Are You At The Mercy of Your Employer?

 

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Today we’re going all in. I’ve got a crazy cool guest today and I’m reading about him. It’s just near and dear to my heart some of the stuff he talks about because he is the author of break free from corporate. Be your own boss, Gavin Sequeira. How’re you doing?

 

I’m really well, Rick, thanks for having me.

 

My pleasure. Did I pronounce your last name?

 

You know what you did a really good job.

 

But I messed it up didn’t I.

 

It didn’t cause subsequent sickness. Where’s the Portuguese last name? But you did a really good job. 

 

Oh, nice. Look at me. It’s a Good Friday, right. Although this was published on a Tuesday, we’re recording this on a Friday. Yeah, man. I’m pumped to talk to you about this. Because this was something that I did. It’s something that a lot of people think of, and quite some straight up transparent. It’s what a lot of people have been thinking about the last two years. Yes. Right, with this whole great resignation phenomenon that’s going around, and it’s intriguing to me, because you’re living in Australia right now.

 

That’s right. I mean, I’m still in Australia.

 

Yeah. Interesting. Because I’m curious. Because right now, in the US, we have runaway inflation. You know, and I’m talking about you two, right?

 

I mean, we keep up with the news in the US quite a bit. Because whatever happens in the US, we see it six months later over here in Australia. So yeah, it’s crazy what’s happening in your part of the world.

 

Yeah, it’s very interesting, man, and this ties into what we’re going to talk about, right, which is like the availability of jobs, because a lot of people have just straight up quit their jobs over the last two years and said, Hey, I want to do something for me. I want to work for somebody else anymore. And what’s interesting is, you know, I used to years back, I used to think that that was the only way, you know, was to just quit and work for somebody else. But then I realized, well, that was pretty narrow minded of myself, because you can actually thrive working for other people, too. It just has to be the right kind of scenario, and then I learned this term, also called an intrapreneur. 

 

Yes, instead of an entrepreneur. Yeah. So we’re gonna dive into a lot of this stuff today. But I mean, this is gonna resonate a lot with those I’m sure that are looking to do this. But talking back with inflation real quick, I’m curious on your take. Because if I look back, like with the US in the 1980s, right, when inflation was running rampant, and the Feds raised interest rates tremendously to try to combat inflation. The byproduct of that was a huge recession, which, right now we have a lot of vacant jobs, because everybody’s decided to do exactly what the title of your book is to break free from corporations. Yeah, be your own boss. Right. That’s it. So how long is this gonna last man? Okay, this wave?

 

Well, you bring up a really good point, Rick. So things come in cycles, as you probably know, and a lot of your listeners may know that. So you’re talking about the 80s, we had a recession in the 80s. It was felt worldwide. And it was a bit of a disruptive period, almost a reset, if you like, you know, because when things go in one direction, they have to come down at some point. You see it in the property market, you see it in the stock market, it’s inevitable, and so we had one even in 2007 2000 678, the global real estate bubble, yep, yep, yep. So, you know, in Australia, where I live, that was quite a disruptive period, we had a lot of technology companies go bust and not go bust. So they had a lot of layoffs, a lot of restructuring. I was involved in one of those. So I used to work for IBM, Oracle, you know, those kinds of companies. 

 

So United sort of shares that technology kind of background. And I remember, you know, Oracle at the time took over or was merged with another company called BA. And instantly, we had hundreds of jobs that just went, you know what, we don’t need them anymore, gone. And luckily for me, in that case, this is back in 2007, I’d started a part time business on the side, really, just for fun Rico was just mucking around. But I didn’t really know what I was going to do. But if I hadn’t done that, I wouldn’t have known what it was like to make $1 outside of my job, and when I was told, “Hey, Gavin, you’re one of our top performers, we’d like to keep you, we’re gonna get rid of your team. We’re gonna get rid of embellishment, or we’re gonna keep you with a movie to this other area. Cut your pay. Do you want to know how that sounds?” And I went, “You know what, guys? I don’t think that’s a good deal. I’m out of here.” I had a little bit of income coming in from this business, and I kind of really set my sights and I said, You know what, this is going to be a long road me Looking forward to it, but it feels right for me to kind of make my own way. Because otherwise, all I’m doing is getting back on the merry go round, and it’s, I’m just getting on a sinking ship, you know, it’s really unpredictable.

 

So you’re right. Going from job to job might sound like the only way for a lot of people, a lot of your listeners, but sometimes it can be, it can be a downward spiral. Unless you look at opportunities out there where you can add value where you can maybe make a difference. Your income potential is uncapped, you know, really, there’s no limit to what you can do, and I know you’ve gone down that path and look where it’s led you.

 

For sure, my man, you bring up a lot of good points in what you’re saying. I think you may have just had a prophetic moment about the next two to five years, as well as about your exact experience, where they’re like, hey, you know, you’re a top performer. Yeah, we’re gonna fire everybody else in your department. Yeah, and we’re gonna pay you less money. How does that sound? You know, I? Sure that’s what happened in the 80s. Right? Yeah, and that’s what we’re looking at potentially happening now over the next couple years. I’ll throw this at you. I’m curious what your thoughts are about this. Because when I’ve been talking about this, is your book a good read for anybody listening? Which hell, we’ll just say right now, you know, where do we go? facebook.com/break. Free from corporate, it’s on Amazon, too, I would assume. 

 

Yeah, it’s on Amazon, you can get it free from corporate.com forward slash book. But I put that book together really, really to give people just a step by step on how to change that mindset around, transitioning from a corporate job to a business, it’s not about what type of business to get into. I mean, I never prescribed it to people, Hey, I think you should do this, or you should do that. Do whatever you want to do. But know the risks, know how to plan it out, know how to have, you know, a backup full plan, you know, I like to tell people you need to go all in. But do it in a smart way, don’t put the house at risk, you know, don’t don’t if you’re if your job is right now feeding your family and your kids don’t quit that to do something that you haven’t thought about, you haven’t planned it out, I’ve seen people do that break, and they’re not only lost the business, they’ve lost the house. You know, at the end of the day, you just can be smart about it. 

 

There are pros and cons to business. But there are pros and cons to not doing anything as well, if you just put all your eggs in one basket with a job, you’re really at the mercy of your employer, and like we’ve seen in the last couple of years with the pandemic. You know, economic climates can change in an instant, you know, and your job is suddenly no longer viable, which means you’re no longer needed. Therefore, what do you do? If you haven’t thought about another plan B, you’re in a lot of trouble, and we saw this happen in the hospitality industry. We saw it happen in the retail industry. We saw it in the aviation industry, you know, these industries got decimated. Right. So to your point. Yeah, I really think people need to just think of another way forward, like what is another way that you could make a living, earn an income, do something different, and just, you know, plan it out? That’s what the book talks about.

 

That’s awesome, man. Because, again, I think you’re being prophetic. That’s a lot of what I see coming in the next couple of years, and for anyone listening, I’ve been talking about this on stages on guesting on podcasts, even on news media, you know that what I see coming is, and I’m not an economist, but I just look at patterns, right, and, you know, there’s a lot of vacant job positions right now, right because of the great resignation. But what happens is unemployment is at a historic low. Then as soon as inflation goes up, they’re going to do exactly what you’re saying exactly. What Gavin said is that they’ll start to cut those vacancies and not fill them and go beyond that and cut existing job roles right now. Because that’s what large companies or anybody really does to conserve cash as they try to become, they start to choose efficiency and stability over growth during these times during these pullback times. You know, so it may be your time to do that. Because if you don’t do it now, if you don’t do it now, this is my advice, right? If you don’t do it now, it’s going to be a lot more difficult two years from now, when economic times could be worse than they are currently.

 

Yeah, 100% or percent. So, you know, the timing is really good for people to start questioning, you know, am I in the right place? Am I doing the right job? If you weren’t happy before, and you’re not happy? Now? When are you going to be happy, right, and you don’t have to worry about what you’ve done in the past. It’s all about what can you do for the future? How do you see yourself in the next five to 10 years? Some industries changing really quickly right now? They’re evolving. You know, maybe they’ve gone one way all this time, but because of the disruption of the last couple of years, they’ve had to change the way they do business, you know, traditionally a lot of places that, that needed people to come into the office and work five days a week, Monday to Friday, and now saying, you know what break, you want to spend time with your family, you can work three days from home, you know, we’re going to be flexible, because we don’t want to lose you, you know, so they’re changing the way they do business, a lot of places are allowing, they’re altering their HR policies. 

 

I’m seeing a lot of opportunities out there for people to go. Hey, maybe I can do this on the side, maybe I can do this, my company’s not going to these areas, maybe I can provide that service, and so, you know, there’s a lot of opportunity, when you find challenges, I always find opportunity, and I always see these things, and I encourage people to just look beyond what the immediate scenarios are unfolding, you know, find the gap, see, see where you can kind of connect the dots a little bit. If you see there’s a challenge, you know, what’s missing? Can you fit? Can you fit somewhere in there? Or can you fill a little niche or a little gap? If you can, let’s talk about it, because maybe there’s an opportunity for you to do something.

 

I like your perspective, man. A lot. Yeah, that’s, and that’s really what we’re encouraging everybody to do right now isn’t it is like, you know, start asking the questions. That’s the question, you know, if we can just help anyone listening, who we’re talking to you right now, when you’re listening is just start asking questions. You know, are you happy where you’re at? Yeah. Is this something that you could see yourself being stable in over the next several years? Because just to write out what’s going on, you know, or is it a time to start maybe thinking, well, if I’m not happy, maybe it is time to start looking at something else without, with or without keeping the stability of your current employer? Right, right. It depends. Every situation is different, like Kevin’s saying, and, yeah, but it’s, it is most definitely time. Would you agree? Yeah. I mean, it’s most definitely time to start asking yourself the questions

 

100%, and I really believe here, whether you’re a spiritual person, or, or you just believe there is a reason why things happen. I think these things happen to kind of just reset where we’re at. Because it’s easy to be on this training, you’re heading in one direction, and people just forget what’s happening around them. They’re all caught up in this tunnel vision, you know, I just gotta get up each day, go to work, come home, do the same thing day after day, and suddenly, our lives get disrupted a little bit. And some people just go, Oh, my goodness, where am I? You know, what’s happened? Because they haven’t been paying attention to what’s been going on. The good news guys, is we now know what’s going on, we’ve kind of seen a little bit of what’s happening in other parts of the world. You know, we might live in a comfortable area right now, Rick, but there are wars going on in other countries, right? There are things going on that we just need to be aware of? How will that impact us where we live? How will that impact our jobs? How will that impact our family, our kids? So you just gotta start thinking a little bit into the future, you know, is the area I’m working in going to be around for the next five years? or 10 years? What’s that going to look like? You know, how is technology going to play a part? Am I going to keep it? Am I gonna be able to keep up? Am I cut out for this? Am I too old? Do I need to find another way to move forward, and the minute you start asking those questions, one question will lead to another question lead to another? Then you might get stuck on the answer. Because it’s like, where do I go from here? 

 

So then you might need to talk to someone who’s either been there and done that, and I always recommend, you know, talk to someone who’s kind of done what you’re thinking of doing, or someone who’s been down that path, maybe a good mentor or a good coach, or someone who’s just kind of a few steps ahead of the game, and get their perspective, and that’s why I love listening to podcasts like yours, or, you know, I run a podcast as well, right? Where we try to share stories of people like yourself, right? Where people have gone from the corporate world, they started their own business, how do they do it? Why did they do it, and how do they do it? I think that’s always going to be a good thing. If you can just keep your mind engaged, keep educated, you know, it’s a win win.

 

Right on, right on. I know, we’re talking about breaking free from the corporate world. What’s one or two things that you actually liked about the corporate world?

 

Yeah, totally. I’m very grateful, by the way, for the corporate, entire corporate scenario because it gave me a starting life. It taught me quite a lot of things about structure, about discipline, turning up to a place, you know, what it meant to achieve certain goals. It got me started in my career, you know, I did an engineering and a commerce degree. So I’ve got all these letters after my name. I did an MBA, I kind of rose through this corporate ladder, and it taught me how to progress through the stages I got into management, and I got to work with large teams. I ran a team, I got to travel to some really cool parts of the world like Asia and The US all over Australia, and I’m very, very grateful for all those experiences. Because, you know, without my corporate experience, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing right now, which is talk to corporate people about how they can improve their lifestyle. Because I had a, I had to go through that myself. So I really think the whole corporate experience was a good one for me, but might get it had a shelf life, right. I wasn’t cut out to be the corporate guy for 40 years, it just wasn’t my thing, and whoever’s listening to this right now, you know, whatever you’ve done up to this point has been great. Is that still the path you want to go on for the next 510 20 years? That’s the only question you have to ask yourself. But I loved it. I loved it. But it got to a point where I needed to make that change, Rick.

 

That’s an interesting prospect that you’re asking yourself in there, you know, what does this look like in the next 510 20 years? I’ve always struggled man, I’ve never been able to look that far ahead. Okay.

 

You know, it’s so I have friends who work for their pilots, right? In the aviation industry. They work for Qantas, which is in Australia, that’s like American Airlines, or Delta or something like that. And, you know, they’ve been pilots for the last almost 20 years. The last couple of years, they’ve been out of work. They cannot they could not get a job flying the plane because, well, you know, that part of the industry just died down. Some of them ended up doing delivery. jobs they end up doing. I mean, you know, you just had to find another way to earn a living, and so it’s interesting, like how industries can change over time, you know, I had people I know that ran gyms, right, have worked in retail, and those places were cut down. I do karate, by the way. I’m one belt short of a black belt. I was doing that for a couple of years, but guess what, my karate school is closing down? It closed down big. Do you love trains? 

 

But I happen to have my kids in Taekwondo. Right, right. Same thing. Yeah.

 

The guy who ran that school, karate school, he ran several schools in the town where I live. And, you know, he went from earning, you know, close to a seven figure income down to zero, literally zero could not open the door to his premises because of COVID and things like that, and so, you know, you just gotta ask yourself, Could something like that disrupt my business or where I work? If so, what else could I do? Could I do something online? Is there a mitigating way I can afford it? And there are sort of things I like to look forward to in that perspective. I mean, it’s hard to look at, you know, 5-10-20 years otherwise, but you just have to ask the question.

 

For sure, and that’s where everything starts, isn’t it? You know, it’s just asking the questions. Here’s the scenario, right? Because we’re talking a lot about that. We’re pretty much saying like, that’s actually the answer for everyone right now is to start asking questions. Yeah. When you run it, because I know you run a community too, and you probably run across this. Do you find one two part question? Do you ever find people who are afraid to start asking the questions? Assuming that’s yes. How do they overcome that mental block?

 

Yeah, good question. So most of the people I talked to are afraid to ask the question, and you might say, Well, why am I talking to them? Well, I like myself, I put out information out there like, like the podcasts, like the book, I’ve got ebooks, webinars, all of that. The reason I put that out is to get people thinking about it. Because sometimes, you know, you’re sitting back late at night, you’re watching TV, or you’re talking to someone and you’re, if only I could do this. So I wonder what life would be like if I could, you know, and then that thought process starts, people get on the internet, they start searching, and they come across your podcast, or they come across my book, but they’ve never thought about it before. They’ve never asked a question, but this is now peaking their interests, they may then get on the phone and get a call from us. Or they might even start chatting, and we asked him the question, Hey, have you thought? Have you asked this question? Have you ever thought about, you know, what life would be like if you didn’t work where you’re working and a lot of people will go actually, I’ve never thought about it. I mean, I’ve never done anything but this job for the last 10 years or whatever. 

 

So it’s not uncommon for me to find that. But then once we start talking to them about these things, what would it be like if you could do this? You know, what, if you could pick up the skills if you could put together this program or this package and teach People deserve it. It opens up this whole door of excitement in their eyes. Also fear and you know, a bit of anxiety. But I guess you know, once that door is open, I find people are more inquisitive to ask more and more questions. Initially it’s a little bit closed off, but once the door is open, I think people are a little bit more receptive when they find out hey, I’m not the only one asking this question. There’s people like, like, Rick, there’s people like you, Gavin, who’ve done it before, and there’s a whole community of people who are doing it right now. Maybe I should be looking into this. And so I find we move people from here to here, just in that thought process in that mindset. Does that make sense?

 

For sure it does. Yeah, and I mean, there’s a lot more things because I mean, this show usually goes longer. But I want to keep this right here for everybody today. Because everything you’ve said is so freakin powerful. You know, and this is the starting point, right? It’s always like the truth is a good place to start. Because beyond that, you know, I want to tell everybody, go get Gavin’s book right here, check out his community that he has. Because when you start asking the questions that he’s saying right here, that’s when you’re actually going to be able to see what’s possible for you, and I’m telling you to start doing it now, start asking those questions right now, because two years from now, it’s going to be too late. It’s going to be too late.

 

Yeah, you know, there’s another good book that people could read, I think that’s online and on Amazon and things like that. It’s called the Top Five Regrets of the Dying. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of it. There’s a lady called Brawny, she’s Australian, and she was a palliative nurse, someone who worked with people who are kind of dying or on their lap, you know, they’re on the deathbed. And she literally worked with hundreds and hundreds of people over the course of a career, and guess what question she used to ask every single person, you know, when she was talking to them, it’d be something like, Hey, Rick, you know, you’ve lived a good life. Do you have any regrets? You know, and guess what they all said? 

 

They all said things like, I wish I did this. I wish I took a chance. I wish I spent more time with my family. “I wish I could travel more. I wish I had more fun. I wish I knew, I just wish I hadn’t been lifting so late.” That’s typically what people say. Right, and should have could have would have, should have could have would have not one person ever said, I wish I worked longer hours. I wish I stayed back that Saturday night and worked on my presentation. I wish i No one says that. So if you find that you’re, you’re working ridiculous hours, you’re kind of caught in this trap. You’re, you can’t see the end of the tunnel, and you’re looking for a way out, but you’re not quite sure how or where or when I definitely recommend you start questioning all of that and looking for other ways. You know, we live in a great information age, you know, jump on Google, and it’s typing or doing. Exactly.

 

I love it, Gavin. You’re awesome. You’re awesome, man. Everybody check out Gavin because you know and start asking the questions today because Gavin, thank you for being on. Hey, thank you. Thank you, and you can find Gavin’s book anywhere on Amazon which again, it’s break free from corporate Be your own boss. That’s awesome, and you deserve it. You deserve it.