Welcome to the Next Level Business podcast, this is your host, Tony Kane. Thank you so much for hanging out and joining us today. I've got a real treat.
I've got John all joining us today. The owner and operator of a business called Fornix. Sir John specializes in office furniture and John stories, an amazing tale. How a young man came all the way over here from the UK, started the family, was working on wages and decided one day that everything had to change for John to build the life that he was after. Unlucky doing this job. I get to hear firsthand and learn so much from all my guests about how they built and run amazing businesses.
So get the pin ready because there's gold riddled all throughout these podcasts and John's little tips.
So insightful of how you can both build an amazing profitable business. But also you're going to notice how much John cares about his staff and how important it is for him to create an amazing culture inside of his companies. And I'm sure that's led to John having some success. But also, John's really conscious that people are doing it really tough out there. So I hope that if nothing else, she can just get some inspiration from John Story to keep on going through these tough times.
So without further ado, let me get into it.
And I really hope you enjoyed my chat with John Old today. So, John, thanks for joining us today, buddy.
Thanks so much. It's really good to have you on. And I need to ask you off the bat, so take me back. How does a young kid from Scotland make his way over to Australia and come to own a very successful business?
Well, I moved to England when I was when I was very young and I was a bit of a sportsman. And my father managed to get himself swept up accidentally in a local rugby league team, not an his choice at all.
OK, soccer and we we brought a few players from a small town just north of Brisbane called Redcliffe in the late 80s. And we brought five players up from there as part of a link up with the rugby league in the UK to develop teams in non rugby league areas. Right.
And. Kind of long story short, in about 1990, I was studying physiotherapy, my my soccer career was going nowhere. I mean, physiotherapy.
And I got an invite out to Australia for the wedding of one of the players that had come over in the late 80s and made the decision to write to a few soccer clubs in the area in the state league. And I decided to come out to Australia for a year to kick the ball around and go to my my friend's wedding.
Right, so you you say you flew to Brisbane, I assume, for the wedding, started playing soccer? Yes.
Then did you make the decision pretty quickly? That's where you could see yourself living on term?
Well, the first thing that struck me about living in Brisbane in those days was that everything was so unbelievably cheap. So I found myself within six or nine months with a beautiful girlfriend. And I are living in a rented rented house, four bedroom house up here in Redcliffe with a swimming pool and feeling I was Posh and Becks before Posh and bags were invented.
I imagine the the ray of sunshine didn't hurt either.
So now it's like being on a permanent holiday. And, you know, my rent was a quarter of my wage working in a warehouse. I was getting a few dollars them for kicking a ball around a much. But, you know, it was good. And my girlfriend at the time he became my wife was working part time and we just did it in those days. It was ridiculous. Semi perfect.
So you're playing you're playing soccer. And then what about. So when did you start to sort of get you sort of start to get a different direction? John?
Well, sort of. The soccer really was, you know, my weekend drinking money. And I got a job in a small office furniture business, basically selling office furniture and unloading trucks and children came around quite quickly. So at that stage, sort of like drifted away for ten years. Well, we had three three kids. I worked in an office...
