Speaker 1: 0:01

Here comes Brad Hackett, the most decorated world champion ever, looking for a 15th medal. Terrence was on a fight and Hackett threw the arm in the air as Kowalski arrives. We're looking at 7.39.16, and he's got it. Brad Hackett, in world record time, wins the gold medal. He's left a legend in his wake, and he's lost to win.

Speaker 2: 0:43

Welcome back to Finance Friends, your personal seat at the table with leaders shaping the financial world. In this exclusive season, we meet with high profile, incredibly successful athletes who achieve the greatest heights on the sports field and are now dominating the finance world sports field and are now dominating the finance world. Today on the Finance Friends podcast, we had no other than Grant Hackett, three-time gold medalist. He's someone I watched as a teenager sitting on the couch Sydney Olympics as a 13-year-old, cheering for Grant represented Australia. He is the ultimate athlete, the ultimate professional. He shares his story about being a professional sportsperson and transitioning into the world of finance and now being the CEO of an ASX-listed company called Generation Development Group, gdg. He's inspiring. This is a must listen to. Good morning Grant, good morning Fabian. Welcome to the Finance Friends podcast. How are you today? Yeah, I'm very well, thank you. Thanks for having me Well. Thank you for coming in the studio. We've known each other for a few years now.

Speaker 3: 2:00

Yeah, yeah, no, we've crossed paths on many occasions actually, so probably my early days at Generation Life and GDG, for sure.

Speaker 2: 2:08

Yeah, so let's touch on that. You're currently the CEO of not Generation Life, the greater company.

Speaker 3: 2:16

Yeah, the ASX listed business, which is GDG, and we've got three businesses now beneath that which we didn't back then, probably when we met around 2017, 2018. We've got Lonsec, which we didn't back then, probably when we met in around 2017, 2018. We've got Lonsec, which everyone knows in finance, the research and ratings business, and also Evidentia Managed Accounts, which is now a combination of Lonsec Investment Solutions as well as the Evidentia Managed Account tailored portfolio solutions and, of course, the life company, generation Life, which is big in investment bonds and also lifetime annuities. So, yeah, and I'm sitting up there running the group entity and, yeah, it's been a lot of fun. We've done it. We've made quite a few moves over the last sort of 12 to 18 months and continue to grow pretty sharply in each of our segments, which is great. But yeah, you're always sort of paranoid about maintaining that too.

Speaker 2: 3:00

Yeah, well, it's obviously being a listed company. You've got public investors, anyone can invest in the company and the company has done really well and grown quite a lot since you've been in control of the company. So what are your focuses in your current role, given there's three large businesses within the group and also you are responsible for being a listed company and answering ultimately to shareholders?

Speaker 3: 3:30

Absolutely. It's probably. It's something I've done for a long time now. I think I've been doing the listed company role since October of 2018. So I've spent a lot of time with investors over the years and a lot of them have been on the journey with us as we do various capital raises. Obviously, new investors come in, particularly on the Insto side, but a lot of our retail investors have done very well at the stock I think I came in. I think we were sitting around 50 odd cents about 52 cents at the time. We're trading today close to $5.

Speaker 3: 3:56

So it's been a significant amount of growth, a lot of hard work. It's funny you kind of look at where we were and where we are now and it's chalk and cheese. We've gone from a $40, $50 million market cap company to almost a $2 billion business. But I feel like we've built it brick by brick and it's been an amazing team in terms of the focus around execution. So we knew we had very good products. We knew we had a product that would probably sit well within a portfolio for a financial advisor, particularly in the life company. We had strong brand recognition on the lawn sex side. So we knew we had a real opportunity to be able to turbocharge the growth of some of these assets if we focused on the execution side and really got the sales and marketing correct and and right leaders in place as well. That's absolutely critical to you know, driving any sort of successful outcome, particularly as you grow as a group.

Speaker 3: 4:46

And for me now, I guess a lot of my focus just to, I guess, answer your question in summary really probably 30% of the time really is with investors now. So when explaining the strategy, what we're doing, how we're executing against that, talking through our latest updates, whether that's a quarterly, half yearly or full year update so there's a lot of time spent on that. When your register gets quite broad, then the next probably 20% of time you're really focused on strategy. So what are you doing with the team? Are they executing that well? What's the strategy that I'm looking for, not just for the next 12 months, but next three years, next three to five years? Where do we want to be? And having absolute clarity on that's really important.

Speaker 3: 5:24

And then a lot of my time is spent really around the execution of the business. So working with the CEOs of the various assets, making sure that they're aligned to the strategic plan, helping and supporting them and delivering that and then making sure that we've got the right people on the team. So and then you've got to manage all of your key stakeholders around. That, such as no-transcript and a bit of complacency or hubris, can sneak into a business, particularly after such a period of growth as well. I've been through ups and downs in both business and personal life and I know which side of that I prefer to be on. So for me, I think the older I get, the more paranoid I almost get about performance and business and making sure that we're continuing not to deliver. But I would love to be able to deliver in most parts of the business above expectation.

Speaker 2: 6:39

Yeah, and that's obviously why the business has been able to grow so rapidly over the last seven years since you've been a part of it is because you've been able to deliver performance beyond expectation of the market.

Speaker 3: 6:51

I think so I think there's been. You know, I think everyone kind of. If you're willing to work in and on the business, particularly in those early days I think a lot of your teams see that. So you know I'd be on a plane every week, sometimes every second day, going out there seeing financial advisors, talking to dealer groups, forming new relationships as part of the group, you know, educating the market on our products, how they operate, and then the whole team rallies around that as well. So if you're willing to lead from the front and do the hard yards, they'll dig in and support as well. And then you know everyone starts to get rewarded around that.

Speaker 3: 7:26

It feels good to be winning, it feels good to get good results, it feels good to get the recognition that they've received and deserve as a team. But you can also, you know, momentum can very quickly go the other way and I've been on both sides of that. So I think for me, as I've gotten older and more experienced, I think I'm probably pretty fortunate that I've had that world of sport where there's sponsorship, there's profile that comes with it, there's the glory. You can do no wrong and I've seen how that can come undone quite easily as well. So I think for me in business, regardless how big we got, it wouldn't matter if we went from a $2 to a $20 billion business. I think I'd still feel much the same.

Speaker 2: 8:06

Yeah, so it'd be good to bring it back to the start. So you grew up on the Gold Coast, is that right? Or Queensland?

Speaker 3: 8:13

Yeah, yeah, I was born on the Gold Coast. So yeah, grew up there and moved around Queensland a bit because dad was a detective for the Queensland Police.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Department.

Speaker 3: 8:22

So he got transferred as he sort of got promoted through that job and we ended up in North Queensland, in Innisfail actually. So that's probably my first memory. We were at the Sunshine Coast just before that, but Innisfail is really where I got into swimming, started school there and yeah. So I was very much from far, far north Queensland regional area. So I'm a true blue Queenslander, so to speak, or a true maroon Queenslander, I should say. But yeah, and started swimming up there purely just because my brother did, who's six and a half years older than me. I was four, he was ten, and then, yeah, we sort of built out the swimming journey from there.

Speaker 2: 8:56

Yeah, and at what point in your as a child did you realise or a teenager, that it's likely that you're going to become a professional swimmer?

Speaker 3: 9:10

It's weird. I always knew if I really wanted something. I always felt this as a kid. I don't know why. It might be blind confidence, but I always felt like if you worked hard enough and you focused on your goals, you could really achieve anything that you want to. And I made the decision when I was 13 that I was not only going to go to the Olympics but I was going to go there and win. That was honestly my goal, and the reason that was the case is because Sydney got the 2000 Games, so this was 1993. And I just remember the hype around that. I was doing three sports. I was doing the Surf Life Saving Probably loved that the most at that point in time playing rugby up in Queensland and I was also doing swimming, but I could only go to the Olympics for one of those sports.

Speaker 3: 9:53

So it wasn't the fact that I was completely in love with swimming, it was more. I wanted to go to the Olympics and win and that Olympic gold medal was the real pursuit and purpose for me. So I think then I laid down the foundations. I looked at what was the Olympic champion, the world record holder in my event, doing at the different age groups. So 13, 14, 15, 16 and beyond and, funnily enough, three years after that, I became world champion in the 1500 metre freestyle, which was my pet event, and didn't lose for 11 years after that. So it worked out. But I think the reason I didn't lose is because I'm a bit like I am now, but I think I'm even more so like this now and comfortable about it is I was never as good as my last race. I was always good as my next one, and that was always my focus as an athlete. But 13 was probably that defining moment.

Speaker 2: 10:43

Yeah so 13. And you as an athlete, but 13 was probably that defining moment. Yeah so 13. And you said, at the age of three years later, you became the, you were the world champion for 1500 metres and then from there you didn't. You were the best 1500 metre swimmer in the world for 11 years. How did you stay on path and resilient and driven, and how has that transitioned into your career to date?

Speaker 3: 11:12

It's funny because your vision changes, and it needs to in business as well. So for me, winning the Olympics was everything. I went to my first Olympics in Sydney. I just turned 20, came away with that Olympics with two gold medals. But the vision changed. I wasn't the world record holder yet in the men's 1500-meter freestyle. Kieran Perkins, a fellow Australian, still had that. So I thought, well, I've got to get that mark. So the next year I got that and broke that by seven seconds. And then I remember Alex Popoff, who's a very famous swimmer, particularly in the 90s, said you know, you're good if you win one Olympics, you're great if you win two and you're a legend if you win three. And so I kind of thought to myself I'd like to be great.

Speaker 3: 11:53

So, I really wanted to be a legend. I did go for three, but got silver in the last one. So that vision really changed and I then competed in 2004 and, had a partially collapsed lung, wanted to win three Olympic gold medals. That was my goal, was to step up. So my vision again changed and I was just motivated by being better, trying to improve, seeing how much I could actually give and where that took me, and seeing the other people around me. What they did was inspiring.

Speaker 3: 12:23

So I was in an era where Michael Phelps was at his best, ian Thorpe was at his best, kieran Perkins was at the tail end of his career, so some real legends of the sport over the last century, literally. And I was fortunate enough to race them all. Peter Venn and Hoogan Bands another name that was quite big globally in the sport. So I think I just had so many people around me that just kept lifting the bar all the time you felt like you had nowhere to go and even if I would win the 1500, I might've finished second in the 800 or the 400 to Thorpey, and that really motivated me to step up again and improve. So, yeah, I think for me that the vision has to be.

Speaker 3: 13:02

It's not set, and I find the same in business too. We wanted to hit a few key milestones along the way in business and as soon as you hit those milestones, you've got to recreate the vision. And I think, as soon as you don't feel like you want to do all the small little things, all the little disciplines, you're not feeling as paranoid as you used to, I think that's time to move on. And for me, I knew that after three Olympic games I was done. I was happy with what I'd done. In the sport I reflect on, I would always like to do more. I don't think I'm completely satisfied. I think that's just part of your makeup, more than anything else. But I was ready to move into business and I wanted to go into something different.

Speaker 2: 13:38

Yeah, and at what point did you decide that? So you said you've done three Olympics. Decide that, so you said you've done three Olympics. You've world champion, record holder, multiple gold medalist. Were you studying during that time or was it like a shut up? I finished with swimming, now it's time for business.

Speaker 3: 13:57

No, I think well ahead, well ahead. It's almost scary sometimes how far I think ahead, so I probably am very structured. I'm more of a planner. Five years out, I was meeting with Rob Coombe, who's my chairman of the group that I run right now, and Tim Bishop, who was the CEO of Macquarie Bank in America. Sit down and talk what should I be doing right now? I, tim Bishop, who was the CEO of Macquarie Bank in America, sit down and talk. What should I be doing right now?

Speaker 3: 14:25

I was studying commerce law at the time, but to put myself in a great position I knew I would retire after Beijing. Three Olympics was as far as I wanted to go. I wanted to start my working life because I was close to 30 years of age. So I felt like everyone had a bit of a jump on me who got out of uni in their sort of early to mid-20s. Like everyone had a bit of a jump on me who got out of uni in their sort of early to mid-20s. So yeah, so I always had that plan and then it was a matter of the moment came where I'd almost been global CEO at what I was doing.

Speaker 3: 14:48

Right, like I was right at the top of my game. I was really well respected for it. I'd done things in the sport that people probably thought were almost impossible or difficult to do in the 1500 meter freestyle at points in my career. And then I started working in finance and I went from being the best in the world to you know Collins Street on a Monday morning not being the best at the table. And the sooner I realized that the better.

Speaker 3: 15:13

It put me instead to move forward in my career because kind of put the ego to the side and just said, well, okay, if I've got to do all the small stuff, learn the skill I need to do that now. So I didn't actually think back to when I was at the peak of my sporting career. I actually thought about well, what did I do in those years when I was 13, 14, 15, 16? Because that's effectively where I'm at right now in my professional business career. And so I thought about all of the objections I heard, all of the noise that you had to cut through, the clarity that was required on your goals and the dedication to the process of achieving those goals. And for me that's what I focused on in business and I think within two years I probably got myself into a position where I was feeling pretty proud of what I was doing and where I was going.

Speaker 2: 16:00

Yeah, and there would have been some lows during that time. What advice do you give for someone that might be transitioning as a professional sportsperson or is currently a professional sportsperson that's about to make that transition and going to go through those lows?

Speaker 3: 16:16

The best advice I can give is hang in there, because you've got to go through a period probably a few months in, maybe six or seven months in where you think, oh, this is not for me. And the reality is, if you're a professional sports person, your name's well known, you've retained some of your sponsors, even post your sporting career or some other commercial opportunities outside of, I guess, your day-to-day work. It can probably give you that optionality. A lot of people who don't have the optionality are often more successful. Sometimes, when they don't have a plan B or something to fall back on, they've got to stay focused and remain in something that's not necessarily making them feel great right now.

Speaker 3: 16:51

But you know, if you're able to persist and get yourself into a certain position that you know you would enjoy the responsibilities of that position or the opportunities that it would bring. So if there was a call out to any athlete, I would say persist through those times and give yourself an absolute, concrete chance. And that takes a few years to do that and you've got to be willing to persist for a few years and I think then you've got a new skill set, then you've got something else to offer, then you can combine the leadership skills that you've not only got from sport but in business as well, and it can really put you in the driver's seat to create some pretty great opportunities for yourself. But you've got to be willing to persist through that difficult initial period, I think.

Speaker 2: 17:35

Yeah, and so you talk about transitioning and the slow transition not necessarily slow, because you were, you were starting to make those, those connections during your athlete career, as a professional athlete. So where did you, where did you start in the world? Originally in the world of finance. What were you doing?

Speaker 3: 17:55

Yeah. So I was in a in the private bank so I just started out with a team there and worked with the team and managing the customers that we have within the private bank, moved around to starting a business in there that we called Alpha Sport and Entertainment. A lot of athletes make a lot of money when they're younger, don't necessarily know where to invest it, don't necessarily have a lot of great people who are truly in their best interest around them for those investments. So we wanted to make sure that we had four different things, those four key elements. One was making sure they had the right relationship manager, the right financial advisor, a credit policy to be able to support them, because a lot of them don't. They're not asset rich but they're cashflow rich at that particular point in time. They might be on a five or $600,000 contract but not have more than 20 grand in the bank because they've just signed that for the next three or four years. And then you want to make sure you've got the right insurances. So if they were to have a career ending injury, and what insurances they've got, if they've got a big mortgage or some other liabilities that need to be paid out. So we created a proposition around those four areas and, yeah, we ended up growing that business. I think it had three-year KGAR growth of about 70% plus, so it was quite material.

Speaker 3: 19:05

I was doing my MBA post-sport as well, so I did my executive MBA as part of my thesis for that. My final kind of project around completing that after two and a half years was I created a value proposition for segmentation, so the most profitable segments for banking and finance. What are we doing to differentiate ourselves within each of those segments? So you know mining, energy and resources, professional services. You know doctors and dentists, engineers. You know people of similar profiles and what's unique to their particular industry or sector that you can offer that's different from another bank.

Speaker 3: 19:42

So the one thing about doctors, dentists and engineers they always pay back their debt, so you can actually have a different set of lending criteria around that. So you have to versus maybe an entrepreneur might be a little bit different in terms of the lending criteria. So, rather than having this kind of framework that was not really tailored mainly tailored to an average more than anything else across different amounts or LVRs, versus individual personalities and the sectors that they're in and the behaviors that are normally driven from that. So yeah, so then I built that business out and ran several other third-party distribution for Westpac at one stage. So yeah, so then I built that business out and ran, yeah, several other third-party distribution for Westpac at one stage. So I got a lot of experience there, actually in different parts of that business, which was really really quite satisfying to be honest, and working for one of the largest banks in the country, arguably the world as well.

Speaker 2: 20:37

Obviously there'd be a lot of stakeholder management and that skill set is really important in business and also probably important in professional sports. So can you touch on the synergies there?

Speaker 3: 20:51

The one thing I have to give to the banks. I think at that stage it was just post-GFC as well. So we had four of the top 10 banks in the world in terms of market capitalisation, so it was quite a remarkable time to really start in banking, post Lehman Brothers going down and, of course, the whole global financial crisis. And yeah, they are really good places to cut your teeth, in the sense they've got very good structures in place. They teach you how to manage people, teach you how to develop scorecard, the key metrics around the business, how to manage that to an inch of its life, so to speak. And then, of course, you've got state managers, you've got national managers, you've got group executives, you've got the group CEO, you've got the CEO of the multiple brands that fall beneath the Westpac group. So you're right. And then you've got shareholders, of course, being a listed business as well. So there's a lot of stakeholder management that is involved in that.

Speaker 3: 21:42

But you do learn a lot and it's one of those things where you probably spend a few years there. You don't realize how much you've learned, but it's funny. You come into another business and you can see all this stuff that's just not been done very well or managed very well, or the sales team is not managed as effectively as it could be in terms of its operating rhythm and its frequency of seeing its customers or managing the pipeline or even things like the reward and recognition system in place. A lot of that can be a little bit loosely done, and so I think, yeah, the banks were great like that, and I certainly got a lot out of those early years in business.

Speaker 2: 22:19

Yeah, and how does that relate to what you learnt as a professional athlete, and could you have used those skills that you learnt in the bank better when you were a professional athlete?

Speaker 3: 22:29

Most certainly, because I mean a lot of skills of success are transferable anywhere. You just have to apply those principles elsewhere. So the one thing that I found in business that was quite different to sport was, firstly, that a lot of the teams are just there to be there, to pay a mortgage, to have a job. They're not really there with a deep sense of purpose. So it's kind of building a team around you that feels like it's got purpose was really important and trying to help instill that in people. Rather than feeling like you're part of a big machine. It's like well, what are we doing here? What are we trying to deliver? What is the experience we want to make for for the areas that we touch, for the customers that are involved with that? So it's creating that deep sense of purpose and also clarity over the objectives.

Speaker 3: 23:15

So this is what success looks like, this is what failure looks like, this is how the the reward and this is what failure looks like. This is how the reward and recognition will work around that. These are the consequences for failure as well. And then developing I think it's called training in sport, but it's what I call in business an operating rhythm. So what are all the day-to-day disciplines and small little deliverables that you have to do, that add up to, you know, eventually getting to to a point which is which is quite significant, or you know better than your competitors, um, and that competitive edge, I think, is something that you really know.

Speaker 3: 23:47

You really know if you're putting in, you know if your team's putting in because you, you know at high level sport that the margins of error are just so small. I mean, I've got. When I, when I set out to win the olympics, uh, to give you a bit of an idea, I was over four laps behind of a 30-lap race. That's how far I was off that goal. I sit here before you over a distance of about 2,400 metres, which is almost 24 minutes of racing with three Olympic silver medals, accumulatively by around a second. So that's three silver within one second, just as gone by that could have been three gold. So you really understand competitive environments, um, how much the little things actually do matter and make a difference to the end result and do add up and compound within a business. So I think there was a lot of, uh, leadership attributes that I was able to bring from sport into the business world that were were quite unique, but just part, part of the DNA for me because I'd been doing it since I was four.

Speaker 2: 24:44

Yeah, and so teamwork in sport. Now it's an individual sport. You're a swimmer, you're the only one in the pool, but obviously there's a team around you and that might be you talked about your you, um, you know people you compete against Ian Thorpe, et cetera, who are also team members teammates. So can you share a bit of insight into being a professional sports person in an individual sport? But was there a team involved and how did that team support you to grow? And then how have you learned from being in that team to building out your own team?

Speaker 3: 25:22

Yeah, yeah, it's a good question. A lot of people think that swimming is a very individual sport. It's funny. It's only individual when you execute and that's the part that you see on TV. So the rest of the time, you've got a whole heap of training partners. You've got your main coach, you've got a strength and conditioning coach, you've got your physio, you've got your masseuse, you've got a manager. You've got all these people around you the whole time that are contributing and helping to, you know, improve your performance. And it's the same with you and your training partners. You're trying to help improve your training partners as well, and then some of them you compete against. So you get up on the blocks and you want to beat them. But it's interesting because you know where the competition starts and stops. And some of my best competitors I've enjoyed the most training with and gotten the most out of that. So for me, yes, whilst it's perceived to be this real individual sport, it only really is at that point of competition, which is probably less than 1% of our time that's committed to it.

Speaker 3: 26:23

The rest of the time, we're a team. We're working together as a team. We're unique in the sense that we're not just a male football team or cricket team. We're actually both a male and female team as well, and I was captain of that team, so you could have a girl as young as 14 or 15 on that team for the first time and a male as old as 30. And you've got to get everyone swimming, so to speak, in the same direction and working together as a team and supporting each other, so to speak, in the same direction and working together as a team and supporting each other. So you do learn a lot of management of that team in that environment, just given the uniqueness of it. But in terms of performance, yeah, you've got to get up there and deliver. But I like that aspect too, because that comes back to the individual accountability which I think is important as part of any team.

Speaker 2: 27:04

Yeah. So now, what do you look for? Obviously, you're a leader of a very large listed business that continues to grow. What is the key skills or key personality traits that you look for when you hire for your team across the three businesses?

Speaker 3: 27:22

Yeah, I mean, when I'm looking at my team, obviously the number one thing that pops into mind or there's two things, actually, I should say that pop into my mind when I think about that One is, obviously they've got to have great people leadership. So they've got to have good people skills. They've got to be able to communicate effectively, with clarity. They've also got to be strong enough to have the ability to be able to manage people, because a lot of the time you've got to have areas in the business where it's not performing where it should be. You have to change people out and have very difficult conversations, so you've got to have people who've got the, I guess, the backbone and strength to be able to do that. So they're probably two of the key aspects, because you're only as good as the team around you in what we do. And look, this is more, you know, team orientated than even the sport that I was in. But the pressure of an Olympic Games or a World Championships is like nothing I've experienced in business. Business is actually much easier than that aspect. If you think about something that's once every four years on one particular day. You're injured, you're sick, something goes wrong. No one cares. There's no excuses for that In business. It's the macro environment, it's Trump, it's this, it's that. It's really easy to find excuses, which I try to really take that out. What are real acceptable excuses? Because if someone's in the Olympic Games and they're winning the men's 5, 5 000 meter by 200 meters, they've got one lap to go pull a hamstring and can't get there, does anyone care? No, no one cares. No one cares. And you could say, oh, that's an acceptable excuse, but no one's going to give him a gold medal still so. And I think, um, I might sound a little bit harsh saying that, but you almost have to have the same level of discipline within the business. Um, well, so if you sign up for something you don't deliver against that, the consequences either way need to be there within the business. So when I think of my team, I think they've got to have great ability to be able to, you know, be strategic within their business. So they've got to come up with some really good ideas. They've got to have the intellect to be able to drive that and consistently deliver. They've got to be consistent performers, great communicators with their team and they've got to have the strength to be able to have all the tough conversations and not let them drag out as well and let the business be compromised or areas of the business be compromised because they can't do that. So, yeah, there's a few kind of key traits that you look for and look.

Speaker 3: 29:43

It's always hard to find really really good talent and hard to find people who are consistently motivated as well, day in, day out, to deliver, because it is tough. You know I try and look after everything, from my diet through to my sleep, through to everything, to maintain the level of intensity that I expect from myself within the business. And you know I try and make sure I schedule breaks for 12 months in advance. Sometimes when you run a listed business, you don't get breaks. You know I was in the middle of doing a deal over the course of Christmas and New Year's, so you can't actually take the time out that you would like to to actually have a rest because you've got to get all that ready. As soon as we hit February, we're announcing an acquisition. So, yeah, managing yourself is really important around that too.

Speaker 2: 30:27

Yeah, and how do you manage life as a busy executive? You do have a family as well, so can you share some some? You talk about planning 12 months in advance. That might not go according to plan. If you have a, if you have an acquisition on the table, give some insight to you as a busy executive, and how do you plan your day and manage multiple things outside of just work?

Speaker 3: 30:55

Yeah, you've got to have a lot of discipline in your structure. I am not a very like I could be, like I don't mind being social, but I don't have much time for a social life. I've got four kids in total. The youngest two are five and one, so my time is literally as a CEO of running hundreds of people at a top 200 company. Now my focus is there, or it's with family, and that's kind of it for me. What do I do for myself? People that ask probably not as much as I should.

Speaker 3: 31:24

If I'm being completely honest about that, I don't think this phase of life is allowing me to have that freedom, and I'd be lying if I said to someone who wants to aspire to this position have a family and have a successful marriage that you are able to have it all at the same time. My wife's got a really good saying. She says you can have it all, just not at the same time. It's very true, and so for me, I stopped drinking because I just think it hurts my productivity, didn't make me feel good afterwards If I was being honest about it. I didn't really like drinking that much. It wasn't something that I really enjoyed, and it also eats into your fitness and everything else and you eat bad food. And so for me I went to stop for a year, stopped indefinitely. I think that was probably about eight years ago now or even a bit longer. That's probably nearly nine years.

Speaker 3: 32:12

So for me it was all those little decisions around you have to work out when you've got a busier life, not what just you should be doing, but what you shouldn't be doing to support the outcomes that you're trying to go for. And that doesn't mean just because I don't drink and I go to the gym a bit and do all that sort of stuff. It doesn't mean I'm not going to have a heart attack. It doesn't mean that I'm going to be successful. All it means is that my probability for success and remaining healthy are higher, and that's what I want to give myself, and it's the same with my family.

Speaker 3: 32:43

As soon as I'm not doing stuff at work, you're not going to see me stop between here and home. I'm home, and it's another thing why I stopped drinking as well, because waking up on a Saturday morning after a couple of drinks you're a little bit slow, you're not quite yourself, probably, and I didn't want to be like that around my kids. I wanted to be fully present, I wanted to be engaged. I want to be in their lives. I want to be at their sporting events, I want to be helping them where they need emotional support or support in life in general. So that was a reprioritization for me, and as I've grown in business, I keep trying to reprioritize and think like that, because it's an important part of managing your energy and getting the output that you're looking for.

Speaker 2: 33:21

Yeah, and your children do you, obviously being very successful both in the pool and in business. What do you try and lead them in a certain direction, in terms of whether they want to be a professional athlete or whether they want to be a professional in business, and how do you help them to grow as individuals?

Speaker 3: 33:49

Yeah. So I've got two kids from a first marriage, so I've got twins that are 15, a boy and a girl. I've got a five-year-old boy and a one-year-old girl. So it's busy. Three out of the four kids live with me full time, so there's always a lot going on in the household. To be honest, I don't care what they do. It's the values that I want them to have with it. That's really important. So you know if you're going to participate in a team event, turn up to every training session. You know, particularly my oldest son. I said you're there to support the team. You know, if he's even critical of anyone else, I'm like, mate, don't even worry about that. Are you perfect yet?

Speaker 1: 34:30

No.

Speaker 3: 34:30

So well. You've got to focus on yourself first. That's your first objective is to get yourself into a position where you're, you know, leading yourself to improve your own performance and reflecting on that and the areas of improvement. If there's someone else's performance is impacting yours, you talk to the coach. So it's the values around it, the work ethic that's particularly important.

Speaker 3: 34:52

And look, a guy that was getting up at 4.45 am six mornings a week in high school and then going back straight from school to the pool to be back in the water at 4 pm, getting home at 7 pm for homework and dinner. I understand that work ethic and the consistency of that work ethic is really important. So those are the sorts of values that I want in my kids. I don't care if they're successful or not, as long as they've given themselves the best shot and as long as they haven't given themselves along the way as well. Like I don't want to ever create a false sense of belief for my kids and tell them they're better at something than what they are, and that's not to be negative on them and to hurt their confidence. It's to do the opposite. It's actually to have a bit of authenticity around you know, if you want to do well in exam. Well, why are you playing video games? So?

Speaker 1: 35:38

you know, maybe the extra bit of study. There's always an opportunity cost.

Speaker 3: 35:48

Correct, and so I find my time and energy is more into that. They'll find what they're good at, what they love and whether they want to be successful at it. So my my eldest son enjoys running more than he doesn't like swimming because of me, you know which I understand as well, so I'll support him in that.

Speaker 2: 35:58

Yeah, and do you spend much time in the pool at the moment?

Speaker 3: 36:01

Not at the moment. No, I was scared of the bathtub after I retired, if you're doing, you know, close to 80 kilometers a week and I was training and racing effectively 49 weeks of the year. You know, I didn't understand there was so many public holidays until I went into the working world, cause I trained Christmas. I trained, you know, new Year's day and you know Anzac day. I mean you of course don't get me wrong on those sort of days in the morning we didn't train, we only trained in the afternoon. But then Easter we would train like we would train on all the public holidays, it didn't matter.

Speaker 3: 36:36

Because you rock up to the Olympics and you know lane three, you know, has not missed a training session for the last 10 years and lane four on the, you know lane five, lane five on the other side of you, has done everything in their power. There might be someone behind a lane that's taking performance-enhancing drugs as well. You don't know. That's what happens in the world of professional sports. So you've got to do everything you can correctly in that preparation to execute very well. I mean, one of my main rivals became the chief and commander of SEAL Team 5 after his swimming career.

Speaker 3: 37:10

And he seconded me at the World Championships, at the Olympic Games as well. So you know you're dealing with some pretty strong-minded people.

Speaker 1: 37:18

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 37:19

Well. Thank you, grant, for coming on. You've shared some really good insight into life as a professional executive, as well as life in the pool, and some synergies and some key skills that you've learned throughout your journey. Super, as an Australian watching the Olympic Games, it's an honour to have you on the podcast and thank you. I think a lot of Australians have looked up to you throughout as a teenager watching. So thank you and also all the best in the future endeavors with GDG Group, and I look forward to continue to see the business grow under your leadership.

Speaker 3: 37:54

Yeah, thanks, fabian, and thanks for all your support over the years, very much appreciated, awesome Thanks, thank you.

Speaker 2: 38:02

Thanks for listening this week. Stay tuned for our next episode and keep up to date with us by following the Finance Friends podcast on Instagram and TikTok Plus. Connect with us and our guests over on our LinkedIn page, all linked in the show notes.

Speaker 1: 38:21

Disclaimer this podcast exists for informational and entertainment purposes only. The personal opinions of the speaker and guests do not represent the view of any other party. If this recording contains reference to financial products, that reference does not constitute advice nor recommendations, and may not be reliable.