Episode 14 - Being Human with Andy Bailey

Content note: This episode includes discussion of serious illness, kidney failure, and organ transplantation.

🧠 What do you do when life suddenly flips from “I’m fine” to “you might have three days to live”?

In this powerful instalment of our Being Human Series, Joel and Luke sit down with Andy Bailey — a sales coach, motivator, and lifelong sportsman — who opens up about the day his world completely changed. After living six decades without so much as a cold, Andy was told his kidneys were failing and he needed urgent treatment to survive.

What followed was three and a half years on dialysis, relentless hospital stays, a life-saving kidney transplant, and the battle to rebuild not just his body, but his sense of identity and purpose. Andy shares with raw honesty what it’s like to live tethered to a machine, to lose control after a lifetime of independence, and to face the kind of exhaustion that runs deeper than sleep.

Beyond the medical story, this is a conversation about resilience, acceptance, and perspective — what happens when your life is suddenly measured in blood results, how gratitude shifts when you get a second chance, and the quiet strength it takes to keep showing up when every day feels like borrowed time.

🎙 This episode is for you if you’re into:
• Real stories of survival, resilience, and rebuilding after health crises
• What life on dialysis and transplant recovery actually looks like
• Finding purpose and humour in the face of life-threatening illness
• The mental toll of illness and the importance of honest support
• Letting go of control and learning to live on your own terms again
• Powerful, grounded conversations about what it really means to be human

💬 Got thoughts or want to share your own story?
We’d love to hear from you. Reach out anytime:
📬 lifesbumpsbruises@gmail.com
📲 Instagram: @lifesbumpsandbruises
📘 Facebook: Life’s Bumps and Bruises

 New episodes drop every Tuesday — let’s normalise the conversation, one real chat at a time.

Credits:

The Inspiration by Keys of Moon | https://soundcloud.com/keysofmoon

Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:04

Life is full of bumps and bruises and emotional pumps. Just a block is a battle brings muddy and push. Cancel the council money can help us. Each week we talk real life being some money over well. Family stuff. And this morning we're getting in a bit feels like a win.

SPEAKER_00 0:55

Yeah, good, Jolly. How are you doing?

SPEAKER_02 0:57

Young Rob? Young Rod. Why are we behind the screen again?

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Because we have a special guest today. Very special. We do. I would do that special, but yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

We uh we have our first or our second guest actually in the Being Human series. We'll introduce him in the not too distant future. Um so that's an exciting one. I'm looking forward to that chat. Very interesting story. Uh we'll just jump into a quick week let me try that again, a quick recap. That was hard to get out, Luke. Uh episode 13 was on trauma, the pain you didn't choose, the healing you can. We discussed and unpacked the reality of trauma, not just the big dramatic events, but the quieter struggles that leave deep marks, grief, burnout, anxiety, miscarriages, and the battles we often fight in silence. Luke, you explained how trauma lives in the body, how a nervous system keeps score, and how survival strategies that once protected us can later hold us back. And what stood out for me was the reminder that while trauma is unavoidable, healing is possible and it starts with awareness, reframing, taking small steps of self-care, especially when life feels calm, as you say, do it when it's easy, not when it's hard.

SPEAKER_00 2:02

You know, while we could have made that that that's a whole season of episodes on its own. That that's we didn't cover everything, but Darwin, we kind of just went over the top of it, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Yeah, I'd be interested to see what our uh what our listeners thought of that one. Um, that obviously dropped in the Tuesday just gone. If you did want to get in contact with us or uh something you'd like us to unpack, click us an email as always at lifespumpsbruises at gmail.com, or you can DM us at Instagram and Facebook under the same name, Life's Bumps and Bruises. We might throw to our next guest.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Now at first, I just want to really briefly thank uh some of the people that have reached out. I think we've had maybe five or six people reach out in the last week. Um, just through the feedback they've given us has been really, really good. Um so thank you all for reaching out and giving us that feedback because it um it definitely helps us to know that we're either on the right track or we need to adjust something. Um so thank you guys, I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_02 3:01

Yeah, it's great. Let's uh let's jump into being human. This is our second being human series. Obviously, we started with Mitch Johnson. That episode was a hit. Uh, I'll give you a quick disclaimer. I'm guessing this episode is going to discuss um some health challenges, including organ failure, maybe kidney transplant. So take care while listening, skip it or come back another time if needed. So I'd like to introduce to the podcast is I was going to call him Andrew, but I got in trouble with that before. So Andy Bailey is a sales coach, a speaker, a motivator, someone who's been around softball and baseball, and he's also been through some life-changing events. Welcome to the podcast. And Andy, sorry, almost did it again.

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Anyways. No, don't stress over that, Joel. Andrew or Andrew's binding. It's not a major drama. As what goes past that was where I get upset. So all the other things they call me. So uh look, nice to be here, guys. And um, obviously, we've been watching bits and pieces of your podcast, and yeah, obviously covering some interesting stuff that a lot of people don't play with. So it's always interesting to sort of test the boundaries and see who's there. And obviously, um what I've been through is um is testing the boundaries on a personal level, um, which was very difficult for me because my my family basically don't have issues. We've never even had a cold or the flu um through anything. And this was something that just came from came from nowhere, and uh obviously we were all quite upset about it. Most people that are attached to my family think they will go down before anyone in my family, basically my brothers, sisters, and family. So it's it was very um uh out there when it happened, and you know, it was a lot of thought had to go into it to make it work. So um, so yeah, so um yeah, I we just we got through it as best we could at the time for uh what it's been three and a half years now, um, and we're still going through the process.

SPEAKER_02 4:54

So well, just wind it back a little bit, um Andy. Tell us a little bit about your human stats, your age, your family, your background, and then after that, tell me how you describe yourself outside of the sales coach and a motivator.

SPEAKER_01 5:06

Um, yeah, look, I'm in my 60s now. Um, I've liked to say my 30s, but uh not even close. So in my 60s, um and I I've been in sales now since I was 19 or 20. I was very lucky to to pick up a job. You know, when I was um at that age, you didn't, when you finished high school, you really didn't go to university unless you're going to be a brain surgeon or a mathematician, and I was really not gonna be either. So um I thought, well, there's there's only a couple of ways in life to make above award wages, which was I'm lucky I got into sales, ran a lot of sales, did a lot of sales courses, and got hooked up with a uh little transport company that had virtually just started and started knocking on doors basically and climbed on my way for the end of the next 45 odd years. So I've been very, very lucky to do what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

So yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Luke, you got a question?

SPEAKER_02 6:01

Because I've got heaps. Where do you want to go from here?

SPEAKER_00 6:03

I'll bet you do, Jolly. You always have heaps of questions, it's good. Um I'm just interested to to know, Andy, with um can you can you please explain to us what were the health issues that you experienced in the last three years and um how did you find out that this was happening and and then what was the process for you?

SPEAKER_01 6:23

Well, look, it was interesting because um I'd probably just turned 60 when it happened. And because at the time I was probably on about 110 kilos now, but at the time I was probably just on 140 kilos, and you look at being 60 and you're carrying a bit of beef, and so every year I would go to the doctor roughly November towards the end of the year and just get tested and make sure everything was all right. And in November before uh the before COVID, the doctor had said to me, Look, um, you know, you're a million dollars, but you need to lose weight on pinkabile. Don't really be need to be a doctor to tell I was overweight. My wife told me every day. So I didn't need a doctor to tell me that. So anyway, went to the doctor in November, everything was fine, no dramas. Probably in February, I was building a big deck in the backyard, and every 10 minutes I had to sit down and catch my breath. Wasn't real flash, and my wife said, You need to go to the doctor. I said, No, I don't need to go to the doctors. And again, my family, because we don't get ill, you know, the thought pattern is to be go to the doctor, they're gonna find something wrong. And that's why you don't go to the doctor, okay? So in the end, we went for a walk. My wife wanted to go and take photos of that reminds me.

SPEAKER_02 7:37

Sorry, Eddie, that reminds you of back in the COVID days when some people would say, Hey, you don't have COVID if you can't get tested. Yeah, that's it.

SPEAKER_01 7:44

Well, there you go, it's obvious. Other people think like I do. Well, COVID had just come in. Anyway, we um so we went for a walk and I was really struggling. So in the end, I thought maybe I should go to the doctors and just get a checkup. So I had all the tests done and they found nothing, and I went back again. And he said, the only question we've got is is this little thing here, and we don't know what it is, called GFR. And I said, Okay, well, can you ring somebody? And he said, Yeah, yeah, okay. And he said, because in November your GFR was 80 something, now it's five. I said, Oh, we'll we'll ring someone. So he rang the register at Monash and said, you know, do you know? Can you tell me what the GFR is? He said, Well, what is it? And he said, It's five. And we're on a video call like this, and I was sitting to one side, and he said, Well, um, who is it? And he said, It's a guy called Andrew Bailey, and he said, It's five. And he said, Is he with you or is he dead? And I said, I'm here, I can attend to that, and I sort of swung it around. And I said, What's the issue? And he said, Well, your GFR is your rating on your kidneys, basically. And your kidneys are at five or six, and they should be 60 something or 70 something at your age. And everybody's GFR is different. But anyway, I said, Okay, so what do we do? Should we go to the hospital right now? Or within three to four days, you'll be dead. And I thought that's pretty thought-provoking. So I said, Yeah, right. So I I went home, I had a shower, and I sat there and thought, do I want to go to the hospital or not? Do we run the gauntlet? Because I mean, I've I've my wife and I have been living together since we were 17. We've made all our own decisions, we paid all our own bills, nobody's ever helped us. And I thought, well, I'm 60 years of age, I'm not gonna have anybody control what I do now. So anyway, we sat there for a while, then my wife rang and she said, I'm on my way home. The doctor had rung and snitched on me that uh I was in a bit of trouble. So she came home, and we live in Warrigal, so we went up to Warrigal Hospital. They sort of said, We can't handle this, you need to go to Monash at Clayton. So they got me a bed and I went down. I sat there for probably a day and a half waiting to get a bed. And a couple of people came down, and the guy at the time called Peter Cook, who was in charge of Australia and New Zealand for the uh renal wards. So he controlled anything to do with kidneys in Australia and New Zealand. He was the man. Came down, big smile on his face, and said, This is where we're at. This is what we do. We'll put you on a machine, feast of cake, do it from home, it's all good, no problems. And I said, Well, not really. I said, I'm not gonna have, and he showed me what the machine looked like, like a big water cooler with hoses hanging out of it. And I said, I'm not gonna be controlled by that machine five hours a day every second day. It just ain't gonna fly. And he said, We can give you some injections and we can do this, but I don't know how long we could keep you alive for. I said, That's right. And then to be honest, I mean, I've done a lot in 60 years, and I was pretty happy with what I'd done. So at the time I'm thinking, I got no regrets, and I'm feeling pretty good. So this could last two or three years. We don't know. Could last three or four days, could last three or four years. Anyway, then my wife showed up and my granddaughter showed up and went out the window. It was like, get your ass on that machine and let's go. So, anyway, we I did, I had to go to a couple of different wards. Not as easy as they say, because they will say to you, do it from home, piece of cake. Well, you spend three months in a center in Daninal learning how to drive this machine. Usually there's got to be two of you. Now, I have no idea. Take me away from sales and baseball and softball. Nothing else really matters in my life. So it was like, well, I got no idea. My wife, on the other hand, should have been a nurse in another life and was better than most of the nurses that we got on it. So she picked up straight away, she's into this machine. She retains information quickly, um, and away we went. And I think they knew while she was there, we were good. If she wasn't there, Andy's in real trouble. So, anyway, so it took us about five or six weeks, what was supposed to be a three-month thing. They said to me, Look, five or six weeks, your wife's a gun. Get the machine put in the house, we'll go home. And we actually did it from home, which was a good thing because if you do it from a center and they're struggling for seats in centers, that's why they're telling everyone, do it at home. Because in each center, you've probably got six to eight chairs, and you've got people at seven o'clock in the morning and people at lunchtime. So you've got 12 people, if you're lucky, in these chairs. And at Clayton, they've probably got 30 odd chairs in the hospital. So when you think about it, there's over a thousand people in Victoria on dialysis on these machines. So they want you to be at home because there's no room in the hospitals now. Anyway, within six weeks, we were at home. So at five o'clock at night, I'd spend half an hour, 40 minutes. And every night you gotta put all the hoses, filters. Takes about 40 minutes when you start. You get it down to about 20, 25 minutes, loading the machine up. My wife would come in. I had a permacaf, which is like a port in my chest with hoses hanging out of it. So she would plug me in, it would pump the blood out into the machine, the water would clean it, then they'd pump it back in. So that went on for five hours. But then at the end of the five hours, which is probably by this time, probably 11, 11:30 at night, she'd take it off, we'd take everything off, put it in the bin, chug it in the bin, and then clean the machine. So it's probably midnight before you you get any chance of going to bed. But what would happen when you first start doing it is you have issues with the machine. Like if I didn't, if I had word ringing me on the phone while I'm setting the machine up, I'd forget what I was doing and think, okay, so you'd mess it up and you'd backtrack somewhere and get it. And if it wasn't done spot on, the machine would start alarming. So you've got this machine in your ear, like. So you just want to kill the machine with a bat, is the likely thing. My wife would come home, she'd ring after hours. That probably went on for about six or eight weeks. She'd ring after hours, they'd say, try this, no, that didn't work, try this. And then usually they'd say, You have to pull the machine to pieces and set it all up again. So there's an hour out of your life going again. So you do all of that, and if you did the process right, it would work. So after a couple of months, though, we were pretty good at it. And as I say, my wife's probably kept me alive for three years. So that that that worked. We did that for three years, and then after about the first 12 months, every six months you go in to see the surgeons. Probably took them about 12 months to finally tell me you're too fat, you need to lose weight, or we can't give you a transplant. I'm like, why didn't you tell me that 12 months ago? And I mean, lucky enough, my son's pretty good at what he does. Probably should be a dietitian and a bodybuilder. But anyway, he lost 40 kilos in a matter of weeks. And I said to him, How the hell did you do that? He went from 120 to 81, 82 kilos. He said, Dad, just don't open the fridge. Not hard, no bread, no milk, don't open the fridge, and you'll lose the weight. Anyway, within about two and a half, three months, I'd lost 40, oh, well, 30 something kilos anyway. So I was down to about 115. They told me I needed to be 120 or less. So I went in to see the the uh surgeon who was an Australian bloke for a change, um, Aaron, and he said to me, um, and he was laughing. And I said, What are you laughing at? And he said, Oh, I just want to get on the scales. I said, Mate, I'm looking forward to getting on the scales. So I got on the scales and I was 115 point something. He said, What did we say? I said, We said 120. He said, Okay. And I said, What are you laughing at? And he said, Nobody your age on dialysis loses that much weight. We don't even expect it. I said, Well, why did you tell me three months ago then that I needed to lose this? And he said, We didn't expect it. But they were stunned as well. So I'm thinking sometimes you just got to be careful. What they tell you must be straight out of the doctor's book, I think, because they're not expecting you to do these things. So we lost the weight, and I said, Okay, let's get this kidney on the go. What we got to wait for now is there's a long procession of stuff, right? Blood type, you know, right. I I was getting people that were in their 70s donating, and he said, Well, that's no good to us because you're only gonna last four or five years with that kidney. You need somebody 40 odd, 35, 40. So you'd be ideal, Joel, if you're A plus, all right. Uh so uh wouldn't have to be.

SPEAKER_02 16:47

I got a dumb question for you, but can you donate a kid here?

SPEAKER_01 16:50

Have you only got one kid there? You didn't notice I was on a roll in, Josh? Joel? Like I'm on a roll here and you want to butt in, all right? So um just just keep your keep your questions to the last minute, all right. So we we get through we get through the the process, and so then they said we got this and we got that, and but you can't have it for this reason, you can't have it for that reason. So I'm starting to so after about two and a half years, every fortnight I'm on the phone. Peter Kerr, the guy I spoke about, rigid left, another guy called John, who's a really good guy, came in, and then he and I on a fortnightly phone call, what have you got? Let's go. Anyway, we got to the point probably just over three years, and and hopefully, you know, I'd I I'd had enough. And I have no patience. I mean, Luke's learned the hard way. I have no patience at all. And if I want something done, it's done now. So I got involved, I rang and rang and rang. And I think there was a tournament at Waverly, but I wanted to go watch. I hadn't eaten a hamburger, hadn't had a beer, hadn't had a bourbon, all the things that I used to enjoy, I'd done none of it to keep my weight down to about 110 kilos. And I thought, bugger, I better get full of this. I'm going to Waverly, I'm gonna eat, I'm gonna drink, and I'm off the dialysis. I said to my wife on a Saturday morning, I did last night, I'm done. We run the goal and look the mirror. So I went up, I had food, drink. Sunday night, the phone rings, and this guy John rings me and says, I got a kidney. I'm like, you have not. And he said, Yeah, he said, I thought you'd be happy. I said, I am, but I reckon I put on about five kilos in two days. So he said, What are you weigh? I said, 114. And he said, That's all right, we're good. We're still good. Uh, can you come in Tuesday? We'll put a kidney in you. I said, I think I can make it. So uh we went down Monday afternoon and got prepared and put in. And you know, um, it's interesting because you think the kidney's in, bit of drama in the hospital with an infection and a few other things, they're pulling stuff out and putting stuff in, and you lay there thinking, but once this is done, back to normal, not even close. Because you constantly, every day for the next three or four weeks, you're in there for a blood test, see the doctor, and that goes on and on for three or four weeks. If you get an infection in the middle of that, then that goes on. So I'm probably just over six months since I've had the transplant. I'm still back at the getting a blood test last Friday. I've got to get a blood test tomorrow. They go, put me on a drip tomorrow. Just uh everyone's got a thing called CMV in their body, which is like a cold or the flu. But when what happens when they put the kidney in? They kill all of your resistance to everything. So the kidney can get in. So you're, you know, you you're a chance to catch anything, you're open to it. Um, so they said to me, You've got to have a flu shot. So the same day they said to me, we've solved the problem with the CMV, got the flu shot, bang, there it is. I get the flu, so this CMV's back with a vengeance. So now I've been taking these pills for a couple of weeks, and they want me to go into MARA and put this script in to try to get rid of it. But that's been going on for a couple of months now. So look, this there's traumas all the way through. You'd like to think, I've got a friend of mine that was three weeks in front of me. He's just turned 30. Big, strong country boy, big hair, big beard. Um, and he sort of went in, no dramas. He was doing, he was doing it overnight in his bed while he was sleeping. So he was doing eight hours a night, Monday, Wednesday, Friday. So big call to do something like that. And it's a lot of hours. Friend of mine, ages ago when we first started, she had a thing, had an issue with her leg. So they were pumping plasma into her. And they came down for for coffee and a visit, and she said, You've got no idea what it's like. I have to go in for three hours every month to get this plasma put in on this machine. My wife's looking at me, sort of looking at me, saying, Are you gonna tell her? And I said, No, let her, let her have that. Let her have that. Like, you know, it's you know, it's three hammers would be a breeze. So yeah, so look, it it's it's good and it's bad. Like the kidney's great. My kidney's at a million dollars, it's working really well. Um, and I think part of that, and Luke will know what I'm talking about. We got a friend of ours who's a kinesiologist. Uh, went to see her, and she said, this was probably after about two months. And she said, Your kidney's not talking to the rest of your body. I'm gonna switch it on. And there was a lump with the kidney, probably about a 10 or 11 inch scar across your side, and they cut all your stomach muscles and all your nerves on one side of your body, which means I don't, I like, I don't have that's gonna take about 12 months for them to grow back. But anyway, she went in. And while she was playing with it, the kidney, you could see the lump on the kidney go back into my body and up underneath my ribs as she turned it on. And then my heart rate and my blood pressure went through the roof. And she said, You're all right. I said, No, I'm dizzy and I'm not feeling good. I think I'm going to pass out. She said, What did the bloke die of? That gave you the kidney. I said, A heart attack. She said, Oh, Christ. So she settled it down and got up talking to the rest of my body. And it settled down quickly and it just went, it just consumed itself back in and up underneath my ribs. And when I went for a biopsy a few weeks later, after three months to make sure everything was okay, the nurse said to me, We've never seen it like this. Because normally it takes quite a bit of time to go back into your body. But she said, This is back and up underneath your ribs, where it should be in a couple of years. So I don't know what she did, but um, I mean, Luke knows how good she is and what she can do. And but yeah, it's interesting stuff. And she said at the time, she said, This is why a lot of these transplants don't succeed. Because they know what's in the book, but they don't know what's actually happening in the body. But take my hat off to them. I'm the lady I deal with at the moment, um, the the doctor, she's in the top three or four in Australia and New Zealand, and she's very good. So there's good and there's bad on both. And I'm sure everybody has got a doctor story they can tell you where things have gone right and things have gone wrong. But the the biggest issue for me is this little this little Indian lady. I got out of the bed, so I was a good foot taller than her and thought, right, I'm telling you when I'm going home. And I started not yelling, but I got quite demanding. And then she turned around and started yelling back. And I thought, hang on, that's not supposed to happen. And um, she said, This is what you need to do, this is what I guarantee you. So get into bed and shut up. So I thought, all right, I'll get into bed and shut up then. So but uh yeah, so look, there's good and there's bad in both. So but that that's basically the six months or the three and a half years in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

I'm interested to know. I just want to go back to what you said, something in the start. It was almost like you were prepared to die and you were just completely accepting that that might be the case. I want you to talk to me about, I don't know, managing hope and fear and if you had any, or like how do you have that attitude and just be completely okay with whatever happens?

SPEAKER_01 24:30

Mate, I still have that attitude.

SPEAKER_02 24:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:33

I mean, like, you know, you you've got to put it down to what it is. And a good friend of mine, which was this kinesiologist, said to me, you know, you've got to understand you've just been through a life and death thing, and you still haven't made your mind up whether you want to live or die. You still, and if you decide to die, then your body's gonna shut down and you're done. So you need to change your attitude and get to hear it. So sometimes when I'm not in a good place, um, you know, quite a I can seriously think, is all this worth it? Because this is just, you know, as I said to you in the middle, you know, you think once you've got the kidney in your body and you're working out, you're thinking, thank God that's over. But it's not. There's still a lot to go through. And I've spoken to some people and 12, 14 months down the track, they go in for once every six months for a blood test, and that's it, which is fine. You take about, like I take 24, 25 pills a day, um, though, which are all different types of pills, and they're still adjusting them to get them right. Um, so it's a lot of pills you're taking, where I never used to take, I never even took an aspirin. You know, now I'm pumping pills like I live in Danny Hill. So um, you know, it's just where I'm at. Um, but yeah, look, that the attitude is, I suppose, like I said to you at the start, I've never wanted help from anybody. I've always done everything my way. And I I won't be to a point. I mean, everybody's controlled by something, but I've never been controlled by anything. And if and I and and I said to you, I've had a really good life. My dad died at 63, I've just turned 64, and I'm thinking, well, I've got inbeat for starters. So um, you know, I I live as long as I as I want now. Um, and I think it all depends on attitude. So there's not there's not a basic thought around what do I really want to do? But if someone said to me tomorrow, you know, your kidney stopped working, we need to do it again, and it'd be like, no, I'm not doing it again. I got I got a guy next door to me, went in for a stint in his heart, and somehow they buggered up both his kidneys, and his kidneys aren't working. He's down at about 10 or 11. And they said to him, You can put up what they call a fuscular, which is like a giant blood vein in your arm. Uh, we can put that in and we can plug in and you can do dialysis three days a week. Well, he said to me, What would you do? I said, Don't ask me, mate, because I'm the wrong person. Um, and they said, No, and his wife said to them, So if he does, if he does he's 80 something, if he doesn't, what's his life expectancy? And they said, one to three years. If he doesn't do it, what's his life expectancy? And you tell me what his life expectancy was.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

One to three years.

SPEAKER_01 27:21

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so what's what's the point? You know, so if my kidneys stop working now, then I'm probably just gonna say, nah, I'll live as long as I can. Jack Nicholson realized after two years that his kidneys were dumb. He he does dialysis on set when he's working every second day. And it took him two years to diagnose it. So um, and he was just having to sleep every afternoon.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

I would imagine that um, you know, dealing with so many different specialists and doctors and nurses and all that sort of stuff, there'd be a lot of information being thrown at you. Would your because I know that there are some people that listen to us that have got some health concerns. What would be your advice to them when you're dealing with the doctors and that? Would you have somebody with you all the time? I mean, I know that your your wife, Chris, she's like a photographic memory when it comes to that sort of stuff. She remembers everything. Lucky because you don't remember anything. So um, does does uh would you suggest that that would be an important thing to have somebody with you?

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Mate, I remember important things. I can tell you who had the who hit the when he run in the 91 Nationals in Queensland, but as far as what pill I should take next, I got no idea what it's called. Yeah, look at my it's it's important to have somebody with you and to work out early who are the doctors that are telling you the truth. I mean, I had a situation at one point where they were about to cut me to put I had a permacaf in this side, which is the porn. Now that got infected, so I had to take it out. So they needed to put it over this side because there was too much corrosion and in my in my body to do it here. So while they were putting it here, I had two guys at the end of my bed whispering about how they're gonna do it. And as I said to them, like, I'm the one you're cutting, I'm the one you need to tell. So you had this conversation loud enough so I know what's going on. And then um one of the this this doctor that I got on well with came in and I said to her, Look, you need to tell them they need to tell me. Because we're not gonna do anything unless I know nobody is cutting me. Um I mean, I had an operation at one point where they couldn't get this permacap in, and they said, if we can't get it in, we've got to put it in your groin. Well, I said, You are not putting anything in my groin. And if I wake up and it's dangling there like an earring, I will go medieval. And they put it there anyway. Um, nothing signed, nothing done. They were told not to. And I said, if you need something, they said if if you got to go five days, you could die. I'd already been five or six days without dialysis, so I knew what my life was like. The difference is, if, you know, if if your body, if you if you've got diabetes and you've got heart problems and you've got all sorts of issues, it's a different story to my situation where the rest of my body was a million dollars. The doctors are talking to you as worst-case scenario. This, what can happen if this happens. Well, I wasn't the worst case scenario, I think God. I was at a situation where my kidneys had stopped, but my heart was strong. Everything else was a million dollars. And once I lost the weight, then I was reasonably fit for my body. Um, so I think you've just got to trust the doctor and know that that's the right person, and they'll do something to get you trust. Um, and you you're exactly right, you need to have that person there with you. Like, and like tomorrow when I go in, my wife will come, she'll listen. They know now when they ring me, there's no point ringing me, ring my wife. Because there is no point telling me stuff because I don't retain that information. It's not something I'm interested in, even though it's keeping me alive. Um, and but there's no doubt people that are listening to this, they're completely different than me. And I hope they are, because it's stuff that you should know. This young guy that I mentioned, who's only 30, he did it all by himself. His wife had two little kids to run around after. He understands the the pills, the process, the whole shooting match. Um, he's very switched on with it also.

SPEAKER_02 31:29

I'm interested to know, Andy, would you consider yourself uh resilient, or were you just completely accepting of the fact of whatever happened happened? Or will happen.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

No, no, I never never never figured whatever happened happened. Um, but I'm very strong. Like mine was. I mean, my my you know, my my granddaughter's 10, and her thought pattern is we win at all costs. If you don't win, you're the first loser. All right, and that's you know, people might say, Oh, it's only a 10-year-old. But you know, I've got I run a recruitment company. I got a 22-year-old guy I interviewed last week who said to me, I've I've I've been to uni and I can't get a job. I said, No, because there's another thousand people out there like you with the same qualifications going for the same job. And when someone says to you, Yeah, sorry, Joel, you didn't quite make it, it's like, you know, you you can't accept that. You just got to keep driving till you get it. Um, you know, and I think my my perception was my wife would say to her, don't harass the doctors, but every fortnight religiously I'll be on the phone. I've seen a lot of people in these centers when the doctors talk to them, oh yeah, no worries, that's okay. And they smile nicely and keep moving forward. And one of the doctors said to me, the reason you got one in three years is because you're a pain in the ass. They said that most people are there. I mean, the plumber that I had that come and put the the water in here for my house for the system, 13 years he waited.

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Scoochy brings the oil.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Yep. And he was the only way he got it was he was walking through a shopping center and he fell over the bloke at the time was in charge. And he said to him, Peter, how's your uh your kidney going? He said, Money, I'm gone. He said, Oh cross, we forgot. So, like six to eight weeks later, they rang him and he was in a trench fixing someone's toilet, knee deep, in whatever you can imagine. And um, they said, We if you come to Clayton, we'll put a kidney in you. So he got the kidney, and I shouldn't laugh. He was a really nice guy, but he died from a heart attack about six months later, poor bugger. But uh, yeah, so you know, people can take because as I said to you, they've got diabetes, diabetes issues. Even with me, the first kidney they got me, I'd had a an issue with a lump that they wanted to cut out. So they cut it out. And then two days later, after I came out of the hospital, they rang me and said, We got this perfect kidney. And it was like God given, it was perfect. It was like a 30-year-old who's got this, played a lot of sport, did all this. I'm thinking, how good is this? And they said, But you've got that cut, haven't you? It's an open wound, we can't do it. I thought, why did you ring me? Why did you ring me? And then the the the lady on the end said to me, We understand. I said, No, I don't think you do. You don't sit on that machine three days a week. You don't understand what I do. My wife doesn't understand it, and she's been through it for three and a half years. So it's a lot you go through. And look, you are resilient, you've got to be to be able to do it, but um, you get to a certain point where you just want it to be over. And that's where I'd got to.

SPEAKER_02 34:43

Has has going through this sort of life-talking illness and process um changed the way that you think about resilience, gratitude, or purpose, like from before it happened to now afterwards? Has there been any um holistic, groundbreaking changes in your thought patterns?

SPEAKER_01 34:57

Or yeah, look, I mean, I think I mean, originally before this happened, my concept of life, because I enjoy work and I enjoy what I do, 69, 70, maybe older, I'd worked till now. I'm humming and air and I'm thinking, how long do I really want to work now? Because you don't know, and then because it is a life and death experience, you don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. Anything can happen, you know. And if you know, people talk about your health and your wealth and whatever else. Um, you know, if I live to be 90 something, you know, because of the era I came up in with the with super and the rest of it, you don't know if you're gonna have enough money to live until you're 90 something. Because I live fast and furious. I've I've never I've never thought I can't do that because I can't afford it. I've bought lots of nice cars, lots of nice houses, probably way too much money. My wife would always go, you won't get a loan for that, Andy, and there's the new car in the driveway. You know, it's just just what what I do. I mean, there's a lot of people out there like that. Um, I've really enjoyed life. So I suppose that's why the other reason why I think, you know, if if this does kill me, you know, you don't want to die, obviously. But you gotta think, well, I've had a pretty good run. I've met some excellent people, like excellent people. I mean, uh all these guys, and and plus Luke, plus Luke as well. So, you know, just a but no, no, look, I don't know. The only change in me at the moment is obviously I don't want anything to go wrong with the kidney I've got, so I do make sure I do everything I'm supposed to do. I don't go silly with it. Um, and when we get through the next 12 or 18 months, then we know that it's pretty solid. Um and I think, yeah, just a different perspective on at 64, what do I do with the rest of my life? Like this young guy, as I said, he's he was 30 odd. He's got a he's got an infection in his body that every eight to ten years, roughly, that infection will kill the kidney he's got now. So he's probably gonna go through six or seven transplants. Wow.

SPEAKER_02 37:08

If he can get them. Right. So I just want to um unpack that a little bit. So he's got a certain infection that would target the kidney, so they took the good kidney out before something had happened, and then that's how you went. They don't take the kidney out.

SPEAKER_01 37:23

Do you understand how that works or not?

SPEAKER_00 37:25

No.

SPEAKER_01 37:26

No, basically you've got the two kidneys there, right?

SPEAKER_00 37:28

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

They die or they come close to dying, whatever it is. They put the kidney, no, I'm gonna stand up, all of me, okay? And I'm gonna drop my trousers. No, I'm not basically it goes where your money pocket is here.

SPEAKER_02 37:43

Right.

SPEAKER_01 37:43

So they cut you open there, it's about a nine, ten-inch scar, and they put it where your money pocket is on your jeans. All right, so it sits in there, and then they join it up with the hoses out the back or whatever they do. As I say, you need to ask my wife what they do. Um, but basically it sits there. So that's why you have a lump virtually on the front where the kidney sits in. So it takes up that whole side of your body. The reason they put it in that side apparently, because I thought I'd ask while they were operating, because I had nothing else to do, was um, why do you put it in that side? And they said, because there's less stuff in that side compared to the other side. So, but yeah, so it doesn't go, they don't take your kidney out and put one in.

SPEAKER_02 38:27

I'm so confused. How do you get a kidney transplant without putting a kidney in?

SPEAKER_01 38:32

No, they put a kidney in, yeah, but they put it down here, not where the original one was. Not where the original one was. It's too big an operation. They could kill you putting the taking the kidney out. See, my wife originally was a match. She could have she could have given me a kidney, which she was gonna do. Took them two years to run 12 tests to tell us she was a match. So tell me how that works. I just said to the doctor, she'll take two weeks off work, do the 12 tests, let's get it done. And they said, Oh no, it takes longer than that. So they spent two years telling us that she was a match, and then in the this this guy, um, one of the surgeons said to me, It's a huge operation. Um, you probably don't want to do it. Because she could have ended up with diabetes or heart problems or anything. So the best thing is wait. Um, we were actually getting to the point where she was going to handy up and do that. But yeah, so both kidneys stay where they are. Sorry, Matt, to answer your question.

SPEAKER_02 39:36

Both kids just stay where they are, but you've also got another person's kidney in there with them. Is that right? I've got three kidneys, man. That's right. Okay, we got that. So I'm curious to know, Andy, do you feel um like a real sense of responsibility or anything else, having someone else's kidney in you to do the right thing and I guess honour what they gave you? Has that changed the the way that you go about living now that you've got that?

SPEAKER_01 39:58

To a point, to a point. Like um from what they tell me, this guy was pretty fit and he played a lot of sport and he just got a heart attack and died. Um, but the changes it's made to my body. Look, so to answer your question, I don't know his name and I don't know who he is. So basically, what they do after a certain time is they'll let me write a letter if I want to to his family, yeah, which we'll do, and thanking them. But we don't have any real ownership on if they said to me, hey, listen, Joe Sheldon was the guy that gave you that kidney, then I'm probably gonna feel closer to him than I do now to a point. Like we'll send a really nice letter and and thank him because he's obviously done done me a huge favor at what he's doing. Because what happens when when you get when people um tick that box to say yes, I'll be a donor, yeah, yeah, their family can still stop that. Huh. So that's not that tick in the box means bugger all. I didn't know that. Yeah, so the amount of transplants that go through, the families go, oh, hang on a second. I don't know if we want to do that. And then they want to think about it over and over again. This guy that I got, they told me on Sunday that he was basically on life support. They were just waiting for the family to sign the paperwork.

SPEAKER_02 41:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:19

And that they said they were going to. So they could went in. I went in Monday afternoon, they'd verts he signed the paperwork on the Monday and they did the operation on the Tuesday.

SPEAKER_02 41:28

So yeah. So it's is it fair to say I'm I'm learning so much where 50 minutes into this and I've just realized the guy died because uh obviously it sounds like there's two ways that you can get it either from a close family member who's a match that's prepared to give one up, or somebody dies, passes away, and becomes an organ donor. Is it as simple as that, Andy?

SPEAKER_01 41:44

You've got to be you've got to be under 70 to get the normal donation. Once you're over 70, it's got to be someone in your family, or you know, someone that says, I'll give them one. Right. Um up until 70, you can't go on the donor transplant list. Um and you've got to meet their requirements. Like I said, at 140 kilos, they weren't gonna give me that. They weren't gonna give it to me. And as a I mean, and a lot of those people, they just go on and on and on. Because a lot of times they'll get because even with the the dialysis machine, it's not as good as the kidney. And they're not really gonna tell you that because they don't want you to know, you know, that what that's what happens. And I found that, you know, little things that happen to my body, and after about two, two, three years, I worked out and I asked the question, and they said, Well, it's never gonna be as good. So things, you know, if you're on it for eight, nine, ten years, things can start happening to your body, like you can get diabetes and you can just have other issues. So you've really got to be careful with what goes on. Um, to be honest, after six months, you know, I mean the thought pattern has been a lot about just about me, just making sure that I get right. I haven't really put a lot of thought into the guy that gave me the kidney apart from we'll write him a really nice letter, because you appreciate it, no doubt. But I haven't thought about a lot of that. Um I mean to lose to lose a family member when they're 40 years of age is obviously a huge thing. Um, you know, to obviously for my wife to lose me at 60 something, I'd like to think it'd be a huge thing, but anyway, maybe not.

SPEAKER_02 43:27

Yeah, 40's not very old. I'm 40 in uh about three or four weeks. Actually, four weeks tomorrow. So I tell the truth, Joel.

SPEAKER_01 43:34

Seriously, how old are you really?

SPEAKER_02 43:35

Or 139. I'm turning four in four weeks, 24th of November. So uh look, um, what sort of questions have you got? Have you got something else, Bandy? Before we jump into maybe some stuff that is business.

SPEAKER_00 43:47

Yeah, no, I was just thinking we could change gears and move into you know what uh what what you do now and how you go about what you do. And I know that you have I mean you're a salesman from way back. Um, what what sort of things are you doing with sales now and what what aspirations you have?

SPEAKER_01 44:04

Yeah, look, I I I've um I'm a national account manager at the moment and well salesman and call it whatever you want. Um I work in sales but I I still get down to the nitty-gritty um still go out to appointments and if I see a business that I think could yield good business then I'll walk in the front door. I was brought up in a day when um you know I when I started work as I say at 1920 I was selling vacuum cleaners to 45 year old women for electrolytes you know telling them how to vacuum a carpet which was big because most of them look at you go, is that right young fella? I've been doing this for 30 years. You're gonna come in here who's never operated a vacuum cleaner. Then I did um I I worked in about four or five little jobs sometimes with the courses I was doing when I was young sales courses you'd end up meeting someone and say come out so you'd go and work with them for a couple of weeks and say roof restoration and all sorts of stuff. So but what I'm doing at the moment is I sort of sat down probably about seven or eight months ago and talked to a few people and then obviously Luke as well and sort of thought does this sound like a good idea because what what sales has done is done a full rotation. So it started off knocking on doors walking down the street banging on 15 doors cross over bang on another 15 get the cards get the the person you need to contact and away you go then you can see that you know people got a bit afraid of getting a no so they stopped doing that because that was terrifying. I mean in in 45 years of me doing this no one's ever been rude the worst case scenario is mate I'm really busy today I and I'll say okay when's the best time to come and see you come and see me Monday at 12 o'clock. No worries I'm in the door and away we go so but what happened is I think people got afraid of knocking on doors um they got people afraid of people saying no which the more no's you get you're gonna get more yeses um so they got got a bit afraid so they started you know getting on the phones ringing people up so you got all these call centers with ringing people up and that was a little bit different for well some people answered the phone somebody wants Mrs. Jones to home by herself so she starts answering the phone then she gets a bit sick of it so she starts hanging up so then they get the emails the emails are cha-ching cha-ching cha-ching people start just delete delete delete so I think we've gone full circle I've noticed in the US because they're a bit in front of us is that you know you've got college students for three months that are knocking on door selling uh rent a kill um roofing insurance solar panels anything and I was watching some stuff and they're never going to tell you about the guys that fail they're only gonna tell you about the guys that succeed but you know there was a guy on there I was watching and his his first summer you know three months he made 40 45 thousand US not bad in three months good money there'd be blokes in Australia doing horrible jobs that'll be happy to make 4550 sometimes next year this same guy made just short of 100 this year he made 180 for three months knocking on doors they just get easier and they just get better. So I think the whole thing is starting to rotate now back to knocking on doors which were you know somebody like me that my whole background was about knocking on doors and I went out with a sales rep from uh another company that I do a little bit of work with and we sat in the car we pulled up in Dandenong South I've spent most of my life in Dandenong South and we looked and I said I went to get out of the car now with a little business there and I thought these guys will use transport which he was in and I said what are you doing he said I'm just googling them. I said okay so why why are you googling them? He said see if they use transport. I said how do you gonna how are you gonna know if you Google I'm just having a look to see what they do. I said we know what they do. You can see it from here in the backyard. Oh okay and he sat there about 15 minutes googling his company and then I got sick of it so I just got out and walked in and came out about four or five minutes later with this guy's card and he said where you been and I said I I went in spoke to the receptionist she introduced me to the production manager I got his card and the card of the CEO here they are here. He said oh and I said what do you think you should do with those he said I'll go back to the office and and put a plan in place I said no we're gonna go next door and get that guy's card as well and we'll get before we go back to the office we're gonna get minimum 25 cards and he said I said so if you get 25 cards Tuesday 25 cards Thursday that gives you over 200 cards for the month. Now percentages say you're gonna get between 10 and 12 meetings out of 100 cards. And out of that you're gonna get between three to five sales so where you've been doing two new accounts a month you're gonna get 12 or 13 and he said you're in I said I'm bloody sure of it mate so we went back to the to the office and he started making phone calls got three three he said I've never got three meetings before I said that's because we have the cards mate we know who to contact don't contact the production manager because he's not telling the CEO the truth anyway so we need to talk to the CEO because he's the one that's going to make the decision because you're gonna play with this guy for three months and then he's gonna tell you oh it's not my decision I got to talk to him and he said all right now so sometimes I think you know people are afraid to walk in the door and you know we used to play a game years ago where we'd sit down and we'd say right here who can get the most no's so you'd go out and you'd bang on a hundred doors in a week and you I got 17 I got 35 you know okay because after a little while you'd get so used to getting the nose water of a duck's back. And when you get a yes you know like people will get five or six no's and then that next factory or that next house that they're going to knock on becomes really difficult because all they see is the no rather than thinking that blue door is a sailor. And that's the concept they need to go at it's not difficult just what you need to do but it's about setting up a process and working through that process. And that's what I want to do is set up a process that you know we call it the pathway of this is where you start and this is how you run that process to the end of the game where you're sitting down I'm sitting down with Luke and he's like no I don't have the money I don't have this and we're working working around all those no's to get a yes and once I get a yes we go you know if he gives me a no I'd go back to the start and coming at him from a different with different questions and work my way through it till we get that yes then we go from there.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

So I'm interested to know Andrew just um quickly obviously you're coaching people through failure and how to deal with no's and how to build up their own resilience and mental capacity to sort of deal with those challenges like is there some simple things that you can give our listeners to to help deal with no's and and challenges and rejection a bit better?

SPEAKER_01 51:26

Yeah look I mean it depends on the person as well um when when I was 19 or 20 I bought a house and I had no choice but to go out when I'm selling vacuum cleaners and roofing I worked commission only. So I couldn't go home to my wife that night and say oh sweetheart I was so close but I didn't sell anything I needed to come home and say I did two deals today that's $500. Yeah um with with rejection it's a it's about how bad you need it um you know and you've got to get him to get it but as I said to you like that game we used to play to get the nose I mean there was a bloke I worked with for a little on uh he was um I mean the average wage in the early 80s was probably about $140 $150 a week this guy's making four and a half five grand a week starting work at midday working until about six o'clock at night walked his dog in the morning had a breezy life worked Monday through to Saturday and I said to him I just don't know he's making the money he's probably he seemed like an old bloke to me at the time but he's probably in his 40s. Anyway so he said come out so I went out and he was doing roofing. So we get out there and the call the the call center would make four or five appointments for him they'd ring up Mrs. Jones would say yep yep my you probably do need to fix my roof I'll come out so he'd go out by the time he got there Mr. Jones is at his home and there's nothing wrong with his roof don't you worry about that you don't need to get up there. If you keep coming I'll put the bloody dog on you and he and this guy would yeah yeah no worries noise but your wife rang him while this guy's yelling at him he's taking the roof off he's taking the ladder off the roof walking down the driveway walks down the drive this boat still you're not getting in my house I don't want you here is no he's we put the ladder up lift the tile off the roof carefully bring it down put it on his patio now keep it in mind the tiles are like this on the roof he'd put it down flat on the patio pour a bottle of water on and the water would go into the tile this guy would stop talking have a look and go where'd that water go? In your tile mate you've got 2,768 tiles on that roof imagine all of them when it rains said Christ you better come in he'd go in clean the house sell this product done we get in the car and I said mate I can't believe you did that when that guy's that had yelling at me I'd have walked away and I said how do you do it he said mate my wife is very religious and every second Sunday we go out knocking on doors preaching the Lord he said and everybody throws stuff at you they yell at you they put the dog on you there's nothing they can't do water off a duck's back just water of a duck's back just keep walking and away you go so I think you've got to get those no's until when you get a lot of no's you get used to it and then when you get the yes you're a million dollars what I do at the moment if I go out now and I'm looking for 25 cards if I go through 10 or 12 and I'm thinking God I'm getting killed.

SPEAKER_02 54:28

So I'll I'll ring somebody that I've done a deal with previously who's gonna tell me how good I am ring him how you going John oh yeah good has all made boys have been fantastic this is great what I should have done this years ago you know and they give you a pump up and you're like okay let's go again so you've just got to find what puts you in your happy place so that door again is no longer it's it's not a no anymore it's another deal it's gonna be a yes because you're good enough to get it um it's just how you work through the process so yeah and that kind of translates I mean um because Jolly I would imagine you're coming at that question from a life perspective not a work perspective about as a mortgage broker and I used to have to deal with this very thing and and even cricket coaching or cricket with you know failure a couple of low scores and stuff I was just curious about about his process.

SPEAKER_01 55:22

Yeah yeah but you never accept failure if failure's a good thing because it teaches you to get better that makes any sense I mean if when Luke was playing for me if he failed and that happened a lot Joel let me tell you that happened a lot we had to fix it. One time buddy one time no no but it was like anything you know we're hitting ground balls and guys aren't getting down to them it's like look you know you don't want to do this we can run we can run and we can run and when they come back let's give it another go because obviously you weren't listening before now I think you're listening. So we're gonna hit ground balls and in the end like you know after two or three months you've got guys diving on the ground their arms to cut the streets now you might think geez that's a bit over the top but if you can get a guy to dive and knock a ball down at training on stone because most of those diamonds are rock in a game it's second nature I know that my defense is going to stop that ball from getting to the outfield and the infield I know they're gonna do what they want. If I walked out to Lucas a pitcher and said mate I need you to strike these three guys out we've got a runner on third and none out I can't put up with a hit. Strike all three of them out and at 15 that's what he did. Struck out the whole team 45 minutes we beat Queensland up that day. And he did exactly what he was asked of. And I think you just you know fail is a good thing and you learn from that. I mean like as you'd probably known if you were coaching cricket you'd probably lost grand finals before and that's the worst feeling in the world because you were this close and you just can't accept that.

SPEAKER_02 57:03

I'm actually I don't know how I've done this but I'm something like 12 from 13 grand finals. Don't ask me how I've done that in a good way.

SPEAKER_00 57:09

So um I've got great confidence when the finals come around I think if we make a grand final we just win it so that helps my confidence tremendous tremendously but Luke you were going to say something earlier I think yeah you're talking about uh uh you were talking about well you what what what did you bring up now you guys have been throwing me deal you got to deal with failure failure that's right yeah so when we're talking about failure and and that's up stuff and the way that Andy was talking um about how you go back and find somebody who can boost your confidence again uh that that translates into life too you know like I I don't think that there's it enough of uh just through the work I do I don't think there's enough of that happening so we accept the fact that uh you know I'm I'm I'm feeling bad today or I'm not feeling like myself today or I'm feeling down today or I've got mental health issues whatever it is and and they just accept that they don't just pick up the phone and go I need this thing from somebody and I don't have to ask for it. I should have that conversation with them because they'll organically give it to me. I don't know if enough of that happens because it kind of gets you back on the horse again.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Does that make sense yeah yeah yeah look I I think too you know there are a lot of talk about um you know blokes need to talk more blokes need to do this um I wonder sometimes I I found you know when I was in hospital especially they talk about your mental health and whatever but I don't think anyone really means it do lots of situations Joel was talking about you know you're in the middle of this life and death stuff and it's like oh well I mean a lot of these people don't really have a great deal of concern because what they know is what they learn in that book. You've got to go to other places like you know Lynn um and and for business I've got a guy that I I deal with who's very switched on he was a guy that originally sold up all the domain names in 98 when the internet started made a fortune very very smart man um you know it's it's about reading a lot I read a lot of books um different types of books to have a look and get some feedback and and I'll I'll I won't buy a book with 300 pages and read the whole thing. I just read the couple of sections that I want and bounce off them. But you know I mean I I'll I'll have days where I think you know I I need to ring this guy and just get reassured like with my business now. Sometimes I think am I going in the right direction so I'll ring a guy that I know who's very switched on and say what do you think man? No no that's what you want to do. Keep it old school there's not enough old school there. Don't go with this don't don't worry about the media just do this. And he points me in the right direction. Whether he's right or wrong we'll only we'll only know one way.

SPEAKER_00 59:53

But I actually noticed actually with uh my business too is that uh the the older school approach is actually better right now you know if we go with it whenever whenever we put marketing stuff out there it it don't work right the word of mouth part and the knocking doors that always works.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Yeah I I think you're right like I said before it's it's gone full circle at the moment people people are you know then media's got such a bad name at the moment you know with the kids and whatever else everyone's trying to shut it down not build it up um it's difficult difficult bit difficult to know what direction you can see I'm only looking at probably five or six years but the business I'm talking about doing is something I can do into my 70s. I don't need to stop doing it and I can do it from anywhere. So that's why it suits me to go in that direction if somebody needs me to come down for two days to do it. But I met a I met a lady years ago when I was in Hobart working for a company called Wise um and the I was there for half a see she was there for two days they'd flown her in from Brisbane to do this and at morning tea one of one of the managers said oh do you want to have morning tea with her I said yeah right because I had to go at lunchtime and I said yes this is she said what do you think yeah it's pretty good I said it's quite basic but it's to the point I said who did you work for she said what do you mean I said when you're in sales who did you work for I said I've never worked in sales I said what did you do my husband was a sales manager and he used to read lots of books. So I read a couple of the books watched a few CDs here we are and they paid her six grand for two days to do this and flown her in for Brisbane and put her in a nice hotel and I thought my God I said so if someone who actually got some experience right or wrong is you know could do it then um if you're speaking from experience and as you know I'm not short on stories so there's lots of stuff out there that we can talk about and do it. The only thing I've found the last couple of months is doing a few of these things with this younger group is while you're talking they they sit there and look at you strange. Most people sort of in their 35 40 and up you know they're like oh okay no right and they take it on board. These guys in their 20s are looking you like you for real and what I did a couple of weeks ago now I had a bunch of 23 24 25 year olds maybe a little bit older so I said to them you guys don't believe me do you and we were talking about walking indoors and they're like well you know I said tell me what you do I'll give you a couple of headings you guys go at lunchtime and Google them see how you go and when you come back see whether you believe me or not so off they went they lay up to lunch we came down probably about an hour and a half later and I said did you guys Google those things yeah yeah we did completely different attitude they googled it the computer it said yep he's right and we were into it and away they went and they were fine but I thought we're better off spending two hours letting these guys learn the way they learn and um yeah it was interesting I thought God I don't know if I can do this all the time because as you know I I'm a Google expert IT guru so it suits me to be old school to be honest in a lot of ways but so what's the name of your business Andy uh the Bailey Group.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:17

The Bailey Group. Yeah and uh you you're obviously on Instagram where else can they find you and tell us uh give us your quick elevator pitch in a couple of sentences about what you do and how you can help.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

Well I think um we're we're setting up on YouTube at the moment and Instagram there's some stuff on Instagram at the moment uh which is just small stuff we're just I'm actually breaking the the program that we have pathway we're breaking that down into pieces probably four five six minutes to use on YouTube. I think what we want to help with is businesses I've noticed the three or four businesses I've worked with so far they're happy that they might have 15 16 sale guides and they're doing 20 25 new accounts a month where you know they should be doing and then and one of those at 25 accounts a month one lady had done 10 by herself so the others had done one each basically or none. So I think what we need to do is get them out they're not getting they're not they're they're they're telling me they're not getting enough leads it's almost like well the business I work for that I'd do anything to help well as a sales guy you need to promote that yourself. You know but then I'm also a big believer in if you're a sales guy you're there to make money so there needs to be bonuses involved so you know I was talking to Blood the other day that sells caravans he makes a very small um uh retainer but then his bonus is huge so it's up to him how much money he wants to make and when I was in Tassie the first time and I was between jobs I sold solar panels and if I sold solar panels it was $500 didn't matter how many five hundred dollars and I was doing four appointments a day and selling at least two of them and some days I'd sell four. So but it was heavy duty killer sales when you're at somebody's kitchen table and you're not leaving till you get it just not happening.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:18

That's um it's funny you mentioned solar panels I think uh our next guest in Being Human series is a guy who started from nothing and built up Gippsland solar so he's then sold to ROCB so we're looking forward to that chat but unless unless you've got anything more Luke we might um wrap it up yeah mate yeah yeah so this is a this has obviously been uh being human with Andy Bailey I don't want to call him Andrew again thank you so much for your time and uh telling us a little bit about your life and um yeah I appreciate the stories and I'll resist the thrill to test my skill and give you a run of the end thanks guys no worries thanks