Episode #2 - More to Life Than This

Hello and welcome to the Sequoia Project podcast. Welcome back to episode three. My name is Coby and just with my co-host, Dale.

Dale: This is a little pop it up thing.

Coby: Last week we had a pretty big conversation talking about sort of why we got into business. And then it really went into talking about what a lot of people have said around sort of business and what you should do for your future when it comes to working and all that sort of stuff.

Dale: Yeah, we were way off topic last week. We kind of just have like rough points that we want to touch on that are kind of all under the same banner. Coby said something last week and we just went completely left the field. So we didn't talk about anything like that, but it was basically based about like no matter where you are in business and what your thought process is, or if you've been thinking of starting, but haven't or if you're just unhappy and you want to try something different. It was kind of just like, no matter where you're at, you can always start and there's always tons of levels to get into it. So yeah, we wanted to kind of bounce off the back of that into a little bit of what that actually looks like in practice.

Dale: I will start this off with saying when I started my first business, I literally had no idea. It's kind of the same as Koby. And it's probably a lot of you guys are thinking this. I want to get in business, but I don't know any idea. I had none, like zero, zip, zilch, naught, nada, nothing. And I thought to myself, I went through thousands of clips on YouTube and read so many books. And I just ended up more confused than I was before I realized I had no idea because then I had a hundred different ways to do something that I knew nothing about. So I decided to basically disregard all of that and just go, I'm going to start the simplest thing I can possibly think of.

Dale: My girlfriend at the time's family needed a deck built in their backyard. And I was like, great, I'm gonna build that deck. As you build things, you have a lot of waste, you have a lot of trash that you need to get rid of. And where they lived at the time, the road was like here, and then the front door was here. So there was like nowhere to put a skip bin or anything like that. So I had to order the skip in and then I had to rush all the trash into the skip and spend like all my time filling the skip up so I could get taken so everyone could go to work the next day. That didn't end up happening and we couldn't get the cars out and it became a nightmare. And I thought to myself, dude, if someone could just come and get this trash for me, none of this would be a problem.

Dale: Anyway, two weeks goes on, it's Sunday afternoon, 5 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon, and the phone rings. And I run over to it and I answer it. And it's a 76 year old woman named Marilyn Truscott. She wants four blocks of concrete picked up from her yard. I turn up 7:55, I knock on the door. Marilyn comes to the door and she answers and she says, oh, you're on time. First thing she ever said to me, you're on time. And I was like, yeah, like we said eight o'clock, it's eight o'clock, I'm here. I sprint down the side of the house, grabbed the first block. They've been buried in the ground. So they're covered in mud. I pick it up and like from my neck to my wrist is just covered in mud. I'm sprinting back to the truck, throw it in. I do that three more times. Then I get the broom out of my truck and I sweep off all the pavers. I get my spare shirt on. And I sprint back to the front door, knock on the door. Marilyn comes to the door and she says, is everything okay? And I go, yeah, it's all done. And she goes, what do you mean it's all done? The kettle hasn't even finished boiling yet.

Dale: I said, you don't owe me anything because for the past 14 days, I've been sitting around my house, hoping that someone would call me to give me a chance to come and do what I said I could do for them. And you've given me that opportunity. So I don't want anything from you. Marilyn Truscott called everyone at the Bowls Club, everyone at the tennis club, everyone at the library, everyone at the cafe about this kid, this young kid that was so excited to pick up trash. He sprinted down the side of the house to get it. And my phone started ringing the next day and it hasn't stopped ringing for seven years.

Coby: Look, I think the big thing that made me stand out was going to be Hometown Heroes. I think that's the biggest thing. It was such a thing that I was so passionate about what I did. And so just wanting to build this community. I would go out there and take photos of people doing what they love, as well as get to know these people. So it wasn't just a photo shoot. I would go out there and some of the first people I featured on was my story to show people how things were going to go. Within two days of that, people were contacting them being like, I saw you online. It's amazing what you do.

Coby: I remember waking up to this message on Facebook, asking me for an interview on ABC radio. I remember texting you just being like, I just got offered an interview on ABC radio. And you were just like, fuck off. Like, there's no way. That had a snowball effect. I was featured back on to talk about social media and like the impact on the younger generations, went on to the Today Show and Sunrise and all that sort of stuff. And it was all from one project that didn't cost a single bit of money that was just driven from a genuine passion to do something more.

Dale: And I think that that is again, it doesn't have to be the sexiest thing in the world. What you just heard is all I wanted to do was have a chance to deliver a good service to someone who trusted me enough to do it. Now that's very simple. All I did was go, what would they be expecting and how can I do it better? That's all I did. And you can do a simple business and you can take an attribute — I'll just be the most prepared person I could possibly be. And that generates you a huge result.