big impact. Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

Amazing. Well, I'll uh I'll start off start off with this question. So for people that have not come across you before, but anyone listening, who are you and and what is Athletic Koala?

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Yeah. Well, it's a lot more interesting to ask who I am than my business. My business is what I do during the day on weekdays, but who I am is actually I'm a dad, I'm a husband, I'm a guy who likes playing soccer. I sort of run like a church youth group-ish sort of thing, like sort of. And I love helping directors get their lives back. Like that's really what I'm about, Matt. If if I had a choice tomorrow of having a billion dollars or being able to make it that every single director in Australia got two extra hours a week back in their life to spend with their family, I'd choose that, even though that sounds crazy. I that's literally how I think. So yeah, that's what I'd do.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah. We love crazy. But that's yeah, that's amazing. And you used to be a school teacher, yeah, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:57

Years ago. Like I was a school teacher for like 10 or 15 years, and that's where I got my interaction with like the ability to read people and the ability to know what they really need when they're saying stuff. Okay, and then I ran a tutoring business for about five or ten years, and you know, so we're looking after a few hundred kids, and then I ran a business that helps young people with autism learn social skills, which is really cool. Because when when a young person learns social skills, life open opens up for them. And and the marketing skills to market, either a tutoring business or a business that helps young people, it it's all marketing towards mums. So to be able to market to mums, you need to be able to speak in mum, and which is a very plain, down-to-earth language. And then with Athletic Koal and now, what I do is I help directors to get more money by making wise decisions and to stop spending money on dumb things. So that the bottom line is, Matt, honestly, every director at home with their family. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 2:51

Yeah, that's great. And in terms of you know, the the teacher, you know, the past role you had, how much of that shows up in the work you do today?

SPEAKER_01 3:01

Totally. Because I I felt like, Matt, I was built to look after the kids who were struggling. Like, I didn't care if kids got A's or B's. Good on them, great. It's the kids getting D's that actually mattered to me. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13

Like, and you as a behavior support practitioner, the the kids that you the the young people you look after and work for, they're the people that I think matter because the kids getting A's and B's, good on them. And the weird thing is those young people that I worked for then and that you work for now, they grow up at some point. And then they're your age or my age. Yeah. And then they have different battles. Their battle isn't getting to school, their battle is not feeling like a failure when they look in the mirror, their battle is not feeling like a loser when they open their bank account, or like they've let the team down when they have to explain to their wife or kids why they have to work on a Saturday. So we all have those battles. And whether you're in NDIS, Allied Health, or selling pizzas, you've got the same battles. And I think as we get older, Matt, we we start to act like we shouldn't have battles. We've all got battles.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you put a lot of weight on, you know, like directors and business owners controlling their own lives and having their own, you know, having their weekends. And so is that sort of what you see? Because you talk to a lot of providers. So do you do you reckon that's what weighs on them the most?

SPEAKER_01 4:21

What weighs on directors of providers is they're always worried about not having enough referrals. See, most businesses. So I coach different businesses in different industries. Most industries, it doesn't matter whether they've got 10 clients or 15, they're still going to make serious coin. Or whether they've got 100 clients or 150. It doesn't matter because most industries aren't price capped. In NDIS, the price caps are so low that you must basically be having all areas of your business running at 90 or 95% effectiveness to survive. The exception to that would be Allied Health has still got good margins, particularly, say, as you know, behavior support practitioners, the margins are there now, but it's probably not going to stay like that forever. So we need directors to be able to not be always scared of other referrals coming in. We need systems that pretty much, it's like a pipeline, like almost like a conveyor belt of income your future referrals, but they're not going to come in the future from just, I know this support coordinator. We're not even going to have support coordinators. Okay. They're going to come from the specific steps that directors take today. And my job is helping those directors with those steps. Because if if you can deal with their number one fear, which is loss of referrals or lack of new referrals and loss of your current business, I then they'll live a happier life and they'll stop panicking and sitting at their desk all day and they'll actually go home. So that's my job.

SPEAKER_00 5:46

Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. And I guess like, you know, people come into this space. I mean, NDIS is a pseudo-privatized industry, right? Like we are it it's people driven, it's private businesses that you're building genuine relationships with. So a lot of people come into this space thinking, I just need to get as many referrals as possible. No, maybe I need to start working on relationships and actually having that connection with people. So what would you say builds really strong reputations and relationships?

SPEAKER_01 6:17

Yeah, it it depends on which part of the industry you're in. The bottom line is because I was back, I was here back in say 2019, 2020 when everything was relationship and there was so much work there that no one could keep up with it. So at that point, you didn't have to do anything, work just appeared in your lap almost. Okay, not quite, but almost. And then around 2022, there was a bit of a contraction in the available work, and then probably 2024, the amount of work for everyone shrunk because you got all these extra providers and you had all these people losing a significant amount of their funding from their NDIS plants. Yeah. So what was the question again, Matt? This sounds okay. That was a background. What was the question?

SPEAKER_00 6:58

Yeah, yeah, no, that's fine. Um relationships, like how um so what do you what do you notice about the providers who build really strong relationships, which in turn builds their reputations? Like, what are they doing?

SPEAKER_01 7:10

That's awesome. All right, I love it. Don't mind the senior moment. Okay, so I was explaining that so that I could say back then everything was relationship, nothing was marketing.

SPEAKER_00 7:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

Whereas, and then you saw the tipping point about 2024. Suddenly, if you weren't doing some good marketing, you were gonna have a lot of problems because you can have all the best relationships in the world. If they don't have referrals to give you, that's not a referral relationship. Whereas right now, I'd say that uh, to be honest, two-thirds of my of my referrals to companies that I I work for, they're marketing, they're not relationship-based. So the relationship needs to come out of number one, you need to be special. So if you're a support worker business, you can't just be another support worker business. Oh my goodness, we've got plenty. You need to be the support worker business that's niched into something special, like support workers for people with anxiety, support workers for teenagers, support workers for, I don't know, people who've got an acquired brain injury and who are having a hard time coming to terms with that because it happened sometime in the last five years. You work out what your niche is. Because unless you've got a deliberate niche, there's not a reason for people to talk about you. So people talk about you, Matt, because you're the behavior support practitioner who actually turns up and keeps appointments. Go figure. It can be done. That's proven. So that makes you different from others. Most of us have to actually be a bit more special than that. Okay. But the relationships come from one, people know what you do is specific. And then two, you go and do something that helps others. Now, that could be as simple as you giving them information. Really, this podcast is an example of you giving others information, which is going to mean over a period of time people get to know you, and then they'll want to reciprocate in small ways. Who knows what that looks like? Another way to build relationships is to connect other people with other good people. So there's a BSP in Brisbane I'd love to connect you with. Remind me sometime. He's awesome in his craft, you're awesome at your craft. I know you could help each other. I've just got to connect you guys. And then another way you can build relationships is just find a way to remember stuff about people. So I remember um your partner's name, I remember um what city you live in, I remember that what you do for fun, you know. And it means when I have conversations with you, I I can I can I can mention how how's so and so going. Because what it does, it shows that I'm not just self-interested. Yeah. If I'm self-interested, like, do you want to hang out with someone who just wants to have you got a referral for me? Like, honestly, like do we need more of that? Those would probably be the keys. And that that and LinkedIn, Matt. If you want to keep relationships, you can meet people, great. But if you want to keep a relationship, send them a LinkedIn message at least every two or three months.

SPEAKER_00 9:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Even if just a post of hey, I did this post. It's about Matt. He's really cool. Because you met him, bam, you just set send that across to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:59

Yeah. And for anyone listening, you know, Michael on LinkedIn, yeah, I consider you the connector. You know, you're you're you love just helping people get connected with the right people. And yeah, and and it considering you know your online presence, like you're you're very uh you're very strong on camera and and online. Have you sort of like always been that you know that type of person, or did you have to grow into it when you go into business?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

I think everyone has to grow into it, Matt. So what happens is whenever we're on camera, there's this little voice in the back of our head that says, You look like a clown. Okay. And we have to get used to just going, that voice, I'm sick of hearing that voice. It's not true. If I turn up to like most people are gonna be hearing this as a podcast, it's also a video. Yeah. If I turn up this video time, and if in my head I'm like, oh, I have to come across well, I'm only gonna fail. But if I turn up with, hey, I like Matt, I believe in what Matt's doing, I'm here to support Matt's podcast and get good information to his people. Can you see how my eyes aren't on me? Yeah. Yeah. And whether you're on a podcast or whether you're talking on the phone to a potential client, if all you're about is I'm gonna do my darnest to make sure this person gets what they need, your eyes aren't on you, it's on them, and then you'll come across more confident than you feel. There's other areas of my life, Matt, that I don't feel as confident in. Okay, like I'm getting older and I'm playing soccer against 22-year-olds. Okay, I don't feel as confident on the soccer field as I do on the camera. But really, it comes down to if you turn up to serve on camera or or in any of your interactions, then the self-consciousness can fall away.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

Yeah, that's awesome. Um this is amazing. I mean, these are these are the questions I should have asked you a long time ago. Like, how good is that? This is fun, yeah. So, yeah, so I mean, you you wrote a book on on this kind of thing as well. You've you've you've written a few books. What is this what sort of like what sort of made you sit down and and write that? One of your books is about you know not letting your business control you. Yeah. Uh to the the feeling I got from your books and in light with what you just said is like there's something to be said about you know altruism. It's like what is true altruism? It's doing things without someone else having to say thank you. You know, doing being being selfless. And and yeah, maybe like talk us through like a few of your books and and what how you came about those.

SPEAKER_01 12:25

Yeah, I'd love to. So this is relevant to whoever's listening because whether you're a listening as a you're a business development manager, whether you're a director, or whether you're the person sweeping floors, this is really important. Okay, so the number one thing for you to keep in mind at work is that work is not what life's actually about. Work is that thing you do so you can do the rest of life. So even if you've got a work that helps others, like Matt, your work helps others. You help people stay in school, you help people make good choices in life, get jobs, and basically stay away from legal trouble, you know, when they go out on a Friday night. That's a remarkable good thing, but it's not the core of what your life's about. That's just how you serve. Our real life is who we are when there's no one else around, who we are when our kids are around and our phone wants to take our attention, who we are when we're with our spouse. Like my wife, Suzanne, she's had plenty of years of saying, Michael, I wish you would be more present, you know. And I mean it's been probably it's been a few years since I've heard her say that, but it it's not ideal. It hurts when when you experience that. And there's a lot of people experiencing that feeling of I'm letting my wife down, I'm letting my kids down, I'm letting whoever down, because they're trying to serve whole hardly at work. But part of that is they're putting their identity in their work instead of who they are outside of work. So the book that you're talking about, uh You're a business owner, not a slave. It's on Amazon, people can find it. I wrote about 10 years ago with the idea of every business owner that I work with is probably spending at least 30% of their time doing things that are not moving the needle. Just stop. Delegate it, pay someone, do whatever you have to do. But when you can free up your time, then you can build your business. And I've built seven figure businesses a couple of times, and it's it's not hard to build a seven-figure business. It it is hard to control your calendar. Okay, so so that's why I'm so passionate about that, and that's why I get excited, Matt. I see what you've done with your with your work week, and I'm like, if Matt can do that, others can do that. I hope that inspires people.

SPEAKER_00 14:31

Yeah, yeah. And for anyone listening, you know, like uh when Michael met me, well, I was a big fan of his podcast. You can look it up, it's the NDIS Provider Growth Journey podcast. Yeah, I listened to that throughout our registration journey. And you know, when you met me, I was drowning in work and completely stressing out. And it's like when you make these little changes, then yeah, you get your weekends back, you get your relationships back. So this is actually a pretty good segue because I wanted to see what comes to your mind when I say the five love languages by Gary Chapman.

SPEAKER_01 15:04

Go for it. I'd say one of the most useful books ever written. I mean, that book taught me how to interact with my wife in a way that actually means more to her. So, for example, when I'm with my wife, my love language is uh I like quality time and it's words of affirmation. Okay? I like I actually enjoy what when, say, birthdays or whatever, my daughter will write a card. Thanks, dad, you're the best dad. Coming from someone close to me, that matters. Whereas for my wife, the the thing that matters most to her more than anything else is quality time. So if I go and tell my wife the things that help me, oh, it helps me when my wife says I did a great job. I'll go and tell her she did a great job. That means very little to her compared to me, like last night, I really just wanted to go and read a book, okay? But I sat there with my family while my kids are going a bit crazy and dinner chaotic, and and I just spent that extra time, well, probably an extra like 45 minutes with them. I was actually doing like back exercises and stuff that I need to do, so I also felt productive. But spending that time with them, because to my wife, that time matters more than any words I can say, any gift I can give. Like Absolutely. So so that yeah, so that book teaches people how to look after their spouse in the way that is going to mean something to them. What what are your thoughts on that book, Matt?

SPEAKER_00 16:21

Oh, I mean, yeah, I saw I I found it online because it comes from the old wanted man training days. Uh I think you used to engage.

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, you've done some research. Good work.

SPEAKER_00 16:32

Yeah, thanks. And yeah, it was it's it was I I really want to read it. I haven't read it. But I saw you helped a lot of you know, marriages and and yeah, people just trying to re regain their you know their own lives. I'm sure it helps a lot of business owners and stuff like stuff like that. So I've got a few books to get through at the moment, but that's on my list for sure.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

That's really cool. And and Matt, with I would encourage anyone who's listening to this, after they've done this podcast, go to Chat GPT or Claude or whatever and say, help me analyze my marriage in relation to the five love languages by Gary Chapman. And I think it's Gary Chapman. By by whoever. Yes. By the five okay, good. The five love languages. And you talk to ChatGPT about what makes you feel loved and what you think makes your spouse feel loved, and you'll you'll end up with a remarkable conclusion that she wants something different to what you think she does. So go and give her what she wants instead of trying to give her what you want.

SPEAKER_00 17:29

Amazing. Mate, this has been awesome. You've been super generous with your time. Before you wrap up, so for for people listening who are trying to build something and you know, just to people that are trying to show up more honestly or just figure out what kind of person they want to be in business, what would you want them to sit with after this chat, after they've listened to this podcast?

SPEAKER_01 17:52

Yeah, uh, I think the most important thing is it's the last thing people would expect me to say. Okay, because remember, my job is helping directors adjust how they spend their time and their money so they make more of both, right? Yes. But the most important thing you can do is actually not your business. The most important thing you can do is go and sit in the back garden for 30 minutes with a pen and paper and a nice cup of coffee, maybe a block of chocolate, and just look at your life in terms of how are things going for me socially. Have I hung out with my friends? No, I haven't. Okay. How are things going in my marriage? Yeah, they're really good. How are things going with my kids? Here's how things are going with my kids. How's my how's my how's my health going? How's my finances going? And then under each of those categories, just write down how things are and what's one action you can take that will that will just move the needle. And that action might be tonight after dinner, I'm I'm gonna go and watch something on Netflix that my wife wants to watch that I can't be, I can't even tell you how much I don't want to watch it. I'm gonna go watch it. I'm gonna go and do it with a really good attitude, that's what I'll do there. And for my health, oh, it's a week and a half since I've been in the gym. I'll go to the gym tomorrow, I'll set my alarm. Like, break your life down into those different areas and then pick out one easily achievable action step for each of them, and then just go and do it. And if you do that activity, I do that activity about every three weeks. But the more regularly you do it, the more your life just lives. Because you're you are not your bank account, you are not your business, you are not how many clients you have, you are not your tax return. You you are how you choose to spend your time, and you are whatever small action steps you take that get you to where you want to go. So I'd say I'd say that. And the other thing, Matt, I'd say is if you're running an NDRS business and it's not profitable, and if you're not earning at least one and a half times what your next staff member's earning, you need to either wrap it up or massively shift it, massively change it. And both are valid options.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Michael, it's been lovely chatting to you, my friend. Thank you so much for joining us.

SPEAKER_01 19:54

You are so welcome, my friend. You enjoy your garden, enjoy your podcast.

SPEAKER_00 19:59

All right, thank you, mate. Bye.