Top tips from Leanne and Graeme Carling.

1. Fail fast.

Well, my number one is faill fast. Fail fast at getting the game as quickly as you can. I started when I was young, I had failures. I should have started well before that. And I should have been bigger deals than what I’ve done. So fail faster and don’t be afraid. You know, the advice normally is take baby steps find your way, you know touchy feely, you know that advice then that’s coming from people that are only able to take baby steps. It’s some point you want to do a bigger step, and a bigger step, my biggest step, but absolutely for me, it’s feel faster.

2. Have a good team and r&g advisors.

Have a good team and r&g advisors, you know, again, are they qualified to advise you? Are they qualified to be in your team? And after? No quick, you know, because we have learned, you know, as Graeme said, we’re loyal to the person but not to the company and that outcome. And so, you know, that’s part of the business partner. And the team around you.

3. Play to win.

You know, we see a lot of people getting to, maybe they have a relative amount of success, small success, all of that came through, then the freeze, and the play not to lose what they’ve got. That’s dangerous. You know, we flee to win. No, X risky, but the rewards of our significant. Remember what started in the first place, you know, why you’re doing what you’re doing. But we’ve just seen it all so many, and the people then they get terrified, the amount of success, they stop playing to win, start playing to protect or secure or not to lose, and lo and behold, the government two or three years, remember, you’re playing to win.

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

business, work, people, noise, graham, arguments, advice, win, dad, money, failures, day, failed, job, real, school, team, property, point, focus

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:00

Good morning and welcome to another episode of Better Business better life.

Leanne Carling  00:12

I’ve always been a buyer when I worked for distribution companies, I was the buyer, so I’m, I love making money when you buy and I believe that you make you make more money when you buy in rather than selling.

Graeme Carling  00:27

You know, we’ve made the mistake. So, you know, recruiting people, or using advisors that were cheap that you were the cheapest cord. And, you know, we shouldn’t find that didn’t work, and all that stuff. So over the years, and where we transact internationally now, I want business, our business advisors and external advisors and our own team has to keep evolving.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  00:59

I am joined today by Graham and Leon Carling who are based over in Dubai. But as you will hear from their accent, so originally not from Dubai, I’ll leave you to guess where they’re from. Now there are a husband and wife couple who have decided that they not only want to be married, but want to be in business together. So today, I’m looking forward to finding out a bit more about how that came to be and how it’s working for them. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Thank you for having absolute pleasure. So you’re not originally from Dubai, that’s pretty obvious from your accent. So why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got to where you are now and what you’re up to?

Graeme Carling  01:34

Yeah, well, you’re right. We’re not originally from Dubai, we’ve been here for three years now. Those are from Scotland in the UK. And I might say from the east coast of Scotland in a city called Dundee and Leon is from the big smoke if you lived in Scotland.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  01:55

in Glasgow, lovely. Yep. And you started off in business by just having one property. And you’ve now grown it to a local property at that. And now you’ve grown it to be a sort of a global organization. I was living within Dubai with a family as well. But what is your background? How did you even get into business and why business together?

Graeme Carling  02:17

I think if we take this back, if I go right back, you know, when I when I was at school, I didn’t really know I wasn’t very academic, I was particularly clever. I really then from when I came from a working class, you know you can do, there was just a path that you followed, which was you went to school, and then you went and got a tree, you know, and when I walked in the building industry, and the construction industry, there was no real rhyme nor reason about it. It was just kind of what you’ve done. So when I was younger, I had no idea when I was leaving school what I want it to be all my friends were leaving and to become a joiner or directly or a plumber or an electrician. And I just blindly went with a went along with that, you know, so I, you know, again, I just sort of followed the masses, my family and friends. That was the path that they took. It wasn’t like we you know, we didn’t have any money. There wasn’t a route into I suppose, university education or anything, you just left school. And you went and got three. So I went and became an apprentice join our there was a scheme at the time. Back in 1990, which was given at UK a youth training scheme. So you’re on your left school, you were on this before you became an apprentice, and you’re on the ground some of 2019 50 per week that the government before so. So anyway, that was keen. Yeah, I was. I didn’t know what I wanted to do when I left school. And I must admit, you know, I chose the wrong thing because I was hopeless at joining you when I was born, I’m still as DAB still can’t do anything, you know, like that. But when I went to school, got that job. It was one of the largest companies in my city. And it was quite fortunate to get the job I managed to scrape by in parts the dance, but really from day one, hated it. You know, I just I just hated it. And I think for me, I’ve always had this itching within me that I wanted to own my own businesses and mind my own business. I seen the struggles of my parents financially. And my dad done particularly well given where he came from the housing scheme rough area, you know A lot of deprivation, a large family had no money. And he came there done well for himself in the corporate world. But still, we never had any money. You know, I didn’t wasn’t that we were unhappy, but we had no money. And any sort of arguments or disagreements in my family was generally our own money. So no matter how well my dad done in the corporate world, or how much money he made, or, you know, a wage increase, or bonus, he still never had any money, you will want every Christmas was a problem, he never had any money to it would be a fight between my mom and dad, we didn’t have enough money for Christmas, my dad would be chasing his Christmas bonus. And all of this, so So can get a corporate world didn’t make any sense to me. Because even if you were successful at that, and as he got older, he was under more and more pressure to keep the job. So from a position of being, I suppose the young whippersnapper coming through, at some point, you become the old guy. And, and then you’re, and I’d seen it with other members of my family, and people that I just knew, we were then clinging on, you know, to retirement, to try and make it, they tend to just survive to them. So it never really made any sense to me. So I just always had this within me that I didn’t want to be the same as my dad, I want it to be if I was gonna, you know, not have that stressful way for money. And yet I really needed to mind my own business. So that’s the long story there. But you know, it’s gives you the context. And

Debra Chantry-Taylor  06:45

it’s a good it’s a good motivator, isn’t it? It’s a good motivator when you want to do better than what your family has done. So you got into business. And of course, it was an overnight success. And everything was fabulous, right?

Graeme Carling  07:00

Yeah, well, it was nice start my first business. And I think it was a roundabout 1999. And by the time I have 2002, I had three field businesses. So there were small businesses, I started them myself, I really didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I had no real mentor, Morial guidance, my dad was the percentage, that should be ambition. But he didn’t have the experience or the knowledge, or the x, or the wherewithal of running his own business, he was always good in a corporate environment. So you know, I event jumped on to that path myself, and really didn’t have a clue but money deck and finance and tax and leveraging and all that stuff. And so, you know, by the thing to those who came out of the field business, small businesses, new startups that I’d done myself when my brother won, and various things in them, for one reason or another that didn’t work out and come to those into I was, I was skinny, I had no money. Ego dented, like in my wins, really under had to go back on fortunately to mainstream employment, you don’t have to go and get a job or just over broke again. And it took me a few years to recover from that after shake.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  08:28

Okay, but as you expected, but I think sometimes there are lessons that we learn from those disasters that I’d say the best way to learn them. You don’t forget those lessons easily do. Yeah, I’ve had I’ve had a couple of failed businesses myself, so I know exactly what it feels like.

Graeme Carling  08:44

Yeah, yeah, you don’t and the bass lessons. On one of the changes. The changing point for me was I just started back working again, you know, in mainstream. And I caught the tail end of an Oprah Winfrey Show. And it was a guy called Robert Kiyosaki, who was discussing his book, Rich Dad. So I bought the book. It was like a lightbulb moment for me, as simple as that book is, and it’s a timeless, timeless book. And it just, it just the it was like a light switch going on. Well, I had no clue. I had never been in any environment, about you know, the money and how to manage money in debt and leverage and what the rich do compare it with a burr. I’d always been taking the pool to business advice. And I needed to make sure that I took the rich $1,000 Rich Dad’s the rich dad’s advice so I just it was a real wake up call for me that I genuinely had no idea. It was not something I came across to my schooling, and my family or anything. I had to go eat educate and, and become financial educated. And between to those who didn’t do do those in seven, and we will tell you we met during that period working for this mainstream employer. So you know, that was that was a plus point of or goodbye to working again. And so you know between then we I just educated myself as much as I could to be in a position that when the time was right, my confidence was right and recovered financially, I would go back again and go back and give it another shot, what you’re working for myself here,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  10:40

We have a similar story. I mean, I also had to go back into corporate world to lick my wounds after losing quite a bit of money in my first failed business. And I stuck it for three and a half years. And I use that time to educate myself get myself back in a position and as you said, rebuild your confidence. Because even though you know that it’s not necessarily your fault that this happened. There’s still an element of well, you know, I should have known better I could have done better, etc. So you beat yourself up, don’t you? So Leanne, I’m really keen to hear your side of the story. So you met whilst you are back in this this corporate job together? What’s your background?

Leanne Carling  11:19

Yeah, Jim and I both pretty similar backgrounds from obviously used to read schools of Scotland. I also left school with no higher education and not knowing what I wanted to do. I fancied the fire brigades, but went to an open day and put off in told to go and get some life skills before to consider joining. And my mother and father were somewhat grim, both worked in jobs for 27 years, 30 years with the wine company, a job for life. And I fall in my father’s footsteps into the corporate world of distribution, and actually loved it a really, really love that enjoy that enjoy the hustle and bustle, solving problems. I really enjoyed it. But there was something missing. And I was forever seeking new employment, getting a promotion within different companies. And I can remember my dad saying, we are not going to be unemployable. Certainly, no, no, you keep moving jobs. What’s wrong, I didn’t know what it was. And I was looking for something else. And then as the name says, We made in 2005 2014, and five, through employment. And we started dating and the first guest that getting bought me was rich woman by Kim Kiyosaki. And then I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad. So we then started on Germany, because I was like her, this is illegal. This is what I’ve been looking for. And that’s where Germany started working together.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  12:57

Okay, cool. And so how did you decide what that business was going to be and what you wanted to do?

Leanne Carling  13:05

Graham had been studying the property market for a couple of years before we met, and he had really educated yourself on the sector, and then we started learning together. And but as Graham says, it was about two or three years before we bought our first property after meeting, you know, and educating yourself and studying the market and taking the leap.

Graeme Carling  13:30

If you if you I mean, if you’ve read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, you know, you’re more it’s very sort of real estate focused. So it kind of took you down that that angle. But really, I saw that, you know, that was an industry that I was really interested in having read that book. But during that period between those two, three, to do those in seven, the numbers didn’t make any sense. If I was following the principles of, you know, cash flow, financial freedom, and all that stuff. The numbers didn’t make any sense. But we will sit in the wings waiting on the right opportunity, on the right moment, the right time, and the financial crash of 2007 and eight, when everybody was getting out of the property business. We were getting in because for the first time, and you know, and a number of years, certainly since I’d become interested, the numbers started to make sense. You could buy a lot of these at a discount, you’re able to generate monthly cash flow and pick up pick up some real bargains in the market. So that’s that’s really how we quit our jobs in the same day, October then Tober 2007. But we’ve been sitting waiting in the wings for the timing in the market to be right to get into that sector.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  14:54

Okay. And so that was the first property and obviously from then you followed the principles of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, but in terms have actually because it’s still a business, right? You still actually have to run a business that manage purchases manages all these properties. How did you decide who was going to do what in the business

Leanne Carling  15:13

because I think we’re just gonna feel into the roles with Graham does, you know, he’s right financial can illegal mindset, you know, and chase them all the different products on the market cetera I love the I’ve always been a buyer when I worked for distribution companies I was the buyer so I, I love making money when you buy and I believe that you make you make more money when you buy rather than selling so so that was my background, the main main set. So I love and analyze and use, you know, trying to negotiate and then being was when gets the finance Lagos or you know, however everybody fund and then the legal side of it. And then it just naturally came back to me for the property management side of things. And I think that was one of the the, we were like, oh, you know, you’re buying all these properties you forget, you’ve got to manage them at the other side, you know, and then until you get to a certain level and can handle them across the company or, you know, you’re not doing them yourself. It’s such a tough game. Sure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  16:20

And so do you have a team that helps he was one of this stuff now?

Leanne Carling  16:24

Yes, no, yeah. When

Graeme Carling  16:26

We start, you know, we want everything we want, we want everything in terms of the marketing, Leon would be walking around the streets, putting leaflets through people’s door without being sung. And all that, then come home, not all of that. So you’re more yourself and your businesses, your everything. And, you know, and you have to do everything, and it’s, you know, it’s a, it’s, it’s hard work. And it’s still hard work. But I think for us know, our team continues to evolve as we grow. You know, we’ve made the mistakes of, you know, recruiting people, or using advisors that will cheat that you were the cheapest quote, and, you know, we shouldn’t found that didn’t work, and all that stuff. So over the years, and where we transact internationally, now, our business and our business advisors, and external advisors, and our own team has to keep evolving, because as we evolve, is, you can have really important members of your team, that are part of your journey at that point. But the can’t go any farther, you know, they’re limited. And you’ve got to deal with that. Because, you know, you can be loyal to the parents. And then likewise, that’s tricky, especially if you like them and be loyal to you. But if they’re limited, it restricts it for their, for the company and for the business for the wall. And those decisions are tough. But the one thing we’ve learned over the years is you just keep evolving. And you have to keep on growing and growing your team. And, and

Debra Chantry-Taylor  18:09

And I think it’s been proven through books that scaling up and EOS as you know, as the team that gets to 1 million won’t get you to 10 million that indicates your 10 million to 100 million or 50 million. So you’ve got to actually look at, you know, what does the business need now for the next 12 months? And how do we define what that business needs for the next 12 months? And then do the people we have now do they actually we say GW see what they actually did they get it, they want it, they have capacity to do it. And as the business grows, sometimes they don’t have the capacity. And it’s not that they’re not good people. It’s not that they don’t share your core values, but they’re just not. They don’t have the experience, the technical knowledge, expertise, whatever it is to get you to the next level. Hopefully, you can find them another role, but not always.

Graeme Carling  18:49

No, and I think one of the one of the things we’ve learned is, we have tried to get again, through experience, we’ve tried to fit square peg round hole doesn’t work, you know, so quick deal with it quickly. Because a small problem lab faced us just becomes a big problem. And I say problem. I don’t mean it in the in the sense that the people or the problems is just as skilled yet, particularly if you’re growing very fast. You need people that can be on that same journey with you that understand that are capable of operating at the speed that you’re opening. The business is growing up.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  19:33

Yeah. And I think it’s unfair on both sides too. Right? If you’ve got somebody who’s not actually capable of doing that, then they’re also they were pretty miserable anyway, so you’re better off to actually let them go and keep them there and not ever suddenly be suddenly and you’re gonna say

Leanne Carling  19:47

Who you want your business to be feared. If they’re not at that level, the holding your business back, you know, so you do need to pick up quick and move on. Yeah,

Graeme Carling  19:57

I think we over the years Some of the things you have been able to downside for us that we’ve learned is we are very loyal people. But we’ve been loyal to the, to the person as opposed to the outcome, or as opposed to their way of delivering. And we’ve changed that over the last sort of couple of yours, you know, we very much need, we need to be results driven, and make sure that we continue, that people can and we continue to deliver, it’s our responsibility to look after the whole, you know, at all times. And that’s difficult for others to see at times, because they only see their, their piece of it when our views is, you know, global, we’ve got to have a look. And make sure that we protect every part of our businesses at all times. And we have right people in the right places that can deliver it. And like you said, you know, can deliver it not last year, but next year in the following.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  20:56

Yeah. So tell me, I mean, how do you go about picking staff? Like, how do you decide who’s the right fit for the organization? Or consultants for that matter, or anybody you work with?

Graeme Carling  21:10

Well, I mean, it’s, I mean, you’re dealing with people we look for we look for experience, I think of when I was, when we started with nothing happier, than we have a lot of our team that have been with us from the start. And they’ve been on the same journey that’s so fulfilling, but there’s been a lot of people dropped off. Also, you know, we want people to be on this journey. That’s the show.

Leanne Carling  21:38

To join with us to grow and prosper is not just eyes in the air, we want our people to be with us. But

Graeme Carling  21:46

if we are doing the best by them, and by everybody, we look to people that have walked the walk previously. Does that give us we are you asked earlier on Deborah, but you know, how we found ourselves in the roles that we currently do. We have completely different skill sets natural skill set to it’s having the right club for the right shot, you know, the right person in the right department, that we understand their strengths and weaknesses. And we use those strengths. And it’s What can get us there. We don’t worry so much about the weaknesses provided or can Wellman are able to give it a go, watch the slot strains can the evidence that they bring to us and we like it that people have made mistakes, or what have you have thrown at you don’t when they come they want it normally document our successes, we document our failures, because that’s where the lessons are, if someone hasn’t failed, well, as you can see them to us, that’s a red flag, possibly, because they’re gonna fail at some point. So that means that we’ll have a good chance you’re gonna feel on our watch. So we prepare them to have failures and lessons and, and whelming. And

Debra Chantry-Taylor  22:59

I think I think failures that are they give us tenacity, they give us the ability to actually kind of pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off and get on with it. I think you’ve never failed. I can’t imagine what it be like to go because I can’t I’ve never been there. But if you’ve never failed, how will you deal with that first failure? Imagine being in your 50s and never having failed at anything the first time you fail? could be it could be the end of you.

Leanne Carling  23:20

Yeah, obviously, if you don’t feel you can evolve. Yeah, yeah, I completely agree.

Graeme Carling  23:28

I think on the field, it’s so important that because it built, you can’t second guess yourself, you know, and that’s dangerous. Because you do not know how you’re going to react, or be or cope. When you in that moment in that position. When you know, everything’s going against you. And you don’t know how to build character and resilience. And that can’t be taught in a book or a seminar, you have to experience the role that physiological there are on all

Leanne Carling  24:03

Decisions of you know, you’re, you’re in the heat of the moment, the pressures on how are your team acting at that point? How are you? You know, when you make decisions, do they do they continue in the journey with you? Or do you? You know, how did that happen? The real pleasure.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  24:22

So tell me a little bit about working together as husband and wife because, you know, I work with a lot of family businesses, they’re often husbands and wives, brothers sisters are working. And of course, you’ve got your you’ve got your family life and then you’ve got your business life. How do you keep that working? And what are the biggest challenges you face?

Leanne Carling  24:42

Okay, well, I always say we never go to bed in an argument. Nice. So we’re usually up for three days four days. As Graham says, we’ve got our own strengths and weaknesses and our own are all on those, and I always say to him, you know, stay in your lane. And he’ll say, you know, get out my lane. So we know what we’re good at. We’re very good, supporting each other, you know, so I’m not nagging at him why you’re the food miles, you know, always in your computer, you know, he’s got some to do our make sure the kids are okay. And he does what he has to do. And basically, if so, you know, so that is something that’s really important. And at one thing, grim picks up, so we pick up the slack for each other. So it works. We hold each other accountable, you know, so of getting if we set goals, and we’re not doing them, we kick each other’s bums. And also, we have ones with we support each other and we celebrate, so it works really well. Yeah,

Graeme Carling  25:49

I think you’ve also I think, we, when we met, we were working together. Sure. So we’ve only ever known. Working together, we’ve never known anything else. So not my friends not know that they can never work with our spouse or their partner or, or anything that completely different. You know, mentally, they’re in different places. We’ve only ever known working together. And we consciously do. The decision that when we embark on our financial education journey, that we’ve done it together. Now, it may that may or may not slow us down, they might we might have been quickly one of us going off and doing it. But you know, we only have one life. You know, we don’t have this family, private life and business. Like we have our length, which incorporates our kids, our family, and our business. And we just, we don’t know anything else, to be honest.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  26:49

But it sounds like you have got some quite clearly defined roles. And you’re really clear about the accountabilities and holding each other accountable, which I think is really key to keeping these things. Yeah, some boundaries where you go, this is actually what we’re going to work within. And I love the idea of not going to bed, you know, without sorting things out, even if it does take an hour a day. So what’s been the biggest challenge? Do you think in the business because obviously, you’ve taken it so from one property to now being a global organization, employing lots of people, very profitable. What’s been the biggest challenge on that journey, we’ve talked about letting people go, sometimes what else has happened?

Leanne Carling  27:24

is blocking out the noise and advice from people that aren’t qualified to give you that base. You know, that’s for anyone starting out in business, it’s quite hard to be careful who you’re taking your advice from, you know, as Kim says, We love our families and our dads were babies. My parents were very successful in their own right. But they didn’t run their own business. So the when qualified to give us advice and running our own business. And even, you know, our friends, you know, different callings, you know, so I think one part of that of advice I would say is, you know, be careful who you take advice from? Yeah. Are they qualified? To give you that advice?

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:05

Yeah, I think it’s a very, very, very good point. A lot of people, you know, will tell you what, you should do what you ought to do. But unless they’ve actually been there walked in those shoes. Yeah. Can they actually give you that advice? If they’ve got that experience?

Leanne Carling  28:19

A lot of them are doing it, you know, because they look after you. They want to protect you, but they’re not doing it in a malicious way.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  28:27

Fair enough. Graham, what do you think? Yeah,

Graeme Carling  28:31

Well, like I mean, Neil, man, yeah, there isn’t one. We’ve had many challenges and obstacles to overcome over the years, but the constant challenge with the ads been there from the beginning, and will always be there, as Lance is blocking out the noise, weather. And that’s not just from family, friends, ask the media, social media, all this stuff, when everybody’s trying to get you on each side, they want to get you on the other side. So you’re going you know, that say, you’ve got to be on that side, or you’ve got to be on that side, that I’ll just share some things that just are and if you can block out the noise, things just ah, you know, I’m trying to spreadsheet or work it out when he yields to time. The same for a lot of people want to win the argument. But don’t but don’t want to win. So if you can block out the noise on on winning arguments. That’s a distraction. It’s keeping this noise and distraction away and keeping your eye on the prize and always have the focus on what it is that you’re looking to achieve. And every day is a constant battle and challenge because we are surrounded by it. on somebody’s advice or opinion, or on facts, as they want to call it, you know, and that’s, that is the that, for me is the constant daily battle. When you’re running and you’re, you’re trying to steer your ship is trying to work out who’s just because most a lot of people know my, my family. And I talked about my dad, my dad intellectually, for example, he could win any argument intellectually, but you didn’t win really win in life because he was so and I just see so many people like that. So I’m not sure they’ll just, you know when it just is like get get, you know, take action, you don’t block out this noise, this noise and distraction that I’ve put in front of us every day. And I think it’s by design, by the way, but the good people, you know, I’m 58 and this month, and about, you know, crazy, we’ve wasted so much time on rubbish arguments when we could have done so much more in taking action. And I just wish I want more people with when rather than just to win arguments.

Leanne Carling  31:18

I think I can like I said the other day we we’ve had some fantastic highs and some fantastic laws. And I think what Williams said never me get involved in noise and arguments and fate and back. It causes more time. A time when we should have been focused and doing something better. Yeah. So it’s just it’s just been able to, you know, been another bit of advice. We always say Don’t misquote. You know, if someone’s really annoyed you like an email and a phone call, don’t respond right away when you sleep, sleep on it and then respond. Or if you

Debra Chantry-Taylor  31:54

Or if you really must, I sometimes say just type out whatever you want to say, but leave it there, and then review it in the morning because you read it in the morning. It’s like, Oh, my goodness, did I really write that? Okay, so please, I didn’t hit send. Yeah. And so I’m really keen to understand because a lot of the work that I do with companies arise is around making sure they do have that kind of laser sharp focus, don’t get distracted by other things. And, you know, working on a 90 day sprints to make sure you’ve got that that real clarity of what you’re doing. You do have to ignore the noise, I think you also sometimes have to go that 80% is good enough. And we can just as long as we’re consistently moving forward, then we’re actually heading in the right direction. How do you keep yourself that focus? What are you doing the business to keep that focus?

Graeme Carling  32:34

Well, I’ve been it’s your daily challenge. It’s not your MO, we do it, you know, we’ve got a family, friends, people, you know, everybody’s, I think over the years, we just, again, through experience, we’ve become, we become better, we get better. Every year it goes by more resistant to the noise. We haven’t, we haven’t accomplished it, because it’s still there. And we’ll we’ll you know, we self sabotage and well, you know, we create our own issues by, you know, reacting to something that we shouldn’t or, or how you’re being asked a question or an opinion. And so it’s just, it’s stealing your time, it’s stealing your focus and your energy away from what you’re, you know, what the what the goal and objective really is. And I think, you know, again, choosing your team wisely, your advisors wisely also. So it’s been a it’s a buildup of resistance, that will always be there. But I think the challenge is also going to always be there. I don’t know when we, you can eradicate that really, you know, but we’ve just become better over the years and I’m agile flat. I think it gives him a real advantage. You know, not wanting to get dragged into, you know, arguments that don’t get you anywhere. You know, they’re not, you know, inductive,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  34:07

Where?

Graeme Carling  34:07

it’s not, yeah, where’s that going? Well, how long does that take me closer to my goal? I might be right. And I probably am. But I’m not going to spend a year of my life arguing with someone or people to be right. I’ve just told you to my pain. I have what responsibility to my business, our staff, our customers, that we’re going to keep our shareholders or stakeholders to keep going so I you know, you’ve just got to some of you practice.

Leanne Carling  34:38

I don’t I mean, we’ve we’ve get much better at it, you know, like ignoring the noise, etc. But of course friends and family that are alone, there’s quite a lot. I think they’ve actually get better that you would go on holiday and get him and I would work from the morning till lunchtime and you’d have people who might not come to the pool later come to the beach and you said well, we’re busy with things or maybe it calls No, they don’t ask, they just let us do our own thing, you know? So but at the start, it was really hard all my Why are you not? Why are you not come out for a meal tonight? Or why? You know, because we’re busy, we will focus with the things we want to do. So now they’re just the levers to your turn own devices. And when we want to attend the beach and Muse and things we have to in the pressures less from which I agree.

Graeme Carling  35:29

Yeah, I mean, that’s a close, close, close people, but the noise is coming in from everywhere.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  35:36

I stopped watching the news, gosh, it must be 1015 years ago now, because I just realized that I can’t affect it, I can’t do anything about it. And most of it’s not particularly positive. Let’s face it. So what is the point of subjecting yourself to that, and, and I’ve seen people, I think I’ve seen it with legal stuff, where they’ve literally, you know, fought against divorce as against being right in a particular situation for such a long time you kind of go, if you hadn’t taken that 18 months of legal action and all that brain space and all that negativity, what could you have created on the positive side, rather than fighting for the loss, let it go, pay that person, whatever they want, just to get them out of your life, that you can actually move on and focus on the things that will add value rather than take away?

Graeme Carling  36:19

You know, we’ve done that, and I think we’ve learned a lot again over the years, you know, we are, we we are we stand up for ourselves, we stand up for our businesses, we protect them, if we you know, if people bought, we are also looking at it commercially, as well now and make sure that, look, we pick our battles as well,

Leanne Carling  36:42

You know, that comes from experience,

Debra Chantry-Taylor  36:46

there’s an opportunity cost, it’s an opportunity cost of wasting that time, that energy that you could be focusing on nothing is the same as, um, it’s a little bit different in property, potentially. But I mean, I know when you’re working with clients in the b2b space, you know, there are some clients, so you just know, they’re not your perfect client, they’re not the person you really want to work with. But you kind of go, oh, well, they’re paying me but then you sort of think, well, if they’re taking up that amount of space, I don’t have any space for somebody else to come in and take it. So you have to let go and say no, is that you can open up to bigger, better opportunities.

Graeme Carling  37:21

You’re spot on now, by the way, I mean, every time you need to leave the space open. And something will always come in this space. You just got to build in that. It just does. You know, you spreadsheet that you’ll say where’s the next client coming from? Where’s the next deal coming from? Where’s next opportunity? You know, you’re you can spreadsheet that to death. But sorry, I just want to go back to your point on 80%. Absolutely can’t, the traffic links, not all are not always going to be green? When you leave your house to go on your journey? That is never the perfect moment. For those that you know, we don’t spreadsheet today. 80 90% is good enough that we’ll take that move on. And we’d rather get 90% done than wait 10 years for it to be 100% Good because we’ve evolved and again, that’s your paraphrase. We don’t get hung up on we’ve misspelled an email, we’ve got a mistake on our website are so many come on, come on. Come on. But but some people really make it that you know, they get so obsessed by the benefit. We don’t we don’t wait on that. We get you know, we want it to be as good as we can. But there’s a cost to perfection time cause financial goals. We just we don’t we are we are contained with very good, not perfect. We are condemned to continue to move on at base.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  38:52

And I think you’re absolutely right. I mean, sometimes we don’t know the how or what is going to happen. But it just does and it but it can’t happen if you don’t have the space. So if you haven’t got the space to allow things in then it actually just physically can’t happen. So just sometimes let go trust if you’re doing the right things, you know, you’re putting one foot in front of the other it will come as its intended. Yeah. Well, there’s been a lot of learnings in there some in some things around you know, obviously letting people go they’re not the right people there is you know, not not wanting to be perfect shutting out the noise. If you had to give kind of three top tips or tools based on your experiences to date, what would they be, do you think?

Graeme Carling  39:28

Well, my number one is feel fast. Fail fast at getting the game as quickly as you can. I started when I was young, I had failures. I should have started well before that. And I should have been bigger deals than what I’ve done. So fail faster and don’t be afraid. You know, the advice normally is take baby steps find your way, you know touchy feely, you know that advice then that’s coming from people that are only able to take baby steps. It’s some point you want to do a bigger step, and a bigger step, my biggest step, but absolutely for me, it’s feel faster.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:06

Yeah. And I think you’re right. I mean, you look at some my, my my heroes, for example, they took massive steps and they had some massive failures as well. But they picked themselves up, they learn from it, they move forward, they got better and better and better. And I think, you know, most millionaires, billionaires, probably whatever you need to be these days have had at least two or three failures before they really nailed it, which I think is important. Okay, so fail faster, take bigger steps, what else

Leanne Carling  40:32

Have a good team and r&g advisors, you know, again, are they qualified to advise you? Are they qualified to be in your team? And after? No quick, you know, because we have learned, you know, as Graham said, we’re loyal to the person but not to the company and that outcome. And so, you know, that’s part of the business partner. And the team around you.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  40:58

Yeah, and it is a team. So you know, that one person, you might be trying to look out for that one person, but you probably got 99 other people who are really upset by the fact that you’ve kept that incompetent, whatever it might be person on board. So what’s the better outcome? Yeah. third, and final thing?

Graeme Carling  41:16

Well, for me is pleased to win. You know, we see a lot of people getting to, maybe they have a relative amount of success, small success, all of that came through, then the freeze, and the play not to lose what they’ve got. That’s dangerous. You know, we flee to win. No, X risky, but the rewards of our significant. Remember what started in the first place, you know, why you’re doing what you’re doing. But we’ve just seen it all so many, and the people then they get terrified, the amount of success, they stop playing to win, start playing to protect or secure or not to lose, and lo and behold, the government two or three years, remember, you’re playing to win.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:07

Love it. Great. Hey, so if somebody wants to get in contact with you wants to do business with you? How would they do that?

Graeme Carling  42:16

Well, our website address the counseling group.co.uk Or on LinkedIn green.com laying and paddling on LinkedIn heretofore.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:29

And what kind of people do you like to work with?

Graeme Carling  42:34

I’m ambitious.

Leanne Carling  42:41

And passionate somebody that’s gonna drive hungry. Yeah, yeah.

Debra Chantry-Taylor  42:48

Excellent. Hey, look, it’s been a real pleasure talking to you. I almost understood every word too, which is always great when you’re speaking with Scottish people. But no, seriously, it has. It’s been a lot of fun. I really enjoyed it. Some really, really good tips there. Don’t forget to Carlin group.co.uk, Leanne and Graham Carling, both on LinkedIn. Thank you. I mean, I can see that you make a wonderful partnership, both in business and in life. So well done on all that you’ve done, and I look forward to seeing you go even higher and winning even more. Thank you very much. Absolute pleasure. Thank you.

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Debra Chantry-Taylor 

Certified EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner

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