June 13, 2023 • 20 mins
Do you spend much time thinking about your potential or the potential of your business? What about how to REACH your full potential?
Learn about the gap between your potential as a human and what we believe we can do – personally and professionally.
This tailored discussion for SMPs and sole practitioners between Andy Fell, GiFT 631 Founder and Leadership/Business coach, and Gillian, promises to get the brain going.
Among the topics: how to silence your inner critic, understanding if time manages you or you manage time and why greatness requires stillness.
And what's ‘The Rocking Chair Test and ‘The Whale Report’ – both could be key to your future success.
Find out more about Andy Fell and GiFT631 here
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Gillian Bowen, Host (00:08):
Hello, I'm Gillian Bowen, Public Affairs Manager at Chartered Accountants ANZ,
or CA ANZ. This is Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (00:22):
I was on the hamster wheel of life and I'd
go home at night thinking, well, what have I actually achieved today?
You know, I was just busy, busy, busy, but I
wasn't busy being effective. How often do you create complete stillness,
isolate yourself from everything that's going on and just think,
how do I build a better firm? How do I
build a better business? How do I serve my customers better?
(00:44):
How do I get rid of more low value work?
How do I improve the quality of my team?
Gillian Bowen, Host (00:55):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs. Each
fortnight I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ
and a range of people across our profession. So make
sure you're following the pod in your favourite pod app.
And if you've got an idea for the show email
podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Today we have Andy Fell. He's the founder of GiFT 631 -
(01:29):
a leadership and personal growth Business. I'm going to pick his
brain about what small and medium sized practices, sole practitioners
could be doing to help their business or just themselves
reach their full potential. Andy welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (01:43):
Hi, Gillian. I'm absolutely delighted to be with you.
Gillian Bowen, Host (01:46):
Brilliant. Look, firstly, I'd like to give our listeners a
bit of a taste of your background, the guest's background,
so they can see and feel who it is that
they're listening to today. So what's your background?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (01:59):
Yeah, well, I spent 28 years in financial services, 20
of which were in the UK and 20 of which
were in senior leadership. And most of my career was
spent leading big people centric distribution businesses. So branch networks,
contact centres, teams of, you know, relationship managers, private bankers
(02:21):
and business bankers. So when I moved to Australia that
was with the Westpac group. And yeah, I had the
pleasure and privilege to be a general manager in both
Westpac and also the Saint George Consumer Bank. And then
I turned 50 and finally worked out what I wanted
to do in my life. So yeah, I left. I
took the rocking chair test on myself and I left
(02:44):
financial services and set up my business GiFT631 which is
a business that focuses on four key things
one coaching, scaling entrepreneurs, senior business leaders and rising talent,
conference and keynote speaking leadership, talent development and facilitating off
sites for for leadership teams, be it vision and values,
(03:05):
high performing teams, strategy, culture, execution. So yeah, that's the
world in which I've I've been living for the last
six years.
Gillian Bowen, Host (03:13):
All right. Well, we've got a lot to try to
cover in 20 odd minutes then with your expertise. So
I'm thinking we begin by looking at where the gaps
are regarding potential and why they exist. And then we
take a look at what we can do about them.
So how about you explain that the gap between our
potential as a human and what we believe we can do?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (03:33):
Yeah, sure. And and I think the gaps I'm going
to articulate, Gillian, are this could be you as an individual.
This could be a small firm. This could be a
team that you're leading. This could be a function within
a within a big business. I believe that the gaps
between current performance and potential actually are the same within
us as they are within the businesses in which we work.
(03:54):
And I think there's six that I would really love
to to share with the audience. And the first one
is having you've got to have an absolute clarity of purpose,
real clarity of vision, real clarity of goal. So that's
the number one for me. And when I work with
a team, individuals and businesses, whatever size, you know, we
need to get that place of clarity. And that really
(04:17):
energizes energizes us, but it also energizes those around us,
you know, a compelling vision, a compelling purpose with some
really big goals that that we have to commit to.
We have to be more resourceful, more innovative, more creative
to take us in the direction of those goals. So
so that's the absolute number one. The second one is
(04:37):
the individual and collective mindset. You know, we all talk
to ourselves and we all have an inner critic and
an inner champion. And to put it really, really simply,
the inner critic is the person who's constantly telling you,
you can't, you can't, you can't. And the champion is
the person that believes the mindset, that believes that anything
is possible. And going back to that really old, you know,
(04:59):
well known phrase, if you say you can or you can't,
you're probably right. So that's the second one. And I
believe a huge percentage of our success is that attitude,
that belief system and that mindset. The third one is
our attitude to change. And if you take something that's
really topical at the moment, like ChatGPT, you know, do
(05:19):
you see that as a threat or actually do you
see that as a huge opportunity? And for me, the
analogy I would I would share is if you've lived
your whole life in a cave, in complete darkness, and
then one day somebody lets you out and it's a
beautiful sunny day. What happens to your eyes? Well, you're
temporarily blinded and it feels really uncomfortable. So you want
(05:42):
to run back into the cave. But if you can
only hold your place in the sun, then this beautiful
vista opens up in front of you. And you want
to go forward. You don't want to go back. And
if you replace the cave with that comfort zone, to me,
that's what it's all about. You know, we've got to
get ourselves out of our comfort zone and we've got
to live with that uncomfortableness until we see the new
(06:02):
opportunity in front of us. So that'd be my third.
My fourth would be time, you know, does time manage
you or do you manage time? And I think if
you're a sole trader, if you're a really small firm,
that's a that's a critical part of this that you're
able to ruthlessly prioritize and really sort, you know, value.
You know, a lot of my clients were really working
(06:22):
out well. Where does the value sit? And starting by saying,
have I got a really high performance diary? You know,
what goes into my diary first should be the most important,
the real value, the real value centric activities. The fifth
is unquestionably what we would call a growth mindset. But
really what that is, is the ability to you know,
(06:44):
one of my favorite sayings is winners debrief more than
the average, the ability to do something and then review
it to find and drive continuous improvement. And then the
final one, you know, Disney once said that success is 95% systems, 5% magic.
But you've got to have the 95% systems to get
to the 5% magic. And if you really want to
(07:05):
unlock your potential as a as a sole trader, you know,
as an individual, as a team, as a small business,
you've really got to have the right systems in place,
and that's personal systems, team systems and business unit systems.
So that I think is is, you know, the basket
of things that I think hold people back from reaching
(07:26):
their true potential.
Gillian Bowen, Host (07:28):
And there'd be people listening along who could really then
identify I'm sure they had their mind ticking away of
what the impacts are of not having those things right
on their small business, on themselves, if they're if they're
just working for themselves. So to help us get the
brain thinking about what the next steps are, I think
(07:48):
and you mentioned this when you first introduced yourself, what
is the rocking chair test?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (07:54):
Yeah, sure. So I actually took this on my 50th birthday,
which seems a strange thing to even thinking about on
your 50th birthday. But it was I first heard it
from Sir Richard Branson, and Branson says, imagine you're 90,
95 years old. You're sitting outside your house in your
rocking chair and you're looking back on your life. And
(08:15):
he would say, What do you want to be saying
to yourself? Do you want to be saying to yourself, Well,
I wish I'd done that. I could have done that.
I should have done that. I had the ability to
do this, but I didn't. Or do you want to
look back on your life and go, Well, maybe I
didn't get everything right, but at least I gave life
my best shot? And that's actually was my trigger to
(08:36):
leave the corporate world and set up my own business because,
you know, I had a great, great life in the
corporate world. But I knew when it was my time
to face the rocking chair test that I could only
pass it if I went and follow my dreams, follow
my passion, live true to my purpose. So that really
is is the rocking chair test. And it's a great
place to start for anyone who's thinking, well, you know,
I am where I am, but I know there's there's
(08:57):
a lot more within me or my firm that ah
really I'm keen to unlock. So what is - what I
call my your future-use state. And that really is if
you can identify that future, you state you know how
you would love to be living your life, the business
you'd love to be leading or running. That's a great
starting place.
Gillian Bowen, Host (09:16):
How on that starting place, how do you get Because
there's a lot of ideas there and people will be thinking, well,
what's step one, two and three? How do I get
to a point where I can identify a path forward
to help my business, myself reach my full potential?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (09:31):
Yeah, I think that's a brilliant question. And Gillian, I
every single day from when I was a bank manager
to when I was a general manager in my diary,
I had an appointment with Mozart. And the story goes,
I'd actually don't even know if this is a true story.
By the way, the story goes that Mozart suffered from
composer's cramp, and the way he'd overcome that composer's cramp
(09:52):
is he'd isolate himself from the world. So he'd go
out on his own. And when he was wandering through
the forests in the middle of Europe and, you know,
he was watching the deer and he was smelling the trees,
listening to the birds, that's when he started to compose
his music again in his mind. And the whole idea
is that, you know, greatness requires some stillness. And from
stillness you'll get clarity. And from clarity you'll get innovation,
(10:16):
breakthrough and success. And when I first heard that story,
I was a struggling bank manager. I was on the
hamster wheel of life, and I'd go home at night thinking, Well,
what have I actually achieved today? You know, I was
just busy, busy, busy, but I wasn't busy being effective.
And again, I talked to so many sole traders and
small firms, small practices across sectors who are in this space.
(10:37):
So once I heard that story, I went back and
I put an appointment in my diary with Mozart. And
I still have that appointment every single day. And it's
20 minutes of time. Just me, my thoughts and my journal.
No technology. So no phone, no laptop, no chance of
interruption or disruption. And I just think and I seriously
(10:58):
would suggest and recommend to everyone who listens to this
that that is the starting point. How often do you
create complete stillness, isolate yourself from everything that's going on
and just think, how do I build a better firm?
How do I build a better business? How do I
serve my customers better? How do I get rid of
more low value work? How do I improve the quality
(11:18):
of my team? How do I improve the quality of
my services? How do I use ChatGPT to my advantage,
whatever it might be? You know, it's just that thinking time.
Because if you give yourself that, that stillness and I
only ever have two speeds in business, I'm either completely
still or I'm completely fast. And I do believe speed
is a source of competitive advantage. But if you look
(11:41):
from the outside, all you see is the speed. But
I can only go that fast because I'm going that
slow because that's when I make decisions about the things
that I'm going to prioritize in my life and my business.
And if you're going to go fast, it's a good
job to go fast in what you think is the
right direction.
Gillian Bowen, Host (11:57):
How important is it, do you think, for people to
believe in themselves?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (12:03):
Oh it's the core of absolutely everything, you know. And
the greatest day is when your internal validation so what
you think about you crosses over from your reliance upon
external validation, which is what others think of you. And
far too many people, in my view, are dependent upon,
you know, what holds a lot of people back. Actually,
(12:24):
Gillian is not it's not the fear of failure. It's
the fear of judgment. So when you're totally reliant upon
either on praise, but also you're equally wounded by criticism,
you you hold yourself back. You become dependent upon what
others are saying about you, rather than just being true
to yourself and following your own course. So I think
it's really important that we all work exceptionally hard to
(12:48):
build our confidence, our belief systems and to go a
little bit deeper, our level of self esteem.
Gillian Bowen, Host (12:55):
I think what plays into that is what you say
about making mistakes safe. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (13:04):
Yeah. And it really started because I talked to a
lot of leaders and they go, I want to be
an empowering leader. You know, however small the firm, I
want to I want to grow my firm. And the
only way I can do that, I can't hold on
to everything that I've always been doing. So I want
to empower those around me. And I would say, well,
what's your system for empowerment? And people like, Well, what
do you mean? I said, Well, you've got to have
(13:25):
a system. So people have got to know what they're
empowered to do. So when I was running the bank,
for example, people knew the no go areas. You know,
these are areas you just can't touch. Maybe something around legislation, governance, pricing, risk,
you know, brand, all those different things. These are the
things you need to refer to me as your one up
line manager. So almost you're setting the parameters of where
(13:48):
people are not empowered and therefore you're, you're you're enabled
to empower them about everything else. And that's about quality delegation, delegation.
That's about reducing and removing red tape. But it's also
about making mistakes safe. So very early in my career,
I worked for the managing director of the Royal Bank
(14:09):
of Scotland. I was his executive assistant, and one day
he called me into his office and I was just
this young guy starting out in business. And he said, Andy,
he said, I want to give you a piece of advice.
He said, Let me just tell you this. The only
people who don't make mistakes are the people who don't
do anything. So he said you want to, First of all,
he said, I want you to live an action orientated life.
(14:31):
He said, But secondly, when you're in a position of
leadership like I am, create an environment, create a tone
which is conducive not only to people bringing their full
selves to work, but people being willing to have a go.
And it was him, Tony, who first got me thinking
about this, he said. But obviously, you know, put some
parameters around this. I mean, we were in financial services.
(14:52):
He said, I don't want people making mistakes with lots
of noughts on the end. He said, But you've got
to create an environment where people, it's safe to test
and learn to fail fast in these areas, he said.
Because that's how you are going to grow as a leader.
Andy But that's also when you're in leadership, how others
are going to grow. So I think it's about it's
about setting up a whole system of empowerment for the
(15:12):
people that work within your firm so they know where
they can, you know, where they can take decisions and
risk making mistakes, where they need to refer to you
as either the business owner and where you just don't
want them to play.
Gillian Bowen, Host (15:29):
You mentioned red tape.
In.
In in that answer. And you're not talking about government
red tape or external red tape. What what red tape
are you talking about? And how does that impact a
small business?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (15:41):
Yeah, it's really interesting. Often, you know, I'll work with
a business and when you really get into talking about
all of the low value work that they're having to do,
that's in their view, it's constraining them. It's holding them back.
It's it's it's first of all, it's a source of
disengagement because people get really, really frustrated. But often you'll
talk to someone and they'll say, well, my boss has
asked me to do this, but now I'm spending every
(16:04):
five minutes updating the boss about how I'm going. So
I'm spending more time updating than I am actually doing.
So it's all of the low value activities that are
actually getting in the way of us achieving what we
want to achieve as a firm. And it goes back
to a brilliant story from Gail Kelly, who was the
the CEO of the Westpac group, just a phenomenal human being.
(16:26):
And Gail told this story about when the recently deceased
Queen Elizabeth, when she was still a princess. So this
is going back a long, long time when Princess Elizabeth
was going on a state tour of South Africa with
her husband, she wanted to see whales and they set
up a system in South Africa where all of the
(16:49):
Coast Guards, every single day in the three months leading
up to Princess Elizabeth's visit, would send in the number
of whale sightings in that particular spot around the coast
of South Africa. The idea being where there was the
most frequent whale spotting cause that's where they'd send Princess Elizabeth. Anyway,
fast forward 60 years and they're still doing the whale
(17:11):
report and this new guy takes over this function and
he goes, So why are we actually why are we
doing this? And no one really knew. And people going, well,
obviously we want to monitor whale numbers. And he said, No, no,
we can do that with technology. We don't need to
have all these manual reports flying around the system and
then someone's keying them in. So Gail then challenged us
to say, So in your part of the business, where
(17:35):
are your whale reports? What are your whale reports? And
it's brilliant that everyone takes away from this podcast. Just
go and challenge everything in your firm. Why are you
doing it? What's the value in it? Is there a
And if you do believe you need to do it,
is there a more efficient way of doing it? So
think about whale reports.
Gillian Bowen, Host (17:54):
I along that similar vein and I often, you know,
I'm the host. I don't often tell stories, but I
have a friend who had said that for a long
amount of time, a person that they worked with had
been popping into a meeting that had been set up
during Covid and and sitting in it for 15 or
20 minutes and wondering why no one else was joining
(18:17):
it because Covid had finished and the meeting had not continued.
But this poor person had been rocking up, spending 15,
20 minutes. Oh, no one's coming and getting off and
not realizing that actually that calendar invite should have been deleted.
Of course that meeting shouldn't have been continuing on, but
what a waste of time. How many things like that
(18:38):
do you think exist? So many?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (18:40):
Honestly, Gillian, that is a huge area of opportunity for
everyone listening to this.
Gillian Bowen, Host (18:45):
Oh, dear.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (18:46):
How long are your meetings? Have every meeting that either
you're attending or your people are attending is a clear purpose,
clear agenda, clear minutes, clear actions. You know, I say challenge.
I often say to my clients, What's the worst 1
or 2 meetings you go to every week and they
can tell me like that. And it's like, Well, why
do you go, you know, almost as an expectation that
(19:06):
I go, Well, let's challenge the expectation. You know, this
creates some capacity within the system here. And I think
it's a huge opportunity. You're absolutely right.
Gillian Bowen, Host (19:14):
We are almost out of time. I wanted to finish
on that. Look, people listen to this podcast rather than
watching it, but you and I can see each other
and you've got a hashtag that's under GifFT 631 that
is hashtag, 'What winners do' - I think that's a nice
way to to wrap up. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (19:31):
Yeah. So really it's it's creating a personal success system.
So I believe, as I said earlier, success 95% systems, 5% magic.
So what what are your personal success systems that's going
to enable you to move in the direction of future you?
And that might be everything from your morning routines to
how you you debrief your significant activities to how you
(19:54):
time block your diary effectively so you can really focus
on on the deep work, how you re-energize, how you
motivate yourself in a moment of need. So what winners
do is is my series of winning habits, winning frameworks,
running routines which form my personal success system, which ultimately
will enable me to pass my rocking chair test.
Gillian Bowen, Host (20:15):
Okay, we've covered a lot. That is all we have
time for. If you want to find out more about
Andy Fell and GiFT 631 I'll put a link in the show
notes to his website. Also give the podcast a follow in
your favorite pod app so you're ready for next time.
And you can also find all the other episodes from
season three there. The podcast has an email, so feel
free to get in touch. Podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Let's start a conversation
(20:38):
we certainly have today. Thanks Andy Fell for joining me
on Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (20:43):
My absolute pleasure.
Gillian Bowen, Host (20:44):
Bye bye.
Hello, I'm Gillian Bowen, Public Affairs Manager at Chartered Accountants ANZ,
or CA ANZ. This is Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (00:22):
I was on the hamster wheel of life and I'd
go home at night thinking, well, what have I actually achieved today?
You know, I was just busy, busy, busy, but I
wasn't busy being effective. How often do you create complete stillness,
isolate yourself from everything that's going on and just think,
how do I build a better firm? How do I
build a better business? How do I serve my customers better?
(00:44):
How do I get rid of more low value work?
How do I improve the quality of my team?
Gillian Bowen, Host (00:55):
It's the podcast giving you and your clients the up
to date information you need to do your jobs. Each
fortnight I share resources, tools and expert advice provided by CA ANZ
and a range of people across our profession. So make
sure you're following the pod in your favourite pod app.
And if you've got an idea for the show email
podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Today we have Andy Fell. He's the founder of GiFT 631 -
(01:29):
a leadership and personal growth Business. I'm going to pick his
brain about what small and medium sized practices, sole practitioners
could be doing to help their business or just themselves
reach their full potential. Andy welcome to Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (01:43):
Hi, Gillian. I'm absolutely delighted to be with you.
Gillian Bowen, Host (01:46):
Brilliant. Look, firstly, I'd like to give our listeners a
bit of a taste of your background, the guest's background,
so they can see and feel who it is that
they're listening to today. So what's your background?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (01:59):
Yeah, well, I spent 28 years in financial services, 20
of which were in the UK and 20 of which
were in senior leadership. And most of my career was
spent leading big people centric distribution businesses. So branch networks,
contact centres, teams of, you know, relationship managers, private bankers
(02:21):
and business bankers. So when I moved to Australia that
was with the Westpac group. And yeah, I had the
pleasure and privilege to be a general manager in both
Westpac and also the Saint George Consumer Bank. And then
I turned 50 and finally worked out what I wanted
to do in my life. So yeah, I left. I
took the rocking chair test on myself and I left
(02:44):
financial services and set up my business GiFT631 which is
a business that focuses on four key things
one coaching, scaling entrepreneurs, senior business leaders and rising talent,
conference and keynote speaking leadership, talent development and facilitating off
sites for for leadership teams, be it vision and values,
(03:05):
high performing teams, strategy, culture, execution. So yeah, that's the
world in which I've I've been living for the last
six years.
Gillian Bowen, Host (03:13):
All right. Well, we've got a lot to try to
cover in 20 odd minutes then with your expertise. So
I'm thinking we begin by looking at where the gaps
are regarding potential and why they exist. And then we
take a look at what we can do about them.
So how about you explain that the gap between our
potential as a human and what we believe we can do?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (03:33):
Yeah, sure. And and I think the gaps I'm going
to articulate, Gillian, are this could be you as an individual.
This could be a small firm. This could be a
team that you're leading. This could be a function within
a within a big business. I believe that the gaps
between current performance and potential actually are the same within
us as they are within the businesses in which we work.
(03:54):
And I think there's six that I would really love
to to share with the audience. And the first one
is having you've got to have an absolute clarity of purpose,
real clarity of vision, real clarity of goal. So that's
the number one for me. And when I work with
a team, individuals and businesses, whatever size, you know, we
need to get that place of clarity. And that really
(04:17):
energizes energizes us, but it also energizes those around us,
you know, a compelling vision, a compelling purpose with some
really big goals that that we have to commit to.
We have to be more resourceful, more innovative, more creative
to take us in the direction of those goals. So
so that's the absolute number one. The second one is
(04:37):
the individual and collective mindset. You know, we all talk
to ourselves and we all have an inner critic and
an inner champion. And to put it really, really simply,
the inner critic is the person who's constantly telling you,
you can't, you can't, you can't. And the champion is
the person that believes the mindset, that believes that anything
is possible. And going back to that really old, you know,
(04:59):
well known phrase, if you say you can or you can't,
you're probably right. So that's the second one. And I
believe a huge percentage of our success is that attitude,
that belief system and that mindset. The third one is
our attitude to change. And if you take something that's
really topical at the moment, like ChatGPT, you know, do
(05:19):
you see that as a threat or actually do you
see that as a huge opportunity? And for me, the
analogy I would I would share is if you've lived
your whole life in a cave, in complete darkness, and
then one day somebody lets you out and it's a
beautiful sunny day. What happens to your eyes? Well, you're
temporarily blinded and it feels really uncomfortable. So you want
(05:42):
to run back into the cave. But if you can
only hold your place in the sun, then this beautiful
vista opens up in front of you. And you want
to go forward. You don't want to go back. And
if you replace the cave with that comfort zone, to me,
that's what it's all about. You know, we've got to
get ourselves out of our comfort zone and we've got
to live with that uncomfortableness until we see the new
(06:02):
opportunity in front of us. So that'd be my third.
My fourth would be time, you know, does time manage
you or do you manage time? And I think if
you're a sole trader, if you're a really small firm,
that's a that's a critical part of this that you're
able to ruthlessly prioritize and really sort, you know, value.
You know, a lot of my clients were really working
(06:22):
out well. Where does the value sit? And starting by saying,
have I got a really high performance diary? You know,
what goes into my diary first should be the most important,
the real value, the real value centric activities. The fifth
is unquestionably what we would call a growth mindset. But
really what that is, is the ability to you know,
(06:44):
one of my favorite sayings is winners debrief more than
the average, the ability to do something and then review
it to find and drive continuous improvement. And then the
final one, you know, Disney once said that success is 95% systems, 5% magic.
But you've got to have the 95% systems to get
to the 5% magic. And if you really want to
(07:05):
unlock your potential as a as a sole trader, you know,
as an individual, as a team, as a small business,
you've really got to have the right systems in place,
and that's personal systems, team systems and business unit systems.
So that I think is is, you know, the basket
of things that I think hold people back from reaching
(07:26):
their true potential.
Gillian Bowen, Host (07:28):
And there'd be people listening along who could really then
identify I'm sure they had their mind ticking away of
what the impacts are of not having those things right
on their small business, on themselves, if they're if they're
just working for themselves. So to help us get the
brain thinking about what the next steps are, I think
(07:48):
and you mentioned this when you first introduced yourself, what
is the rocking chair test?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (07:54):
Yeah, sure. So I actually took this on my 50th birthday,
which seems a strange thing to even thinking about on
your 50th birthday. But it was I first heard it
from Sir Richard Branson, and Branson says, imagine you're 90,
95 years old. You're sitting outside your house in your
rocking chair and you're looking back on your life. And
(08:15):
he would say, What do you want to be saying
to yourself? Do you want to be saying to yourself, Well,
I wish I'd done that. I could have done that.
I should have done that. I had the ability to
do this, but I didn't. Or do you want to
look back on your life and go, Well, maybe I
didn't get everything right, but at least I gave life
my best shot? And that's actually was my trigger to
(08:36):
leave the corporate world and set up my own business because,
you know, I had a great, great life in the
corporate world. But I knew when it was my time
to face the rocking chair test that I could only
pass it if I went and follow my dreams, follow
my passion, live true to my purpose. So that really
is is the rocking chair test. And it's a great
place to start for anyone who's thinking, well, you know,
I am where I am, but I know there's there's
(08:57):
a lot more within me or my firm that ah
really I'm keen to unlock. So what is - what I
call my your future-use state. And that really is if
you can identify that future, you state you know how
you would love to be living your life, the business
you'd love to be leading or running. That's a great
starting place.
Gillian Bowen, Host (09:16):
How on that starting place, how do you get Because
there's a lot of ideas there and people will be thinking, well,
what's step one, two and three? How do I get
to a point where I can identify a path forward
to help my business, myself reach my full potential?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (09:31):
Yeah, I think that's a brilliant question. And Gillian, I
every single day from when I was a bank manager
to when I was a general manager in my diary,
I had an appointment with Mozart. And the story goes,
I'd actually don't even know if this is a true story.
By the way, the story goes that Mozart suffered from
composer's cramp, and the way he'd overcome that composer's cramp
(09:52):
is he'd isolate himself from the world. So he'd go
out on his own. And when he was wandering through
the forests in the middle of Europe and, you know,
he was watching the deer and he was smelling the trees,
listening to the birds, that's when he started to compose
his music again in his mind. And the whole idea
is that, you know, greatness requires some stillness. And from
stillness you'll get clarity. And from clarity you'll get innovation,
(10:16):
breakthrough and success. And when I first heard that story,
I was a struggling bank manager. I was on the
hamster wheel of life, and I'd go home at night thinking, Well,
what have I actually achieved today? You know, I was
just busy, busy, busy, but I wasn't busy being effective.
And again, I talked to so many sole traders and
small firms, small practices across sectors who are in this space.
(10:37):
So once I heard that story, I went back and
I put an appointment in my diary with Mozart. And
I still have that appointment every single day. And it's
20 minutes of time. Just me, my thoughts and my journal.
No technology. So no phone, no laptop, no chance of
interruption or disruption. And I just think and I seriously
(10:58):
would suggest and recommend to everyone who listens to this
that that is the starting point. How often do you
create complete stillness, isolate yourself from everything that's going on
and just think, how do I build a better firm?
How do I build a better business? How do I
serve my customers better? How do I get rid of
more low value work? How do I improve the quality
(11:18):
of my team? How do I improve the quality of
my services? How do I use ChatGPT to my advantage,
whatever it might be? You know, it's just that thinking time.
Because if you give yourself that, that stillness and I
only ever have two speeds in business, I'm either completely
still or I'm completely fast. And I do believe speed
is a source of competitive advantage. But if you look
(11:41):
from the outside, all you see is the speed. But
I can only go that fast because I'm going that
slow because that's when I make decisions about the things
that I'm going to prioritize in my life and my business.
And if you're going to go fast, it's a good
job to go fast in what you think is the
right direction.
Gillian Bowen, Host (11:57):
How important is it, do you think, for people to
believe in themselves?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (12:03):
Oh it's the core of absolutely everything, you know. And
the greatest day is when your internal validation so what
you think about you crosses over from your reliance upon
external validation, which is what others think of you. And
far too many people, in my view, are dependent upon,
you know, what holds a lot of people back. Actually,
(12:24):
Gillian is not it's not the fear of failure. It's
the fear of judgment. So when you're totally reliant upon
either on praise, but also you're equally wounded by criticism,
you you hold yourself back. You become dependent upon what
others are saying about you, rather than just being true
to yourself and following your own course. So I think
it's really important that we all work exceptionally hard to
(12:48):
build our confidence, our belief systems and to go a
little bit deeper, our level of self esteem.
Gillian Bowen, Host (12:55):
I think what plays into that is what you say
about making mistakes safe. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (13:04):
Yeah. And it really started because I talked to a
lot of leaders and they go, I want to be
an empowering leader. You know, however small the firm, I
want to I want to grow my firm. And the
only way I can do that, I can't hold on
to everything that I've always been doing. So I want
to empower those around me. And I would say, well,
what's your system for empowerment? And people like, Well, what
do you mean? I said, Well, you've got to have
(13:25):
a system. So people have got to know what they're
empowered to do. So when I was running the bank,
for example, people knew the no go areas. You know,
these are areas you just can't touch. Maybe something around legislation, governance, pricing, risk,
you know, brand, all those different things. These are the
things you need to refer to me as your one up
line manager. So almost you're setting the parameters of where
(13:48):
people are not empowered and therefore you're, you're you're enabled
to empower them about everything else. And that's about quality delegation, delegation.
That's about reducing and removing red tape. But it's also
about making mistakes safe. So very early in my career,
I worked for the managing director of the Royal Bank
(14:09):
of Scotland. I was his executive assistant, and one day
he called me into his office and I was just
this young guy starting out in business. And he said, Andy,
he said, I want to give you a piece of advice.
He said, Let me just tell you this. The only
people who don't make mistakes are the people who don't
do anything. So he said you want to, First of all,
he said, I want you to live an action orientated life.
(14:31):
He said, But secondly, when you're in a position of
leadership like I am, create an environment, create a tone
which is conducive not only to people bringing their full
selves to work, but people being willing to have a go.
And it was him, Tony, who first got me thinking
about this, he said. But obviously, you know, put some
parameters around this. I mean, we were in financial services.
(14:52):
He said, I don't want people making mistakes with lots
of noughts on the end. He said, But you've got
to create an environment where people, it's safe to test
and learn to fail fast in these areas, he said.
Because that's how you are going to grow as a leader.
Andy But that's also when you're in leadership, how others
are going to grow. So I think it's about it's
about setting up a whole system of empowerment for the
(15:12):
people that work within your firm so they know where
they can, you know, where they can take decisions and
risk making mistakes, where they need to refer to you
as either the business owner and where you just don't
want them to play.
Gillian Bowen, Host (15:29):
You mentioned red tape.
In.
In in that answer. And you're not talking about government
red tape or external red tape. What what red tape
are you talking about? And how does that impact a
small business?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (15:41):
Yeah, it's really interesting. Often, you know, I'll work with
a business and when you really get into talking about
all of the low value work that they're having to do,
that's in their view, it's constraining them. It's holding them back.
It's it's it's first of all, it's a source of
disengagement because people get really, really frustrated. But often you'll
talk to someone and they'll say, well, my boss has
asked me to do this, but now I'm spending every
(16:04):
five minutes updating the boss about how I'm going. So
I'm spending more time updating than I am actually doing.
So it's all of the low value activities that are
actually getting in the way of us achieving what we
want to achieve as a firm. And it goes back
to a brilliant story from Gail Kelly, who was the
the CEO of the Westpac group, just a phenomenal human being.
(16:26):
And Gail told this story about when the recently deceased
Queen Elizabeth, when she was still a princess. So this
is going back a long, long time when Princess Elizabeth
was going on a state tour of South Africa with
her husband, she wanted to see whales and they set
up a system in South Africa where all of the
(16:49):
Coast Guards, every single day in the three months leading
up to Princess Elizabeth's visit, would send in the number
of whale sightings in that particular spot around the coast
of South Africa. The idea being where there was the
most frequent whale spotting cause that's where they'd send Princess Elizabeth. Anyway,
fast forward 60 years and they're still doing the whale
(17:11):
report and this new guy takes over this function and
he goes, So why are we actually why are we
doing this? And no one really knew. And people going, well,
obviously we want to monitor whale numbers. And he said, No, no,
we can do that with technology. We don't need to
have all these manual reports flying around the system and
then someone's keying them in. So Gail then challenged us
to say, So in your part of the business, where
(17:35):
are your whale reports? What are your whale reports? And
it's brilliant that everyone takes away from this podcast. Just
go and challenge everything in your firm. Why are you
doing it? What's the value in it? Is there a
And if you do believe you need to do it,
is there a more efficient way of doing it? So
think about whale reports.
Gillian Bowen, Host (17:54):
I along that similar vein and I often, you know,
I'm the host. I don't often tell stories, but I
have a friend who had said that for a long
amount of time, a person that they worked with had
been popping into a meeting that had been set up
during Covid and and sitting in it for 15 or
20 minutes and wondering why no one else was joining
(18:17):
it because Covid had finished and the meeting had not continued.
But this poor person had been rocking up, spending 15,
20 minutes. Oh, no one's coming and getting off and
not realizing that actually that calendar invite should have been deleted.
Of course that meeting shouldn't have been continuing on, but
what a waste of time. How many things like that
(18:38):
do you think exist? So many?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (18:40):
Honestly, Gillian, that is a huge area of opportunity for
everyone listening to this.
Gillian Bowen, Host (18:45):
Oh, dear.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (18:46):
How long are your meetings? Have every meeting that either
you're attending or your people are attending is a clear purpose,
clear agenda, clear minutes, clear actions. You know, I say challenge.
I often say to my clients, What's the worst 1
or 2 meetings you go to every week and they
can tell me like that. And it's like, Well, why
do you go, you know, almost as an expectation that
(19:06):
I go, Well, let's challenge the expectation. You know, this
creates some capacity within the system here. And I think
it's a huge opportunity. You're absolutely right.
Gillian Bowen, Host (19:14):
We are almost out of time. I wanted to finish
on that. Look, people listen to this podcast rather than
watching it, but you and I can see each other
and you've got a hashtag that's under GifFT 631 that
is hashtag, 'What winners do' - I think that's a nice
way to to wrap up. What does that mean?
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (19:31):
Yeah. So really it's it's creating a personal success system.
So I believe, as I said earlier, success 95% systems, 5% magic.
So what what are your personal success systems that's going
to enable you to move in the direction of future you?
And that might be everything from your morning routines to
how you you debrief your significant activities to how you
(19:54):
time block your diary effectively so you can really focus
on on the deep work, how you re-energize, how you
motivate yourself in a moment of need. So what winners
do is is my series of winning habits, winning frameworks,
running routines which form my personal success system, which ultimately
will enable me to pass my rocking chair test.
Gillian Bowen, Host (20:15):
Okay, we've covered a lot. That is all we have
time for. If you want to find out more about
Andy Fell and GiFT 631 I'll put a link in the show
notes to his website. Also give the podcast a follow in
your favorite pod app so you're ready for next time.
And you can also find all the other episodes from
season three there. The podcast has an email, so feel
free to get in touch. Podcast@charteredaccountantsanz.com Let's start a conversation
(20:38):
we certainly have today. Thanks Andy Fell for joining me
on Small Firm, Big Impact.
Andy Fell, GiFT631 Founder and Business Coach (20:43):
My absolute pleasure.
Gillian Bowen, Host (20:44):
Bye bye.
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