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Johan de Villiers on Overlanding the Board Room · The Overland Journal Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to the Overland Journal podcast. I'm your
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: host Scott Brady, and I'm joined today by a very
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: unique guest, Johann de Villiers. Now, Johan has spent a
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: lifetime in Southern Africa, but he has also spent a
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: lifetime traveling the world. He's been to over fifty countries.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: He's climbed four of the seven Summits, he has learned
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: a great deal about overlanding and has explored most of
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: Southern Africa by overland vehicle. He's ridden Adventure motor He's
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ridden Adventure motorcycles across Mayamar. He's also done some incredible
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: survival and other training courses. But beyond all that, Johan
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: is also a very accomplished business person. So this is
• 0:50
  Speaker 1: a unique opportunity to have a conversation with a successful
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: IT professional and CEO that has learned a lot about
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: business but has been able to learn how to translate
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: back to travel and how to take some of his
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: lessons from travel and translate those back into business. Now,
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: he has recently published a book called Overlanding through the Boardroom,
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: which is available on Amazon and some other sources. It
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: is a lengthy volume and it goes into not only
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: his adventures, but also his more profound lessons that he's
• 1:28
  Speaker 1: gained in the thirty plus years in the IT world.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: We talk a little bit about investing, We talk about
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: strategies around building teams and leadership while traveling. We talk
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit about his land rover Defender. We have
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: really a wide ranging conversation and I suspect that this
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: will be the first of many in a series with Johann,
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: so please enjoy my conversation with Johan.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe it's the promise of new experiences and discoveries, the
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: allure of the unknown. That's why we do what we do.
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: It's why we are a pioneer in building off road
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: off grid rd's, and it's what makes our Backcountry Series
• 2:13
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• 2:17
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• 2:22
  Speaker 2: fresh water capacity, plus multifunctional layouts that give you enhanced gear,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: storage and workspace, and the comfort needed to relax in
• 2:31
  Speaker 2: the kinds of places where our Backcountry Series vehicles drive.
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: Take for instance, the Echo, which introduces off road camper
• 2:49
  Speaker 2: van utility to a rugged yet spacious Class C for
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: the revel the ultimate adventure ready van, boasting up to
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: seven days fully off grid power. And then there's the Solace,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: a supremely flexible and thoughtfully designed camper van that has
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: everything you need and a few things you never knew
• 3:12
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• 3:20
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• 3:23
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• 3:29
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• 3:33
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• 3:39
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• 3:48
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• 3:55
  Speaker 1: Johan, thank you so much for being on the podcast
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: with me today. It's about five thirty in the evening
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: for you and Cape Town, and about a similar time
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: eight thirty or so in the morning here in Arizona,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: and we get a chance to finally catch up. I've
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: followed your work for many years. You've done a lot
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: of work for us at Overland Journal. You've written some
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: incredible articles on recovery, You've built some impressive vehicles, you've
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: had some incredible travels around the world, and of course
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: recently you just came out with your book Overlanding through
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: the Boardroom, which is a great volume on business and
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: how it relates to travel and adventure and how adventure
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: also relates to business.
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  Speaker 3: Thank you for being on the.
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  Speaker 4: Podcast Privileged to Bia. Thank you, Scook.
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  Speaker 1: Let's start off with a little bit of background on you.
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  Speaker 1: What part of the world did you grow up. You
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: mentioned a little bit of time that you spend in
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: the United States, but let's talk a little bit about
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  Speaker 1: how life started for you.
• 4:58
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I was born in Vittoria, just outside Johannesburg, and my
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  Speaker 5: dad my family then moved to Stellembosch, which is a
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  Speaker 5: bit of a university town. My dad was quite active
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  Speaker 5: in the field of genetic engineering and biochemistry, and surprisingly
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  Speaker 5: the beer companies wanted that kind of skill in terms
• 5:19
  Speaker 5: of increasing the yields for in terms of the crops,
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  Speaker 5: the wheat and the body, et cetera, et cetera that
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  Speaker 5: guys like budd and Heineken and those guys utilize. At
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  Speaker 5: the early age, the family got the opportunity to move
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  Speaker 5: to UCLA in Davis, and we spent a couple of
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  Speaker 5: years there and then moved back to Stullombosh I did.
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  Speaker 5: I went to university there and then ended up living
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  Speaker 5: on the west coast of Cape Chon in a little
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  Speaker 5: place called melkos Strand. So I used this as a basis,
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  Speaker 5: which is great for traveling in Africa. Expensive if you
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  Speaker 5: want to get back to the States of course, or
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  Speaker 5: Southeast Asia or those places. But yeah, as a base
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  Speaker 5: Cape John and with our currency, I think any place
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  Speaker 5: we still get grand parity.
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  Speaker 4: That makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: And you're in not a long drive and you're up
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  Speaker 1: into Namibia, there's the whole west coast of Africa.
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  Speaker 3: Is impressive.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, we basically seven hours six and a half hours
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  Speaker 5: to the border of Namibia and maybe nine hours and
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  Speaker 5: you're in Botswana. And of course from what Spani's got,
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: the beautiful Delta, the Caprivi and from their proper Zambia
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  Speaker 5: and Central Yeah.
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  Speaker 1: Absolutely, what an incredible place to live too. There's one
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  Speaker 1: of the things that I really liked about Cape Town
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  Speaker 1: is it had very much a spirit of Africa to it.
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  Speaker 1: But there was also some really great restaurants, and there
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  Speaker 1: was good infrastructure, and you have people like Paul Marsh
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  Speaker 1: there that are incredible resources for building overline vehicles and
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  Speaker 1: there's it is. It has become I would say, like
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  Speaker 1: the capital of adventure within Africa.
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  Speaker 5: Yeah, you've got one of your employees, Grand Bell, is
• 6:58
  Speaker 5: from South Africa. And because we've got the legendary Kingsley
• 7:01
  Speaker 5: Holgate that you know well as well. So yeah, I
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  Speaker 5: think Australia, South Africa and the States are probably the
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  Speaker 5: three guys that really like specialize in the overlanding.
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  Speaker 4: On the overlanding side.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always thought that Australia coined the term because
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: of overland cattle driving, and then the South Africans figured
• 7:23
  Speaker 1: out how to make stuff last over the long haul,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: how to make quality components, and then the Americans have
• 7:31
  Speaker 1: figured out how to make money at it.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: I was about to say, guys now are to commercialize
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  Speaker 5: it properly. I'll to scale the business properly.
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  Speaker 3: That's right, That's right. Yeah, So we've all brought our
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  Speaker 3: bit to the tea for sure.
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  Speaker 5: The one thing I have to give the Australians credit
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  Speaker 5: for is that they stuck to you to Toyota, whereas
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  Speaker 5: in South Africa we've still got a plethoria of land
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  Speaker 5: rovers and that's an entirely different debate.
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  Speaker 4: But if you want to go an adventure, you need
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  Speaker 4: to get a land rover. But if you want to
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  Speaker 4: make it home, you have to get a land That's
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  Speaker 4: a fact.
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  Speaker 3: That's a fact. In fact.
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  Speaker 1: I think one of the best ways I've heard it
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  Speaker 1: described is Toyota for work, land Rover for play. And
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  Speaker 1: I think that people forget that. The idea is adventure.
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  Speaker 1: So like anybody who drives like an old series land
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  Speaker 1: Rover on a long trip, they're going to have an
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  Speaker 1: incredible adventure because all of the unexpected things are going
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: to happen, and they're going to be driving slow, and
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  Speaker 1: they're going to be interacting with the locals. They're going
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: to be fixing the vehicle. They're going to have a
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  Speaker 1: different adventure than someone that's in a seventy series where
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  Speaker 1: they don't even have to pop the bonnet on it.
• 8:38
  Speaker 5: Oh yeah, it's I'll pay a land driver ownership to
• 8:43
  Speaker 5: earning an old Labrador that it's time for euthanasia. But
• 8:48
  Speaker 5: you can't get it over yourself to put your old
• 8:51
  Speaker 5: dog down. It becomes a labor of love. It's her
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  Speaker 5: motive decision. That's why they've all got names.
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  Speaker 4: Nobody names it to a hotel, but there's no land
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  Speaker 4: defender that doesn't have a nickname by its owner.
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  Speaker 1: That's so true. Let's talk a little bit about your
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  Speaker 1: defender you have. That's an impressive vehicle, is it. Do
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  Speaker 1: you still have the orange one? And let's talk a
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  Speaker 1: little bit about what model it is and what are
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  Speaker 1: some of your most favorite modifications you've done to that.
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  Speaker 5: So it's originally a two thousand and four Tidy five,
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  Speaker 5: the one ten four door pickup series that I started
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  Speaker 5: modifying quite heavily for overland travel. You guys did a
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  Speaker 5: grain belt. It is a stunning article. I think an
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  Speaker 5: expedition portal on that. It's really been a work in
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  Speaker 5: progress for me because at the moment that you put
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  Speaker 5: Alicab tent on or some wins or whatever the case
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  Speaker 5: may be, the overlanding community and the market is developing
• 9:48
  Speaker 5: so quickly that this new switch gear coming out next month,
• 9:52
  Speaker 5: or there's a plasma rope that's going to replace a
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  Speaker 5: steel cable, so there's always an excuse to be spending
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  Speaker 5: some money on it. And I think at this point
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  Speaker 5: in time, I've got to the point where the money
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  Speaker 5: I've invested is going to be a lot more than
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  Speaker 5: the book value of the vehicle. And I try and
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  Speaker 5: sell it one day. But when you climb in that
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  Speaker 5: machine and you turn their ignition. It always feel like
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  Speaker 5: the start of an adventure, even if you're just doing
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  Speaker 5: the milk run.
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  Speaker 4: On a Saturday morning.
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  Speaker 5: So there's just something about the chug of a five cylinder,
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  Speaker 5: twenty year old five cylinder starting up. In terms of
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  Speaker 5: heavy mods suspension, of course, quite heavily modified OMI engine,
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  Speaker 5: I've tried to stay away from mods too much other
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  Speaker 5: than playing a little bit with a mapping on the
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  Speaker 5: ECU and upgrading the intercooler a bit, and yeah, then
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  Speaker 5: the normal stuff long range, full times, long range. I'm
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  Speaker 5: a diesel fan just in terms of water crossings. I'm
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  Speaker 5: quite a diesel fan in terms of overlanding itself. And
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  Speaker 5: I try and stick to you at the pace philosophy.
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  Speaker 5: In terms of every system, I try and have a
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  Speaker 5: backup system and a backup system for that system, a
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  Speaker 5: primary alternate. I think on engine and emergency, and of
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  Speaker 5: course it's impractical for a number of things like water.
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  Speaker 5: If your water turn's got to leak, at least you've
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: got some jerry cans, and the jerry cans it's got
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  Speaker 5: an issue, have a life straw or some water beatification
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: or whatever the case might be and the same with
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  Speaker 5: the communication systems in the vehicle. I'd like my starling
• 11:19
  Speaker 5: and if the starting is not available VHF, and of
• 11:22
  Speaker 5: course mobile cell phone reception where you've got that. So
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  Speaker 5: you can't always have four alternate strategies on all your
• 11:29
  Speaker 5: different systems, but you can definitely have two. I always
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: say aim for perfection and settle on best effort. Yeah,
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  Speaker 5: and that's of course also something that you can carry
• 11:37
  Speaker 5: over to business as well.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that there are a few systems
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  Speaker 1: that are worth taking that extra effort. Like you talked about,
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: water is something from an emergent perspective that if you
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: were to break down in the color harty, that you
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: need to be able to have water to survive at
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: least until help can arrive. So I like the idea
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: of having multiple water tanks, then also having the ability
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: to filter water as well, and then probably even having
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: an emergency stash of water just in case the vehicle
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: was to catch fire and you needed to evacuate the
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: vehicle quickly and grab a ditchbag or something that it
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  Speaker 1: would at least have maybe a couple of liters of
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  Speaker 1: water in it in the case of emergency and certainly
• 12:27
  Speaker 1: for communications. I think about in Africa the times that
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: I was so remote that I didn't have cell coverage
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  Speaker 1: for days, and you have to really be mindful of
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: the fact that starlink is I think a good primary
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: source of communication because it's so effective. And then your
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: contingent is probably going to be your cell phone, and
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: then you know your emergency will probably be something like
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: an inReach some a small messenger that you or a
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: satellite phone. Yeah, so I agree, I think it's good
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  Speaker 1: to have when it comes to the most important thing.
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: It's really good to have at least two or three
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: or four systems.
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And of course I think water and comms have you,
• 13:08
  Speaker 5: as you've highlighted, are probably the most important.
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: But also recovery gar I don't just rely on that Wench.
• 13:15
  Speaker 5: Know how to utilize that high lift jack and in
• 13:18
  Speaker 5: some cases a heartleft jack is not going to get
• 13:20
  Speaker 5: you out of it like a muddy swamp like kind
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: of terrain or whatever. And then make sure you got
• 13:25
  Speaker 5: the exhaust jack. Inflatable exhaust jack. It weighs nothing, backs
• 13:29
  Speaker 5: away very compact. But there you've got three systems already. Winch,
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: high lift and exhaust jack an excuse not to have
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: that level of preparation.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, especially when you're traveling solo, which I believe that
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: you and I both do to a great deal.
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: I have to be self sufficient.
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 5: Probably ninety percent of all of my travels in the
• 13:53
  Speaker 5: kim And I probably heard about fifty countries all up,
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  Speaker 5: and probably ninety nine percent of it has been solo.
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  Speaker 5: I like solitude, to be absolutely honest with you. It
• 14:04
  Speaker 5: also means that, in terms of that self reliance, puts
• 14:08
  Speaker 5: it entirely on me. If something goes wrong, my complain
• 14:11
  Speaker 5: to somebody else. You prep that vehicle, You provided the platforms,
• 14:15
  Speaker 5: the systems to back up, et cetera.
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  Speaker 4: It was your preparation.
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: And the problem solving is up to you to get
• 14:21
  Speaker 5: out of that situation as well. And it's difficult in
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: the middle of expedition or convoy to tell vehicle three
• 14:26
  Speaker 5: and four.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: To exit, to be willing to tell people that this
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: isn't working and that we either need to change.
• 14:32
  Speaker 4: The hard conversation that's got.
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and you have those on a regular basis in business.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: Are there any things that you have found that where
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: there's a parallel in communication between expeditions and business that
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: you come back to.
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  Speaker 5: So there's three three golden threads that I utilize in
• 14:55
  Speaker 5: business that I think you can draw power directly back
• 15:00
  Speaker 5: to advenure specifically overlanding. And for me, the first one
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: is awareness and business, You've got your awareness of your competitors.
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: You've got the awareness in terms of the general economy,
• 15:13
  Speaker 5: you know what's going on around.
• 15:14
  Speaker 4: You, and of course if you need to know what
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: the market is doing.
• 15:20
  Speaker 5: So if you look at overlanding, you need to know
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: in terms of travel, what is the situational awareness in
• 15:26
  Speaker 5: terms of wildlife dangers around you, changing weather patterns that
• 15:30
  Speaker 5: might affect the road conditions, travel conflict in the area
• 15:33
  Speaker 5: that you're about to go in, or travel restrictions that
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: differs from country to country. So that awareness is something
• 15:40
  Speaker 5: that I find there's a direct parallel between business and overlanding.
• 15:45
  Speaker 5: Following awareness, I would say, is preparedness and business. You
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: need to put the right teams together with the right
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: kind of personalities and skill sets. You need to think
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: carefully in terms of how you allocate your capital, your products, people,
• 15:58
  Speaker 5: et cetera. Terms of resource management, and that extends to
• 16:03
  Speaker 5: what we just discussed in terms of resource management of
• 16:06
  Speaker 5: things like fuel and water and recovery gear on your egg,
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: so you can see that there's once again a very
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: direct correlation between those. And then I would say that
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: the third and most important one for me is the
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: willingness to act. In business, it's one thing to have
• 16:24
  Speaker 5: a business plan or a marketing strategy, but not in acting.
• 16:28
  Speaker 5: It is obviously an issue you need to be able
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: to pull the trigger in terms of a capital spend
• 16:32
  Speaker 5: commitment or to go and spend the market budget marketing
• 16:36
  Speaker 5: budget and believe that the ROI will prove itself or
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: make the difficult investment decision and business, but that same
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: willingness to act extends through to being on a journey
• 16:47
  Speaker 5: or an expedition where a travel companion gets injured, or
• 16:52
  Speaker 5: you get to a flooded river.
• 16:56
  Speaker 4: Or even an engine breakdown, that the willingness to act
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: needs to be there. That preparedness, awareness and the willingness
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: to act are really overlapping business and adventure characteristics for
• 17:11
  Speaker 4: me that are found very useful.
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I can see the parallel with that in
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: travel in the sense that people can get very focused
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: on where they want their destination that they want to
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: get to, and they can get into that cascade of
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: events where things are slowly going the wrong direction, but
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: they're not adjusting, they're not changing their plan, they're not
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: making the decision, like you said, the decisiveness to say
• 17:38
  Speaker 1: we're going to stop and reassess or we're going to
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: make a right instead of going forward. And I have
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: seen quite a few Overlanders get themselves where the vehicle
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: is may be slowly declining as well, the vehicles having
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: some issues, it's making noises, but they're so focused on
• 17:54
  Speaker 1: getting to the summit that they ignore those things because
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: they want to get to their goal, and that can
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: put them at great risk and their travel companions at
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: great risk.
• 18:04
  Speaker 5: Yeah, so it's funny that you mentioned that we you
• 18:07
  Speaker 5: and I were chatting in terms of that. You were
• 18:10
  Speaker 5: asking me what lessons in business have I learned that
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: you can actually apply to travel. But to your point,
• 18:17
  Speaker 5: and I thought, that's a great question. I actually had
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: to go and think about that a little bit, and
• 18:21
  Speaker 5: it wasn't. Actually I think that the biggest one for
• 18:25
  Speaker 5: me wasn't actually from business.
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: It was actually in my days at flight school for
• 18:29
  Speaker 4: my sins.
• 18:30
  Speaker 5: When I sold my first company, I had a restraint
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: of trade in terms of working for a couple of
• 18:35
  Speaker 5: years and my wife told me to stay busy, so
• 18:38
  Speaker 5: I enrolled it in helicopter flight school. And by the way,
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: I love that. If I stop overlearning, I'd love to
• 18:45
  Speaker 5: fly again. But it's an expensive hobby job on the side.
• 18:48
  Speaker 5: But anyway, long story is short. In flight school, they
• 18:52
  Speaker 5: teach you something called the Swiss cheese effect.
• 18:56
  Speaker 4: And the Swiss cheese.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: Just to explain it simplest, the Swiss cheese, every layer
• 19:03
  Speaker 5: of Swiss cheese is a defensive safety system that is
• 19:09
  Speaker 5: applicable to flight, but of course to business as well.
• 19:12
  Speaker 5: So every layer of Swiss cheese is something that you
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: need to attend to. But and the holes in the
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: Swiss cheese of vulnerabilities in that system. But if there's
• 19:22
  Speaker 5: another backup system that covers that slice of cheese, the
• 19:25
  Speaker 5: hole gets covered.
• 19:26
  Speaker 4: So you understand what I'm saying.
• 19:27
  Speaker 5: So for pre flight on a plane or a helicopter,
• 19:32
  Speaker 5: your first layer of Swiss cheese that needs to be checked.
• 19:35
  Speaker 5: The first safety protocol is in terms of your pre flights,
• 19:39
  Speaker 5: is your feel, quantity and quality. Then there's your next
• 19:43
  Speaker 5: would be your weather on root and what's the weather
• 19:46
  Speaker 5: going to be at the actual landing site, never mind
• 19:48
  Speaker 5: what the weather is where you are departing from, and
• 19:51
  Speaker 5: then do you have an alternate landing site on root
• 19:56
  Speaker 5: is something goes wrong, another layer of Swiss cheese is
• 19:59
  Speaker 5: your weight in balance. That lady back left in the helicopter,
• 20:02
  Speaker 5: she actually in terms of weight imbalance of the machine,
• 20:05
  Speaker 5: she's actually offsetting the machines the center of gravity. So
• 20:09
  Speaker 5: each one of those, it's a layer of Swiss cheese,
• 20:11
  Speaker 5: and you can get away by ignoring one of them.
• 20:14
  Speaker 5: So let's say you didn't check what the weather is
• 20:18
  Speaker 5: at your destination, and as you come in, you realize that,
• 20:21
  Speaker 5: not via visual flight rules, you're.
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: Not going to be able to land there.
• 20:25
  Speaker 5: But luckily, in terms of your flight plan, you had
• 20:29
  Speaker 5: an alternate arrangement and you've still got excess feel and
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: you can turn around and depart to that airport, to
• 20:37
  Speaker 5: that landing strip. So you got away with the fact
• 20:40
  Speaker 5: that you didn't check the weather, But you continue ignoring
• 20:44
  Speaker 5: those layers of Swiss cheese, and sooner or later those
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: holes starts aligning and you can see straight through. And
• 20:52
  Speaker 5: at flight school they said you if you become complacent
• 20:57
  Speaker 5: enough or negligent enough to ignore enough layers of Swiss cheese.
• 21:04
  Speaker 4: You eventually, when those.
• 21:05
  Speaker 5: Holes line up, you're going to see the face of
• 21:07
  Speaker 5: God's spinning at you on the other side. And of
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: course that's when there's something tragically going wrong. Now you
• 21:13
  Speaker 5: can apply that, that Swiss cheese effect, that mindset, you
• 21:18
  Speaker 5: can apply to your business of course as well, if
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: people worry about profit and loss. But cash flow is
• 21:24
  Speaker 5: ten times more important to a business than profit and
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: loss because you can sustain a loss for a number
• 21:31
  Speaker 5: of years depending on your investors or what your bank
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: account looks like. But cash flow, if you don't have
• 21:37
  Speaker 5: money to pay your suppliers, that put you on hold.
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: It can't supply stock, your sales stops, so things like
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: you're working capital, your cash flow, managing your debtorts book correctly,
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: those are all layers of Swiss cheese that requires your
• 21:50
  Speaker 5: attention and to focus and at your own peril, start
• 21:55
  Speaker 5: ignoring those layers of Swiss cheese and the hole starts
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: lining up. And of course it's direically transferable to how
• 22:02
  Speaker 5: you prepare your overland rake in terms of not having
• 22:06
  Speaker 5: backup systems. If your water tank starts leaking, where you
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: start losing some diesel out of a fuel line and
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: whatever the case might be. So yeah, I think somebody
• 22:16
  Speaker 5: had to ask me, what is the primary philosophy for me?
• 22:20
  Speaker 4: Is that cheese effect. It's something that stuck with me
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: for many years.
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: And what's interesting, that's a great analogy, and oftentimes we'll
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: see travelers actually introducing additional holes in the layers of cheese.
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: So for an example of that would be you take
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: a Toyota land Cruiser and then you replace one of
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the suspension components with something custom.
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: That you can't find.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: You can't find in any other village or city or
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: town throughout Africa. So the more that you keep the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: vehicle serviceable, because there's a huge Toyota dealer network throughout Africa,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: the more that you keep that vehicle serviceable, the less
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: holes you've introduced to the Swiss cheese. Whereas to your point, like,
• 23:07
  Speaker 1: if you put in some fancy time joint, long travel whatever,
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: and that thing breaks out on you in Botswana, you're
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: gonna have to fly it in.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: You're gonna have to.
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: DHL that piece into mound after you've got a long tow,
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: and you had to sit in a hotel.
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: For four or five days.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So don't introduce more holes into the cheese good system.
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Keep the systems as serviceable and reliable as you can,
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: and oftentimes it means keeping them as stock as possible
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: as well.
• 23:38
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you asked me a question earlier in before we
• 23:42
  Speaker 5: started routing the tape here in terms of what travel
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: advice I would give my younger self. And it made
• 23:50
  Speaker 5: me think. In the early two thousands, we had an
• 23:54
  Speaker 5: IT company. I was telling my fifties then. Unfortunately for
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: me now, but just before before we sold the IT
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: company in I think it's two thousand and seven thereabouts,
• 24:05
  Speaker 5: I sent myself from our management Yeah, ata financial crisis.
• 24:11
  Speaker 5: Just before we sold the company, I came across an
• 24:14
  Speaker 5: American management firm called Specific Institute. They actually still around
• 24:19
  Speaker 5: TPI excellent management company, and they do various executive courses,
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: et cetera, et cetera. And this is not the point
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: of the story, but for somebody wants to go and
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: google it. There was a course called Investment and.
• 24:31
  Speaker 4: Excellence which reprograms your mind the ability to lock in
• 24:38
  Speaker 4: and lock out in terms of goals or business objectives.
• 24:41
  Speaker 4: So it teaches you to.
• 24:43
  Speaker 5: Ignore the white noise when you've got a business goal,
• 24:46
  Speaker 5: or objective, and in order to do that, it's a
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: course over sixty days. Three days of intensive training, then
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: thirty days where you practically go and implement it, and
• 24:58
  Speaker 5: then another two days followed by thirty days of momentation,
• 25:02
  Speaker 5: and then the last day is the wrap up.
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: Now where I'm going with the story is I'll never
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: forget that.
• 25:08
  Speaker 5: The American facilitator here in Cape Town went on stage
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: on the last day.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: After sixty days of immersion.
• 25:17
  Speaker 5: And said that you know what they've done this course,
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: I think in twenty eight countries and over forty thousand
• 25:22
  Speaker 5: delegates and over the years. And what they did is
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: they did a survey with retirees in terms of their
• 25:32
  Speaker 5: biggest regrets, and with the eighty five percent correlation, no
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: matter which country they surveyed, they had the same three regrets.
• 25:45
  Speaker 5: And the first one was that I should have had
• 25:47
  Speaker 5: more fun when I had the opportunity to. The second
• 25:50
  Speaker 5: one was I should have taken more risk when I
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: was younger obviously calculated risk. And surprisingly the third one
• 25:59
  Speaker 5: was should it be more substantial in somebody else's life
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: and even at my pitties that struck me so hard,
• 26:07
  Speaker 5: Have more fun, take more risks, and be more substantial
• 26:10
  Speaker 5: in somebody's life. That's become ingrained in my DNA. And
• 26:15
  Speaker 5: that is why the only reason I work is to
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: generate the funds to be able to have more adventures
• 26:21
  Speaker 5: and to travel more. Whilst your body has primary vehicle,
• 26:24
  Speaker 5: of course, can still carry it, but have more fun,
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: take more risk, and be more substantial. And nobody said
• 26:29
  Speaker 5: bigger mansion next to the CEO or a faster zero
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: to hundred Ferrari or tess model played It was those
• 26:37
  Speaker 5: three things.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: What tools have you implemented to make a difference in others' lives?
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: When you talk about being substantial in someone else's life,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: what are some things that you have found has work
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: for you to make a difference for others.
• 26:52
  Speaker 5: I've rolled out a program that we invest a huge
• 26:56
  Speaker 5: amount of our profits back in terms of making up
• 27:00
  Speaker 5: people better. I always tell somebody an EXECU when that
• 27:02
  Speaker 5: joined me, I said, you're joined me as a version
• 27:05
  Speaker 5: one point zero, and I want you to leave this
• 27:08
  Speaker 5: version three point zero, you know. And what we've done
• 27:10
  Speaker 5: is we implemented a program that we call MiG met,
• 27:15
  Speaker 5: like the Russian fighter plane.
• 27:16
  Speaker 4: That's just for the gurgles that we call it that,
• 27:19
  Speaker 4: But the.
• 27:19
  Speaker 5: MiG is actually the MS for motivational, the I is
• 27:24
  Speaker 5: for disruptive innovation, and the G is to focus on
• 27:29
  Speaker 5: personal growth. So that is what the M, the I
• 27:31
  Speaker 5: and the G is actually for, and what it really
• 27:34
  Speaker 5: does is we get people to choose something completely left
• 27:41
  Speaker 5: of central, which has got nothing to do with our
• 27:43
  Speaker 5: company business, but that is absolutely vital to understand going
• 27:48
  Speaker 5: forward in terms of the rate at which technology.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: And industries are changing. So one guy might decide to.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: Go for EV or p EV vehicles, somebody might say
• 28:02
  Speaker 5: renewables in terms of solar when.
• 28:04
  Speaker 4: Whatever the case might be.
• 28:05
  Speaker 5: Somebody else might be and drone and vetal technologies for aircraft.
• 28:10
  Speaker 5: Other people might be into the infamous AI and machine
• 28:14
  Speaker 5: learning side of it. But their stated goal is that
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: they need to sweat up in their own time on
• 28:21
  Speaker 5: that vertical industry technology and come and present once a
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: month to the rest of their team, which immediately gives
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: them and myself and the company two benefits. The one
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: is that as the months progress, they actually become an
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: expert in this age of acceleration, in a new age
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: call it technology, completely unrelated to our company. But that
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: actually sets them apart from the competition. And secondly, of course,
• 28:52
  Speaker 5: is that the other staff do not have to go
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: and spend forty to fifty hours downloading PDFs and visiting
• 29:00
  Speaker 5: websites to acquire the same knowledge.
• 29:03
  Speaker 4: They simply have.
• 29:03
  Speaker 5: To attend that ten minute executive session on that technology
• 29:08
  Speaker 5: for the month, and that's got the same infored hand. Now,
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: the time to put those programs together, to do the research,
• 29:15
  Speaker 5: et cetera is well worth it, because by the time
• 29:18
  Speaker 5: that those guys leave me, they literally version three, where's
• 29:22
  Speaker 5: my competitors just sitting with the older vision one?
• 29:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 29:26
  Speaker 4: Sure that makes sense to.
• 29:27
  Speaker 1: You, absolutely, and I think that's it's a great service
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: to your employees. And as you were talking, it helped
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: me think of the parallels with overlanding and a team
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: and overlanding. If you encourage one member of your team
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: to become proficient at wilderness first aid, and the other
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: person of your team needs to research and understand as
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: much as possible around navigation, even celestial navigation, the newest,
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: most current apps on navigation. The other person needs to
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: understand mechanics and preventative and predictive maintenance. And if you
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: can really think about how do you assign those things
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: to other members of the team. Not just whatever they're
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: good at to begin with, but what are they also
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: interested in learning more about?
• 30:14
  Speaker 5: Yep, you can. You definitely get where I'm going with it.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: You can add things like recovery techniques. Just send one
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: guy to go and learn advanced recovery techniques and come
• 30:24
  Speaker 5: share that knowledge with the rest of your stuff. Basic
• 30:27
  Speaker 5: survival skills when everything goes that's up. What do you
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: need to do to survive before saws actually gets to you?
• 30:36
  Speaker 5: But it's something that anybody in any business can utilize
• 30:39
  Speaker 5: immutative of their stuff starting Monday.
• 30:41
  Speaker 4: Kind of thing.
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: And a special thanks to Real Truck for their support
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: of this week's podcast, Find Your Freedom and Follow your
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: Own trail in the fresh air of vast uncharted places,
• 30:56
  Speaker 1: introducing the exclusive Real Trucks lineup of overlanding accesses designed
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: to take adventurous explorers just like you into the furthest
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: reaches with gear for camping, off roading, and more, including
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: the all new Real Truck Go Rack, Go Tent, and
• 31:13
  Speaker 1: overland awning. And here's to those inspired, self actualized, brave
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: souls that are ready to unplug and check in to
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: pure wilderness. Bring your truck to life at real truck
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: dot com.
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: One of the things that.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: I was interested in asking you about because so many
• 31:34
  Speaker 1: people who listen to the podcasts own their own businesses.
• 31:37
  Speaker 1: They're entrepreneurs or their independent contractors. Many of them are
• 31:41
  Speaker 1: making an effort in starting their own media or influencer
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: programs around overlanding. What are some of your top pieces
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: of advice around helping people be more effective in business
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: or with their business?
• 31:58
  Speaker 5: Scott's if I got answer that question in two parts
• 32:03
  Speaker 5: in terms of making other business owners or entrepreneurs more effective.
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: There's a chapter in my book.
• 32:09
  Speaker 5: I think I called it Avoiding Day two, and it's
• 32:12
  Speaker 5: something that I stole from Jeff Bezos at Amazon. It's
• 32:17
  Speaker 5: a mantid that he's had in Amazon, and I've copied
• 32:21
  Speaker 5: that to great effect in my own business, and I
• 32:25
  Speaker 5: think everybody should try and remember that. So what is
• 32:28
  Speaker 5: avoiding day two? So avoiding day two, you first have
• 32:33
  Speaker 5: to know what is a day one? Day one mindset? Now,
• 32:35
  Speaker 5: a day one mindset is that entrepreneurial mindset where you
• 32:39
  Speaker 5: embrace change, You embrace trends quickly, because fighting a powerful
• 32:44
  Speaker 5: trend is actually fighting the future. Right If you embrace
• 32:48
  Speaker 5: a trend you immediately's got to tell when in terms
• 32:51
  Speaker 5: of your competition. So a day one mindset is where
• 32:54
  Speaker 5: you make high velocity, high quality decisions but at only
• 33:01
  Speaker 5: seventy percent of the available data.
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: Now that is not something that a corporate guy does.
• 33:07
  Speaker 5: Big companies, slow moving companies will wait until they've got
• 33:12
  Speaker 5: one hundred percent of the available data before they make
• 33:15
  Speaker 5: a decision. You don't as a small business owner, as
• 33:18
  Speaker 5: an entrepreneur, have that benefit.
• 33:21
  Speaker 4: If you want to get a leg up on the
• 33:23
  Speaker 4: competition and you want to really scale your business, you
• 33:27
  Speaker 4: have to make a high quality, high speed decision when
• 33:32
  Speaker 4: there's any seventy percent of available data available to that
• 33:36
  Speaker 4: you can always change course.
• 33:38
  Speaker 5: But I've seen more opportunities lost where people the inability
• 33:42
  Speaker 5: to act when there's an opportunity than making a wrong decision.
• 33:45
  Speaker 5: You can correct a wrong decision, but indecision, just aimlessly
• 33:50
  Speaker 5: circling the airport in a holding pattern burning fill is
• 33:53
  Speaker 5: a death sentence. So day one mindset take risks, accept failure,
• 34:00
  Speaker 5: and I think most importantly, don't model your business on
• 34:04
  Speaker 5: a product, on a financial objective, or on a certain technology.
• 34:09
  Speaker 5: Your business focus should be on one thing obsessively and
• 34:13
  Speaker 5: that's clients.
• 34:14
  Speaker 4: That's it.
• 34:15
  Speaker 5: Know what your clients want, know what they expect from you,
• 34:18
  Speaker 5: know how to delight them. Day one mindset summarize embraced change,
• 34:24
  Speaker 5: make high velocity of high quality decisions when there's any
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: seventy percent of the data available, take risks, accept the failure,
• 34:33
  Speaker 5: and be obsessive about clients. A day two mindset is
• 34:38
  Speaker 5: where you've attained success in your business and that complacency
• 34:43
  Speaker 5: starts kicking in. And the moment complacency starts kicking in,
• 34:47
  Speaker 5: you start getting stasis where you stop learning because you're successful.
• 34:52
  Speaker 5: Now you don't have to put in the hours, you
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: don't have to worry about the competition. And the next moment,
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: that stasis is followed by irrelevance followed by something that
• 35:01
  Speaker 5: he calls excruciating painful decline, and that is heid in
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: big companies. I'm not going to say IBM, but that
• 35:09
  Speaker 5: in big companies that got too big, too slow. And
• 35:13
  Speaker 5: you can probably even look at some of the internal
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: combustion companies, the motor companies globally in terms of fighting
• 35:19
  Speaker 5: off small, nimble, evy vehicle upstarts, and why because those
• 35:24
  Speaker 5: guys are acting like day one. You look at guys
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: like Elon Tesla, no matter how big Tesla is, he
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: still acts like a day one mindset, and you can
• 35:33
  Speaker 5: see that in terms of SpaceX.
• 35:34
  Speaker 4: You can see that he emplaces a day one mindset.
• 35:42
  Speaker 5: If you've got a day two mindset, I don't think
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: you'll lost a day in anyone of Elon's companies. So
• 35:47
  Speaker 5: that's that's one part of it. But that's things to do.
• 35:51
  Speaker 5: But there's also things that I think, having been fifty
• 35:54
  Speaker 5: years in business, that things that I wish I knew
• 35:57
  Speaker 5: that I could have avoided that I would helped me
• 36:00
  Speaker 5: scale faster and make a lot more money if I
• 36:04
  Speaker 5: paid more attention.
• 36:05
  Speaker 4: To that earlier in my career.
• 36:08
  Speaker 5: And I see that with guys starting a business, a
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: couple of things that can think of off the bat
• 36:12
  Speaker 5: and not writing down their business plan, they just wing it.
• 36:16
  Speaker 5: You need to write down that business plan, developing your
• 36:19
  Speaker 5: marketing strategy, and then actually implementing it. Circling back to
• 36:23
  Speaker 5: cash flow, worry about profit or loss. You absolutely have
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: to keep an eye on your cash flow. Another point
• 36:31
  Speaker 5: is entrepreneurs and small business owners try and avoid lawyers
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: by not having not understanding the importance of a legal contract,
• 36:41
  Speaker 5: things like securing your IP intellectual property. When your company
• 36:45
  Speaker 5: is still small, it's only when things go wrong that
• 36:48
  Speaker 5: you startingly start realizing how important legal contracts are to
• 36:52
  Speaker 5: protect you, your company, and your staff. And I think
• 36:57
  Speaker 5: the last two things for me would be that in
• 37:01
  Speaker 5: the beginning, I tried to do everything myself. Took me
• 37:06
  Speaker 5: too long to hire people and to bring on help,
• 37:09
  Speaker 5: and to start delegating. If you do not master the
• 37:13
  Speaker 5: skill of delegation, you will never scale your business to
• 37:17
  Speaker 5: where you want to take it. And then I think
• 37:19
  Speaker 5: the very last one is continuous learning is just being
• 37:23
  Speaker 5: humble enough to realize that you can never know everything
• 37:26
  Speaker 5: in your sector or your business. Your rate of learning
• 37:29
  Speaker 5: must always exceed the rate of change in your industry
• 37:33
  Speaker 5: and the rate of change.
• 37:34
  Speaker 4: In your competitors.
• 37:35
  Speaker 5: And I think that is crucial, that continuous learning, continual curiosity,
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: I think on everything in life.
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: And it's interesting on that last point, by you investing
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: in your employees to learn these new and emergent technologies,
• 37:53
  Speaker 1: you have expanded your rate of learning as well. So
• 37:56
  Speaker 1: by delegating the learning and the curiosity, you've made your
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: entire business more effective.
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: In that way.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Yeah, tongue in cheek. I always say to my guys.
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: In the old days, they used to tell you have
• 38:11
  Speaker 5: just mastered the three r's and you'll be good to
• 38:14
  Speaker 5: go until retirement. And of course the three r's is reading, writing,
• 38:18
  Speaker 5: and arrhythmic. Right, So the days of the three rs, reading, writing,
• 38:26
  Speaker 5: and arrhythmic are long gone. It's the four SE's. It's
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: the four SE's that you need to concentrate on, and
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: that goes through your professional life as well as your
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: personal life. And I think that's creativity, out the box, thinking, collaboration,
• 38:42
  Speaker 5: critical thinking skills, and most importantly communication Those four creativity, collaboration, communication,
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: and critical thinking skills. So considerund the four seas we
• 38:52
  Speaker 5: get about the three rs that Mom taught you about.
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: No, that's good, and I think also in business, one
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of the things that's been interesting for me to learn
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: is failure. Entrepreneurs, we don't want to fail. We get
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: attached to these ideas and the possibility of our idea
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: coming to fruition, but sometimes it just doesn't work out.
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: Sometimes there's a competitor that does it way better than you.
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: But there's other areas of your business that you do better.
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: Than other people, and learning to let go of those
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: areas where the business is struggling before it creates such
• 39:30
  Speaker 1: an impact to your cash flow that you can't come
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: back for it. And then I think also this very
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: much applies in travel as well. If your plan isn't
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: going well on your adventure, if you're pushing too hard,
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: if you're trying to do five hundred kilometers a day
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: in Africa, you're going to struggle. You're going to put
• 39:50
  Speaker 1: yourself at risk, You're going to be driving at night.
• 39:53
  Speaker 1: You're going to soon be very unpopular with the rest
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: of the people and your team, your spouse or partner,
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: whoever else. So learn to say, all right, my original
• 40:01
  Speaker 1: plan isn't working. I have failed in planning that properly,
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: and we need to slow down or we need to
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: adjust our expectations. And I think as leaders, it's so
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: important to admit when we make mistakes. I believe it
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: is actually a hallmark of leadership. I find that managers
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: don't admit failure. Leaders admit failure to their team, so
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: it makes them more approachable. It also allows your team
• 40:28
  Speaker 1: to recognize that they can make mistakes too, and that
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: they can be supported through that. Process, because it's like
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: you said, it's impossible to be perfect one hundred percent
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: of the time.
• 40:39
  Speaker 5: Interesting point you raised is how does travel change a
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: person and how does travel adventures change me as a person.
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: And you're mentioning Africa now specifically because of course rule
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: one of traveling in Africa is being camped for the sunsets.
• 40:55
  Speaker 5: But traveling in Africa has taught me patient as I
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: get older. There's absolutely no benefit losing your cool with
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: the customs official in Africa.
• 41:06
  Speaker 4: It will actually just go very wrong for you.
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: And of course dealing with language barriers in different countries.
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: I think as you get older, your EQ should improve
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: in much of IQ and that even extends to things
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: like walker water crossing. There's no reason to rush through
• 41:23
  Speaker 5: a water crossing. Walk it and before you put the
• 41:26
  Speaker 5: vehicle through it. Africa time has taught me patients as
• 41:30
  Speaker 5: I got older and has made me run a better business.
• 41:34
  Speaker 5: And traveling in Southeast Asia, we Kime and myself did
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: a one thousand, five hundred mile adventure bike trip through
• 41:42
  Speaker 5: Myanmar just before the military junta to control of the
• 41:47
  Speaker 5: country twenty nineteen I think it was, and we visited
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: some remote mountain tribes in the west south of Mianwa.
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: That's never seen a European female.
• 41:58
  Speaker 5: So the villagers were coming out of their huts when
• 42:01
  Speaker 5: she took a full face helmet off a bike because
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: they've never seen a European female up high in the mountains.
• 42:07
  Speaker 5: It's very close to the border of Bangladesh.
• 42:13
  Speaker 4: Now, those people are.
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: Basically having subsistence, living on less than a dollar day.
• 42:19
  Speaker 5: They can't speak a word of English. But the chief
• 42:23
  Speaker 5: would come out of his hut and offer his house
• 42:25
  Speaker 5: for us to sleep on. They don't have beds by
• 42:27
  Speaker 5: the way, they sleep directly on the floor on a mat.
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: So there's two rooms in the chief's house. The one
• 42:35
  Speaker 5: is the kitchen and the one is the room where
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: they sleep. So you sleep with the chief, his family
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: and his kids, and they share what little food they
• 42:42
  Speaker 5: can grow there. And suddenly he just realized it makes
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: you humble. It makes you humble that somebody can take
• 42:48
  Speaker 5: you in, doesn't know where you're from, can't speak a
• 42:51
  Speaker 5: word of English, make you sleep with his family on
• 42:53
  Speaker 5: the floor and share what little food they've got. And
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: so I think patients and being more humble is definitely
• 43:00
  Speaker 5: two takeaways from travel for me.
• 43:02
  Speaker 4: Personally speaking.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: Yeah, those are important lessons and then that it put
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: meats into the rest of your life as well. But
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: you mentioned your trip to Mayan More, what what's been
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: your favorite adventure, the one that makes you smile, the biggest,
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: the one that you look back on and that you're
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: most proud of.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: Sure you didn't prep me for that one.
• 43:25
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be more emotional.
• 43:27
  Speaker 5: Yeah, there's one that that nearly went wrong.
• 43:31
  Speaker 4: There's two trips, if I have to look back.
• 43:34
  Speaker 5: The one was with the mate of mind, Patrick Patrick Kraber,
• 43:37
  Speaker 5: and that that works for I think front Runner now.
• 43:39
  Speaker 4: He invited me in two thousand and eight.
• 43:42
  Speaker 5: He gave me a call in capt On and he said, listen,
• 43:45
  Speaker 5: Mitchard Bishi's got a pagero. They want him as magazine
• 43:49
  Speaker 5: editor to take this pagero through from joe Burg through
• 43:55
  Speaker 5: the seven Nogora Gorra Crater, crossing Lake Victoria, going to Rwanda,
• 44:01
  Speaker 5: finding the silver Bacerillas in the Volcanoes National Park, and
• 44:05
  Speaker 5: then eventually visiting Uganda at the actual source of the Nile.
• 44:10
  Speaker 5: But were not allowed to put any mod on this
• 44:16
  Speaker 5: dealer standard pagero. The only thing we can do is
• 44:21
  Speaker 5: put a roof rack on, so the tables and chairs
• 44:23
  Speaker 5: and that kind of stuff can do it.
• 44:25
  Speaker 4: And we did that trip.
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: What about the tires, just normal alter.
• 44:29
  Speaker 4: Entires that it comes with. So we were not allowed
• 44:32
  Speaker 4: any form of mods, No Winch now upgraded suspension, not
• 44:36
  Speaker 4: even a rooftop tent. And we drove that vehicle.
• 44:40
  Speaker 5: It must have been just about eight thousand, eight and
• 44:43
  Speaker 5: a half thousand kilometers over three weeks Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda
• 44:50
  Speaker 5: and she did it.
• 44:50
  Speaker 4: We had I think one blown shock in Uganda and
• 44:54
  Speaker 4: there was a Mitsubishi dealer believe it or not in Kampala.
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: But what a trip. It was nearly twenty years ago.
• 45:00
  Speaker 5: But every time I think about it, starts smiling. And
• 45:03
  Speaker 5: that's probably because of my travel companion too, that's got
• 45:05
  Speaker 5: his own sense of humor. And then on a more
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: serious note, was not on the overlanding side was him
• 45:11
  Speaker 5: and myself had a goal to try and finish the
• 45:14
  Speaker 5: Global seven Mountains, summitting the Global seven and we were
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: in Russia at Mount Elbres and we were busy with
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: a climatization climb and an unforecasted cold front came in
• 45:29
  Speaker 5: at about five hour thousand meters in a complete utter
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: whiteout with the temperatures dropping to minus forty degrees centigrade.
• 45:38
  Speaker 5: I don't know what that is in Faara night, but
• 45:40
  Speaker 5: tell you minus forty degrees centigrade is freezing cold.
• 45:44
  Speaker 4: So it's a whiteout. You can't see in front of you,
• 45:49
  Speaker 4: and our Russian guide at a VHF rarely on him,
• 45:53
  Speaker 4: and we had to start negotiating with base camp. The
• 45:56
  Speaker 4: Russians at base camp that had these very powerful but
• 46:02
  Speaker 4: you first have to negotiate the rescue charge before they
• 46:08
  Speaker 4: come out and help you, so only in Russia there
• 46:12
  Speaker 4: so we agreed on what our lives are worth dollar amount,
• 46:17
  Speaker 4: and about half an hour later the skidios were there
• 46:20
  Speaker 4: to take us off. But the very next day was
• 46:24
  Speaker 4: our summer day, and it was a beautiful day this summit.
• 46:27
  Speaker 5: I think we started about two am in the morning
• 46:31
  Speaker 5: and the wind came up, probably about one thousand meters
• 46:35
  Speaker 5: from the summit, and there was a party in front
• 46:37
  Speaker 5: of us, and there was a sudden gust of wind
• 46:42
  Speaker 5: and the back climber and the party just got swept
• 46:45
  Speaker 5: off the wind, off the redgeline about eight hundred meters
• 46:47
  Speaker 5: down and there, and then you lost yourself. Is any
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: of the risk that I am taking here worth what
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: just happened here, And for a moment you actually think
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: of turning around saying unpacking it in because that could
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: have been us or myself of Kim getting swept off
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: of Mount Alber's there.
• 47:07
  Speaker 4: But risk is something once again that you must embrace.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: And if there wasn't a risk in travel, it wouldn't
• 47:12
  Speaker 4: be adventurous.
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: But you didn't get on a cruise ship and go
• 47:18
  Speaker 5: play Bengo whatever they do on a cruise ship.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: But those two trips, the rbundant silver Back one with
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: Patrick and summit in Mount Alber's with Kim, with the
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: resultant resultant challenges we.
• 47:30
  Speaker 5: Experienced there, those two stand out for me above all
• 47:34
  Speaker 5: of them.
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: That's an incredible accomplishment. Of the seven summits, how many
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: were you able to do?
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: So we've managed four before we decided that being paid
• 47:46
  Speaker 5: in South African rands and not in hard currency. I
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: always say it's a very it's a very delicate balance
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: scot between utilizing what funds you've got to do the
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: most challenging way out adventures and overland travels visit ensuring
• 48:04
  Speaker 5: that what do you guys call it.
• 48:05
  Speaker 4: Your four zero one K? What have you got on
• 48:07
  Speaker 4: that side? For one K?
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: Making sure that your investment decisions are prudent for retirement,
• 48:13
  Speaker 5: et cetera. Because if you get one wrong and you
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: live to an old age, you're going to have a
• 48:19
  Speaker 5: very boring life. And if you get it wrong on
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: the wrong side of that equation, you're going to end
• 48:26
  Speaker 5: up in a I'm going to say that the trailer park,
• 48:30
  Speaker 5: ordering cat food on an app and your neighbors know
• 48:33
  Speaker 5: that you don't own a cat.
• 48:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: Well, and I think you talk a little bit about
• 48:41
  Speaker 1: balance in your book, But one of the things that
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: I think balance is very difficult to attend. I think
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: that we go through chapters in our life where we're
• 48:51
  Speaker 1: out of balance one way or the other, and that's
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: the only way that we I think the more that
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: I try to find balance, the more or that the
• 49:00
  Speaker 1: more unsatisfied I am because I'm not doing anything particularly well.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: So I find that I need to go through periods
• 49:07
  Speaker 1: of time where I focus on adventure, or I focus
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: on my business, or I focus on making investments in
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: my future. And I do find that if I go
• 49:18
  Speaker 1: through that cycle, and maybe it's that I struggle with multitasking.
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: I find that if I focus on one thing more
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: intently for a chapter of my life, that I end
• 49:29
  Speaker 1: up with better outcomes. How have you found striking that
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: balance between your professional life and your personal life.
• 49:39
  Speaker 5: So my wife was started says, I can't multitask, and
• 49:42
  Speaker 5: I think to make peace of it. But I have
• 49:45
  Speaker 5: also replied to her that when I do focus on something,
• 49:48
  Speaker 5: I focus one hundred and fifty percent, which I compare
• 49:52
  Speaker 5: it to cop So I can be very gold driven
• 49:55
  Speaker 5: and ignoring the white noise and the side, and of
• 49:58
  Speaker 5: course that can be a huge in business, but you
• 50:03
  Speaker 5: can miss the nuancewers in life if you're too gol driven.
• 50:07
  Speaker 5: So I understand what you say that if you focus
• 50:11
  Speaker 5: too much on one side of the spectrum, then by
• 50:13
  Speaker 5: default you start neglecting the other side of it.
• 50:18
  Speaker 4: The hardest thing.
• 50:19
  Speaker 5: For me in investment was to realize that I believe
• 50:22
  Speaker 5: strongly when the magnificent six or Magnificent seven b USD
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: based offshore b and tech and preferably something that's got
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: to do with AI.
• 50:31
  Speaker 4: But it's not timing the market that's important. It's the
• 50:35
  Speaker 4: time in the market. And it took me a long
• 50:38
  Speaker 4: time to realize buying and selling is not how you
• 50:40
  Speaker 4: make money.
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: You buy and hold, and I think Warren Buffett understands
• 50:45
  Speaker 5: that to the nth degree. But don't try and time
• 50:48
  Speaker 5: markets so that it makes some money for retirement. Buy
• 50:51
  Speaker 5: quality boots up shares and forget about them, just absolutely
• 50:54
  Speaker 5: forget about them when there is a market correction. You
• 50:58
  Speaker 5: will notice that ninety five percent of human beings when
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: there's a.
• 51:02
  Speaker 4: Market crash or let's just use the word correction rather,
• 51:06
  Speaker 4: they sell. They panic.
• 51:09
  Speaker 5: Now, what is a market correction other than it's a
• 51:13
  Speaker 5: massive sale that's on it's Black Friday or Cyber Monday
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: or whatever. You should be running into the shop when
• 51:20
  Speaker 5: there's a sale on and picking up more blue chip
• 51:24
  Speaker 5: shares at a discounted price, not selling when it hits
• 51:28
  Speaker 5: a low with the rest of the sheep herd. So
• 51:32
  Speaker 5: staying calm when there's a market crash, buying, hold strategy,
• 51:35
  Speaker 5: time in the market, not timing the market. Just I
• 51:38
  Speaker 5: focus on the travel side, and I'm buying my blue
• 51:40
  Speaker 5: chips and I leave them alone. That's something if I
• 51:44
  Speaker 5: if I followed that advice in my twenties and fifties,
• 51:48
  Speaker 5: I wouldn't have an old offender here on the driveway
• 51:52
  Speaker 5: one of those new uses.
• 51:56
  Speaker 1: I also wanted to take a brief moment to thank
• 51:59
  Speaker 1: all of you for listening to the Overland Journal podcast.
• 52:02
  Speaker 1: By listening to this podcast and subscribing to the Overland
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: Journal magazine, you're supporting our employee own and veteran owned business.
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: Impartial reviews and.
• 52:12
  Speaker 1: In depth content like this would not be possible without
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: your support. If you enjoy the podcast, I think you'd
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: really love the print magazine as well. And one hundred
• 52:22
  Speaker 1: percent of that subscription price goes back into creating the
• 52:26
  Speaker 1: content like you're listening to right now. And as a
• 52:29
  Speaker 1: special thank you for your loyalty, we're giving twenty percent
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: off any subscription and that even includes our special lifetime
• 52:37
  Speaker 1: subscription which includes numerous lifetime only benefits. You can go
• 52:43
  Speaker 1: to Overland Journal dot com and use the Code Overland
• 52:46
  Speaker 1: podcast at checkout again, that's Code Overland Podcast at checkout,
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: and I'll give you twenty percent off. I sincerely appreciate
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: your support. So I was in Johannesburg in March of
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: twenty twenty. I had just been in Namibia for the
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: launch of the new Defender and COVID was beginning to
• 53:08
  Speaker 1: take its hold on even Southern Africa. And I was
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: in Johannesburg in an Airbnb trying to decide what to
• 53:16
  Speaker 1: do because all my options were becoming very limited, And
• 53:22
  Speaker 1: it was during those few days that the market had
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: its greatest correction, and because I didn't have anything else
• 53:29
  Speaker 1: to do, the world seemed frozen for a moment that
• 53:33
  Speaker 1: I actually had enough wherewithal to realize that the world
• 53:38
  Speaker 1: is panicking about something that will be fixed, like they're
• 53:42
  Speaker 1: going to find a way to resolve this through vaccines
• 53:46
  Speaker 1: or whatever else. And I said, if there was ever
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: a time in my life where I had the chance
• 53:50
  Speaker 1: to go in and buy everything on sale, it was today.
• 53:54
  Speaker 1: And I did, and it was like it was a
• 53:56
  Speaker 1: terrifying idea to take every bit of cash I could
• 54:00
  Speaker 1: muster and put it into the market.
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: But it changed my life. Yeah.
• 54:05
  Speaker 5: Yeah, And listen the moment that the Fed on your
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: side starts tapering down interest rates hopefully in December again,
• 54:15
  Speaker 5: you're going to see your huge sovereign wealth funds, et
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: cetera starting to step out of cash paying risk on
• 54:23
  Speaker 5: and your equity markets expanding even further.
• 54:25
  Speaker 4: That's my firmly decencies apply. I'm not investing in.
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: Neither.
• 54:31
  Speaker 1: This is not investment advice, it's it has been. It's
• 54:34
  Speaker 1: been a pleasure to have this conversation. One of the
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: things that I like to ask is, and you've written
• 54:41
  Speaker 1: your own book, which I think people need to take
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: a look at it. It's a really interesting volume that
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: incorporates a lot of your life experiences and how it's
• 54:50
  Speaker 1: affected your ability to make good decisions in business. So
• 54:54
  Speaker 1: I think that your book is a great one. But
• 54:56
  Speaker 1: what are some other books that you have read or
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: that you find or have been a bit of a
• 55:01
  Speaker 1: luminary for you in your own learnings.
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: There's a book called The Diary of the CEO. I
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: think it came out about maybe six months ago. I
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: was skeptical at first because the author is quite a
• 55:17
  Speaker 5: young viewed from the UK, I think it's still in
• 55:20
  Speaker 5: the s cities.
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: Absolutely, but I actually decided to for my sins.
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: By the way, my daily vehicle is also a Defender,
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: but it's a D three hundred, the newer one.
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: It breaks a little bit less than the TD five.
• 55:35
  Speaker 4: But I put the podcast on.
• 55:38
  Speaker 5: I think it was audiobooks The Diary of CEO, and
• 55:40
  Speaker 5: I decided to go through the entire one, and I
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: have to say that it's probably one of the best
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: books I have listened to this year. I highly recommend
• 55:50
  Speaker 5: it to friends. I recommend it to clients as well,
• 55:54
  Speaker 5: and then in your spare time, anything that mister Hunter
• 55:58
  Speaker 5: wrote fear noting and in Vegas, I think it is. Yeah,
• 56:03
  Speaker 5: and anyway, The Old Man the Sea. When you get older,
• 56:07
  Speaker 5: you start appreciating the classics.
• 56:09
  Speaker 1: More and I think, yeah, and his prose, just the
• 56:12
  Speaker 1: efficiency of his prose is something that I need to
• 56:15
  Speaker 1: be reminded of on occasions.
• 56:17
  Speaker 4: Yeah, I think I think it was.
• 56:20
  Speaker 5: It was a founder of Apple, Steve Jobs himself, that
• 56:24
  Speaker 5: said that the alt innovation is simplicity. It's not what
• 56:29
  Speaker 5: you can add, it's but you can strip away and
• 56:31
  Speaker 5: still have full functionality. And that's something I think that
• 56:35
  Speaker 5: you can actually take through you writing as well. And
• 56:37
  Speaker 5: pros brevity I think is underrated.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Oftentimes, and remembering that we have two ears and only
• 56:48
  Speaker 1: one mouth, so as much time as we can spend
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: listening to.
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: Others, the better to share. Yeah.
• 56:53
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, it's been a pleasure to have you on the podcast.
• 56:57
  Speaker 1: I feel like we could schedule three more of them
• 57:00
  Speaker 1: just to dive into some of the topics. Just having
• 57:03
  Speaker 1: a discussion around your four of the seven summits would
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: be an incredible conversation. How do people find out more
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: about you? How do people find out more about your
• 57:15
  Speaker 1: travels and your business? And where do people find your book?
• 57:20
  Speaker 5: So it's on Amazon, Kindle and Amazon. You can just
• 57:23
  Speaker 5: go to Amazon and typing Overlanding through the boardroom. And
• 57:27
  Speaker 5: if you want to know a little bit more about
• 57:29
  Speaker 5: my adventures with Kem, just go to juhuandivaleos dot com
• 57:34
  Speaker 5: wwwuandivos dot com. Most of our travel adventures are on
• 57:40
  Speaker 5: there as well.
• 57:41
  Speaker 3: It's been a sincere pleasure.
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you for all of the great content that you've
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: provided to overland Journal and Expedition Portal through the years.
• 57:49
  Speaker 1: Thanks for being an inspiration to so many, not only
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: in business, but in.
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: Travels as well.
• 57:55
  Speaker 1: And I look forward to our next conversation and hopefully
• 57:58
  Speaker 1: someday we get to bump into each other a dusty
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: road in the middle of Africa.
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: Thank you for making the time and if you do
• 58:05
  Speaker 5: get to read the book, Scott, your notice that you
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: actually have got acknowledgement yourself at the back there at
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: the back of the book.
• 58:12
  Speaker 1: I haven't gotten to that point. You recommended a couple
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: sections that I was able to go through and they
• 58:17
  Speaker 1: were great.
• 58:18
  Speaker 5: Yeah, because you were actually one of the muses that
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: inspired me. Just contributing to Expedition Portal and Overland Journal
• 58:25
  Speaker 5: was one of the fuses that got lit that that
• 58:28
  Speaker 5: actually made me sit down and decide twenty twenty four,
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: I actually need to write a book and stop coming
• 58:33
  Speaker 5: up with excuses.
• 58:34
  Speaker 4: Thank you for that. I appreciate it.
• 58:37
  Speaker 1: No, you're very welcome, and that's a reminder to all
• 58:39
  Speaker 1: of us, including those that are listening, is to pursue
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: those big ideas.
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: Go for it.
• 58:44
  Speaker 1: We've only got this one shot, so we might as
• 58:46
  Speaker 1: well reach for something big. Yes, and we thank you
• 58:50
  Speaker 1: all for listening, and we'll talk to you next time.