My #podcast with Goolshun S. Belut is now out.
We had a very interesting conversation about how he started Smplicity, how he built his team, what ethos he brought from his time at Accenture, what gets him up in the morning and all sorts of really fascinating stuff.
I love that we have a shared interest in making a difference in the world, and we are looking at collaborating and helping new talent into the #Salesforce ecosystem with internship opportunities with NFPs.
This will allow them to gain experience and build their networks in order to be able to thrive.
I had a lot of fun and I hope you will be able to gain some value out of our conversation.
Enjoy!
#OnThePeiroll
Transcript
Pei Mun Lim
Hello, Goolshun, hi. Welcome to my my podcasts – OnThePeiroll. How are you today?
Goolshun
Thank you for having me. Yeah. Great, great. Sunny shining outside. So great day. Great day today. Are you so?
Pei Mun Lim
Yeah, I am very good as well. They think apart from the fact we were talking before this while the hay fever. But I’m good. Thank you. Thank you for joining. I am actually very fascinated by your career history. And if it’s okay with you, I would love to hear about the journey that have brought you here.
Goolshun
Sure, well, it depends which part of the story you want to hear. It’s many various angles. But to start, I had many various careers in my still in my lifetime, and I’m still young enough, I hope. I did DJing wait for radio stations, I went there to be a TV. Just to just to mention that to your audience. I’m actually from Mauritius. It’s not like work for BBC or anything. I’ve kind of grown up in Mauritius. So I had a couple of gigs down there always had a taste for technology, anything that probably does allow problem solving. I’m not I was a bit of a geek, trying different things. Bear an entrepreneur back in the days as well, trying to kind of buy and sell various products. But then at the end of were really wanted to do was to kind of solve a problem, people have a problem, I need to solve it. And that became an obsession from when I was young enough. And my parents were middle class, family, everyone’s working hard loans and stuff. So So I wanted to do things. So I try various things that came to London for my studies afterwards, graduated, and then for some reason that ended up in, in a company who learning to implement Salesforce, which became my career. But to get to that job, I was there as a temporary intern. It was a temp job where literally my job was to take SIM cards to place in a phone, turn on the phone. If it works, then put it back in the box and ship it to the next person. And it was so boring. So I think I knew it was what I wanted more hope this is not my whole life, just putting things in boxes. And the dirt. The director heard me complaining a lot. And he called me into his office and I thought, Okay, then I think I’m gonna lose my job today. But instead, he actually asked me for my CV. So getting my CV saw that some CRM stuff I did at university in had a bit of technical background. And he said, Okay, let’s do an interview next week. And let’s see how that goes. And then he told me, if you manage to learn Salesforce in two weeks, I’ll give you a job before time job. And I had so much googling to do Google the hell out of everything. So yeah, I’ve learned Salesforce very quickly, even though I’ve learned enough to be able to have to just talk the language and but then spent a lot of time making so many mistakes on the company on Salesforce, even even deleting the whole database once. So that was one of the things I’ve done. But then you soon realize there’s a recycle bin. I didn’t know that before. So but yeah, it was it was quite a fun, fun starting startup starting point in Salesforce. From there just picked up, loved Salesforce as a product. And started as Salesforce as sales operations that Salesforce administration went up to the fact that there’s our business out of this job, and then went into working for bigger startup like Groupon, as a BA, from then started picking up different things I wanted to kind of I was getting more ambitious now because I knew Salesforce is going to be a career that I wanted to choose. worked in financial organizations and decided to take the big step to work in consulting. So I’ve covered all the various roles that even Salesforce provides. Now you can specialize very quickly, but I did everything from scratch. So I’m sure you would know when Salesforce worked with Salesforce. It was not called Sales Cloud. It was just called Salesforce CRM. And those were the days we started to play with the system. But now, there’s so many splits. It’s good that I’ve understood the foundation but the foundation is one thing is problem solving. You need to understand that first. And then how Salesforce can enable you to problem solve those The key thing I’ve learned, think about the product sector And think about the thing of the problem first. Yeah, that’s off to Accenture. I got a bit more ambitious. I left Accenture on a sabbatical. But
Goolshun
that’s the story was I did a lot of charity projects during my sabbatical at Accenture. And clearly, money is king, because then you run out of money very quick. And then one of the charity firms I was helping out, I said, Jeff, you know, of course, I don’t want you to be homeless, so let us pay you. And then that’s hard to credit an entity called simplicity, which is still the company that we run today. But nothing was really planned to create an organization, you just needed an entity which became simplicity. And then five years later, I’m still not sleeping. So it’s just been on for last five years. But I’m really glad I’m still doing that, because it excites me every day when I wake up. That’s, that’s over kind of a quick snapshot of where I came from, and where I am today.
Pei Mun Lim
Thank you for that. If your friend hadn’t offered to pay you, where do you think you would have ended up?
Goolshun
as interesting question, and I probably would have gone back to contracting Salesforce still, because that’s still something of I’m really good at both, I would have got bored very quickly and probably would have started up something else. Maybe not in Salesforce. But some of the products some of the startups think that would it be would it be my next step, if this things didn’t pan out, as it did today?
Pei Mun Lim
Tell me a little bit about your current company’s simplicity.
Goolshun
Show me what comes simplicity, as the name clearly says simplicity. I’m a minimalist. So I like to keep it very simple. And, and, and I’m also a bit lazy. So I like to keep things simple enough. So I can scale because I’m that lazy that I want to keep it on, I don’t want to work that hard. But simplicity started when when we started simply it was just me doing a lot of chatter projects, when I started, begin inheriting from my from the previous work I was doing and and then you start kind of picking up different skill set in terms of running the business, then you realize the business you have one person they have two people and then suddenly becomes a machine that you have to feed you have to keep on working on it needs money to to grow, because else you kind of you have people depending on you. So we shifted from working with charity companies working with with commercial companies as well. Which is basically that’s my love last 12 years of Salesforce doing a lot more commercial projects. And essentially what we believe in is we we are the experts into the whole lead to cash process, how you get someone from your website to your CRM system, how do you optimize that in a way that you can process that lead faster, turn into an opportunity fast enough reporting how you manage your pipeline in a way that it’s closing in time and not lying to your revenue forecast, or, or cash flow forecast? Or even pipeline forecast? And then looking at that, and how do you build customers faster. So we became a specialist in this from my days of Accenture, previous previous companies that worked with and received couple initial customers that we had at simplicity, we became these specialists, we don’t tend to just focus on just delivering Salesforce as our key offering. We look at the business as well. We know management consultant when our marketing consultants. But what we do have an extra skill set is we’ve worked on many businesses, so we understand how this type of business should really work. Because we’ve learned from other businesses how they worked, so we can apply that to our clients. system, landscaping business landscape. We are now 13 people. We are based mainly in the UK with a team in Mauritius. Even though when I tell my clients I’m going to Mauritius for work. They say yes, you’re going for work. It’s actually true. I have when I go there even the beaches next door, I still have to work until it’s dark. But yeah, so that’s what simplicity about we’ve we’ve got amazing people we’ve grown quite rapid in the last last year, we hoping to slightly grow more. It’s been a bit challenging during the pandemic to work not really to in terms of business, but to really work in that kind of environment where you very restricted, you don’t have people around you. So virtual virtual virtual. Well that’s been quite a challenging time and But also exciting times, because you had to pivot your mythologies very quickly. So we had to reinvent a lot of things very, very fast. Yeah, this is this is what simply is about. We were there we were, we always help our clients. We got great reviews online and our clients rave about us. It’s not because we it’s not, it’s because we’re not too commercially focused. We like problem solving. From our own DNA, everyone who works there likes to fix something. And then think about the billing later on. Did we fix it? If we do fix it, then someone else will pay for the job. But it’s all about did we make enough difference? And that’s the cereal.
Pei Mun Lim
That’s kind of unusual, given that a lot of you came from, essentially, if I’m not mistaken. chargeability utilization is in your life blood. And for you to actually say problem solving first billing later, it’s not your run of the mill consulting partner, so to speak. And I think that would give you an edge. Just for that point alone. Can you tell me about one of some of the things that you’ve had to reinvent due to the pandemic
Goolshun
show? Well, we have different various tools. I mean, as you’re doing consulting, you do a lot of workshops, you have to get a better workshop, we have physical space, physical people around you, you bounce ideas, you have your whiteboard, we drink process maps. Now, how did you convert online, and we were trying to experiments, just using just calls and sharing screen and writing a piece of paper. But we couldn’t communicate the ideas. So we use quip, for example, as our document management system and document creations. So we’re happy to be equipped with Draw.io, for example, to literally mapping processes live and doing tweaks live. So we have to get better at this very quickly. Someone doing this and someone driving the session, and someone literally taking the notes on the same screen. And virtually. So we had to get better at this, we had a couple of practice sessions, some of the workshops didn’t work very well with clients. So get them got more confusing. But we took kind of bite the bullet, we do the next one, hopefully, it’s gonna get better. And so that was kind of the one of the key ones. And we even went to this to this side of experimenting with Oculus, virtual reality headsets. And now literally bought one as well to experiment see how that pivots into the online specially more tricky than, than the advertising. on YouTube. It’s it’s heavy on top of that, and you don’t get the right interaction. So we kind of did a bit of a hybrid old school and zoom with what we share on the screens. But essentially, is understanding the role of each different people in the call. who they are, we plan the call very well, we have the right agenda, the top the right people don’t join the call, we did pre work before the call. So we know we only have two hours on zoom, or three hours of zoom for the workshop, we make sure we don’t waste time, there’s no time. Are you on mute? Or can you switch on your camera, all those kinds of things, prep work we had to do beforehand and record the session. It’s connected to our transcribing system. So if anything we missed, we get it from the from the recording. So that was one of the key things that were done. But we invested a lot of tools as well. So we we’ve because of so many virtual things happening, email became the last tool we use Slack, we started to kind of change the culture, less email, more Slack, and became more aware of, of time we spend in meetings, don’t book meetings, when just for the sake of booking meetings, if the meeting doesn’t have an agenda and an outcome, you decide from the meeting, and it’s not fully written in the description section. Anyone is allowed to not turn up or decline the meeting right away. So we force people to think before they book meetings with people. And and we don’t monitor when you come nine o’clock, or we had to sign up at five is also objective driven now. So that’s how we manage our team. So a couple of things. I mean, there’s more we, we’ve done behind the scenes. I mean, we are big fans of experimentation. We experiment even before the pandemic. A lot of them failed, like the whole Google mentality where you have to experiment in your spare time, if they’re developing a product, but we experiment with our processes and the tools we use. We’ve used so many tools in the initial days of simplicity. Now it’s getting harder to change because people are kind of embedded in a lot of change management change and a simple tool. But still bugs me because I like to just change things very quickly. So I have to fight with my own team now. To say Okay, dad, that tools better, but they will challenge me back on certain things, which is good, because, as they say we, if two people think the same thing, there’s only room for one. So I like my team challenge me back as well. Like, if you have an insight,
Pei Mun Lim
it sounds like you’ve created a culture that is quite, that thrived in the change that we had last year. You mentioned earlier. So process mapping and solving business problem is something that I’m quite passionate about as well. And because I’ve done it before the pandemic, I feel just as you do that, proximity and in person, workshops work so so much better. And when you shift you online, you lose a lot of the information that from the social and body language and different cues you get from that the nonverbals. Plus, in virtual, you need to focus so much more on the actual message that comes through. So. So you mentioned earlier on, I was quite interested in when you walk through how you do it, you had one person taking taking down drawing another person driving the questions, not the person taking down the note. So now you have three people in a workshop, which I imagine in previously, in a face to face situation, you might have needed maybe just to want to drive and want to scribe. So do you now see an increase in the cost of actually running workshops to get the same quality, same level of richness of information that you would have got pre pandemic? Yeah,
Goolshun
it our models slightly different to other si M. And you can I mean, these are the IPS that we have our models is baked in a way that you can have multiple skill sets in any project on demand pretty much on a monthly basis. We don’t work in a on basis where we have a long term project, which we used to do, where you have to have a lot of people on a single project. And everyone is has a specific role to do one specific job. We have a very kind of a blended type of model. But we decide how we allocate by skill set. So it doesn’t matter who is we do. The good thing about us we do a lot of good resource planning this operational efficiency is really, really good. And based on what workshops we’ll have, what topics to be discussed, when we’re going to bring the right skill set, for example, I will be leading the workshop because I’m good at kind of asking the question and getting the stuff out of those people by trust my person who’s drawing the maps who’s good at just drawing maps. And he’s, and pretty much the same person who’s drawing the maps is also the next person reading the notes also knows how to draw the maps, it’s just on this roll. It’s got less of context, so he’s just gonna read the notes. But we invest a lot of time in training in cross training our people. We don’t train developers, we don’t train administrators, we don’t train besides what we train for. It’s just consultancy 101. How to extract questions How to the soft stuff, they don’t, you don’t do because the tool can be learned very easily, right? I know, some people are better at the coding side. But if you have to deal with clients day in and day out, build the skills that matters most. So we cross train of people when they will, especially when exposed to more clients. So anyone could be me, in some projects, even the leader of this project in some project, I’m the one writing the notes. And I’m the MD of the organization, it’s just we need that extract and that I just need to fight how to shut up on those calls. Because there’s a lead by my team. But yeah, they trust them to do the work. But it’s a lot of time on training. That’s why we took a lot of time to grow slightly bigger, because it requires so much time and effort just to kind of get the right people train them up. We’ve been very fortunate that no one really, we had very little training people. Everyone stayed and they want to work. It’s just the way we interview the way we train them up. We focus on a different level, rather than just bill, bill, bill. For us. As you said earlier, it’s about problem solving, problem solving, problem solving. So it’s kind of DNA to know itself. And sometimes when you have to focus on the revenue side, it’s actually harder for us, which is probably bad for business. Because even my team will say well, but this is what we’re going for. Right? We want to solve that problem. So it’s a it’s a challenge. It’s a good problem to have. Because you train in a way to solve a problem and the quality when it’s the quality. The solution is so good that even the client isn’t mind paying, but we don’t talk about the bills. But it does sometimes mean that some clients Well, we’ve spent so much more time than required, then can we build extra? They will say, Well, I know you said four days is four days, right. But most of the clients, they, they understand the value they get out of it, they literally fly. So it’s a, I think, because I come from a technical background, not from a full revenue background, even an essential, you know, you have some certain type of, of mindset you need to do is just about chargeability billable hours, which is good for business of that size, because they have, they have a big machine to feed. But when you’re smaller, you can choose what to focus on. And I chose to focus on different things. But on the other side, the cons is you don’t grow that fast. And you have to accept that you kind of go that fast and you only focus on metrics, we focus on problems.
Pei Mun Lim
Sounds like you know, yourself might well, I, many years ago, myself and my husband started Microsoft partner, because we were board certified. And we were the same, we were delivery. And we really enjoyed solving problems. And we were doing network infrastructure, putting in servers in exchange and all of that, but it was our downfall, because we didn’t keep an eye on the revenue side. And we just couldn’t chase for payments. So totally get you in terms of understanding your strengths and how you want to build business. But also it sounds like he could be could grow a lot quicker and faster. Let’s say if you hired somebody who was a little bit more,
Goolshun
Yep, absolutely. I mean that it did bite me back at one point, but then we had to shift a bit so and you have a very as I mean, as you manage the business, I’ve never managed the business of that size before. I’ve always been part of a bigger business meaning a lot of people it’s not my money right when you’re when you own entities complete different ballgame. But you have to make a choice is money when you focus on or grow for you focused on or you feel happier waking up every day to solve a piece of a problem. And for four years, I’ve been debating about this while working at Accenture, Accenture is all about, I’m interviewing Don’t get me wrong, this is one of the best places I’ve worked actually, the whole mall career, we Satsuki potentially all the people down there give you a disciplined way of working with forward. It’s very it’s very, very machine very well all machine. But a lot of people get tired very quickly, because there’s so intense of the work is so intense, I would definitely suggest everyone to go down work there to understand what is to where it needs to deliver a project of certain size. And what does the p&l looks like gives you that kind of that context of how big businesses work. But then I was fighting against my own belief. I like to give back to community like helping law people, I like coaching people, I like to give my knowledge away. And in exchange, because you even though they encourage doubt as well. But you don’t even have enough time because you’re on the project for many months, which a lot of times in not in the same country, or you locked away in the client side or even meet your own peers. So it kind of drained me a little bit towards the end of my year at Accenture, I’ve decided to take a sabbatical to help charities. But then I realized it was draining my energy a lot work in that type of environment. And I’m so grateful that I’ve worked there To be honest, because I’ve learned so much from it. But it’s a point you need to know you’ve learned a lot. You need to make a choice. When you wake when you wake up, do you feel your energy drained or you feel full power when you wake up? And I had to make that ask myself the question today when I wake up, I have full power. In Accenture every day I wake up I was waking up kind of half an hour battery. And I had to fight hard to kind of raise my energy level. So it’s a matter of choice. Some people really thrive in that type of environment continuously. But you need to give it for me I prefer a lot of good. I do like a bill like work life balance, even though for me is pretty much non existent. But I don’t regret because I’m waking up every day with full battery. Because I get excited what’s coming up today. Because I get to do things I want to do in my own way, not what Accenture told us to do that way. So I’ve kind of absorbed a lot from the mythologies and the ways of work but twisted in my own way in my own culture that wants to build the company. And this is what we do and that’s that’s what that’s shows me so that means less focus on revenue side. I mean for many months in the first couple of years. I had money in the in the bank, but I’m still delivering work. But the money comes the money comes it just need patience. Once you once you focus on right thing you’ll be obsessed. You’ll have an obsession about certain things. people notice that and people will tell you Okay, great, awesome job. Do you know what I’ll do? finally signed this this piece of contract or blindside this check without asking any questions. So that’s where we are today.
Pei Mun Lim
That’s a good place to be. To be honest, I have worked for quite a few different partners. And I can see the difference. There are some who are very revenue focused. And there are some who admit that it’s a lifestyle business. They’re doing it because they enjoy it. They don’t care about the money in for me moving from a large company to a mid sized one that’s like that I was horrified. Like, you are hemorrhaging money. You’re leaving money on the table? And in my previous company, as project manager, I’d be I’d be on the firing line. Yeah, absolutely. That’s a change request, you ought to be billing for it. But I could see the difference, though, those that were more lifestyle business, yes. Revenue wasn’t great. But people seem to be a lot happier. Because as you say, you were there to solve a problem with the expertise that you have. And I feel that there’s no higher purpose than to find. What are you good at? And how to apply that to make someone’s life?
Goolshun
Better? Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think this is really great to say that, because it doesn’t matter whether you do that for clients, or anyone else, you need to have that DNA to yourself, are you you like? Or are you the type of person you’d like to help? Doesn’t matter if it’s a client, or someone on the street, if that’s what she was, that’s your calling, and you’ve accepted that money comes very secondary, you don’t even think about it, you do the do the helping first. And I realized for many years, when I was growing up, that that is the person that’s the inner child in me. But well, then you get thrown into society, right? To get into all these different projects, all this corporate, all this fancy world, you forget your inner child, you forget your inner voice, because it’s get diluted by all this noise around you. But I had to fight harder, though, for many years to really go back to the origin. And now I’m doing is that the inner child in me who said, so they’ve got that my gut feeling is that inner child and had and I feel happier. And as people say, happiness is a currency in itself. You might be getting, I don’t know, couple, six figure salary somewhere else, but you know, you’re unhappy. here somewhere else, you can get less money, but you have more time to enjoy life. And you only have one life. So why waste it? No, it’s
Pei Mun Lim
true. Sometimes. Sometimes I ask people what their definition of success is. But from your your responses, it sounds like success isn’t a big pile of cash. Yeah, it’s more to do with lifestyle and happiness. JOHN, expand on that. What do you think you’re successful?
Goolshun
I think I’ve, I’m as successful as it could be. My definitive success is I had a goal in my head of achieved it. And that goal was nothing to do with money. I needed to look after my parents, I’ve got great family I’m grateful for I’ve got great partner. For me, I’ve achieved those. I’m very successful person. And I’m happy doing what I’m doing. That’s a bonus. Now, once you’re happy, all these because those all these points just making you happy, which gives you enough energy to bring money in. But money is the second thing you will think about. Because you have those things balanced. That means you have focused, you can work even a free time four times harder, because you have the right support. You’re not regretting anything, there’s no cloud, the judgment is not clouded, you’re clear in your mind. And it makes it easy for you to decide whether you want something or not. Because if it’s 400k, you’re going to be working more crazy hours just for the sake of it. Then you can say you know what, I don’t want it. I’m happy doing just my normal hours. Have a good have a good life. I’m saying that but I’m a crazy workaholic. Because it’s not for because of clients also, because I like to keep digging around solving. I’m kind of go if I go on the internet and find something about certain problem. Then I go down the rabbit hole. And then it’s 2am in the morning, and I have a 6pm wake up. But I still wake up energized. I don’t wake up stressed. So stress is a big kiss. It’s a big, even though it comes but it shouldn’t come in in any way that it disrupts you from your own life. And I keep telling my own people about some of the people in my company are they they do like to stay off they stay online after working hours, especially the team in Merseyside as well we can see them still online. I’ll tell them we online and switched off if single digit doesn’t switch off completely. Next time you’re going to be sure the red card because I don’t want that because I had the same thing before and lobby which They’re trying to do a lot more work, but they’re not productive at all. So you’re just there to do work, you have more chance of making mistakes, because your brain is not functioning properly. Just go take a walk, go rest, we’ll do it tomorrow, and it’s work. You’re not dying from it. So, so make sure you don’t die. because firstly, if you die, that’s the rest of the project itself. So you’re gonna, you’re gonna, you won’t be able to do over the phone project if you’re sick. So it’s a big, big part of what I personally believe. And I’m hopefully kind of driving the people in same and the same thinking. But it’s hard because not everyone is it believes in exactly what I believe in. Yeah, that’s, that’s my ambition.
Pei Mun Lim
It sounds like you and I are quite similar because I am, but didn’t have kids, I’d be working all hours as well, because that’s the kind of that’s what I love about consulting. It’s so interesting and so diverse, you solving different problems talking different people. And if you’re in a large company, like yourself, and Accenture, you probably get a different teammates for every project, and therefore it’s brand new and stimulating. But there is a high possibility of burnout, if we don’t care for ourselves. So I can totally see why you’re wanting your team to switch off. But maybe you have to take some of that advice a little bit as well.
Goolshun
That is very funny. Someone. My advisor said the same thing today, he says, but Gosh, can you tell people not to do that, but you do that yourself, that’s setting the wrong example. I’m trying to work hard. So now I’m very conscious when I’m logging in on my laptop after office, after office hours, and make sure everything else is switched off people to undo I’m on line. But it’s even though it’s leading by example, but I don’t want my people to burn out. Because Because when I burnt out during my Accenture time, it was very hard. It was many months of recovery. And ask anyone at Accenture I’m sure you know that you serve, you’ve probably been to a lot of major transformation project, we can burn up very quickly. It’s very hard to recover, like in a less stacked elastic man, if you pull it too hard. It will snap. You so. So I’m very conscious about this. Because I’ve seen people get into depression, burnout from work, not because of the work itself. It’s just a stretching of themselves trying to please someone else and that someone else will get promoted and move other places, they’ll be happy. But what do you believe? Are you doing the right thing for yourself? It’s good that you’re working hard. But is that in on the right for the right purpose? Or just working hard, just get some cash. But then you probably worked so many hours, if you divide that the rate by the number of hours you worked, it’s similar as you you’re getting the money at McDonald’s. Because you work crazy hours,
Pei Mun Lim
I’m just gonna pick up on the point where you say, why are you doing it? And I think, again, possibly I’m conjecturing that your reasons are similar to mine. So as a project manager for me, my first I need to care for my team. So sometimes, if a project is undersold, or if there are other issues like a political landscape on on whichever side, then I see it as my duty to take it on so that my team do not suffer. And so while I tell my team, you do your hours, because I will protect you. If we underestimated then I will fight on your behalf to get time written off. Because it was an internal mistake, or if it’s an external issued, and I will deal with that. But I don’t want my team to weekends and evening, every single time maybe for go live once in a while it’s it’s fine. But that I see myself as protective of them. At the same time, no one’s looking out for me except me. So I will show all of that to protect them. So it sounds like if you’re running a business, that’s even more because you want to make sure that there’s paycheck going in for them. And so maybe quite similar in that sense, because you’re now responsible
Goolshun
for your first of all people sorry, in your as you said, like the your project manager, your leader, you have to lead the people of lead by one key role. If, if my team made a mistake, I take the blame. My if I think if my team did a great job, I give them the credit. And that’s a choice you have to make if you want to be a leader, right as a parent, make a choice, either to let the kill kind of roll down the hill and or make a choice to protect them. So I obviously feel like I don’t have any kids or anything but I’ve got many kind of children out of cafta and their own children as well. So I have to make sure I kind of protect them as well. But at certain time, I need to expose them the right amount of pressure, because they need to see they need to stretch themselves as well. So kind of balanced it out. And at all times, my trick is, I will ask questions that has no, if you answer it, that means, basically, you’re lying. So I try to do test people in my own team, because there’s so many things to manage, you have to just basically some gut feeling and trust your team, right? So sometimes you ask question, to give them about a stressful situation, and then they they will answer you something. But you know that that question has no answer. It means there’s something else going wrong there. So have do those kind of tests do so to see where my how my team is behaving? But I do. That’s my own personal view of it on my team, hopefully, they will answer that separately, we’ve created the trust, they’d never get challenged or never get kind of shut down. If they made a mistake. It’s just been encouraged. I will take the blame Anyway, I’ll have to talk to the client and stuff. And sometimes most of the time, we have to be honest with the client, because we’ll batch you back, if it’s a big corporation, you move from one project to the other. But us as a business, we’re still gonna be there. So either we bite the bullet, give a discount, or we’re not charge at all, or the client says, you know, thanks for being honest. It’s great to create that trust. And you have to be that and then you have to train your people. Even though I shadow them a lot, I do a lot of expose them to certain heated challenge, then you can see, and they can be honest, when they reply to you conversation with the client, they are honest with the client as well. Because I’ve seen law consultants, they just say things for the sake of saying it, over promising it then at some point, you’re the team that delivering the work will get a lot of the pressure. And I remember one of the leaders of Accenture, who’s now left, he’s the one who interviewed me he’s a he did say to me once and I was saying that I was I’m working crazy hours at the moment. This is why I said there’s so much stuff to do. And this is why this is why this, this this project, right? How many hours you’re working, working 14 hours a day. Okay? So something else is wrong, then either you’re not managing your project very well. Or the problem is with your own leaders, they’re not managing very well. So that’s, that’s getting back to you that you have to work crazy hours to do something that’s unrealistic. So you have to go back and challenge them those people rather than just saying Yes, okay, I’ll do it. Sometimes you can negotiate with your clients, you can say, Well, as you said, This slipped our radar, maybe trying to find different way, can we describe some stuff, or maybe we have a simpler way to do the same thing. Clients most of the time, if you’re honest with them, they okay. So you just be sometimes you just need to be honest about just put the cards on the table, discuss it, whatever happens happens, they may take you the wrong way. Or they may take you the right way. irrelevant, but at least you know, we where you sit, where you stand, and how you can plan next. And at the end of the day, you can choose your clients, right, some clients are so so intense, in on the positive side that you have you had some you have to let go. You have to say, well, maybe we’re not the right fit as a company for you, and neither for you to us. So let’s just end end this relationship, amicably. Better to lose something than lose your health and lose your mind around something that you could you could control it. Maybe they have a choice out there for different people who can actually do the work for them rather than us doing that.
Pei Mun Lim
Agreed. Okay, if you were able to travel back in time, and meet the younger self, have you looked really young? So I’ll just say 16 years old. Thank you for saying that. So well. What would you What would you advise the 16 year old you?
Goolshun
Oh, that I think that one of the key thing not a regret, I would say start reading earlier. Really a halo of books. I think that I would have told myself that. And don’t be stupid enough not to listen to people who’s got knowledge. ask for feedback. Rather than trying to know trying to see if you can you can do everything yourself. I think those are two key things I will definitely be talking to myself and the readings definitely something I think I’ve kind of regret that I didn’t start earlier. And if I if I shift my laptop around, there’s loads of books I read so Much at the moment, I’m dyslexic. So reading was hard for me in the first place. But I set myself my own limitation, given the fact and I was dyslexic. But I didn’t realize I’m also a speed reader. So rather than reading line by line, I read block by block. And I didn’t realize that until later down in my life when it came to London, so Oh, sometimes something happened that I should have, I was challenging myself, I realized I could read more. But I started reading a bit too late. Where all that knowledge that that all the years that I’ve spent just drinking in the parking lot, so I could have spent that time reading. So that’s, that’s going to be I think, I would definitely advise that to anyone, as well read as much as you can, if you can’t read as much as you can partner with someone, help someone who’s better than you in your eyes and work with them help them get their knowledge on that side.
Pei Mun Lim
The thing about reading, I feel is that nowadays, people whose attention span is so short, and they’d rather read snippets of the internet, as opposed to getting really deep into a book. So that’s a bit sad, I think
Goolshun
the reading is meditation. People just, I mean, I’ve really realized myself with the number of choice that you have on Netflix, which actually, I think there’s a research being published are saying people spend about 90 minutes per, per week, just going watching trailers, because because they don’t know what to watch, which is a lot. But when you’re reading, you’re focused. Either you’re reading a book or some audiobook, but then you’re focused, you’re listening to something. It’s like you calming your brain, because you have some is this distraction around. And that’s why your attention span is going to reduce brain is Concord without much of kind of so many distractions, you have to calm yourself, I do go for walks, or put my headphones on, on audiobook on a go for walk in the forest, and then toys back or finished a book. So just because you could use off time, knowledge wise, and also your fit, you go around the phrase you focus come back refreshed.
Pei Mun Lim
I listened to a lot of podcasts. And I do a lot of running. So I consume a huge amount of podcasts that way. But interestingly, just one time, I went for a run. And I realized that I didn’t have my earphones with me. And so I was running for an hour and a half with nothing, which was great, I think, because there was a switch in that. Now I’ve got nothing coming in, I now have to, there were lots of things that I was thinking about. And at the end, I came up actually with a lot more ideas about something that was in the back of my mind. And I realized that I was caught in the I have to be doing stuff or input and fill up the space and fill up the time when maybe because you were talking about meditation, I think there’s different ways of doing that. I think, maybe not listening while you’re doing something. In activities also a good thing to do, which a lot of people don’t because they always pick up the phone when they’re waiting
Goolshun
to leech I’ve realized that it happens during the pandemic has happened to me a lot more. I will have to kind of literally when there’s my opponent will pose on the Netflix, the food is on my hand automatically without thinking and I’m not I have nothing to check. It’s just it’s just instinct. And now I just said to myself, Okay, you know what, I’m gonna put my phone somewhere in a different room. So I have to walk to get there. So kind of reducing them of kind of opening my phone a half. But yeah, and and also the meditation part. It could be as easy as sit down brief on one minute. It could be washing dishes, because you’re focused on washing the dishes. That’s meditation itself. And I think you’ve probably read how Bill Gates used to work and they do dishes themselves, even though they have the billionaires because those are activities that’s improving your mental health because it’s so mundane, but you focused. And one of the things I’ve read from Anthony Anthony Robbins, Robin Sharma, who wrote the the monk Who Sold His Ferrari was to watch a flower. Look at the rose. And last every single aspect of that rose the petals, the fine grains, the forms the color. Just do that for one minute and suddenly you’ll have that one in your head is so light. Because again, the fact that people just have to feel time with work, they think that they are more productive. Actually the most productive people are the ones who actually have good sleep. Do the right exercise, switch off, do something different is that And that gives you more energy, more brain power to process a lot more things because they have their brain out tight enough giving a time to relax. I think there was, I don’t know, if you’ve remembered but I think was Japanese or some Chinese consulting company did a research, they put two different set of have employees to different rooms to different companies, one of them that they were allowed to take breaks and look at YouTube and Facebook during the work time. And then time how much they have to do in terms of how much time to to do the work. And the same set of similar skill set, but different set of people who were not allowed to watch any YouTube. Anything else, right, they had to work, work work similar hours, the output from the one who actually took a little break were higher than the output from the one who didn’t take any break. So just clearly shows that your mind can’t process that much. So you have to just take time processor. Don’t be too ambitious, that you have to kill yourself, right? Because that’s not the right way to do it.
Pei Mun Lim
Yeah. Quick, quick way to the cemetery, I think. Let me circle back to the question that I asked you earlier on about whether you felt that you were successful. And you have said yes. And I, I liked the answer that you gave. And given that you believe that you now have built yourself a very successful life. What’s the next level for you that you’re reaching for? What? What’s the next thing that excites you that you’re
Goolshun
right? And I have to be very nervous, I don’t have the answer. And I’ve set myself goals from a long time ago have achieved them. But felt like the goal was not high enough, because I’ve achieved already. So I’m actually debating What’s next? What’s the next step? I don’t know yet. And I work with like, various people around me, I’ll talk about them. What do I need to do? I do feel but what’s my best skill sets? Everyone has different view of how I do you think, but I don’t know myself. So I need an A, as I say, a uni as I said to kind of preaching to everyone to take breaks. I haven’t taken a break myself to really focus on what do I want now? And so that’s my next step. I won’t be giving you any kind of a fancy answer saying, Okay, I’ve got that figured out. Actually, I don’t I need to work on it.
Pei Mun Lim
That’s an exciting place to be as well. The it’s it’s like doing discovery. Asking of the questions, isn’t it?
Sure. What what?
Pei Mun Lim
Exactly. There’s something maybe your otter?
Goolshun
Yes, absolutely. I probably I probably need to get my teeth to suck to sit with me. And actually also question mapping. Exactly, that does help actually helps in any situation. But it’s over formal. But But yes, you’re right, I need to, I need to do about self discovery. Because get I’m switching into a different stage of life as well. And I don’t know what I really want out of it. So a lot of a lot of thinking have to do. And for that probably need to disconnect me from the business and kind of do spend that time on my own. And I figure things out. But But the thing is what I’ve always wanted to do is like there’s a book I’ve been reading about leadership by it’s called the motive by Patrick lencioni lencioni and talks about leadership, and why would you want to be a leader. And I think what I do like more with my life is coaching people and then running businesses. I love spending time with people trying to if for me, it’s like a problem I have to solve, right? Those people have a problem. I’m trying to fix them, probably it’s not good. Maybe some issues, I have to work in my subconscious somewhere. But I feel very empowered when I’m helping someone else, making them better version of me. Given all the knowledge I have, and I’ve been training a lot of people even before I started the business, everyone has great jobs, they move to Accenture, a lot of people have started their own companies, even though we don’t speak that much. But I know there’s there’s a level of kind of gratefulness. And I feel very proud. I’ve created those people. And as I used to say to everyone, if you want to change the world, start with one person at a time, rather than trying to change the whole the whole big world. So for me, it’s like if I train someone else, I always tell them, wherever tell, I’ll tell you try that the same thing with someone else who needs it. And hopefully, that’s going to go down and you’re going to leave whole legacy behind which you don’t even know what you built. But when people talk about it behind your back when you’re not there. Maybe that’s that’s the measure of that’s a real measure of success. But you won’t know because you’re not gonna be around that much.
Pei Mun Lim
I On that note, actually, I think we’re ending on a really good note because I didn’t know you before this call. And I really like listening to how you have to listen to your journey and the values that shape your life. So even though I wanted to ask question about what your core values are, I think it shines through in the answers that you’ve provided and how you are so passionate about helping people you did, you took a sabbatical to do to do work for charity, so much so that you were going to be homeless and your friend offered to pay you, etc. and how it brought you where you are now and how it’s still driving you forward. And I think that you will leave a long legacy behind you, whether you see the output of it or not. So thank you very much for spending time with me
Goolshun
and can appreciate that. really enjoy the conversation. Yeah, great. Great to be on your on your podcast. And hopefully, people could benefit from my own journey and yourself. I do like the drawing you put every week on LinkedIn. Do you enjoy watching that so keep them coming.
Pei Mun Lim
Thank you very much Goolshun. Bye