In this episode, I talk to Craig Fearn, the founder of Lighthouse Mentoring.  Craig is a Global Wellbeing Sustainability Expert and also the Wellbeing Ambassador for the Institute of Directors in the UK.

Craig and I speak about his incredible journey from a seemingly privileged childhood to developing mental health conditions at a young age.  He outlines his battle with the illness but also with the ecosystem around him. After two unsuccessful (thankfully) attempts at suicide Craig had a remarkable turnaround in his life.  He has emerged stronger and better by sheer bloody mindedness.  A truly gutsy story.

Craig then talks about the differences in the approach and perspectives of Mental Health matters at large corporates versus young companies. He has some very useful practical advice for founders and teams.

Don't be scared to make the hard decisions.  Face up to them. The more you postpone them, the worse they become.

In this episode, I talk to Nina Lowes, Jen McKay, Robyn Clay & Richard Pearce, the four founders of Hadeda, a technology platform in South Africa that services the financial services industry. Hadeda emerged from LinkTank the brainchild of Nina & Jen in 2014.

We speak about their transition from the corporate world into startup land.  We hear fascinating episodes of managing difficult shareholders, unreasonable vendors and the gut-wrenching decision to retrench staff to stay alive.

They also share their coping mechanisms and it is interesting to note they have very different means to deal with the stresses of a founders journey.  It is also heartening to see how they have backed each other and created an environment of trust and transparency within the company.

Finally, I was fascinated with their clear vision and desire to remain independent and to provide independent advice / products to their clients.  That takes guts and the team is clearly on their way to building something meaningful.

In this episode, David outlines why he thinks trust is the cornerstone of building relationships both personally and professionally.

David’s career foundation was in audit services then Investment banking. His subsequent CFO work has included WPP Group, Viacom, employee #3 at a sports IP startup and now technology translation startups as a fractional CFO whilst continuing to mentor broadly. His PhD dissertation focused on ‘The Business of Accelerating the Acceleration of Startups’ . David also lectures at universities where he enjoys combining industry practice, research and mentoring curious business students.

David outlines how the Trust Equation (from the book The Trusted Advisor) has helped him shape his life.

Entrepreneurs and business owners can learn from David's advice on managing stakeholders and being early in bringing forward the hard discussions.

In this episode, Raja Pradeep and I talk about his journey from corporate to startup.  Raja, a serial entrepreneur, is on his fourth business.  AUP IT, is now a successful and thriving MSP in Australia.  His most recent venture, Automatorr that was incubated in the midst of the pandemic has seen exponential growth since inception.

Raja looks back at his first startup and how he has matured as an entrepreneur since then.  We talk about his learnings and lessons learnt.  Most interestingly is the gutsy decision he had to make to split with this business partner and co-founder of AUT IT.  Raja talks us through how it impacted him and how he dealt with that episode in his life.

Raja shares with us his opinion on mental health matters.  His experience has been a positive one wherein sharing his journey has strengthened his relationships.

In this episode, Jeremy and I talk about his time after BCG, particularly in his role as Chairman, Board member and Advisor.  Jeremy reflects on how his strategy and negotiations skills helped shape of AGSM into a world class Business School.

We talk about the gutsy decisions Directors need to take and his advice to the management on managing the Board.

Finally, we look at what has changed and what remains similar to founding and managing a company compared to the 1970s.

This episode is rich with advice and insights from perhaps one of the greatest strategists of our time.

You have to draw a distinction between “I have failed” and “I am a failure”

In this episode, I talk to Jeremy Davis about his career at Boston Consulting Group (BCG).   In particular his experience founding the BCG office in San Francisco.  Jeremy outlines some of the gutsy decisions he made back in the 1970s.  This episode is rich with history, insights and life lessons.

This is the first episode where Rob (Chief Wellbeing Officer) and I introduce the podcast. We discuss what we think is a gutsy decision.  We then open up about a gutsy decision we each made and how it impacted us.  This should set the tone for the amazing guests we will be hosting on this show.