The Australian Financial Review
You know when you wake up in the morning and the kids are late so you rush to get them in the car
when you drive and someone scratches the side of your car
then you get to work and you're late and you missed a meeting
then something goes wrong with the delivery in your office
then you get home and you're late and you missed dinner with your family
your kids spill something all over the floor
and then your mother comes to visit you
and she sits down next to you and she drops a teaspoon on the floor
and you are so pent up with anger from the day that you just go
Why did you drop that teaspoon?
Hi, I'm Sally Patton, editor of BOSS from the Australian Financial Review
and welcome to 15 Minutes with the BOSS
a podcast about success and failure and everything in between
and along the way we're hoping to get some really great advice from our leaders
My guest today is Gary Smith, the chief executive of Biopac
Hi Gary, how are you? Thank you so much for coming in
Thank you for having me
Have you had a busy morning so far?
Yeah, most mornings are busy but this morning was quite relaxed
trying to prepare myself for sitting and answering your questions
Now Gary, you're the chief executive of Biopac
which is a combustible packaging company
that makes biodegradable cups, containers, cutlery among lots of other things
You have 260 employees and last year you clocked more than $300 million of sales
Your major customers include 7-Eleven, All Press Coffee, KFC, McDonald's and Guzmany Gomez
and you started the company in 2006
We don't have much time so I will start the clock right now
My first question is, what does your morning routine look like?
What happens, what time do you get up?
My morning routine is pretty simple
I get up and get to the office as fast as I possibly can
I try to walk to the office two, three times a week
but otherwise I'd drive there
So what time do you get up?
I get up somewhere between 6 and 6.30 in the morning
And what time do you get to the office?
If I drive it's a short 15 minute drive
If I walk it's about an hour walk
So that means you're getting there at 7.30?
Anywhere between 7 and 8, depending on the walk or the drive
So when you get to the office, what do you do first?
Do you have a cup of coffee at all?
I will pick up a cup of coffee on the way
if it's a walk or a drive from my local
When I get to the office, I go straight to my desk
And breakfast, does that come into it at any point?
No, I don't have breakfast
So my first meal is lunch at about 12 o'clock
I don't know if it's an enforced intermittent fast
I'm just very used to eating extremely well
It just happens that I have two really good protein and vegetable meals
for lunch and dinner
and very little in between besides fruit and a coffee
So you don't get hangry at around 10 or 11 o'clock?
I'm permanently angry if you ask the people that work for me
But hangry, I'm never hangry
I'm always well nourished and well fed
And do you think that having those two meals
with lots and lots of protein and vegetables
is key to your performance?
Well, all I can tell you is that I still feel at my age
I've got boundless energy
I seldom feel tired
And that's if I have to work till one o'clock in the morning
That's if I have to wake up early and put in a 15-hour day
And how old are you, can I ask?
That's pretty good
So do you feel like you can keep on going at this pace forever?
Yeah, at least another 70 years, yes
Another 70, okay, not bad going
Gary, my next question is about a pivotal moment in your career
Was there some project that you undertook or something that happened
that really changed the trajectory of what you were doing?
Absolutely, and there might have been a few
but the one that really sticks out is
as I left school I started a business
because I had to, I wanted to make some money to go to university
I grew up in a country where there wasn't HECS
and I couldn't just go and pay it back later
but it led me into the technology field
and I started trading hardware and technology
computers and memory chips and hard drives
and we built a really nice little business
but being young and really ignorant of, really carefree
I tried everything
and about 1993 I was fortuitously approached
by an individual that got a contract to do the computers
for the first South African where I grew up
free and fair elections in the 1994 Independent Electrical Commission elections
and over a four-month period we built four and a half thousand computers
massive opportunity
It introduced me to the really large end of town in that industry
it catapulted us, it gave us a lot of profitability to build the business
and it really sort of matured me
and I grew up very quickly, commercially
with that opportunity
So you provided all the computers for the election?
And what were the main lessons that you learnt?
How did that change the nature of what you were doing?
When you're thrown in the deep end of any opportunity
without potentially experience in what you've been given
or even in education
it just taught me a lesson of
I have to build everything with my own hands
So even today when I'm approached by someone in our marketing team
or someone in our procurement team
and they've got a very formal education and lots of experience
I still in my mind because of that experience
I try to build what they're giving me from scratch
just to make sure all of it makes sense
and it's not a long process
but it taught me that when we were forced to
having to go sit with Microsoft and get licenses for them
for 4,000 computers
I had to go in there, a 22, 23 year old kid
go to their offices, tell them that we've got this opportunity
have patience while they didn't believe me
but it really taught me that
nothing is impossible, number one
but to make it probable
you have to build everything from scratch with your own hands
and that's still been sort of my motto today
or my practice today
So you need some sort of working knowledge or basic knowledge
of what everyone or what every division in the company does
Absolutely and that's the benefit of starting the business
is that I've done everything
Today we're a much bigger business
and I haven't done it nearly as well as all the individuals in our business
but I have experience in every aspect of the business
and I feel as a leader I have to give people freedom to do what they do
but at the same time you have to lead
so you have to get into those departments
even if it's not virtual or with individuals
and really rebuild every step of it constantly
to process, improve
and to help them run their businesses within your business
And how did that contract that you had with the South African government
propel you to go on and do something else
for example, do what you do now?
Inspiration or luck?
Everyone has the most inspiring ideas on a daily basis
Everyone has luck passed by them every day
They might say it, they might not
It's the work that follows
that translates that to any form of success
So yes, I think that's just taught me that
you can't look past anything
You just have to evaluate everything
and try and implement as best you can
So first of all you've got to recognise the luck
and then work at it
to try and have it take you to the next level
And it just means evaluate everything
So people hear, a lot of people, I hear pessimism
when I heard this idea, it's such a bad idea
or this guy wants to do this, such a bad idea
But you know, you have to be curious
and that's what it taught me
is that just listen and be curious
Okay, so Gary, question number three
What is the best piece of career advice
you've ever been given?
I started, as I said, the business in 88, 89
straight out of school
and I went in with some partners in the business
that I was at uni with, sorry, I was at school with
and I met along the way
and I had a bad experience with them
whereby they sort of did a dirty on me in the business
and all of a sudden I was outside the business
At the time my uncle, who was a solicitor
I went to him and I asked him, I said, Dave
you know, we've got to sue these people
and he said to me that I could spend 10 months in court
worrying every day thinking I'm going to sue them
and go litigate against them
or I can start right now building the rest of my life
and that's the best advice I've ever got
is regret and revenge is pointless
It just consumes energy
and you need all your energy for today going forward
So his advice to me was let them have the business
Can you start a business today?
Can you get your customers that you had?
Can you get the same product?
And the answer to all of that was yes
It'll take me a little bit of time to build it back up
and honestly within six or seven months
I was re-established with the same customers
and the same products
and so maybe a little bit of confidence helped over there as well
but yeah, I could have spent years
and I see it a lot in people today
when they just constantly fixated on things that have gone wrong
or things that have been done to them
So my uncle's advice at the time
and what I've lived by all the time is
forget about yesterday
We can only do and plan and change tomorrow
Yes, that's really good advice
So don't dwell on anger
Anger is a pointless emotion
It's an energy-consuming emotion
So do you have advice on when anger does consume you
how to let that go?
What I try to do when I'm very angry is slow down
and really, again, build with my own hands
So let's say, for example, we drop our delivery levels to customers
which I'm passionate about
I will call everybody, bring them into my office
and they can see I'm frustrated, I'm angry
and then I think what they see is I slow down
Stop, break down where the issue arose
where whatever broke, broke to make you angry
Rebuild it so that the next time you do it, you do it right
Learn from the mistakes
On that note, Gary
We are going to take a short break
Don't go away, though
When we come back, we're going to open the chatterbox
Welcome back to 15 Minutes with the Boss
I'm here with Gary Smith, the CEO of Biopac
Now, Gary, this is our section called the chatterbox
In front of you, you will see this very beautiful brown box
inside which are around 20 questions
I'm going to ask you to pick some out one by one
and I will then, of course, ask you to answer it
Let's start foraging
No one can see me closing my eyes, it's a podcast
How do you make tough decisions or manage conflict?
A lot of people try and manage conflict by an email or a text
or discussing the conflict when angry or when they've got a lot on their mind
So sometimes, let's say it's a personal home or a work situation
When you're really angry and you walk in and you want to deal with the issue
and I used to have something called the I dropped a teaspoon syndrome
You know, when you wake up in the morning and the kids are late
so you rush to get out the car, get them in the car
when you drive and someone scratches the side of your car
then you get to work and you're late and you missed a meeting
then something goes wrong with the delivery in your office
then you get home and you're late and you missed dinner with your family
and your kids spill something all over the floor
and then your mother comes to visit you at 8 o'clock
and she sits down next to you and she drops a teaspoon on the floor
and you are so pent up with anger from the day that you say
Why did you drop that teaspoon?
The teaspoon didn't deserve your anger
So the way I deal with it is you have to resolve conflict or resolve anger
when you actually are rested and have an absolute blank mind
So even if you postpone it, if it's even a person
like if my wife says I really want to discuss this bag of meat
if my mind is not there to resolve the issue
if I'm not in the right mindset or I'm carrying a lot of baggage
for that hour or that evening
I'll put them off until I've got just a calm, free mind to discuss it and try to resolve it
But you've got to do that often on a say hourly basis
because otherwise the teaspoon will tip over
and you'll be angry at the end of the night
So how do you do that sort of on a minute by minute, hour by hour basis?
For me it's more to avoid the conflict
to maybe ignore the irritation until you've got time
because it's not possible to reset your mind every hour
Life's too fast, it's a rat race
and you've got so much going on, four kids that we had four kids
I had a business with hundreds of people
It's just too much going on too quickly to pause every time you get angry
You can work through those issues, you can get irritated
but if you want to resolve the issue
if you want to get to the bottom of it and make sure there's no bad vibes
between you and a family member or someone at the office
you actually have to wait until you completely reset
and then sit with those people and say this is where I went wrong
or this is how I think we should resolve it
or this is how we can fix it
So in that case do you find Mondays are a good day to do that
because that's after the weekend when you have recharged?
Yeah, I call it when I walk with my wife, I call it our board meetings
it's just a casual stroll
but it's when I've got no issues on my head from the office or from anything else
and I've got time to talk
and it is frustrating I guess living with a person like that
because people on a Wednesday night have an issue and want to discuss it
and I'm literally, not tonight, don't speak to me
let's discuss it when I guess selfishly it's convenient for me
or really when I've got the mindset or the energy to try and resolve or discuss the issue
So yeah, Monday's great
Monday mornings come to an end at about four minutes off
you get in at eight and it's a Monday morning and you're fresh and you're alive
and nine o'clock you're back to your normal work week
So board meetings on the weekend?
Have a go at another question
What's the piece of advice that you would give your younger self?
I don't know that I respected or appreciated family as much as I did when I was young
I was very career focused
I was seven days a week, not five days a week
and at the time I had a young daughter in 1996 and a young son in 1998
and I thought I was present
but seven days a week at the office and coming home and missing a dinner
which I've never been spectacular at anyway
I then had the privilege of moving to Australia in 2000
where I didn't have that business anymore
I didn't know anybody
so I had all day every day
and I discovered taking to Kindy and fetching from Kindy
So much so that at 9.30 in the morning the teachers used to say to me
hey you've got to leave, you have to get out of there
so if I'd given myself younger advice or my children advice is
put 100% into your family and never take them for granted
because everything else you can do after that as a priority
So don't go hell for leather and don't just focus on work when you've got children
because time is precious
I think the proudest thing that I'm proud of for me is that I haven't missed a birthday
and I feel like now as they're adults I'd love to do more
maybe they want to start their own businesses
maybe I'd love to give them 20 hours to do that
but I'm pretty busy
and I always feel guilty that I should put more time in
but I do put in a lot of time
but I think my younger self didn't
so my advice to my younger self is
just understand that from 20 years old
when I did maybe at 50 years old
that's the priority
Yeah, put the time in
Okay Gary, next question, have a forage
What do you do when you switch off
Assuming that you do switch off
I think that people that know me that listen don't think I do
but I absolutely do
We have a big Friday night dinner where the whole family comes over
brothers, sisters, uncles, aunts, kids
Every week without fail?
Every week without fail, maybe at us or at some of our family
but that's standard
but Saturday morning I'll wake up
I'll go down to the beach
I'll go for a long walk
I'll have breakfast
I literally have to recharge
and then that's my recharge for the week
because I really do put in a lot of effort and time during the week
but on a Sunday night it's just my children
My switch off is just spending time with family
so I try to cook together with them
and I'm a new cook so I'm not a great cook
or we'll just sit and talk just us
and for me that's my switch off
I know that for 48 hours I'll be relaxed
I'll be exercised
I'll eat really well
I'll go to nice restaurants
I'll have a bit to drink
and I'll have a family surrounded by me
and that's my switch off
Gary on that note
you have passed the chatterbox section
with flying colours I might add
now we have one more question
which is if we gave you 12 months off unencumbered
you could do anything you liked
what would you do?
Assuming you forced me to leave my dogs for 12 months
I would take 12 months and I would travel
and I would go to all the music festivals
Coachella, Glastonbury
every weekend I'd be at a British soccer game
watching Liverpool
I'd go to Grand Prix's
so it would be 12 months off
no laptop, no mobile phone
and just music festival after sports event
after just walking cities that I've never been to
would you go to the reformed oasis?
I would go to the reformed oasis, absolutely
I go to the strangest concerts
everything that comes I go to
I went to Boney M a couple of months ago
I don't know if anyone remembers who they are
there's one original member in there
but I just get motivated by music
you dream when you listen to music
you can conquer the world when you're listening to songs
I think that a thousand years ago
people looked at poets for inspiration
you know, musicians and songwriters are the poets of today
so yeah, I would travel
watching sport and going to concerts
and that is our time up
Gary, it's been so great talking to you about
how not to dwell on anger and regret and revenge
because it is all consuming
and it keeps you in the past
and they're pointless emotions
I love the way you're focused on your family
I love the way you think about
resetting and emptying your brain
in order to tackle difficult issues
and I hope you have a great trip
travelling the world, seeing lots of bands
and please report back on the reformed oasis
so on that note, once again
thank you so much Gary
for allowing us to spend 15 minutes with The Boss
and thank you to everyone for listening
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this podcast was hosted by me Sally Patton
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video and audio assistance
and our music theme is by Alex Gao
and our executive producer is Fiona Bafini
The Australian Financial Review