Ten years in
The Contenders is turning ten this year. I agreed to help start it because I wanted to build something valuable for my young family. I was running the Asia part of a design agency, travelling lots and to coin a phrase rapidly turning into ‘Jet Lag Man’. Jet Lag Man tends to mirror the distance he has travelled with the distance he starts to keep from those things that are important to him. It is like a piece of glass that stops you from being a decent dad, from making a passable impression of a partner, mate and colleague. I remember the moment our business started: walking up a gangway in Singapore and looking at the multi-coloured carpet I thought, ‘I don’t want to do this’. When it is time to go you tend to know.
What I did not realise is that the journey of the business would also be mine as an individual. Running a business is different from working for a business as it is a reflection of you. What you value, how you behave, the way you think and how you choose from the multitudes of options that present themselves each day. To rework a Robert Frost poem, it is the path constantly chosen and never wavered from that sets the template for how far you will go.
Life is not a walk in the woods as we all know. For every plan there is chaos, for every decision, there is a consequence. My reality is that the last ten years have never gone to plan and often the best part of any decision was the unintended consequences that came with it. Luck has never been a concept in which I have put much faith, perhaps because the lady has never been on my side. Life has happened to me and what I wanted to share are the four values that have guided the business rather than marking the moments we have seen. We have done well on all metrics but it is the way we have experienced the highs, lows and everything in between that matters.
We started in a small, shared office in Fitzroy that had a red door in the alleyway. Back in the day, the door would have been how they got the hay up into the second floor to store it for the horses below. I loved it because it reminded me of a red door that we used to have in my parents’ old barn back in Nova Scotia. I used to look at that door a lot and it became a bit of a totem. Truth is I was scared, and most days spent at least 50% of my time thinking, ‘What have I done?’ I started the agency to help set my family up but things got off to the type of start they tell you to avoid if you can. No foundation client, too little cash, an old boss threatening to sue and founders too scared to ask each other the really hard questions. Oh dear.
Looking at that door brought me comfort in those days, as when you are starting a business you look for any good sign you can get. I have stacked a lot of hay in my life and it is a mixture of the mundane and the petrifying. What I reflected on during that time was that even doing that, even cutting and tying together grass, I never stopped thinking about how to do it better. I hoped that if I applied the same thinking to this challenge, it would come good.
The only business lesson I ever share is: 'Do one bale at a time and never stop wondering where it came from.'
It took me a while to understand that your internal world directly manifests in your external world. The better you are inside, the better things go outside. The agency is as healthy as you are as a leader and colleague so it’s best to focus on your own growth rather than focus solely on the growth of the agency. The bottom line is that the numbers are not really the right metric to focus on if it makes you miserable. My dear friend Mark Ritson often teases me that I have Kia tastes but Bentley talent. I’m not sure about that, but what I do know is that I'm no show pony, and I have never valued stuff. Scale is vanity, vanity is scale. I value security and the reasons why are written all over me.
I am the eldest of six kids. I have two brothers diagnosed with manic depression and I certainly have suffered my own bouts of high anxiety. I lost a few years of college where I found it impossible to sit through a class. Not because I did not enjoy the lectures but because I thought everyone was looking at me. It took a fair amount of time on comfy sofas to realise I internalised the shame of not understanding my own gifts and talents. They weren’t exactly played back to me by my folks and that was not my fault. I learned to be me for me. As I have gotten older, I now understand that my true job is to not pass on my shit to another generation. I am better for learning that, but am even better for understanding this is not something anyone but me should be grateful for.
A couple of years into the business my Co-founder Dave and I parted ways. The edited version is that our skills and vision didn’t fit together. The lived experience version is, we started the business from different places and you can actually never get past that as founders. We lost a friendship which was the worst of it all. Life gives you lessons until you learn them.
We used to have a shower in our house at the time in Elsternwick that we were renovating that felt a bit like the prison showers you see on the TV. It was fitting as I felt trapped by my decisions. It was a shit time as I felt guilty but also knew to solve the problem I had to climb out of the cage no matter what that meant. I made it out, just not the way I would have wanted. I made the call as I realised my own life was being framed through the needs of another. I would not change anything I have learned along the way but would certainly change some of the ways I learned the lessons I have. That one stung and still does.
Anyone who knows me will tell you I don’t like to lose. Those who really know me will tell you that’s not really true. I actually love the opportunity the lessons and the hours of hard work that the pursuit of anything worth pursuing gives you. I actually hate losing if there is no lesson that goes with it. It is the line ball calls that stick with you, shape you and haunt you in a way that is hard to describe. Those moments when you know your best was not enough when compared to the efforts of others. Our industry is an ongoing episode of Jeopardy where it is your ideas, your judgment and your charisma that is tested. I will take resilience for $1000 Alex.
I think what those of us who love the ‘game’ realise is that between the edge of a brief and the deadline of a presentation is the freedom to develop your point of view. Our industry is not lofty in many ways but it offers freedom in more moments than most. You love the wins, but learn most from the losses. I really believe that mentality or the process mindset is what separates agencies that survive and those that suffer. The game really is about being vulnerable enough to seek the idea and then to seek validation from the world. Oh, and don’t be a dick about it. As a service industry, we exist to serve the needs of others.
I love my wife, value our girls more than life itself, work with a great group of investors and colleagues, like surfing, mowing the lawn, building stuff, and yes even walking the dog. Running an agency beats the shit out of being away from that and running one for someone else. In the end, it is nothing more, nothing less.
I have really enjoyed the last ten years even when it’s been hard. I would never do it again, but the beauty of life is I will never have the chance to.
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Be better to each other.
