Ep383: Gordon Jenkins – You Have the Power to Shape the Life You Want

Andrew Stotz 00:03
Hello fellow risk takers and welcome to my worst investment ever stories of loss to keep you winning. In our community we know that the win in investing you must take risk but to win big, you've got to reduce it. If you are not already a member, please go to my worst investment ever.com right now and join and receive the following five free benefits, the risk reduction checklists, my weekly investment research email to help you increase return a 25% discount on all a starts Academy courses, instant access to our Facebook community to get to know guests and fellow listeners. And finally, my curated list of the Top 10 episodes. Fellow risk takers This is your worst podcast host Andrew Stotz from a Stotz Academy, and I'm here with featured guests, Gordon Jenkins. Gordon, are you ready to rock?

Gordon Jenkins 01:00
Absolutely. Let's go for this.

Andrew Stotz 01:03
You're not ducking out of this.

01:04
I'm not ducking out of this not ducking out. So

Andrew Stotz 01:09
you the audience will learn more about why I use that word. Yes. So let me introduce you to the audience here. Hold on one second. Ladies and gentlemen. As an executive coach, speaker and international author, Gordon Jenkins, helps people make a real impact and difference both in their personal, professional and personal journey. With his trusty sidekick Banfi, the doc Gordon has an innate knack for recognizing and celebrating people's individuality. There is a common connection between Gordon and his clients. Success stems from the strong belief that it's okay not to conform to society's pressures. It's refreshing to be different. And that celebrating what sets you apart is the key to a rich and fulfilling life. Gordon's clients include industry leaders, who are regularly recognized by their peers, as well as those quite happy to grow away from the glare of the media. Gordon, take a minute and fill in further tidbits about your life.

Gordon Jenkins 02:18
Thank you, Andrew. So one thing about being a network and executive coaches, there's everything about me is on Google look good. Google's my sidekick, I suppose Banfi. So search mess, I want to tell you, I want to put in a slightly different framework. And I want to frame it like this, that we, we live in a very crowded marketplace. And in order to stand out, we've got to be very compelling. And we've got to be very captivating stand out. And to me, that means we've got to be slightly unconventional, to cut through all this noise that we live in today. And I'm coming up to 51 years old, and the noise was there when I was 16. But it's a slightly different noise to the noise experience now. And my problem, if you can call it a problem is I've never been the greatest. I'm good. I'm very good. And some would say I'm absolutely bloody awesome. But I've never ever married her. But I've never been crowd crowned the greatest in the world. And I've never been the greatest academically. But I have always done my best. And that's really important. Okay, so I've never been the number one salesperson. But I've always known how to motivate and get the best out of people. So this means that in my life, as I've gone through life, I've always had to be creative, innovative, and imaginative about how I position myself, I can position myself purely my academic skills because I'm not going to win. I'm never ever going to win. I remember when I left school, and I went for a graduate job there was 16,000 students going for one Graduate Job, I was never going to get that job. So I walked away from it. Some call me a square peg in a round hole. Don't think of a square peg in a round hole. Some call me I'm unconventional. unconventional because I think people are very traditional. Am I different? Yes, I'm absolutely refreshingly different and refreshingly different in terms of, well, one I carry yellow rubber document pocket. So that's a little bit different, because not many people do that. I don't give out pens, I get about yellow rubber ducks. I wear or choose. But I get noticed. So while some being different, I would say that right now. At the age of 51. This is my time, this is the greatest time in my life. This is the greatest opportunity of my life. And the thing that's really different about this and we'll cover on this is I love COVID and probably one of the few people in the world that actually says I love COVID and I'll tell you why I love COVID cuz the last 17 years, I've lived the COVID style world. My life has been built around Living in what you everyone around the world is living in a COVID style world. So this newness that we're all experiencing in business and life is absolutely awesome. Because I've been living this life for 17 years, everyone's been calling me unconventional. But guess what, now very conventional, because you all get it. And this is the best thing. So that's probably not what you're thinking from a tidbit and talking about, I've gone to university and everything else. But I'm happy to go from there.

Andrew Stotz 05:25
It's interesting, because what one of the things that we learn in marketing is what's your USP, your unique selling proposition? And so many times between myself and my own business, as well as talking to others, people come up with their USP is we do this, we do that we did this, we do that. And then I tell them go to the dictionary and look up unique. And it means something that only you do, right? And that's very hard that all of a sudden changes the dynamic. And as you said, Look, the majority of us are not going to be number one. And so the question is, what is it that you can do, and that's where you have to craft. So a good example is, in my online courses, particularly, let's say one of them, called finance made ridiculously simple. That course, basically, I teach how to read financial statements. And how do I do it? As a former financial analyst, who owns the coffee factory, and I take pictures of my coffee factory, and I show, here's the Green Coffee coming into the factory, that's raw material inventory. Here's our production process. That's a fixed asset. And what the students say when they come out is I just love the way you, you know, you talked about your own business and put it into terms I can understand. So when you think about it, for the audience out there, when you're thinking about what is my USP? It doesn't have to be number one. I mean, yeah, that, you know, if you're lucky, that's it. But for everybody else, it's about shaping a narrative around whatever it is that you do. And so you shaped a narrative around yourself, the rubber duck is an is part of that narrative. For me. What I learned is, I was never ever going to be the best podcast host. So I decided to become the worst podcast hosts of my worst investment ever. And, you know, it's remarkable Gordon, when I started calling myself that I started getting messages and emails. And they said, Why do you call yourself the worst? Or I'm intrigued? Why do you call yourself the worst? And I said, I always reply the same, because you messaged me.

Gordon Jenkins 07:48
Exactly to you, you had a really interesting thing about intrigue. So about this USP. So people say to me, I hate going to events, I hate going to events, full stop, which is really weird, considering I'm a network expert, but we'll talk about that. And people say what you do, I'm going oh, my God, Is that the best you could come with? And I know, they want me to ask them what they do, because they've got their elevator pitch sorted out, and I go, Well, I can tell you about me being an executive coach. Or I can tell you, why carry yellow rubber document pocket? Or I can tell you why. Why choose, right. But either way, you're going to get exactly the same interest, you're going to earn either way. You never know no one ever asked me why I'm an executive coach, I asked me about the rubber duck or the shoes. Why? Because you exactly what you said. They're intrigued. And I've made done something that's compelled them to ask, then they say to me, then they expected me to say, Well, what do you do? And I never and never asked anyone what they do. The first thing I asked him is Who made you smile today? And the second question I ask is, and who did you make smile today? Because I want to know what I want to know who they are not what they are. And they define what they do. And then I can work out where they want to stand up another drink or walk away from that.

Andrew Stotz 09:04
And so just to wrap this up with little bow, if we talk about the services that you perform for your clients, and I think about the listeners out there, that are interested in that, could you just describe to the listener, like what it is that you do? So they could say, Hmm, that might be interesting. I'll go to the show notes, click and learn more.

Gordon Jenkins 09:24
So don't do go to the show notes to learn more. So let me be very clear that I'm the type of person that's very big on accountability. Okay, and I don't have any fluff in my life. And I live by what I teach. If I'm going to teach someone and I'm going to share something with someone else and I do it myself, I have to look at myself. So I developed very clear strategies for growth both professionally and personally. We work on business skills or soft skills. I hate the word soft skills but business skills because I don't believe that having a certificate on the wall is the way to go. forward in longer, and it's not going to get you anywhere. We I help people transform the way they network. And what I mean by that is we build an ecosystem and the bill, I use the coffee shop, I use an airport, because people can relate to Australia, we build the planes. But the other thing I do is I don't build it, I haven't done a business plan for 20 years, haven't done a business. Now some of my clients are getting ROI is around about 40 times of what the of what I teach him and what I share with them. So it's about culture, motivation, is client focus, it is about networking, it's about growth through networking. And, you know, I follow the same process for the last 20 odd years, I used to have 18,000 connections on LinkedIn, then it went down to 500, a build about 212 and 12,000, it's gone down to 500. It's beyond about why. Because while lives evolve, right. And as we evolve, our eco systems evolve as well. So I teach people about growth. I teach them about unconventional with a simple thing that in order to move forward, you've got to stop doing what you've always done. But my unconventional approach, my biggest thing, and the thing that really differentiates me, because I don't do business plans, is we work out where you want to be in seven years, and or who you are in seven years. And we start living that life now. Because if you think about it, if your goal is to be a financial advisor on accounting, your clients want to be CEOs, right, and you're leading your way up to partnership, those CEOs aren't evolved to have an evolved yet. But you've got to network, and you've got to get to know those people now. Because in seven years, they'll all of you already want to be fixing their network system. And so what I do I transform people in the way that people think. Now, some people call it reverse mindset is quite comprehensive, because people realize that they don't necessarily have the people in their echo system that they thought they have. That they're going home and talking to their partner with several different hats on and the partners, they're going oh my god, what's just happened here? Well, what it is, is ordinary people. They're out to achieve a one to achieve extraordinary meaningful outcomes every day. I'm very purpose inveighed purpose driven. I don't use the word purpose. I'm very purpose orientated. I'm not after 5% growth in people. But we make dramatic changes to people's lives. And we do it very quickly. Fantastic.

Andrew Stotz 12:21
Well, ladies and gentlemen, just go to the show notes to learn more about Gordon. And now it's time to share your worst investment ever. And since no one ever goes into their worst investment thinking it will be. Tell us a bit about the circumstances leading up to it then tell us your story.

12:38
So

Gordon Jenkins 12:41
this took a quite a lot of thinking about how I'm going to frame this. So I'm going to tell about stories. I've been there to help tell stories. So I've made one big, bad investment. And I did it every single day for 10 years, from the age of 16 to the age of 26. Because I was told the only way to build a career was to go to school, you go to college, you go to university, then you get a graduate job. And then you sit in that job and sit on that desk and work your way up. And now after you've got it you can be your partner before you're 30 done 30 years in business. And I didn't know any different. But I knew I had an affair and I knew I didn't fit because I wanted to be I wanted to cook at school. But I couldn't because boys had to do woodwork and metalwork. Now these hands are not made for woodwork metalwork, they are made for the kitchen. And without a doubt I said I was never I've never been the greatest if I was allowed to do cooking when I was younger, I will probably be the world's greatest chef right now. That is without a doubt because cooking is my passion is my religion. And I fought convention for a long time. I left university, I actually did French for three years. And when I refused to learn French literally refused to let it because I was told I had to do it. So when I'm told I have to do something I've run away. So when I set my French exam, I actually sat down to the piece of paper and walked out. And something that school or something University was quite strange because I am a math I'm a bit like a goodwill hunting chap. Mathematics is my strength. But I can't read and write I'm I'm highly dyslexic. But I think it's only when I got to university that find out I was dyslexic. So I didn't know what to do. So I ended up working in London. And I woke up one morning London, I used to be a phone exchange trader for a well known Japanese bank. And it was fun. It was extremely highly paid. Yes, it was a very toxic world. A very, very toxic welding. I know Andrew, we've got a similar history in not being in a tug of war, but you understand what I mean from an exchange. Yep. And I woke up one morning and I literally said to myself I don't want to do this anymore. This is not my life. And I will die very quickly if I carry on this life. And I realized that everything I've been told for the last 10 years, and the investment I've made in me, was not, it was never for me. It was always for other people, for other people told me. And so I went to work that morning, I resigned. And one week later, I arrived in Melbourne in Australia. My mom's Australian naturalized Australian. So it's very easy to get on the plane back in 1995, and come here, and arrived in Australia. And I hit a wall maybe 15,000 kilometers away from London. But it's the same traditional way of living and thinking, What school did you go to? What university? Did you go to school? Who do you know? How did you do? You know, who do you know? Yes, we've got to go through graduate program. We've got to do all this. And I said, No, I'm not prepared to accept that I'm not prepared to accept that way living any longer. I wanted to live my life differently. And I realized in order to do that, I needed to move forward. And I had to stop what have always done. So I went downtown into the CBD districts area starts at the top of the hill, what's in it out of every single skyscraper. Now when he said, Hey, I'm Gordon Jenkins, we give me a job. Don't care what I did before, just give me a job, give me a job. And I ended up working for a firm called Merrill Lynch. And I remember sitting in front of them and being interviewed, I was with all these people for high school and everything. And they said, Tell me about your academics. Tell me what you've done. And there's one and one person said to me, tell me something you've done really, really interesting. And I went well, I said, I'd love to tell you something I've done really, really interesting, but I can't tell you what I've done. And he goes, why can't you tell your listeners because I used to do the work it was for British Airways British airspace, and the military division. And that division builds planes and bombs. And the worker did for them, which was your my university, which was part of my thesis is covered under the Official Secrets Act. So I had an absolutely brilliant time, I can tell you, I've flown planes, I can tell you that we were involved in some of the biggest, let's call it defense contracts in the world. But I can't actually tell you what I've done. But if you want to sign a form, we can take it to the bishop and say they'll vet you and if they believe your bet, you can go to camera, which is capital of Australia. And you can have a London This shows how old I am. Some of your viewers may know this book googling something called a microfil. thesis I did. And this person was interviewed me who didn't know then to man, he goes, You know what, we're gonna have that guy because nothing was talked about is about his academic wouldn't. He's just told a story. And he could tell so and I came to and I started working in international equity business. And the way I sought international equities in Australia was not because of the dividends. Because I remember the first international equity assault was Gillette, and they did it. They did just on a deal with Tiger Woods. And no one was asking me, what's the dividend yield? What's the dividend yield, and don't forget the dividend yield. Tiger Woods, this share price is just going to go through the roof, people are gonna buy Gillette shaving foam just because of Tiger Woods. But lo behold, we're here we are in the 2021. And everything Kim Kardashian does, everyone buys it. Right, next iPhone, now everyone's an iPhone. So I went against tradition. So the worst investment I ever made is actually turned out to be the best investment I've ever made. But it took me 10 years to realize that I'm not someone who follows convention, or tradition. And I think from the back of it, the only reason we follow tradition is because we don't allow innovation or creativity in that individual, we're told to do something. And that if you think about it today, in the account, the council will still work the six minute slots. But we're still charged by that. Why? Because that's what tradition has said. There's no reason to do it. And the only reason we don't do it is because we don't want to challenge convention. Yep. But the most innovative and profitable firms in our industry, are the ones who are challenging it. Right. Which goes back to that USP that we talked about the beginning.

19:12
So, tell us

Andrew Stotz 19:15
from this experience, you know, what, what, how would you summarize what you learn?

Gordon Jenkins 19:21
And a couple of things, people don't care who you are. They want to know what you are. So people don't care what you I want to know who you are as a person, they want to know you as an individual first. So I could be the best executive coach in the world. But unless I actually connect with you, Andrew, we're never going to do business together. And I have a very clear strategy on my own personal professional growth, but it's not starting today. And moving forward. It started seven years out, moving backwards. And I don't really care about people's academic transcripts. I want to know about them as a person and That the biggest negative and the biggest detriment to my growth has been toxic people in my life. So I thrive and getting me to toxicity malaba, I have no toxicity in my life today whatsoever. And that means people and that and that. And that does mean, friends, family and business acquaintances. I have absolutely, and my wife care for more for 70 years, we don't have any toxicity in our life whatsoever. But we've also built a fantastic eco system. So I have my own eco system. Think about it. When I talk about my airport, I'm aeroplane ecosystem. My airport ecosystem is me as an airplane. It has to be fit to fly before I can go fly and teach others. So I have to appeal, I have to get rid of my baggage, I have to have the control towel, I need to have the emergency services around me to make sure I can function. So I have my own ecosystem. So I have my own coaches, I've got six of my own coaches that helped me live a full life, then I go and build the ecosystem of where I'm going to grow. And simple I'm a very simple, I don't I don't use it. But these are probably the biggest words I'm ever going to use in my dictionary. clarity, courage, influence and accountability. sums it up. I can speak louder actually speak louder than words. But every single day, I wake up, motivated, and inspired, inspired, inspired to be better than I was yesterday. Yep. And knowing that I'll end the day. further ahead than when I started. I don't know how far ahead. It could be 40. It could be a kilometer, it could be miles million. But I was always going to end up the day. further than when I started. Beautiful.

Andrew Stotz 21:42
Well, let me summarize a few things I take away. The first thing is that as an analyst, I've been in financial analysts all my life. As a financial is a financial analyst, I always tell young people start from this point, believe nothing, believe no one. And the job of a financial analyst is to dig down and try to find the source of information. Which brings me to the next thing, which is a little story. I was in Hong Kong, and I was asked to give a speech about career development. And I had a lot of young people there. And at the end, I went and talked with a lot of people. And there was a young girl said, I'm studying accounting, and I want to switch into finance. But you know, I heard that it's really, you know, different, or it's really hard, or it doesn't really work that well. And I said, By who? Who told you that? They she couldn't tell me who told him that? And then she said, Well, you know, people say Who? What people. So you're telling me you're going to shape your life out of something that people say. So you just reminded me of that story, the idea that, you know, ultimately, the next thing I wrote down was like, you know, we shape our lives. Yeah. And what I like to say is that my job is to protect my brain, because my brain is the source, if I lose my brain capacity, if I if I give up my brain power for today, to just follow along with other people or follow the advertisements that are hitting me or all that stuff, then my life is no longer my life. So my challenge is to shape my life. And then that brings me to the final thing you said no toxicity. And I think, you know, that's, it's amazing the number of people that will live in an environment of toxicity. And it's a little bit like that animal that's been kept in a cage was so long. And then you remove the walls of the cage and they don't walk out. And the fact is, is that you can walk out of any situation. And those are some of the things I took away. And anything you would add to that. And

Gordon Jenkins 23:53
you're summed up really well, I mean, I smile when you say that, because I'm going, you get it, you get it. And I think some listeners are going to go and say that sounds really simple. But how do we do it in life? A lot, a lot of things. The hardest thing is the starting point. Now for me a lot of things is I'm massive accountability. And I hold people I can't find the pain point or people's accountability. Now might be that if you don't, because everything that you say you're going to do, you decide and when you're going to I'm just going to dare to make sure you're doing it accountable. And one thing we found in life that we have these big plans, I move everything to 30 6090 days. So everything we do we do in a really short period. We said we're gonna do in 30 days doesn't mean it's gonna take you 30 days you just committed to do it. And if this is about, it's about moving forward, it's about reporting, you know, and you are safe. I say this to you know, we were fortunate in the world that we grew up in, and I said the world I grew up in because we didn't have definitely social media. So the playing field that we were allowed to play on was longer and bigger. And then when we started walking into the grandstands where we always had people our mentors around was up pushes back on the playing field and I will Allow us to make mistakes. But we know we're never going to do anything illegal, we're never going to kill anyone. Right. And we're never intentionally hurting anyone, when we're doing things really authentically because of that creativity, the world we live in today is a lot faster, the playing field is a lot shorter. And there's a lot fitter, but the playing field is still there. And we've got to say, we got to play, we've got to be creative, we've got to be imaginative. And that to keep on keep on moving forward. And the thing that really resonates me is that as a human, the first thing we say is bottle. No. Okay, when someone says no to me, they're not saying no, to me. What they're saying is, no, I'm not ready for the journey that you're about to go on God and I'm not ready for you know, I'm not ready for the growth. Right? That's okay. When you're ready, let me know. But I'm not stopping because of you. Hmm. So when someone says no to me, they're not saying no, to me. They say no, that they are not ready. And that's perfectly okay. There's a billion people in the world. I know the 4 billion are gonna not like me, that's I'm actually happy with 4 billion people not like the 4 billion that do like me, I only do this for centuries to actually like me. Okay, and if that's both potentials lightning, great. I've got a nice little eco system.

Andrew Stotz 26:13
Nice. Alright, so based upon what you learned from this story, and what you continue to learn what one action would you recommend our listeners take to avoid suffering the same fate?

Gordon Jenkins 26:24
Action speaks louder than words. Often, we want to do something we don't know how to do it. And there's, there's people like me, and there's people like you out there that are willing and there to support people. We're not there. Based on some six week framework. That's just a theory. We're living, where we're supporting people based on tried and tested, techniques, life experiences, no fluff. We all have experiences across multiple industries amongst multiple people. So if people want to do something, action speaks louder than words. And there's nothing wrong to reaching out to people like me, Google Gordon Jenkins, there's only three golden Jenkins on Google. One of them's a composer Frank Sinatra. I'm not that person and he's dead. The other person is an ex Lord, Mayor of New York, who's in prison for money laundry, that's definitely not me. And the other guard in Jenkins is me. Okay. And I'm probably going to be depending on what time you're looking at Google, I'm either going to be number one or number two in Google, but reach out to me and say, Hey, well, I've got a dream. And great because we'll make your dream reality. The people I work with their dreams make reality, and not in seven years to become really quickly, because we do it really quick. We do it quickly.

Andrew Stotz 27:40
And actions speak louder than words ladies and gentlemen. I also remember there's a quote, I believe it was Walt Whitman, that I'm not sure that said, your actions speak so loudly, I can't hear what you're saying.

Gordon Jenkins 27:51
I love that. So there's another quote I use which is really good. It came from the New Zealand rugby team. It's never leave a tap dripping. is either on or off. You either in it. Or you're out. is black or white? There's no great. There's no gray matter life. You're either full on or you're full.

Andrew Stotz 28:11
Yeah, I'm just looking for that, quote, your actions speak so loud, so loudly, I look for that. Now the next question I have for you is what is your number one goal for the next 12 months.

Gordon Jenkins 28:26
So actually has nothing to do with me. So I partway carry yellow rubber duck around with me is because he saved my life. So be jumping off a bridge. My wife had a double lung transplant 1617 years ago. And it changed my life completely the way I look at things and I found that I no longer cash Rachel. I used to be catfish passion porn. Now I'm really passionate about people in the cash just comes. And I have a goal to build what's known as a center transplant excellence in Australia, we the world's number one Center of Excellence for post transplant care for organ transplant patients. My goal in the next 12 months is not necessary to build it unless someone one of your listeners has got a billion dollars. Also your azia us will take either at the moment. But my goal is to get that is to make a hole in the hole in the ground. That's the start of that Transplant Center of Excellence. Exciting.

Andrew Stotz 29:20
So watch for that 12 mile watch. The quote was from Ralph Waldo Emerson, and it says your actions speak so loudly, I cannot hear what you are saying. Right? Yeah, listeners, there you have it. Another story of loss to keep you winning. My number one goal for the next 12 months is to help you my listeners, increase return and reduce risk in your life. To achieve this goal, I've created the free membership group with five three benefits. So go to my worst investment ever.com right now to join. Now as we conclude Gordon, I want to thank you again for coming on the show. And on behalf of a Stotz Academy, I hereby award you alumni status for turning your worst investment ever into your best teaching moment. Do you have any parting words for the audience?

Gordon Jenkins 30:14
Leave no regrets. And do reach out to me. It's really easy. www dot i am Gordon jenkins.com Beautiful.

Andrew Stotz 30:24
And that's a wrap on another great story to help us create, grow and protect our wealth. Ladies and gentlemen, all the links will be in the show notes. So you can also reach out there to Gordon fellow risk takers. This is your words podcast host Andrew Stotz saying I'll see you on the upside.