Latest / The Thriving School Podcast with Jenni Awesome / Future-proofing Kids Through Entrepreneurship with Nathan Baws
Transcript
- Jenni Awesome: And thank you for tuning in to the Jennifer Awesome Podcast. My name is Jenny Awesome, and we have a phenomenal guest on here today. Today's guest is Nathan Boz, a serial entrepreneur, Shark Tank Australia alumnus, a Guinness world record holder, and a passionate advocate for transforming education through entrepreneurship. After building 19 businesses and experiencing both remarkable successes and significant failures, Nathan now brings those real-world lessons directly into schools through his high-energy School Shark Tank Incursions. Incursions. His mission is to help students develop the creativity, resilience, confidence, and problem-solving skills that they'll need to thrive in a future shaped by artificial intelligence and constant change. Please join me in welcoming Nathan Bos. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Hello, hi Jenny, thanks for having me. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, so tell us a bit about yourself. You have done quite the things, man. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, there's a few things on the cards there. Been involved in a lot of different businesses. I just really enjoy the space. love businesses of all sorts and Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: I just find the whole entrepreneurship thing so much fun. So there seems to be a lot of problems out there in the world that we're in and businesses are a phenomenal way of providing solutions to those problems and be commercially rewarded for that process. And particularly with kids, I love being in that space where I've opened their eyes to entrepreneurship because I guess the pathways of schools are quite static. Most of them learn. Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: get a job, get out there in the workplace. So there's a lot of other options out there. with the way the world's going and the AI, a lot of the jobs aren't gonna be there, so we have to think a little bit differently now. Jenni Awesome: Right. So what got you into the entrepreneur type of mindset? Like have you always been this way? Did you have a mind shift or what what got you to this space? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Probably necessity more than anything. And from six years old, I realised that I didn't want to be eating potatoes every night, which we were doing. you know, with very limited resources at that age from a sole parent, we didn't have much money. at six, it was just like, what a... choices what can I do and you can't get a job at that age and you don't really know anything about making money as a matter of fact at 6 I went into my first business which was in the aviation business giving Richard Branson at run for his money by making paper airplanes and trying to sell those as it panned out there wasn't any money in that one so but it was it was a great stepping stone to understand that perhaps you could sell something and make money and that could be a solution for you know your financial status and where we didn't want to be anymore so that was the motivation. Jenni Awesome: So paper airplanes, did you have like a favorite model that you like to build? So I'll say when I when I taught science and math, that was one of my favorite things to do in seventh grade science is have kids try out all different paper airplanes and and fly and see what happens. So do you have a a favorite model? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Well, it was part of the business concept was that what we thought and as I remember, I was six, was at my cousin's farm. I was staying there for a week and it was all about, I was excited to be there because first of all, I really loved hanging out with my cousin and second of all, I didn't have to eat potatoes for a week. So it was two wins there. And we just thought, well, maybe we need to do something that we know how to do in business. So we knew how to make paper airplanes, was about all we knew at six years old. And we thought that would be commercially viable to sell those. So, and we figured if we made different sizes and different colored ones and different shaped ones, we had a few little concepts that we knew how to make. We thought that perhaps that would interest the customers further and we'd be able to say upsell from a small airplane to a bigger piece of paper airplane. it didn't actually pan out that way, but that was the thinking. at that stage. Jenni Awesome: that's amazing. Like I just went to a a conference and one of the prof professors was talking about how he uses AI and requires his students to use AI. But the the thing that really connected with me was he was grading students on their prompting in AI. So what is that thought Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Mmm, right. Jenni Awesome: process? So you're you're you're talking about what is that thought process of an entrepreneur where you see a need or a possibility and And then you go from there and you you you build that model. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah. Yeah, and I think, you know, I say the quality of our life is determined by the quality of the questions that we ask. And, Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: you know, that's all about prompting. In AI, that's very much related to the quality of the output is determined by the quality of the input. And AI is just a perfect example of that. And it actually has been really good getting into AI because I just feel the way it makes you think is great. The questions that come out of generating information out of AI is a really good logical way to think because I think a lot of people just go through life with blinkers on and they just follow the next step. Whereas if you just pull back and ask better questions, you can always get better solutions, better outcomes. So yeah, AI. Jenni Awesome: Right. I I find it fascinating to see how other people use AI or or you know, they post something silly on Facebook and this was their questioning. And then I go build my questioning off of their modeling of how they question and just how it generates different answers. So, like you said, the Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: for the Jenni Awesome: the questioning really depends on what we're gonna get from it. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Absolutely. Yeah. mean, AI is getting so good now that you can even have pretty bad questions and it still gives you good outputs. It seems to be able to read your mind. It understands what you're trying to get to a lot of the time, but there's no question that you improve that question-answer asking process in AI and in life. And you can get a lot better outcomes rather than just following the traditional way of doing things. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. So we we talked a little bit about you starting as a six year old and and building paper airplanes. Like give us a synopsis of of what have you done since then. Tell us a bit about your entrepreneurial journey. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Well, after that little exposure to business that didn't happen, didn't generate any funds, I realised that I still wanted, I was very keen, was hooked just on the process. after that, I remember we used to go to this, some sort of a church at a very young age and it was, we got to help out in the secondhand clothing shop there and that was just absolutely fantastic. we were hooked there, my sister and I, and we got to sell stuff, know, clothes and whatever, and take money for it. It was just like playing shops as a kid. So that was Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: really fun. And then my first real business that actually made me money was I bought some earthworms, because at 14, bought an ice cream tub of earthworms, and I decided to breed these earthworms, and they bred prolifically. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: thought, wow, there's a business opportunity here. Why don't I continue to breed them and then sell them? So I got a hundred round found all the books I could on earthworms, which back then I think there's only two books on the planet about earthworms. And I studied it really hard and I learned everything about earthworms to the stage where I even tried, I wanted to, I want to know everything. So I actually ate one and you know, it was all about, I need to know everything about everything. Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: which I tend to do a little bit excessively sometimes. then, so I started it up and then I gave a presentation to a permaculture show and I was teaching all these 70 year old, know, super experienced gardeners who had been gardening for 50 years, how they should introduce earthworms to their garden. They should definitely buy some off me. And that was really Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Makes sense. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: good because I ended up selling it, know, tubs and tubs of these earthworms $20 each and I thought wow, I've made it. So that was where I started. That was my first money making one. And then I did a couple of jobs after then and I realised that that was great training but I really wanted to be in business. I started at a market doing a little stall at a weekend market. And then after that I built a couple of health shops. I built a vitamin supplement range that are sold across Australia. I set up weight loss clinics, eight weight loss clinics, because I was studying naturopathy. Then I went and did a whole bunch of property in the UK. Then I opened up, came back to Australia, opened up three restaurants, created a range of foods that we now sell in supermarkets throughout Perth. Built a bookkeeping Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: business because I was really disillusioned with the bookkeeping service. that I was getting from my businesses. I just thought the accounting and the accountants and the bookkeepers just were not giving me what I really wanted and I was craving Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: help on growth, on business growth, because I love growing businesses. That's my favourite part. And I just figured there, I've had so many bookkeepers, so many accountants, and they've all done a very, very average job. thought stuff that I'll build the business myself. So I created a bookkeeping firm, which we now help clients in Australia and the US, and we do their bookkeeping, but we do it with business growth layered in. you know, we're Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: holding them accountable and teaching them how to grow businesses and how to get more leads and how to generate more sales and negotiate everything I've wanted that wasn't there, I've sort of brought together and obviously that's a great way of running a business is just finding a need and providing Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that solution. Also been involved in weight loss programs in Bali. I've set up a couple of hotels over there with weight loss programs and we're currently launching something called Flair School which is financial literacy and advanced real-world education for school kids which is what Jenni Awesome: wonderful. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, that's what I wanted when I was six and had no idea about making money. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: So now we teach kids how to, all about financial literacy and how the entrepreneurship side of things. that's a little synopsis. Jenni Awesome: That's wonderful. Yeah, I I love how you've taken and anything that you're interested in, you take Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Mm. Jenni Awesome: that and immediately start applying it into how do I share this with other people? And and and you're going through that whole process of learning to teaching while you're doing the entrepreneurial ship, which I I absolutely love that. That's amazing. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, and it's a process. I never profess to be amazing at anything. It's just a learning journey and then we share what we're learning at the time if it can help some people. And I Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: do a lot of joint ventures with people who are really good at stuff. Like, I'm not really good at bookkeeping, but my team is phenomenal at bookkeeping. So I think my main skill is growing businesses. So that's the little bit that I bring to that business. So Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: we all come together and unite. and bringing out our passions. And I think passion is something that's just totally lacking from the planet. people Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: are just going through on tunnel vision and just almost in a... you know, zombie-like state and it's really hard. I get very upset when I have to deal with businesses that have no passion, that don't Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: bring excitement. They look like they don't want to be there and you're paying people for services that are begrudgingly providing these services. So, yeah, I think there just needs to be a whole lot more passion in people finding their purpose and executing on Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that. Jenni Awesome: And and I would say that our school systems are not the best avenue to ignite those passions in people. There's a lot of you will do this, you will fit in this box. There is a right way, there is a wrong way, and it it's not allowing for kids, families, the next level of our our society to ignite that passion. And so finding ways to ignite that passion in college or even if you don't go to college in the trades, outside of school, recognizing that there are many ways to solve a problem, just go find another way to solve it. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, and as I said, there's no shortage of problems out there. Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: you know, business is a phenomenal solution for that. If we didn't have businesses, if we weren't financially rewarded, it'd be very hard to stick to problem solving in anything that you do. You know, lot of teachers love being teachers, but they also have to pay the bills. you Jenni Awesome: Yes, they do. Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: know, it's a question of finding something getting reward, we have to be commercially rewarded to stick to it, to bring any scale to anything that we're doing. Otherwise it'll just be, you know, if you're a teacher, would just be teaching once a week and then you'd have to go and do the job, whatever your job was that you were paid for. So it's clear Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that, yeah, that commercial side of it is absolutely essential. Jenni Awesome: So have you taken what you've learned through entrepreneurship, how do you how do you share that with others? How do you ignite that in them and and grow those businesses or or teach entrepreneurship to others? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: After doing Shark Tank in Australia, then there was obviously some good visibility behind that. on TV and that was quite a few years ago. That was when TV was the main source of communication, but really before the craziness that's happened with social media. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: and like in business, the visibility and the way you broadcast these days is so, there's so much advertising out there. They reckon we see anywhere from 5,000 to 10,000 messages every day so there's a lot of competition for our attention Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: but back then TV was the main thing so it was a lot more narrow the attention focus so that was really good for the visibility side and off the back of that a lot of kids love shark tanking a lot of kids I taught that at school. At least that's some part of the entrepreneurial exposure that kids get at school is they, I don't know, you're in the US right Jenny? Jenni Awesome: Yeah, yeah. Yep. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, so in Australia, a lot of the schools will just, that will be their exposure to entrepreneurship will be, okay, kids, create a business and present it in class. So because there's that aspect, then I reach out to schools and say, hey guys, would you like me to come and have a chat to your kids about entrepreneurship? And I love it, I get excited Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: about it. And I try and just teach kids, or expose. them to that level of passion and something different that there's another pathway other than just you know go and get a job and that it can bring massive value to the society we can be solving problems and so yeah I'll get out and teach kids about entrepreneurship the real side of it you know the the tough stuff that you have to go through as well as the rewarding stuff Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: it's not always a smooth ride, then they have to know that and have to be prepared for that. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, so is there a human skill that you think is going to become even more valuable in the next decade? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, I mean definitely along the lines of entrepreneurship because as we say as AI becomes more prolific AI is fantastic. The challenges with it is that it creates a lot of trust issues. People are a lot more skeptical about what is real and what isn't real. You know, you had the Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: situations where all these fake entrepreneurs would... would hire a Lamborghini for the day and take lots of photos right next to the nice car and the nice lifestyle. Well, with AI you don't even need that anymore. You can just create an image of you next to a Ferrari or whatever. So there's a lot of people are questioning what's real and what's not anymore. So you Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: have that whole issue with trust. And I think whatever allows you to create trust now is more necessary than ever. That's actually why I really enjoy joint ventures because it's a way of dealing with this AI world that we're in. And it's a way of tapping into little trust centers or hubs that already exist and sharing that trust. For example, Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: you know, when you collaborate with someone, you might go into a business that has lots of customers around it. Well, those customers already have the trust that they've created that relationship with the business. Otherwise they wouldn't be a customer of that business. and joint ventures are all about hooking into that trust that already exists and sharing that trust. And that's one of the ways that we can overcome AI as the problem that it creates the trust element. And also as we expand, as we find those jobs aren't available with AI replacement, then thinking like an entrepreneur is gonna become more and more essential. as we go than ever. We need Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: to have that mindset that we're talking about before Jenny where you are good at questioning things and we need to have that ability to say, What if this job isn't there? What else can we do? Well, where Jenni Awesome: Right. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: are the opportunities? And asking yourself the right questions because you'll get the right answers. So having an entrepreneur mindset is all about being solution focused, where we can come up with great solutions to problems as we go. this, you know, problems will never go away, but we need to be more and more adaptive and creative and skilled to be able to solve whatever the problems. are out there in the world. that's important. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. What I'm noticing, what I'm recognizing in education is, you know, our our system, especially in America, was very information driven because information wasn't available in homes. And now that information is everywhere, I mean, we're inundated with information all the time, as you were saying. We get to provide opportunities for kids, for whoever's in school. to experience education in a different way. Maybe it's community based, maybe it's through project based learning, but teaching them the problem solving and and, you know, even giving them a hammer, giving them a fishing pole, giving them opportunities to try things that they don't have access to in their normal daily lives. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, we've got to expose them to to more things. And I guess all those sort of like the hammer and the trade sides of things seem to be, you know, they think that'll be those sort of jobs will be more insulated for longer. So Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: so it's a good thing to do those practical skills. Absolutely. With AI looming. Jenni Awesome: So I want to talk about mindset for a second. So you're you're talking about the you love growing businesses, you're seeing these problems, you're going into schools and and helping kids to get those entrepreneurial thoughts going. Do you have like a favorite aha moment or what is it like when you see that light bulb click and and you see people start moving forward with that mindset shift? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, think there seems to be lots of them. I think, you know, with kids, you have to bring that entertainment level right up to open the back to drop the barriers. mean, there's definitely a lot less barriers in kids than there are in adults when it comes Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: to, you know, showing them new exciting things. And I think the fun element is just absolutely essential. And that's something I really focus on in business in general is how can we have fun while we solve a problem. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: And there's a big element actually that I focus my day on for dopamine stimulation, healthy natural ways of stimulating more dopamine in our bodies with Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: a of a health background. So I love to bring that into business and obviously into educating the kids. Dopamine is a fantastic endorphin that I find very, very useful for business. And if we can tap into that, we can have a really good outcome for kids and learning and getting them excited because it's all about, you know, for me, business is fun. And if I can transfer a little bit of that energy to the kids, then I think we've got to win and we will open them up because at a young age, that's kind of all you want to do is have fun, right? Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: So if we can turn a few light switches on with that sort of angle and as I say, it doesn't have to end there. It should be in business. It should be in the, sorry, my screen has just gone blank. Are you still there? Jenni Awesome: Yeah, I I'm still here. Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Okay. I think hopefully it'll come back. there we go. Technical Jenni Awesome: There you go. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: glitch. We're back. Yeah, so the fun side I think is essential for the whole aha moments to say business is awesome. You should get into it. That's all. Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Do you have like a favorite activity or a go to that you use with kids or adults when when you're bringing up the dopamine with a group of people? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Um, yeah, look, I like them to laugh at my crazy challenges that I've had throughout my life, you know. I think the authentic side of it is essential and I'm Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: not going to pretend anything that's not reality. So I guess, yeah, that would be part of it. The ability to laugh to ourselves is probably pretty important to get that message across the line. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, yeah. And you know, it's it's that auth authenticity. You're talking about the trust building and and saying, you Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: know, I'm human, we can do great things. So one of the things that I've been learning about too is what what a failure or you know, having failed, how that plays into our growth process. So can you talk a little bit on failure and how you know, failure's not necessarily a bad thing. Like it's it's a huge opportunity. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Absolutely, I could talk a lot about failure actually. that's, you know, it's all part of the journey. And there's no question that the failures have been some of the best learning processes ever that really have fast tracked it, the progress. And you know, I've had situations where businesses have been just losing so much money and for many years at a time. And then, you know, as an entrepreneur, you think, well, hey, I'm a problem solver, I can fix anything. But sometimes part of that problem solving needs to say, all right, I just need to draw a line in the sand here. Let's get rid of that. Let's sell that. Let's close that. And let's focus our energy on stuff that's working and learn from what hasn't. You know, the way I look at it is you can, with any failure, you can throw your towel in, can wave your surrender flag and curl up in a little fetal position and cry, or you can take your lessons that you've learned from that and say yourself, there's definitely some lessons here. How can that benefit my future business self? And there's no question I've found, I've totally changed directions and got a skillset from those failed businesses that I wouldn't have got from any other way. As a matter of fact, there's Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: one situation where I'd just come out of a really nice seven figure exit in the health industry, thought I was absolutely amazing, thought I was bulletproof, and then I was taught by life Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that definitely wasn't the case and went into a business where I was losing a ton of money and I didn't have the skill set I needed. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: But that was in the restaurants business. And that was absolutely brilliant because I learned a bunch of lessons. One of them was that there's other ways of growing businesses without spending a ton of money on infrastructure and buildings and fit outs and things like that. And that's a question of asking yourself, well, how can I do this without doing that? So for example, Uber Eats doesn't really have a lot of infrastructure. doesn't have a lot of cars, they don't have any cars. They're just the infrastructure that puts the end user with the functionality or with the cars. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: there's plenty of ways, and that's why I love joint ventures so much, because other people with other assets can bring that to the equation, and I can bring my skill sets without necessarily being capital heavy. So there's great solutions that you come up with from failure. if you are open to it, yeah. Yeah. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Yeah. So if you could redesign education today, what would be the first thing that you change? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Well, this is exactly what we're working on with Flair School and we've just introduced it to a school here in Perth, which by the way, I've done it as a joint venture with a headmaster. So he's done all the curriculum side and I've done the entrepreneur side. And this is exactly what we're working on is changing or introducing financial literacy because there's a total shortage of understanding. You you just have to talk to any parent and they'll say, look, I was spat out of the school system without any understanding about even how to use a checkbook. didn't know about mortgages, I didn't know about anything back then. So we want to introduce that understanding at a very early age. We're actually starting at grade one and introducing all those sorts of... financial literacy, money, education around that idea, and entrepreneurship. Those two things, because if they come hand in hand, the financial literacy and the entrepreneurship, it just sets up a fantastic foundation. it's crazy to think that we're not taught that at a high level. You might. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: learn some super basics at school but finances dictate. mean health and finances I think are the two biggest challenges that people have throughout their entire life. and both of them are totally under focused and under delivered. we need to be setting, know, imagine what we could do if we were to bring up kids with really solid financial understanding. Imagine what that could do to the whole economy of your country. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: and to the stress. mean, financial stress is one of the biggest stresses people will go through in life. So Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: if they're positioned from a young age and they're positioned for success, rather than try and sort it out. you know, as you go, we're gonna be so much in a much better mentally healthier state, you know, physically healthier, if we can bring in the health side more as well. It's just the basic foundations that we should be educated in. Instead, we are educated in so many things that, you know, people always say, yeah, when are you gonna need algebra or when are you gonna need, you know, Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: why are we being taught stuff that really... we don't necessarily need to know. mean, I'm sure there's going to be occasions now and again, but finances come on. This is a key component of everyone's life every day that they're Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: on the planet. You know, needs to happen. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, our finances, the way we take care of of ourselves, like those are the main things. And I Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah. Jenni Awesome: was I was talking to a lady the other day about how our education system focuses on more on what we are able to do than who we are by the time we graduate and go out into the real world. And so I hear you saying, you know, focusing on some of those key skills that's going to set us up for who we're going to be in the future and the Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Right? Jenni Awesome: mindset of an entrepreneur, someone who understands solidly financial literacy and physical health and well being, like th that's a huge shift in our culture. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, yeah, it just makes you ask the question, why? Why hasn't it happened already? It's just Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: mind blowing. So I think there's a lot of opportunity there to help a lot of people in that field. Yeah. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. So what are you doing? I wanna know what is financial literacy and entrepreneurship look like in a really little kiddo like a first grader. What does that look like? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Very basic and loads of fun. So it's just Jenni Awesome: I bet. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: all about, you know, what is money and playing games. There's a lot of, you know, experiential learning, playing games, what we can do with just the introduction. It's super basic, but... It's a way of, I suppose, also building an attitude around money because so many people have very strange ways of, and a lot of, I guess, negativity associated with money. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: know, they think it's bad and it's evil and there's so many different, you know, money doesn't grow on trees and stuff that our parents taught us about money. that aren't necessarily a healthy attitude on it. So healthy exposure, fun to it. It doesn't have to be evil. It's such a, you know, we can, Mother Teresa died a millionaire. So you can be the most amazing, humble, phenomenal, helpful people on the Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: planet. To improve your reach, we need to be financially in a good place. You you can help a lot more people with with more money than you can with less money. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: It's very much a one-to-one game when you don't have money, but it can become a one-to-many game when you do have it. just building the attitude around money is really important, exposure to money, because parents, particularly parents in a very struggling and limited resources kind of a way don't have the education to be able to... re-educate or introduce money to kids at a young age Jenni Awesome: Right. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: in healthy way that actually is productive. Their resources and their understanding of money because they didn't have any exposure at a young age is very sort of skewed in one direction. So giving them the opportunity, especially in areas I feel that's going to be very useful. They're in the underfunded areas in the regions and the schools that are very financially challenged. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: to break out of that cycle, I think is going to be a fantastic way of helping the Jenni Awesome: Yeah, and I even you know, what you're talking about having that that positive connection with money, I recognize that also with food you eat and being healthful, because there's a lot of people too that have that negative relationship with food, that negative relationship with money with finances, and being able to shift it into a positive, i it it makes a huge difference. And you're right, we need to be taught Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: It does. Jenni Awesome: how to do that. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, yeah, yeah. mean, when it comes to food, we've been taught by convenience. We've been taught by McDonald's. And you know, because it's it's there and it's easy and it's fun. You know, that element Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: of fun that we're trying to bring into schools is all about McDonald's knows it better than anyone. You know, the playgrounds in the McDonald's restaurants and and toys and Jenni Awesome: And the toys. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: music and lighting and I mean, they're absolute masters at it. same with Coca Cola and companies like that, and you often see them actually collaborating. That's the biggest joint venture Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that's ever hit the planet is McDonald's and Coca Cola. And for years, they very successfully collaborated and it was all about... selling burgers and preventing people from buying water when they Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: ordered a burger. So yeah, we need to give people better foundations in the health side as well as the finances in a big way. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. So if there's a teacher listening and they wanted to bring more entrepreneurial thinking into their classroom tomorrow, where would you recommend that they start? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, mean, Shark Tank's a fun way of getting kids engaged and just opening Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: their exposure and their mindset to business and just running a little Shark Tank. With Flair School, what we do is we've started teaching the financial literacy basics and then we'll do a bit of a Shark Tank. So we put those basics into the business creation and we do a of a dry run in the business. You know, they get up and they learn presentation skills. They work in teams to create that that team building and then they do the presentations for the leadership side and then we'll run a little market, a little school market where they can actually take what they've learnt and put it into real practice and have a go at selling and sales and negotiation and communication. So all those things can be fantastic for schools to implement and have a little bit of fun with and the kids, they go nuts with it, they have so much fun Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: with it. And it just exposes them to a fantastic way of, know, wow, I made money for the effort that I made to make that little bit of jewellery or make that cupcake and someone paid me money for it. This is fantastic. So definitely opens their horizons. And if anyone wants a hand with it, you know, we're launching, we're soft launching the Flair School without any costs. So we're not charging for it just to get feedback. So always happy to. work with schools and teachers to implement the basics to get started. Jenni Awesome: That's amazing. I I can just imagine kind of a like a carnival atmosphere too of of the kids showing off their businesses to their peers, to parents, to community and and you know, getting paid for it. Like that's so cool. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah. It's so much fun and it's such a great community builder because if a school really wants to increase their engagement, the parents get involved, the newspapers get involved, the kids get Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: involved, the teachers. Everyone is just there to really encourage that entrepreneurial side. And it's such fun. Everyone loves it. So it comes off really, really well. Jenni Awesome: So do you have any books or podcasts or anything that you would recommend for somebody who wants to learn more about entrepreneurial mindsets and and how to really embody that entrepreneurial skill? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: I could recommend the book that I wrote. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: So I wrote a book, well I didn't write a book, I wrote a chapter with an amazing guy called Tony Robbins, you may have heard of Tony Robbins, and Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Brian Tracy. And my chapter was just on business growth and how to use dopamine in business to grow businesses. So that's cool. But there's lots of good stuff. mean, YouTube is a phenomenal place just to get education on everything. And I do spend a fair bit of time, because you can always be learning this. There's so much stuff, good stuff. And when you're busy, I do find it quite challenging to read a book these days, dare I say it. that with an audio book or whatever you can do Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: 10,000 things and can continue to broaden your education. So yeah, there's lots of resources at our fingertips now. It's great. Jenni Awesome: And I wanna know, how did you become a Guinness world record holder? Like what how did that come about? Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Ha But all related to business, everything I do, I love to have a little angle, improve something Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: that can give me an edge in business. So we actually set the Guinness Book of World Records for the biggest ice bath in the world. And ice baths are really just an extension of what I do every day. I go down to the beach, whether it's summer or winter, freezing or hot, and jump into the ocean. And it's a fantastic way to start your day. because it's the dopamine that's stimulated, your dopamine levels go up to about 234 % with Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: an increase. And it's a brilliant way to start your day. It puts you in an amazing zone. It's very hard to be stressed when you're freezing your backside off. it's Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: a great pattern interrupt for that sort of thing. And dopamine is just brilliant. mean, that's why that was just a... a flow-on effect of the focus that I work on with dopamine and teaching people to use more dopamine. It's a great chemical, natural chemical that your body uses. It's brilliant for business. It increases your awareness. It increases your focus. And it increases your passion, which is everything Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: as far as my world goes. So that's what I did that originally for. Jenni Awesome: So y you decided to have the biggest ice bath to have that edge of saying you're a Guinness World Record holder, huh? That's Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, well, yeah, was just a natural flow on. It's just part of what I do to focus on that dopamine and Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: for business, for business. And same with health, you know, that's why I love health so much. That's why I'm very, very disciplined with my diets. I haven't drunk alcohol for years. I don't eat any sugar. I pretty much eat a ketogenic diet. And Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: it's just business edge that it gives me. So, you know, I've fasted for 24 hours last night, yesterday. Just to give that everything that I do, I mean, they have good benefits, but why not utilise all the tools in our toolbox for Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: business outcomes, for improving our focus and concentration and energy and things like that. That's how I see it. It's just another edge. Yeah. Jenni Awesome: That is amazing. I I made it twenty one hours yesterday and I'm I'm slowly working up. So I did twenty one yesterday. Yeah. Yeah, so I'm I'm learning all Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: well done. Excellent. Excellent. That was good. Jenni Awesome: about that as well. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Excellent. Well, if you keep your fat content really high, healthy fats, it Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: allows you to push that length further and further without feeling like cravings and hungry and faint. So if you Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: increase your fats, like your fish and your avocados and nuts and seeds, they're fantastic to get that edge as well. Yeah. Jenni Awesome: All right. I will add a few more of those into my into my meal. All right. So we're Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah. Yeah, excellent. Jenni Awesome: getting close on time and I just wanna make sure is there anything else you'd like to discuss? Anything else you wanna cover or share about being an entrepreneur or entrepreneur mindsets or what you see for our future. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Yeah, I think we covered a good bit of ground there. You know, just I think as far as the passion goes, you know, if you focus on that, there's gonna be, I always think passion first and then purpose. You know, there's a lot of talk around finding your purpose in life. Jenni Awesome: Mm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: But I always think if we can find our passion first, then our purpose comes off the back end of that. Because we want to be doing something we absolutely love, enjoy, Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: and sharing with the rest of the world. That passion is absolutely essential. It'll give us, the purpose will pop up once we've created that passion. And it'll just, it'll come into your consciousness a lot easier. And it'll allow you to stick to whatever it is delivering that purpose if you love what you're doing but you've got to find what you love first before any of the rest unveils. So yeah, would be my last takeaway tip. Jenni Awesome: Yeah, and it and it also sounds like so what I've heard you say is that you may have one passion today, a different passion a couple of years down the road, and and that's okay. Because as we learn and grow, our passions, our purpose, our interests in life change as well. And there's nothing wrong with that. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: 100%, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we don't have to be stuck in the one pattern our whole life unless we're loving it. If you grow bored of it, then it's very hard to deliver any value. We've got to be in that value giving phase all the time if Jenni Awesome: Mm-hmm. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: we have the passion, it just helps. Yeah. Jenni Awesome: Yeah. Well, Nathan, thank you so much for coming onto the podcast today. It was a true honor to have a conversation with you. Nathan Baws - nathanbaws.com: Thank you Jenny, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure. Jenni Awesome: All right. And we'll join you next time on the Jenny Awesome podcast.