Wisdom that Builds .ep104

0:00I recently had the privilege of sitting down with Frenzel Gilliam, author, coach, previous CFO and venture capitalist, which had it about his recently released book, Wisdom that Builds. I reached out to Frenzel after reading his book. It is a truly inspiring work that tells very sensitively of his own path in the corporate world to where he is now as a business coach where he guides others based on his experience to achieve value out of their businesses. I hope that you enjoy this exploration of not only the book but the man behind the book. Welcome to the Journey to Her Podcast. I'm him. And I am Dean. Here we chat about life skills,

1:05business, growing and booming. We have to inspire you on your journey to her. Wherever you're here, maybe. Good morning, Frenzel, how are you? Great to see you, him. And thanks for taking time to have this interview. I'm the one that has to say thanks for taking time because I approached you which is rather unorthodox to interview you on your channel about your book. So I feel in a way that I'm gate crashing. But when you launched your book last November, when was it? November December. November December and you put me to the post by I think two or three days. And I've got hold of your book, bought it on Amazon and read it as an ebook. And I was so captivated.

2:09And that sounds as if I'm exaggerating but really it's an engaging and captivating book and I found myself as I was going through reading it on my Kindle, photographing the screen and sharing it on WhatsApp. And I said, wow, this is awful stuff. And I said to D, it seldom that a book is written that is ostensibly about business, business management that is written from such a humble perspective. And in 127 pages, I think it's 127 if I remember correctly. And I know you've done a revision, so that's a bit more, but the version I have and it gets such a strong message across but it's completely authentic. It's not a book that you have to read, put down because it's heavy going. But you want to read, put down and reread what

3:13you've written because there are just so many nuggets you've somehow managed to make each paragraph intensely powerful. And I think the main reason for that is because it's authentic, you've been there, you walk the walk, you are not a management consultant. So that may be one of the things you do, you are not a business coach, although that's one of the things you do and have done. You're not a CFO, but that's one of the things you've done. You are a very human person and I think that's what came across. So what I'd like to do, I'd like to start this with saying, friends, tell us about who you are in a very short version from the old days on the Cape West Coast, a very brief history

4:16of you ending up putting some of the biggest deals in South Africa and South African history. Putting those together, how did that journey start? Yeah, thanks Em and I think you summarized the book very well. As you say, I grew up in the Western Cape and from humble beginnings, my parents were not educated people or you know, tertiary educated people. But I had the sense of community, I think that's what I also referenced in chapter one of the book, the sense of community and dignity as part of what I grew, you know, grew up with. But I guess for me, the one thing that was always part and parcel of my journey as I grew up was, you know, lack poverty, not having enough and you know, when you asked for resources, there was always the response that, look, we don't have what we can't do and these are the limitations. So I saw education as a way for me to get

5:22out of that situation and by the grace of God, I happened to be, you know, academically gifted and that's the root of the suit. And at some point in that journey, I developed a love for accounting and I realized in that series, you know, under very good living and that kind of, you know, part of my interest. So the encouragement I got throughout my journey, you know, coming from that humble background in Austin where I grew up, it was the affirmation, you know, that I got from, you know, achieving academically being at the top of my class and so forth. But I think that's probably true for every human being, you know, you can have whatever perception of yourself where that's, it's very positive or whatever it might be, but you do need other people to come alongside you to affirm what you believe, you know, you have been gifted with. And so that's what I had teachers who, you know, affirmed me and I grew up in a boarding school situation

6:28where I went to a boarding school, made some very good friends, you know, realized the value of friendships and the value of people, you know, being your cheerleaders as it's, you know, would have that way. And also people that can hold you accountable. And yeah, I said, got a university and then from there, I started becoming a child to the accountant or finished my articles. I realized that look, for you to be successful as a business person is more than just the technical side of doing things. It's more than just being good at your job. There's the whole aspect of, you know, leadership, personal leadership, the psychological aspects of that. And the bonus with you, that for me probably was the biggest challenge. And because my background was so different, you know, of my first couple of years in articles, you know, you associate or your colleagues come from a very different socioeconomic background. And that

7:31that is quite the squarely adjustment. So that was a part of my, my journey. But again, the value of relationships, you know, so I then got into the IDC where I got my, you know, my first grounding. But throughout like a career, I always got opportunities based on my skill set, based on the reputation I've built up, but people recommending me for jobs. And that was the same when I had my last formal executive role. I was actually recommended for that by a colleague that I used to work with in private equity. And my background was private equity. It wasn't a CFO background. But I've seen a strategic thinker, someone that understood investment, but also could play around at the board level. And that particular business was an investment-only company. And what stands out is that I was asked to come for the interview. And on the face of it,

8:36there were other people that maybe were stronger on the accounting side, stronger on the financial management side. But what got me in the door was someone on that board happened to know someone that I did my articles with. And then there was a reference on the names to me, asked about this chap called Frenzel. And this person said, look, you know, this guy, Frenzel, when we were doing articles, he was probably the least likely person to pass the accountant's board exam. And he's no bastard. So I think, you know, he's a man that can navigate challenges, is a resilient chap. And I think let's give it to him because this business that we now have for this company is going through a merger. And of course, there were headwinds up ahead. So we need someone that's going to be more than just, you know, knowing the numbers, we need kind of need someone that's going to have to deal with change, bring a team along, being a resilient,

9:36and so forth. And that's basically how I ended up with Kefisotis, the company I'm talking about. And it was a wonderful journey about seven years of growth and, you know, leading a team. And yeah, so that's a little bit about myself. I can talk about it. Other companies that I was involved with, but that's going to be quite a long story. One of the things that you've brought in there as well in this conversation and it comes across very clearly in the book is team leaning. There are very strong things that come through and values. And speak in the book of how important it is for a business at certain points along its history. And you talk about the business growth cycle and a lot of the way that you explain that and you have a really good YouTube video. I'm going to

10:40suggest that there will be a link on our channel, but your channel first, obviously, that people go and look at that video. And I'm sure we can put a link to that video in the show notes. It was one of the simplest, most sensible descriptions to me of when a founder, CEO, business leader needs to sit back, probably call in someone that they trust and say, sit with me and reflect on where we are and where we need to go because you talk about constantly the needs of the necessity rather for the business to stay true to its values. And there was actually a quote that I recorded and I haven't got it in front of me now, but how important it is

11:40that the value chain is on it through the entire life cycle of the business. And it has to be carried through to where you start looking for growth from the asset base through the acquisition. Those values have to be looked at. And I'm actually going to ask you, would you mind explaining short version because I like people to go and look at that video on your channel as well. That business life cycle, what do you call it in the book and on your channel because it's a powerful, it's a call to action for any business leader. You need to at some stage sit back, get out of the hustle and listen to your business and pause and reflect. Would you like to go through that for us? Thanks. So in the book, I talk about the business life cycle in the context of

12:44funding of, you know, you're raising funding at different stages. Of course, at the early stage, you're funding the capital types of capital you raise and the sophistication of the investors or lenders that you approach will be different. But at a more conceptual level, the idea there is that the business life cycle is something that every business goes through. And also the other point I make in some of my other content is that depending on where you are in the business life cycle, your needs and the advisors or consultants that you would then assemble will be different. And I think it's for a coach or consultant that wants to gain the trust of their client. I think it's important to be authentic and to be open. So for example, if you look at the early stage, this is now starting a business. I get people asking me often, you know, what must I do, what is it that I need to do to start a business? And I'm really kind of that look,

13:48that's not really the space that I'm playing in because that's more your incubators. If you look at many of the incubators, you have incubators in South Africa, for example, that are government funded. And then you have also incubators that are privately held in private companies. And these are people that have an ecosystem that could help you formalize your business plan, help you to understand your marketing, your markets and how to go to market, create a whole system of support, admin support around you, maybe even give you premises to operate from. And this could be, you know, before you even have revenue or maybe your early stage revenue, you are not at the growth stage yet, which is the next phase. So the early stage is the first phase. And most businesses fail at that stage. I mean, there are statistics that says between 60 and 90 percent, some people say 60 percent others say 90 percent of businesses do not survive beyond five years.

14:53So the next stage is really the growth stage. And I don't want to put numbers on it, but this is really where you have no consistent sales. In other words, you had a value proposition, particular product or service, and now the market is giving you feedback that in fact, there is a need for this product. And you are growing, but perhaps not having the profitability that you need, or you don't have the structure, the systems and processes to basically have a scalable business. And I tend to work more in that space in terms of the niche that I've chosen. The next stage is really the mature stages. I would, you know, put it as a medium-sized or large business. It's not a corporate yet, it may be, but this is a company that's now becoming much more formalized. It has predictable revenue, so you can do predictable budgeting, forecasting, you have perhaps a much more formalized executive team, management team,

15:55and it's also dangerous there because now you can start to not focus on what's your innovation. It's now a case of resting on your lawnals. You may not be aware of what's happening in the ecosystem, in other words, competition, technology that may change. And your business, there's many examples. I think in the book I mentioned the example of, I think Blockbuster and Netflix where Blockbuster was thinking, you know, we are mature business, we are established, we have a leader, and then the business was essentially disintegrated because a new competitor comes in. So that's the maturity and the client stage. In that stage, also, the client stage in my life have also worked in the turnaround space. So you find that, you know, as companies grow, they may be getting into acquisitions that may not work, or they may be getting bloated, maybe have a pointed start and that no longer are trained for purpose, maybe they haven't kept up with technology.

16:58There was one particular business, I won't mention the names that I consulted on and was responsible for drafting a strategic plan and a financial model. And that business, essentially, it's a value proposition in a sense got dated and they might call it that. So the way the world worked, maybe 20 years ago, is not the way the world works now. And so it has some very tough choices in a sense of essentially reinventing itself, because it's the digital product, often, yes, there might still be customers, but it's a dying market. So you can put blinkers on, say, look, I've called revenue and I'm not going to make the tough choices, or you can make those tough choices. With some companies have done, for example, in the book I mentioned DHL, which was data post and they saw that looked at writings on the wall that traditional male business is a

18:00dying business, technology has overtaken us. And so we need to come in a completely different direction, where we may still have skills from our traditional model, we still may have assets which we can repurpose. So that's in essence the business life cycle. So it's the early stage, where you would probably work with a different type of consultant, then it's the growth stage, different challenges, different funding opportunities, the maturity stage, where there are risks there as well and opportunities, and then at the client stage. And if every one of those stages, for me, the management team or the founders need to have the maturity to say that look, we need external counsel as well, depending on our needs, as opposed to saying, look, we being insular and not being open to other people's advice or inputs.

19:04You bring up the blockbusters example, which I think has been the most glaring example and very public facing example of complexity, lack of foresight, lack of vision. And one of your chapters in the book is particularly about that need for forward thinking vision. You go into it in some depth and I would like, and you certainly, I don't think prepared for this at all, but I'd like you to explore putting you on the spot here. But I'd like you to explore the change over in a family business, because you focus a lot in the book on building generational wealth. And there are many family businesses that definitely they get into that growth phase,

20:08and they'll go a little bit further. And then the second generation starts moving in, and we both know that that second generation, very few family businesses, survive that second generation. It's that I don't know the statistic offhand you would know, but I'm sure it's your game. But the failure rate on family businesses on the second generation is really horrendous. So, how do they do it? How do they pass the torch? And I think the question that I'm going to say is, friends, so you are called in. And it's a company that says, right, we're bringing the second generation through that come into the business, we can see if we don't take action now, we're

21:09hitting for a war. We're hitting for a lot of us this moment, because the current CEO has now been in that role for 30 years. So, how does this work? What do you do? What is your approach coming in as, let's cool you outside the council? Yeah, that's a very good question. I don't necessarily speak to that, but it's a fantastic question. And so, I think there are examples of great family businesses. I think South Africa has got a very rich history of fondling businesses that became global icons. I mean, I think if you look, for example, at the example of Rengrove, and you know, the Pat Paton being passed on to your own group, and he's actually gone further than maybe, you know, his old man, if you were to put it that way in terms of taking the old group in

22:11a different direction. So, there are examples of successful passing of the Paton. Now, I've also worked in private equity, and I've worked also in developing finance, both on the side of providing loan funding, but also equity funding. So, I've seen business with smaller businesses, medium size, larger businesses and so on. I think the key, and I've also worked alongside one particular founder, lab business, which fits almost hand in glove with USA, just now. And these are my observations. My observations is that these are a tug of war, if you like, between loyalty and competence. Right? So, the idea is that this is our baby, you know, with this our wealth is is tied up in this in this asset. And the first generation might be innovative. It might be a particular opportunity that was spotted by the founder of the family business. But as the company

23:18grows, let me just look here at my camera, apologies for that. I think my hand movements, as I move my hand, it seems to indicate that the camera must be going off my scale. So, as I was saying, yeah, as I was saying, the key challenges around this growth of the business, because whenever I spoke about the life cycle, you just mentioned the life cycle. Now, I should go through the life cycle. At the early stage, you might be able to do a lot of things based on informal rules, based on catch field, based on, you know, just entrepreneurial spirit, but as you, as the business mature, obviously, you're going to need different skills. You're going to need more formalized systems. You're going to need people with particular competencies and so forth and so on. Now, the question then is, would it be reasonable to expect that

24:20the next generation have the right skills and competencies unless it's been planned? Right? So, what I've seen, the mistake I've seen is that the founder has built up a business. The business has, is now, let's say, a medium-sized company. And now, he, for some reason, I cannot continue with its health issues or whatever it might be. And now he brings in his young son, who's a young CIA and, you know, he's now going to take the business forward. When a lack of experience, a lack of leadership experience or experience in a particular set of skills in terms of you know, a discipline for taking the business forward. So, for me, the key issue really is around the founder having the emotional intelligence to be honest with you.

25:27Just say, look, I might have to bring in professional management. That is aligned to my vision that I can trust, but is aligned to my vision. And maybe those, in a professional management can be a bridge to bring in my own next generation, my family or whatever the case might be. So, I think that to me is one of the challenges. It's around the dichotomy between or the, you know, the strain between competence and loyalty. So, the other one is also, sorry, the one other one is also, is around how you maintain performance, right? So, let's say you bring in your, your son or member of the family. How do you make sure that the issues around

26:31performance management, you have authentic conversations because the risk you're running is that let's say it's even your wife, when I know you might have a view on that. And you guys are at developing, it has a strategy and you're working towards a particular outcome. What happens if it's someone that you're hired from outside, you may have more, you may be more inclined to have difficult conversations. Now, if the people in your business are also the people that you are going to share a social circle with outside the business, it takes a different level of skill and awareness, self-awareness to bring to have those conversations that maintain the relationship, but speaks the business needs as opposed to just breaking over some of the challenges that they arise. So, those are my two observations while around loyalty and

27:33competence and the second around how you have difficult conversations around meeting goals and you know, okay guys. And I think you've, you've hit the essence of many situations that I've seen in where I am and the space that I operate in and very often as well, you spoke there of there may be a health issue with the founder and then someone is brought in in the family to take over and very often people wait too long that don't have good succession planning in space or in place and it's one of the greatest faults that we see with family businesses is that lack of succession planning because it's almost assumed that the children will one day take over and they don't actually have to compete for the positions they're going to move into.

28:38And there are businesses and successful family businesses operate on the fact of, as you mentioned earlier, competence and family members have to compete for the positions that they ultimately fill and they have to be in the best fit for the job because at the end of the day, the survival of the business as an asset base is what is going to feed the family and I think in South African history there's a rather large retail group that is going through this problem at the moment where the, it could be argued that the preparation of the new leadership team coming through was not necessarily adequate to do with the job that needed to be

29:38done particularly in the life cycle of the business. One of the my favorite quotes out of the book is leaders do not create followers. They create leaders was one of the quotes you had and leadership has become a buzz word in the market. We're talking more about management and it's almost become a cliche because through overuse. But one of the things that comes across very clearly again in your book and in your map, I'm going to say your management style but I'm going to say your leadership style through the examples that you mentioned and also I have the benefit of having spent more time with you. So I have an idea of the man behind the book and behind the coach which is now what you do. That leadership, how does a leader, leader business without leaving his people behind

30:53and carrying them along and making them leaders. How is that done it? What would your advice be if you find at business that you move into and you find that there is stratification and you have a really strong dynamic leadership team. But there's this huge separation in the vision, how do you go about aligning that? Yeah, look, there's a lot, like I said, there's a lot of talk about leaders, different leadership styles and someone will tell you there's nine types of leaders. It's the servant leader, a transformational leader and so on and so forth. So for me, I think it's started leading yourself, right? So if you're not able to lead yourself, it becomes quite difficult to lead other people. So it's really about, for me, being comfortable in your own skin because authenticity for me is very important and to really allow people to get to know you, but

32:00but from testing, I don't mean sharing and blabbering everything about yourself, but what I'm really talking about is being real with people, being able to connect with people. I think that for me probably is the most difficult thing in leadership because we've been given all these different models of leaders and this is that dear leader and that this is the one that you should follow and this different role model. So icons of leadership. But I guess how many people are willing to allow others to get to know themselves or to get to know your people? So if you're not able to connect with the people, that's what I found in my in my last role is in a way you're putting yourself you know in a vulnerable position to be honest because you're getting you're allowing people to get to know you and that may go in different directions. Some people say you need to work a sub out of a job and some ways that I've adopted that approach and that may in fact be what that

33:04but happens right. So I think it takes a lot of maturity, it takes a lot of getting to know yourself and you know being able to allow others to get to know you. You need to care for your people, I think that's for me also very important. Care for their development, bring them along you know with you as it were. But one of the things I like about coaching, I've just read a book now guy called Robert Hygrove that speaks about masterful coaching. And one of the things he says in the book is about how leaders need to spend much more of their time coaching other people. In other words, the model of leadership that we tend to have with equal and servant leadership transformation leadership or the other leadership models. John Maxwell talks about the 60 degree leader and so on. It tends to be focused on outcomes right. I've got a team and I've got

34:10KPIs and KP, keep performance areas, keep performance indicators. I've got these goals that the board is giving me. I'm an executive and I now need to achieve these goals throughout the people. And so it's a case of them, you know, these are your tasks, these are your budgets, these are your goals for the year. You know, we'll have a report performance review in six months time and you know, we'll then talk about what you make medicals or not. So that's kind of one way of approaching you know, leadership. But what he's suggesting is that leaders should spend more time coaching their people. In other words, I'm spending on a regular basis time with you to check in with you to have informal coaching to essentially cope and empower you to be better at your work, at your your tasks. And so I'm imparting my knowledge, my skills. I'm just balding up a mirror to say, look, have you considered this? Have you considered this? This is perhaps something you would want to

35:12think about. So I think that's a different way of thinking about leadership, where it's more about coming alongside your people, coaching your people, lifting them up, empowering them. And I think that's where the phrase, you know, not creating followers, but creating other leaders. Because ultimately what you're doing is empowering your followers to become leaders. And the way empowering them is by pouring yourself into them. And that's a very different way, I think, of considering leadership, where it's about the, you know, the icon that's gone to the mountain and he's not telling us from the mountain what to do. This is more of a seven leadership type model that says, look, how can I empower my people? How can I pull myself into them? How can I be vulnerable? How can I make sure that they understand that as much as we would have to have difficult conversation or ultimately care about the person? So I've said a lot of things that's maybe

36:16out of one one line answer, but that sort of I think about leadership. You know, for example, again, because I have the privilege of knowing you a little bit more outside this interview, I know that that is one of the things that you bring to your coaching sessions. Is that ability to lead through empathy and humility comes across very strongly in the book. It comes across very strongly in our conversations. And I think that what you have, our discussion has brought across is they need for a constant evaluation of authenticity, your own. An inward looking approach with an outward looking focus in terms of results,

37:25the values and the needs and the need for strong values and vision to resonate throughout a business, throughout a cycle and the need at times to pause and reflect and say where we are at the moment, do we have the resources that we need? Both human and whether it's financial capital, whether it is infrastructural at each inflection point in the cycle. I think that case is really strong and I think this is where I'm going to say you have pivoted recently in your personal journey and you've moved from being in the boardroom as a CFO, as a strategic visionary for the business as a daily executive function. You've now moved to a

38:32point where you are that person who holds the mirror and is the mirror. I would like if you don't mind too, you'd explain why you've done that, what your benefit is or let's say the benefit for someone being able to draw on that insider knowledge that you have right from the VC days through to where you came into the mergers acquisitions, the the boardroom politics that invariably take place, but to where you are now, firstly, why the switch and secondly, what value do you add and what is your vision now because

39:36you had a vision which was very much formed as part of the organisations you were with, that had to merge and match your personal vision, you know in a position where you get to set what you do on a daily basis. 100%. I guess I would say if I look at my career, someone told me one time that Vincent, if I look at your career, you were sort of set for private equity and then what sort of happened. In other words, what you were talking about was you were the deal doer and now you pivoted into leadership or you pivoted into these executive roles. And my response was that, you know, I always were fascinated by leadership. It's a very complex topic but it's also, as John Maxwell says, everything rises and falls on leadership whether it's

40:36business, whether it's society, politics, everything. So I've always had a fascination of leadership and I've always been an avid leader. So that's what led me to eventually end up in borders because, typically, a deal like a sort of a senior management, you do not quite the executive level, you know, you sort of, you know, you get put together the deals and whether it's in a dear fine environment or private equity environment, that's the level that you're operating. Now I've left corporate about seven, eight years ago and then because I had these experience with large transactions, that's where I focused on and I've also done, turned it on work. But I think my value is best in terms of working with smaller businesses because if we look at the larger companies or corporate, there's many consultants, you know, it's an overbanked space. Now you're working

41:39with M&A advisors, they're the McKinsey's and Bains of this world that are focusing on that market. So I think if you look at the need for a coach, a mentor, advisor, intellectual African context, but I think globally, there are more companies that are in the small to medium size space and given your experience, my experience, I think we can make a better, bigger difference in that space. What it does require though, and you spoke about before, is humility because one could, you know, look at yourself, you know, in an M&A transaction, about two billion transactions that raise two billion rent or more of funding when I was at TISO. And so you can see yourself as this big shot that, you know, you want to work with these big deals. But I've learnt in this seven or eight years, a lot about, you know, my own personal journey, I referenced in the book as well, made a lot of mistakes, realized that, you know, you can

42:39chase a lot of shadows and then you come up with nothing. So you need to be at the focused. It's not about friends all and friends are closing this big deal. It's about I can friends will make a difference. And I think the bigger, the better part of, or that part of the market, I believe I could make a bigger difference, he is this small to medium sized market. I have also, and I can do executive coaching, I have also been a benefician executive coaching. But again, it's a market that has a different set of dynamics. So given my interesting deal doing, I still have a passion for, you know, corporate finance, raising capital, doing M&A's and so on. I think even that skill set is relevant to growing businesses. So as a coach, you know, if you put yourself in the shoes of a founder, if someone comes to you and says, you know,

43:41I'm a coach and, you know, I'm going to now coach you on your business. Your first reaction, one of your first reactions would be, look, I know what I'm doing, and exactly where you're going to be able to something. So what I'm offering or what I'd like to think I'm offering is that yes, I've been trained on, you know, the the national coaching preparation disciplines, creating awareness and powerful conversations. But I want to put forward to my target market that I also understand business, I work with smaller business, medium-sized businesses, I've been in boardrooms, I have also been and found in myself made some of the mistakes found this makes. I've had them dark night of the self myself as well. I've had to dust myself off and start again, you know, work with cash flow challenges and chasing anything that can just put me, give me another cash flow to get over this month,

44:44I've had to deal bad investments and so on. So I'm not a guy who just came from the boardroom and I was going to tell the founder what to do. I have gone through my own journey as a founder and brand-mounted fingers and I believe I've now got the perspectives both as an executive, as a deal-doer, as a founder and also as having trained as a coach. And for me, the biggest benefit of coaching is not so much telling people about tools and techniques, telling you and look your business model, you're going to look at it this way or go to market strategy or, you know, if you approach private equity, look at it this way. I hope I bring those to the conversation as well. But what I personally found, you know, going through the coach's training the biggest benefit of a coach is really changing your thinking. So it's a more transformational aspect and you may already have the answer to yourself. But the conversation creates this space

45:47for those great of thinking to arise because coaching is about a supporter but also challenging. So coaching is only going to tell you and look at how you're just the greatest guy and your business is just fantastic. It's not going to really help you. You should tell you what you're doing well but also challenge you to think differently and the space I play in is working with the leader. So it's not only working with, you know, let's get your account done this month and I kind of think, which is also important. But it's really about what does this number tell you? What changes the related work? What is the messaging that we get from these numbers? Are we having the right conversations in your business? Are you showing up in the right way in your business? And so the CEO or the founder may not have someone else in the business, particularly if it's family business or what they spoke about before or small, the medium-sized business. It's unlikely that one of the

46:55other managers will come to the fund and say, the seventh is the founder. This is that in the other thing. So the coach gives you a safe space to really be vulnerable and non-judgmental space where we can have those challenging conversations that ultimately is transformational. And if we that's the biggest difference between a coach and a consultant because, you know, I've just had this assignment a year ago where I was asked to help or let me tell you turn it on the assignment. And what my delivery bills was, look, develop a strategic plan and develop a financial model. I've done it. They pay me and I move on. Now, whether you know how to implement a strategy that's just not my issue, right? I've given you the plan. Now, the idea with coaching is that the conversations, when we spoke about leadership before, how I said, it's a little about empowering the people through those informal coaching, through coming alongside them, through effectively working yourself out of a job. So the idea is that the founder and the coach is transformed during the

48:06coaching journey. It's sort of a two-way conversation. You know, both parties are actually transformed during the conversation as opposed to me coming into your business and say, look, you know, you're the tool I've got just plugged this in and you know, that's great. You know, you'll just have the solution. So I've rambled on a bit, but that's for me. The passion is that it's a messy space to be honest with you because I'm not coming with a ready-made solution. I'm there listening to you and we're having a conversation and something might come out of the conversation, we'll make it in a different direction, or we may not exhaust the conversation, come back the next time. So we have structure in the process that I follow. I have an online system, I have structures on, but the idea is not to be paid by numbers. It's really to be there listening to be transformative, to help the client, to come out of that coaching partnership and say, look, I show up in the world differently. And we spoke, we started speaking, you and I started

49:12speaking about the book and I wondered, and whether I'd be able to would have been right writing that book, if I hadn't gone to coaching myself. So part of the coach's training is that the the aspirant coach also has to go through many months of coaching. So self-empowerment and just thinking differently about yourself and about the world around you. And you know, the limitations of thinking of myself as, you know, the other people write books, not really me, but the other people. And now I'm writing the book and thanks for the feedback and I'm really proud of it. And I'm going to say, Fritzel, I could talk for another hour or two and just suck information out of you. But this has been everything I hope this conversation would be. And I'm going to say thank you for first meeting the hijack your platform and the show will go up on our podcast in

50:18a couple of weeks after you premiere it on your YouTube channel. So our channel will be audio only and I'm sure we can cross link to the journey to here. But I'm going to say, Fritzel, this has been a privilege and I'm going to having spent some time with you over the last year or so. I'm going to encourage people to reach out at that point where they are in their business because we do it as a consultancy business. We regularly bring in someone from outside and say, right, tell us what we could improve on. Tell us what you hear when you see our marketing message. Tell us what we need to do to align our message to our values.

51:21It's a vitally important thing and it doesn't. You spoke a little bit earlier about emotional intelligence that is needed with a founder when addressing the succession plan and where they are. And I think that is the one recommendation I would highly make is that someone reaches out to someone like you and you are at premieracapital.ca. Today or remember correct, you will put that link in the show notes as well. Fritzel, I'm going to say thank you so much for a great chat. It really has been nice to catch up again and look forward to maybe doing this again at some stage and exploring different subjects. Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Thanks so much. We haven't really doubted much into values. I did

52:22I did talk about it a little bit in the book but I agree with your sentiments. Being value-centered is fundamental because you'd have different challenges at different stages at a life cycle. Thanks for the opportunity. Thanks for the challenge of having this conversation because as you said, it's a conversation we didn't really necessarily have any kind of script. It allows us to think differently and I really look forward to more conversations and to collaborating and thanks for the recommendation to engage with people in your network and wish you well in your podcast as well. Thanks for joining us for this part of our journey. We hope this episode added value. For more information on what we do, please visit our website at www.thejourneytoher.co.z.

53:33If you liked what you heard, please join us on a regular basis by subscribing through your favourite podcasting platform. Even better, listen to us on Fountain of M, where you can save us and other content creators, sat in a valuable value exchange. We look forward to having you along for the rest of your journey to here. Wherever you're here might be.