This transcript was generated from YouTube captions and lightly edited for readability. Speaker labels may be unavailable, and transcription errors may remain.
Warwick Donaldson#
Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory on today’s episode you’ll hear about what it means to take an asymmetric risk and certain things you can do in your career that have unlimited upside we’ll talk about networking hacks from Chinese culture and we’ll also talk about what it means to challenge yourself appropriately if you haven’t already.
Please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter you get takeaways and my insights from this episode directly to your inbox every single week without further ado please enjoy.
Intro#
Hello and welcome to Graduate Theory my guest today is a serial entrepreneur problem solver and country man he’s an active member of the Australian startup community and he’s been a part of several capital raises and writes about startup funding on his side Aussie Startup Capital Nerd he’s passionate about helping young people and growing the Australian.
Startup ecosystem please welcome to the show Warwick Donaldson hey james uh thanks for having me I’m very excited great man I’m really really.
Warwick’s First Job#
Excited to chat as well before the podcast we were speaking about your first job and how it came about and I’m curious you know what was your your very first job and how did you how did you get that well I’ve actually had a few first jobs so it depends which first job we’re.
Talking about so I’ll I’ll tell all three all three are kind of fun so my first job was actually when I was about six years old and I used to get I think one or two dollars a week pocket money from my parents and it wasn’t enough I always wanted to buy things and my parents wouldn’t give me.
Any money and so I devised a way to make some more money and so basically my first ever job my first ever business was actually collecting sheep poo so I used to walk around picking it up put in bags and then I used to sell it to people in in town because I grew up on a.
Farm so that was my very first and then I suppose I created that job my first job working for someone else was actually working on the farm for my dad and so that was when I was about 10 years old and he used to get me doing proper full days because I really wanted to do it so.
He used to pay me like you know half reasonably well he’s like well you do a full day’s work then you get paid like a you know a normal person and but my my first job which I think you’re referring to out of well maybe I’ll tell the backstory to that so basically ever.
Since I was about 14 I was fascinated in finance and I really wanted to be in banking my idea was that banking was kind of the pinnacle of of I think capitalism and sophistication and I thought that I was going to be exposed to the most amazing things in the world there and.
I’ll be challenged and I’ll get to I get to see billions of dollars and all this sort of stuff and so that absolutely fascinated me so ever since I was 14 I wanted to go into banking and so I went to uni and I studied banking finance and accounting and then.
When I graduated I graduated with you know pretty average grades I didn’t fail anything that’s that’s probably my claim to fame out of my my uni degree but making my grades I don’t think we’re good enough to get into a grad position so I tried and didn’t get in anywhere but I.
Wanted to be in banking and so I said okay well I’m just going to get a job in banking doing anything and figure it out once I get there so I actually got a job in outbound credit card collections call center and so I spent about I think maybe about nine months there.
And so basically while I was there what I did was every day I would get on the gal the global address list and I would research people in anz that I thought were working in interesting departments and I’d send them emails and say hey I’m really interested in what you do I want.
To learn more do you have time to go and get a coffee and slowly I worked my way through like credit risk market risk kind of you know the traders and all different parts of ANZ and everybody said yes and they they were really pleased that someone would reach out to them and ask them questions and.
Want to learn about them and what they do and so I did that for about eight or nine months and each of those people would go and refer me to someone else who they thought was working in an interesting department based on what I would tell them about what I wanted to.
Do and so I ended up kind of working my way through anz and eventually I made my way to anz treasury and so those of you are not familiar treasury is basically the bank’s bank and so they’re the ones who ensure that the bank is funded and they dish the funds out to the various.
Business units and manage liquidity so I found someone in in anz treasury and he’s like well we’ve never had anyone find us uh this is actually really cool uh we’re actually hiring a grad role as an analyst are you interested I said hell yeah yeah and the interviews and got my first you know.
Kind of quite real grand job I suppose yeah which is ex which was an amazing opportunity.
The Power of Asking#
Yeah that’s really cool I think that’s such a good story I think like it’s I think it really speaks to this idea of like you know you’re reaching out and then like people are so surprised almost to have someone reach out to them and then like this there’s it’s such a.
Valuable thing to do for yourself and like for them that’s just yeah I think like reaching out cold like that you know is it I think that’s a great example of how valuable that it can be because I think too many of us you know don’t do that I don’t think I think like you know.
You’re much worried like oh what if they say no or what if like this or this or this or whatever but like you know what if they said yes you know what I mean and it’s a that’s a great example of how it can work out if you if you know persist with that kind of thing.
Well that’s the best bit right like the worst they can do is say no the best they can do is say yes and you end up getting a job like you know yeah there’s no downside and there’s only upside so you know it’s a pretty good it’s a pretty good risk to take if you want to.
Call it a risk at all yeah yeah absolutely yeah I think yeah I was reflecting on this this idea like through probably the last week just how many people that I’ve met that have this like commonality of them you know look like their opportunity that’s you know been something that really changed their life was just.
Something that they wanted to do and they asked for it you know and then suddenly they were like you know off doing something incredible I just think it’s something that’s really really common and something that’s underappreciated or yeah people would just don’t do that enough and they don’t even realize perhaps what you can achieve just by.
Asking yeah and I think I never underestimate someone’s willingness to talk about themselves and people love talking about themselves you know we gather a lot of experience in our life and a lot of people love to share that experience and you know that’s why I’m doing this this interview right.
And that’s why like I take every cold outreach nearly that you know people make to me because I love sharing my experiences and hopefully someone can learn from me because you know I’ve done all this stuff and then hopefully I can short circuit some learnings for for the next person and that’s kind of what it’s all.
About right so yeah yeah absolutely yeah I just think it’s so powerful and yeah it’s like people like yourself go so I’ve been turned to people reaching out as well is what you know what makes this work as well so I’m sure like I appreciate it and I’m sure other people that have reached out to you.
Appreciate it as well I want to move on.
Warwick working Overseas#
Now with your career and move into you know your you went overseas in your career you went to talk us through that process and kind of what what led to you deciding to go to go over there yeah so I mean I was working at anz I had spent about two years in treasury at that.
Point in wholesale fund we were managing portfolio bonds it was about a bit over 100 billion dollars and it was crazy and we’re doing 25 billion dollars of of new issuance per year and it was absolutely insane right and I loved the work and and I loved the markets and all this.
Sort of stuff but there was really something missing and I think I saw my life flash before my eyes I kind of saw where I was going to be when I was 40 and 50 because you know the progression seems rather loony or I did when I was there anyway it seemed quite.
Linear and and I think that scared the out of me and I was like oh my god what happens if I spend the next 30 years at ANZ or in banking like you know would I would I be happy would I say that I’ve lived a full life and up.
Until that point my life had always been about risk management so grew up on a farm you know farming is about extreme risk management and then you know studied banking finance and accounting which is also risk management right and so I felt that I wasn’t really taking risks with my life and you know part of that.
Is to do with my privilege and then part of that is to do with like my the way I grew up and kind of you know Australia and all that sort of stuff and Australia is a pretty safe place to be and I wanted to experience a bit more about the world and I didn’t take a gap.
Year or anything like that so I said okay it’s time for me to challenge myself like really challenge myself like what’s what’s the most extreme thing I can do to challenge myself without taking too much risk right like you know I’m still like a person who likes to manage risk and so I came up with this idea.
Of moving to China I’d been there twice on on holiday and really enjoyed it and it kind of felt like a second home and but I didn’t speak Chinese I didn’t know a whole lot about Chinese society all I knew is that for some reason I was drawn to it and so I said okay well.
Like you know it’s probably the biggest risk that I could take I talked to this guy who who moved there a couple years before he’s like just do it man like what’s the worst thing going to happen it’s like all right I don’t know about this and everyone else is like I don’t know why you would.
Be doing that you literally have one of the best jobs in the world right now you know and so I did I decided I quit and I got a job teaching English in a primary school in kind of this suburban nanjing and nanjing’s basically I know a comparator is probably like.
Geelong right it’s 10 million people but it’s still kind of like a big country town and I was right on the outskirts and the suburbs there and I went and taught English and that kind of started my my journey in China I ended up spending three years there and it was it was a crazy time and.
And it was a time that really challenged me and it challenged me in in really good ways it challenged me to understand that there is a completely different world out there and the parameters that we don’t quite uh understand the parameters that guide us in say Australia in the west we think that.
We take for granted certain things that exist in Australia as like this is just the way it is and we don’t really challenge those things and then when you go to a place like China it’s complete it’s built on a completely different set of rules and technology and culture all of a sudden you realize all these.
Things that you thought were just just had to exist no longer had to exist you know for example like I moved there in 2016 and everybody was on wechat and literally every payment was instant you know coming from Australia where like you know and just because the Chinese banking system is built on a.
Completely different set of rules and that’s what society demanded and they kind of skipped the pc age and went straight to the smartphone age and you know they’re just basic things that really challenge what you what we kind of accept here in Australia as as normal or like slow progression.
Warwick’s Decision to Move#
Yeah yeah I think that’s that’s really interesting to hear that and I’m curious to hear you know around your your decision to move is something that is interesting to me because it’s something that you know like you said you’re in sort of the typical like this is a great job like doing well in like.
The corporate kind of kind of sphere and then you yeah you’re giving that up to go and do something which you know people can say okay that’s probably not as quite I’m not as good of a job right be a teacher in sort of like a remote place in China like what is your.
How did you deal with that I mean was there any like did you feel like sort of social expectations on doing that like you know in sort of a or we just kind of like yeah like you know I mean I’m curious to hear with like did you doubt yourself at any point.
Through that process or we just kind of yeah whatever like we’ll just this is what I want to do so I’m just going to go straight for it yeah no I I it took me six months to like basically make the decision and figure out how I was going to do.
It with the least amount of risk possible and I doubted myself a lot and but I think you know that the fact that I was doubting myself a lot meant that I was probably taking the right level of risk and challenge because if you’re not doubting yourself then you’re probably not pushing yourself hard enough right yeah you’re.
Feeling too safe and so you just kind of need to fight through it I mean really you know that the risk was pretty low because like worst case scenario like I end up leaving China after six months a year and I go back into banking like back to Australia into banking right best case scenario I discover and.
Evolve and learn into this amazing person and have all these experiences which makes me a better person you know it’s not like like I can get a job in China teaching English it’s really easy and so the risk is relatively low but I did doubt myself a lot and you know I was.
Quite conscious of the fact that people were judging me based on there so my dad’s like oh this is a really good idea yeah you know he doesn’t know much about China and you know that the reason why I was going is because like one of the reasons why I was going is because.
China’s in the paper every day and it’s this like massive influence on our society but I didn’t know anything about it all I knew was like you know how it was portrayed in the papers and obviously you know if anyone who’s ever traveled you know that how somewhere a culture a country or.
Whatever is portrayed on paper is obviously extraordinarily different to how it is in in real life and that’s why we that’s why we travel right to challenge these these learnings these perceptions that we have and you know put some substance behind them and so then I it was yeah I doubted myself a.
Lot yeah whatever and now now I’m like you know now I’m this this white dude who can speak Chinese cruising around Australia and like you know I pull it out all the time and people like oh my god you can speak Chinese like speaking to Chinese people and it’s really nice and it’s.
Like you know you can bond over it and they can understand a different culture and society and and I really appreciate that and it’s really propelled me as a person about a career yeah.
Lessons that Warwick Took from Living in China#
Yeah I mean I’m interested to hear them today those you mentioned those the cultural differences there and obviously like going to a different different country you know that’s you know you get to see those differences but then coming back to Australia like I’m interested to hear like how you ended up coming back and then.
Even you know what kind of lessons or what were the things that you really took from your that experience in China you know back pity to Australia yeah so I came back twice so the first time I spent two years there and I wasn’t progressing as fast as what I wanted to.
And I was a little bit frustrated and I was like oh I’m going to be a teacher forever like this kind of really annoying I want to get back into doing some some the work that I love in finance and so I came back to Australia and so I came back to Australia actually.
Really not knowing much Chinese because I kind of fallen into maybe what a lot of people do when they move overseas unless you really like want to challenge yourself you fall into the crowd that speaks kind of a common language and so you know I ended up spending a lot of time with.
People who spoke English both locals and and expats and so I came back and I tried to make it work in Australia and I got a couple of you know really good jobs and I just wasn’t really settled and it was really hard coming back because I’d had this like crazy phenomenal.
Experience and like you know the way that I lived and everything had changed forever and nobody could kind of understand that and you know everything was kind of the same here and so it was really difficult coming back and so I got a really really good job in in venture capital and after about.
Five months they asked me they said so you know are you enjoying yourself do you see yourself here for for for a while and I said honestly no I don’t and they’re like oh and I couldn’t believe I was saying that because I really wanted to work in venture capitals you know I was working with.
Startups I was working finance and I was get to talk to founders all day and all this sort of stuff and it’s great it was amazing but I just wasn’t excited about all I could think about was China and so end up leaving and going back to China and I said all right if I’m going to go.
Back to China this time I’m going to talk properly I’m going to learn Chinese I’m going to take the time I’m going to put the effort in and so I went back but I went back and enrolled in university full-time studying Chinese and so we had five hours of class five days a week.
And then would have probably another four to five hours of homework a day like wrote learning Chinese so it’s like literally writing Chinese characters and pronouncing tones and doing conversation and reading and like you know all those sort of stuff and it was really intense and I loved it and so I felt like I was kind of.
Going back to finish off something that I started that I didn’t that I didn’t do properly and it was amazing and then kind of 12 months in to studying I realized how long I was going to have to study to get my Chinese to a level where I could work like in the areas in the fields.
That I really enjoy and I was probably another three to four years and I really wanted to get back into that type of work and also it dawned on me that once I get my Chinese to that level that I would have to then rebuild my career in a different country with different rules and.
So I decided and you know all this is because like Chinese culture is a very old complex culture like any culture in the world right and so you’re not only learning the language but you’re learning the culture and so you need to understand that sort of stuff and so yeah anyway basically.
After 12 months I kind of came to the realization that it was probably a little bit too long and I’d kind of got a lot out of the experience already and so it’s time to come home and so I actually flew back into Australia two weeks before covert was officially announced in in.
China so I flew back in on the 15th of december and 31st of december was when it was kind of announced or discovered and actually there were people with covert one week later where I was where I was working at the time um so I could have been patient zero yeah just like insane a thing right yeah.
Absolutely yeah yeah kind of cool yeah yeah that’s so cool and yeah it’s really interesting because yeah people often talk about like Chinese being sorry that’s like quite hard to learn like the language is something that you know you really got to be you know it’s like probably one of the hardest languages to learn and then you.
Know on top of that learning the culture and then you know doing all these other things I think um yeah I think it’s it’s a definitely great experience it certainly sounds.
Using your Network | Guanxi#
Like it I’m curious you know what were some things that you when you came back in end of 2019 when you when you came back to Australia is there anything that kind of stuck from when you’re in China like is there any you know sometimes it’s like things like yeah there’s certain like cooking techniques that.
They use or like certain ways that you would like get ready or you know those cultural things that you know perhaps we you know the way we do things in Australia is like a bit different you know is there anything that you took back you know from there that you still do today.
Yeah a lot I mean it influenced my life so much like my choice of breakfast you know like I like to have a noodle soup for breakfast yeah a hot bowl of noodle soup on a hot day I like to drink warm and hot water picked up a lot of cultural things and as well as.
Actually on the networking side and I was going to let’s leave this till the end but in China they have something called guanxi guangxi is the concept of relationship and the power of relationship and so in China it’s extremely important and I think through you know a lot of a lot of asia.
They it basically rules society in a way you know that as I understand it and this idea that you know you build your relationships but actually you build your network but actually what you’re doing is you should also be using those relationships and those networks and so they say guanxi is like an arm the more you use.
It the more powerful it gets and I think this is a really important thing that kind of underpins what I how I conduct myself these days is I grew up in in Australia where we build networks but we use them as a last resort we don’t like to draw on our networks too much because we feel maybe a little.
Bit embarrassed that we’re asking for help we’re in China it’s a complete opposite you should be using that as as as you know one of the first one of the first ports of call and so I really picked up on this and so I’ve really been trying my best to apply that in my daily life and I’m.
Seeing the benefits already you know I talk a lot with people the same people you know or try to build up a good network of people and help each other and help each other and I really feel that bond and relationship evolve and it gets more meaningful over time and it’s really enjoyable one.
Because you’re building relationships which obviously as humans is like a basic thing which is really nice but also you’re helping each other and that’s also really nice in a professional sense as well as in a personal sense yeah yeah definitely I think like what you said there about like often we turn to our network as a.
Last resort certainly like when he said that I was like I definitely like I’m definitely guilty of that and yet certainly like even taking it back to what we’re talking about at the start with the reaching out and things like that you can achieve so much from from just asking and they’re often like yeah from what you’ve.
Just said there like you can you can save yourself a lot of time try to work something out yourself when just asking someone could solve your problem really really quickly so yeah yeah I totally yeah I absolutely agree I think that’s something that I personally could do better and yeah likely a lot of.
People could do better is you know not being so worried to just reach out to people and ask for things ask for help ask for you know if people can help you because yeah I think it’s it’s saying that could be beneficial for both parties like you said yeah and I think I.
Think you know the I know definitely the part of Australia that I grew up in is definitely a more individualistic society and so we pride ourselves on doing everything ourselves right it’s like move out of home as soon as you’re 18 and like you know fight for your survival and blah blah blah you know not.
Really fight for yourself it wasn’t that bad but yeah but but you know like really drive home this individual and I know I kind of rejected my family for a long time and it was only after and this is really another thing that it came back with was the importance of family and friends.
And and you know Chinese society is very much centered around this family unit and and friends come within that and that’s really important and so that’s something that I came back from China with as well really drawing in my family and embracing it and really enjoying it which has been.
Really nice and really refreshing and not like thinking that I have to do everything myself just because I need to prove that I’m like a big tough person who can make it in Australia by himself like it’s nice yeah yeah absolutely yeah I think that’s something that we can all do we can all do better and yeah certainly.
Like I yeah I absolutely agree with that yeah it’s only at least the last time I’m like I could definitely improve in that area okay even like with the podcast I’m like you know people will say like oh yeah you should like reach out to this person like they’ll be able to help you with.
This area and then like part of me is like yeah that’s a good idea but I don’t know why it’s almost just like I almost like want to do it like it’s it’s probably it’s like clearly like not the best way to do it right is that I’m like yeah like I can do it all myself.
Like I don’t gotta be with this person that has a newsletter that like they can share it with heaps of people like no I could you know this is like wow the amount of opportunities that like yeah that I had like that all of us have not just me but you know that are just.
One ask away that you just completely ignore because like to do it yourself I think is phenomenal yeah but also like you know it’s fun doing things by yourself and like making your own mistakes and like that’s okay but just making sure that you find a balance right and yeah and especially seizing opportunities that.
Are really like that are really juicy and yeah yeah but also you know acknowledging the fact that you just don’t know where an opportunity is gonna lead and and so you may on the face of it an opportunity may not look that appealing or juicy but you know it may end up leading to.
For example a grad job like I got right and that was not what I was expecting but that was what happened and I suppose if I tried to judge that immediate opportunity from the outset I would have been completely wrong and actually most of the time I’m completely wrong when I try and judge outcomes of.
Of meeting people people are very complex and they’re much more than their LinkedIn or their instagram profile or whatever and they have amazing networks and amazing knowledge and you just cannot ever predict where something is going to go or what you’re going to learn or like just their background and that’s the most beautiful thing yeah.
Like it’s really daunting though because like you have to be prepared to like for anything to learn anything to be exposed to anything but that’s what makes it so beautiful especially if you have a love for learning right yeah yeah that’s yeah very wise certainly I think that’s yeah I think that’s like that’s so true I think yeah the.
Love learning is so important yeah it’s something that we can we can all do better I’m sure I wanna I wanna talk.
How did Warwick end up in Startups#
About now like your experience in the startup world because this is something that you said you worked in vc for a little bit in between your trips to China it’s something that you’re you know you’re really involved with with today you know how did you how did you stumble into that area and.
And kind of what you know it’s the similar trend of kind of life lessons is there anything that you’ve really what it would have startups that would being in this space taught you yeah so you know as I said before I started my first business when I was like six and I had a few businesses since and.
Then I started my first startup when I was 21 I think when I was just coming out of uni and I was I think I was I was studying at anz in treasury and I had an idea for a fitness marketplace and so I was like whatever let’s just try and build it and see what.
Happens and so I convinced my dad to give me a little bit of money which he never saw again and he still teases me about today he’s asked me when I’m gonna read that yeah I better get on to that actually it’s a good reminder yeah so I started fitness marketplace and so.
Basically went through the whole thing finding some developers and blah blah blah you know after a year it was kind of built and I basically had grand plans for it to be the biggest and best thing from day one and I launched it and nothing crickets I had no idea what I was doing.
And I kind of came to the realization after a couple of months and I’m gonna have to get out and like pound the pavement and go and talk to people and all this sort of stuff and I actually didn’t care about a fitness marketplace I’m sorry I just don’t do not and did not care about fitness or.
Marketplaces it’s just not not me right and so I kind of started this thing thinking I found like this this niche and I was going to be able to because I’M&A business person I can just like execute anything and like you know it’s irrelevant whether I care about it or not which is just not true for me and so.
I end up shutting that down because I didn’t want to do the work and basically that’s funny so realization is coming out and then and then about a year later I started another startup called gober and warwick and so basically it was a custom men’s shoe um business and so it was.
Design your own shoe in the shoes in 3d it was modeled after shoes of prey which I saw some people at work using and I was like oh my god this is amazing and I was kind of playing around with like custom designed shoes at the time or going over to vietnam on holiday and.
Getting them made and it was really fun and so I was like okay well I have to do this and so I started building that and that basically maybe for three years I was building this custom shoe business and then when I was in China I was still doing the same and.
And I met my really good friend ola or gobba and we joined up together and he’s a designer and so we’re having a lot of fun building this this tech and then we found a custom shoe manufacturer factory in in China and we used to go there on weekends and play around with these designs and.
And they thought we were absolutely crazy we would we were trying to get them to make the most crazy designs and we them you know we found that they had a laser in the factory and so we started like you know getting leather and laser and things on and then we’re getting friends with tattoo artists like tattoo.
Leather and oh man like you know we’re doing all lots of crazy stuff we’ll die in these shoes like hot pink and like it always it’s just it was so much fun I’ve tried that for like three years and it didn’t really come off and I knew that I loved at that point I knew that I.
Really loved change and innovation and startups and so I went into the space and decided to go and work for anyone that was in the startup space basically I just wanted to learn and so that kind of started my my startup career as a as a employee and yeah I’ve kind of.
You know now I work at tractor ventures and it’s an amazing place to work and I get to meet founders all day every day and I get to see all these innovations and you know whilst we’re also a startup ourselves we’re actually a fintech the name tractor ventures is a bit deceptive.
We’re we’re actually a fintech company and we also get to deal with startups who are innovating themselves so it’s kind of like the perfect job because it’s also finance so it’s kind of amazing but you know I was like before that I worked in a medical device startup and doing finance and.
Before that I worked in an ag tech sas startup called mobile doing growth and yeah and while I was in China I also did a lot of community work building the expat community and then started doing startup community work through startup grind and then came back to Australia and was also doing startup grind and has.
Really enjoyed community building and um it was I don’t know what it is about it I like I think for me I get really excited when I see two people meet each other for the first time and start sharing stories and then all of a sudden you see something happen where they share some stories about problems.
They’re trying to solve and then the other person goes ah I did that six months ago and don’t do this this this go and do this this is and all of a sudden six months worth of learning has been shortcut over to the other person and they don’t have to spend six months.
Like making mistakes right and there’s something beautiful about that all you have to do is like create this environment for these learnings to be shared and you’ve just saved hopefully someone six months of like trying to figure out some stupid problem you know and this I don’t know something electrifying about that.
Uh and seeing kind of relationships being built yeah and so I’ve kind of been doing community work on the side ever since it’s kind of morphed these days into finance community work where where I have my website Aussie Startup Capital Nerd.u and I publish investors on there investors and lenders for startups and so it’s been really.
Great for me to learn about the early stage capital market space industry and then I was like well there’s not really enough like you know it’s one thing having an investor list it’s another thing really knowing what to do with it or how to raise the money and so then I started doing analyst.
And basically writing up reports for for founders on on metrics on capital raising metrics you know like how what’s the median seed size raise in Australia and how long between rounds like you know how how much capital should I be raising sure yeah 12 months should be 18 months should be 24 months and so yeah I kind.
Of did that for still doing that today and yeah I find myself a tractor and then writing articles on my weekends and doing a little bit of community work here and there and I kind of forget what the question was so yeah that’s all right well yeah it’s it’s it’s really cool how you managed to like.
Cover so many different areas through like the like the bc and the startup uh ecosystem in Australia because yeah like you said you’re you’re contributing with startup funding you’re doing community events like helping founders like all this kind of stuff it’s really great great to see yeah and all that kind of comes back to literally.
I just see a problem that’s not being solved some information that’s not being shared and I’m like okay well I might as well do this and like just see what happens and whatever and you know if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work everyone’s got a pretty short attention span these days they’ll forget yeah.
True that’s such a good day that’s amazing I want to ask so you know.
A failure that turned out to be a success#
You touched on the custom shoe stuff like didn’t quite work out you know I’m sure you’ve seen many startups kind of start and be like yeah we’re going to be amazing and then things like didn’t really work out so well but I’m curious for yourself has there been a failure in your in your life that.
Turned out to be something that was really beneficial was a failure that turned out to be a success in some way yeah good question so I think I think first it’s important to define what I think uh a failure is and so what I actually think of failure is I think.
A fairly is when you try something but you don’t learn from it and I’ve only realized this after working in experimental environments which is like startups right so startups by the very definition are experiments in themselves and only after being in an environment that encourages failure have I been able to embrace it.
And enjoy it and so very much what’s come out of that is that if you’re trying something if you’re experimenting and it doesn’t go the way that you hoped it would but you learn something from it then it’s not a failure like if you didn’t learn anything from it then it is a failure.
And you’ve kind of just wasted a bit of time right and so for me that’s how I would define a failure and so with that in mind all of a sudden all these things that I’ve done in my life have actually not they’ve been successes because I’ve learned a whole heap of things and they’ve contributed.
To my career where I am today who I am as a personality you know as a person and my personality and where I’ll go in the future so however you know there are some failures that I have had some some failures as I define to find them and I think my favorite failure.
I was reflecting on this last night and I was like digging really deep to like discover this you know you heard it first here yes [Laughter] my favorite failure is not actively listening and it’s really painful to say but you know I’ve been quite guilty of not actively listening in the past um.
I don’t think I’m very good at it and I have been learning how to do it better and so you know the result of that has meant that there has been some really valuable information that has been shared with me that I have not retained and therefore it’s meant that I’ve gone and done.
Subsequently done things that I should have known would not have worked out and so therefore I’ve actually wasted time and kind of you know failed an experiment as such as well I’ve by not actively listening I failed to have deeper conversations and therefore uncover more opportunities which could benefit both me and the person who are.
In that conversation or in that situation so I think for me not actively listening is my greatest failure yeah deep indeed yeah certainly yeah I think that it is it’s a tricky thing to you know to solve almost it’s like is that kind of thing wait you know listening and like yeah actively.
Listening can be something that’s quite you know seems like it you know on the outside seems quite hard perhaps to something that you can improve on or something that you can really really work on is there anything that like you know as a result of that you try and do now to sort of combat that.
That listening process yeah I try to make I try to slow down I like to move fast and think fast and and you know break things and all that sort of stuff and I love change and so it means that I am primed to be a poor listener and so I try to.
Make eye contact more often I try to wait in a conversation and not not interject not get too excited also learn techniques not to annoy other people when I’m making maybe assertions in conversations one of my bosses once got a little angry at me because I was making some assertions and he’s like I.
Don’t really know if you know that warwick like you know you maybe based on your experience but you know it may not be true like you know for the whole world and but you’re kind of asserting that it is and so you know he said I think a better way to make an.
Assertion is to say in my experience this is blah blah blah blah and so rather than saying that this is true for the whole world I’m saying well based on everything that I’ve done today this is what I’ve learned and this is what I think the answer is and so you come across far less confident and more.
Like you’re you’re sharing something and you know it’s a shared learning thing which is also part of relationship building so that’s really helped me reduce confrontation in conversations and allowed people to open up more and allowed us to go deeper as well yeah yeah it’s cool it’s a great that’s a great technique I think to.
You know to say what you’re thinking and open up the space for the discussion rather than like you know just saying what you think and leaving it there I think that’s yeah that’s really great because I’m an extrovert yeah so I have to be mindful of the fact that other people are not not everybody is an.
Extrovert and so there’s some really important information that everybody has and experiences that everybody has and so you need to be able to give them the space um to do that yeah yeah definitely.
Warwick’s Advice for Graduates#
Well we’re we’re coming pretty close to the end of this interview work we’ve been time has absolutely flown but I’ve got one more question for you and it’s something that I ask all the guests and that is what advice would you give someone starting their career in 2022 build your network it may seem hard.
And a daunting task at the start and it is but it’s a marathon not a race and there are plenty of beautiful amazing people out there that want to talk to you and that want to share their experiences with you and don’t be afraid to ask them the worst they can say is no literally that’s the worst.
They can say and the best that they can say is hell yeah let’s go and have a coffee and then who knows what’s going to happen once that happens so you know it’s it’s a asymmetric risk and it’s an amazing thing and you really should be doing that and I understand that not everyone’s an.
Extrovert and so it’s more difficult for others than it is for some of us but try to fight it or try to find ways that it can work for you know maybe it’s online maybe it’s like pinging someone and asking some questions you know it doesn’t always have to be face to face yeah face to.
Face is great to build relationships but you know it doesn’t always have to be there there are other ways there’s always there’s always another way to solve a problem so try to innovate do some reading and figure it out but yeah I think those networks those relationships what will hold you strong throughout your.
Career in your life and it’s something that your job doesn’t own you know when you leave you take that with you and that becomes some of your capital that you can use to improve your life and improve your performance in your role and just have it you know have a nicer life it’s really good so.
Yeah yeah I encourage everyone to go out and build their network and set yourself some goals like okay each week I’m going to meet one new person two new people in a certain area if you’re going out to learn about a new industry or a new job or you know a new topic set yourself some goals I want to.
Meet one person every week for the next eight weeks and go and reach out to people and do it yeah yeah it’s great advice I think and certainly something that everyone can do and um you know and say that can really be be beneficial I think you have it in your your LinkedIn but it’s it’s something.
Like you know worst case I won’t reply and that’s the case is up to your imagination and you know I think that’s a great way of putting it yeah yeah if you’re thinking of reaching out I put it by LinkedIn if you think you’re reaching out to me then yeah worst case I won’t.
Reply and best cases yeah yeah.
Contact Warwick#
Congratulations yeah I think that’s so good like thanks so much for the chat today work I’ve learned so much about yourself and there’s so many lessons that we’ve spoken about today that I think are really really great for young people today but if people want to find out more about yourself and connect with you further.
Where’s the uh the best place for them to do that yeah jump on my LinkedIn I’m pretty active on LinkedIn I know some of you may be rolling your eyes but you know it’s just it’s it’s where I’m active so and have a look through you know I do a lot of posts on there and that will give.
You a bit of a flavor for what I’m interested in and if I might be helpful for you and yeah read through my profile and make make a decision from there fantastic yeah thanks so much for chatting today work.
Outro#
Thanks so much for listening to this episode with Warwick Donaldson I hope you got something out of it and I certainly did if you haven’t already please consider subscribing to the Graduate Theory newsletter you’ll get the episode and my takeaways straight to your inbox every single week thanks so much for listening again today.
And I look forward to seeing you in the next episode.