Bigger isn’t Better, Better is Better with Brad Giles
Watch/Listen here or on Apple Podcast, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your podcasts“I believe as the leadership team goes, so goes the rest of the company. So if you don't have that consistent and significant sustainable growth, you've got some work to do.” — Mike Goldman
Brad Giles is a seasoned leadership coach, author, and founder of Evolution Partners, where he specializes in helping owner-led businesses build enduring, great companies. He is the author of Made to Thrive, Onboarded, Onboarded for Managers, and the upcoming Bigger Isn’t Better, Better Is Better. Brad also hosts The Evolution Partners Podcast and, based in Australia, works with clients across both Australia and New Zealand.
The Most Important Characteristic of a Great Leadership Team
Brad’s answer: Soul.
Inspired by Bo Burlingham’s concept of “mojo” in Small Giants.
“Soul” means caring about people in the totality of their lives.
Owner-led companies have the advantage of creating soul, unlike large corporations where relationships are too distant.
Bigger Isn’t Always Better
Many entrepreneurs equate growth with success, driven by:
Ego – desire for recognition or to prove doubters wrong.
Societal norms – bigger is revered in business media and culture.
DNA & psychology – innate risk-taking and ambition.
Growth can lead to complexity, stress, reduced cash flow, less freedom, and personal unhappiness.
The alternative: focus on compounding improvements in four areas—team, customers, offering, and financials—leading to sustainable growth and a better life.
Defining a Better Business
A better business:
Inspires its people.
Earns customer loyalty.
Focuses on what it can be the best at.
Is financially strong.
Doesn’t drain the owner’s energy.
Discipline vs. Patience
Brad’s 2x2 matrix categorizes owners by discipline and patience:
Impulsive Risk Taker (low discipline, low patience).
Measured Optimist (low discipline, high patience).
Goal: become a Strategic Executor (high discipline, high patience).
Patience is about staying focused on long-term strategic goals—not tolerating poor performance.
Accountability remains essential: coach up or exit underperformers.
The Better Team Flywheel vs. Doom Loop
Doom Loop (bigger is better mindset):
Hire B & C players to fill roles quickly.
Build dysfunctional teams.
Focus on low-impact work.
Achieve poor results.
Push for aggressive growth to “fix” problems → repeat.
Flywheel (better is better mindset):
Select passionate A players.
Build high-performing, soulful teams.
Increase efficiency and high-impact work.
Achieve outstanding results.
Enhance reputation → attract more A players → repeat.
Planning Without the Bigger Trap
Revenue goals are fine, but they shouldn’t be the headline.
Start with better—better team, customers, offering, financials—then let growth follow.
Tie business goals to personal values, like freedom and lifestyle design.
A Better Life by Design
For owner-led businesses, business and life are interconnected.
Brad’s framework:
Better health.
Better wealth.
Better happiness.
Better wisdom.
Strong family relationships.
About Brad’s Work
Runs a small, high-quality coaching practice—a “coaching centre of excellence.”
Works exclusively on strategic planning and coaching for owner-led companies.
More at evolutionpartners.com.au and on The Evolution Partners Podcast.
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Mike Goldman (00:02)
Brad Giles is a seasoned leadership coach, author, and founder of Evolution Partners, where he helps owner-led businesses build enduring, great companies. With over 20 years of experience, Brad has advised hundreds of CEOs and leadership teams on strategy, execution, and culture. He's the author of Made to Thrive, which we talked about somewhere early on in the first 10 episodes, I think of.
of this show way back. So Brad is a, I think only our third guest that's ever come back for more than one of these. So congrats, Brad. But he's the author of Made to Thrive, onboarded and onboarded for managers. He hosts the Evolution Partners podcast, which I was just on a couple of weeks ago, where he interviews leaders and experts to uncover what drives sustained success. He's got a new book coming out. Depending on when you're listening to this, may already be,
Be out is coming out October 8th, 2025, which is a week before my new book is coming out. So I already told him that I'm a little pissed off that if everybody spends their money on his book, they're not going to be able to afford mine. But you know, so I want you to buy his book anyway, but only if you buy mine too. His new book, I love the title, is called Bigger Isn't Better, Better Is Better, Avoiding the Pressure for Endless Growth to Build a Better Business and Life.
Brad Giles (01:11)
Ha
Mike Goldman (01:30)
Brad, welcome to the show again.
Brad Giles (01:33)
Mike, it's a pleasure to be here. And more than anything, just for a fun chat.
Mike Goldman (01:38)
Yeah, Brad and I know each other for a long while. were members of the same coaching organizations for a while and, you know, just love doing this. And he's on the other side of the world in Australia. So we've got to do this at weird times when we record it, but ⁓ love these conversations. So Brad, I'm going to start you off the way I always start these off. From all of your vast experience, what do you believe is the one most important characteristic
of a great leadership team?
Brad Giles (02:10)
soul.
So a great leadership team has soul. Now that is like stepping up from what you might anticipate I'd say, which is, they're A players and they've got high productivity and made to thrive. I spoke about the importance of the ambassador role, the importance of culture, the cultural role that leaders do and a lot of these types of things. So A players are critical. We know that everyone who speaks about anything in the business space talks about A players and high productivity and that's good, but.
In the context of this and this framing and this book that really was written, the ink was typeset with genuine bonafide blood, sweat and tears from thousands of interactions that I've had with owner led companies and entrepreneurs. I think it comes back to soul and soul for a couple of reasons, because soul is a variant of what Bo Burlingham in Small Giants calls mojo. And that's a variant.
But when we look at a corporation, a corporation doesn't have soul a corporation is different to a company that we may dig into in my ⁓ lexicon and my definitions. Corporations are larger, they don't have soul but leadership teams in owner-led companies, what's the sustainable advantage that you can build? It's around having a long-term perspective, a long-term view. That's a strategic and sustainable.
differentiation that you can get into when it comes to an owner-led company, but then you overlay that with soul. So having a soul is my answer.
Mike Goldman (03:46)
And how do you define soul?
Brad Giles (03:49)
Well, I was heavily influenced again by Bo Burlingham, who wrote a great book called Small Giants.
And that came about because Bo, who was the editor in chief at Ink Magazine, and he's going and seeing all the Steve Jobs of the world and all of these corporations all day every day. But then there's this groundswell and all these people are saying to him, so why are you not talking about these other businesses? There's this company in this city that is just amazing and...
So, Bo coined this phrase called Mojo, or utilized the phrase called Mojo. And I've kind of adapted it to be soul. So how do I define soul? Well, they care about people in the totality of their lives. So you look at Southwest Airlines. Right now, I put it to you that Southwest Airlines is an owner-led company, or at least it was until the recent passing of Herb Kelleher.
Southwest Airlines, if you're talking to anybody really who's doing a presentation on stage somewhere Southwest is gonna pop up. Southwest have Mojo, they have soul. They care for people in the totality of their lives. Their stock ticker is luv L-U-V. And I think that it's really important to understand that no one wants to work in a corporation where they're just a number. Like the managers don't, the workers don't.
Like everyone hates it, but it's the system that is designed to protect itself, which is a corporation. The shareholders don't know the board and the board don't really know, like really know the leadership team. The leadership team don't really know the people. So the soul can't be created in a corporation. And that's the advantage that we've got in owner led companies is to build soul.
Mike Goldman (05:37)
Let's get to the main idea of the book. It's right in the title. You say just because a company is bigger doesn't mean that it's better. Just unpack that main idea a little bit for us.
Brad Giles (05:57)
Well, it's a phrase that you might've heard before, bigger isn't better. And you may have heard it in various arenas. But in my own lived experience, so I started six companies over my career, as well as the small coaching firm that I've got here in Australia.
For many entrepreneurs, they understand, they grow up, they learn from what works in corporations. So you go and you buy a book. Now, why was that book created? It was created by someone who used to work in a corporation, who probably had some excellent and very good ideas. This is not 100 % of the time I'll point out, but the reason they wrote that book is because they want to get a speaking gig going and speaking across the world.
to talk to corporations, right? And that's awesome. But in owner led companies, and again, I put to you that I still think that someone like Southwest is owner led at that size. Now, I still think that it is inherent in a company that they're able to to find this differentiation. I think that
When we have the mindset and really the book is about mindset and it's about compounding. Okay. So when we have the mindset that look, if I get to $100 million, my neighbors will like me. My parents will respect me. The people who I don't even care about. They will, they'll like me and, they'll, but this is your ego. So if we can understand that, you know, as Ryan Halliday put it, ego is the enemy.
If we can think about in the context of the way that we set goals, we can look for a business that compounds rather than simply sets vacuous revenue goals. So if I get to hundred million, how good am I going to be? But the problem is so many times, Mike, I've worked with leaders who get to a hundred million and they're like, what now? Like, or they're like, well, my wife hates me. My kids don't really know who I am.
you know, I'm, I'm sick as a dog, like the doctor keeps telling me all these things that I'm not going to do. so, so people are not necessarily building the life that they really want. And that was the real struggle, right? Was the seventh chapter is about building a better life by design. So once you compound the business, once you get a better team, you get better customers, a better offering and better financials.
It enables you the ability to have a better life by design.
Mike Goldman (08:32)
Is it this pressure to grow bigger? And as you said, bigger isn't always better. Sometimes bigger is just more complex and more stressful and more overwhelming and maybe less cash, maybe less freedom. So there's a whole lot of reasons why bigger may not be better. is it, know, why do leaders, you know, including myself and growing my coaching business, I'm not separating myself from that.
Brad Giles (08:55)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (08:59)
Why is it that leaders and business owners put so much pressure on them to grow bigger? Is it all about ego or is there something else going on?
Brad Giles (09:11)
Ego is a part of it. Okay, but there's a few different things that are happening, right? Now I want to point out and really reiterate that concept of compounding again. So we might get you to hundred million if we compound, but let's not make 100 million in revenue, the primary purpose of your life where everything else gets sacrificed and you live a life of misery and sickness. Like that is the point, right? So let's build a better business.
So coming back to your point.
Bigger is revered in society. Okay, so in society, the biggest mountain, the biggest company, you open up the business news, the business, any of the business media, and they're talking all the time about corporations, and they're always talking about, there was this deal that was done, and that means that 60 million is gonna go here, or this is gonna happen, or whatever. The point of it is that
bigger is revered in society. The fastest, the best and all that. And that's all good and well, and it's driven every human achievement, but that might not be ideal for your owner led company. A better business might be better. Second is your DNA and what's driving you inside. And within your DNA, and I've done my own DNA mapping and I've interviewed DNA scientists on my own podcast.
to understand entrepreneurs or owner led companies in this context, you know, sometimes they're cut a little bit different. They have different propensities and different kinds of things. some people statistically are just more likely to take risks and more likely to be entrepreneurs. And then thirdly is the psychology. And so in the book, I talk about the third aspect of driving bigger and that is
Some people, know, maybe when you were a kid, your teacher said, ⁓ you know, Mike, you're never gonna amount to much. And that just sat with you and it just grinded and grinded and grinded away in the background. And so you're like, stuff that teacher, I'm gonna amount to a lot or whatever it is. And so these are the different needs that are described in psychology. So there are all of these things that are making us head toward bigger.
personally in our DNA, psychology as a society. And again, like it's not that we want to curb our ambition by any means, but we want to focus our energy on building a better business rather than primarily a bigger one. So it's avoiding the endless pursuit of more. Like it's avoiding growth for the sake of growth.
Mike Goldman (11:53)
So how do you define a better business? If it's not about growth for growth's sake, it's about being better and the logic would go, if I focus on being better, a side benefit of that might be I get bigger and more profitable. But how do you define better?
Brad Giles (12:13)
Yeah, so it's partly about what the business doesn't do. And it's partly about the owner, because this book is for one thing, it's for owner led companies, right? Why was Apple so successful for so long? Part of my postulation is that Steve Jobs had an owner mindset. Steve Jobs drove that company like he owned it, rather than being a paid CEO, who jumped in, always thinking maybe another deal is around the corner.
So a better business must inspire its people. It's gotta inspire its employees, it's gotta inspire its leaders, it's gotta inspire even its customers and the people who are around, like its competition perhaps. A better business has gotta earn loyalty. Okay, so it's not a better business if customers transact once in, once out. Now, there are all sorts of different businesses, right? So you might say, but we've got a real estate business and our customers buy and sell their house once in their lifetime.
It's a little bit more than that, right? But there's a component of loyalty and it's got to focus a bit of business on what it can be the best at. We know that Jim Collins in his hedgehog concept talked about core purpose, the profit per ex and what you can be the best at. So why are we doing things as a business that we can't authentically genuinely be the best at? Like, let's just stop doing that and focus on where we can be the best at.
Mike Goldman (13:37)
So when we
talk about the owner-led company, and you talked about Herb Kelleher and Steve Jobs, one of the things you talk about in the book that I found really interesting was this idea of discipline versus patience in owners. Dive into that a little bit. What is that all about?
Brad Giles (13:58)
I'm gonna
give you the last two definitions and then I'm gonna dig into that. So a better business must be financially strong and a better business must not drain the energy of its owners. Now let's go over to what happens, right? What is the, I mean, this is like the third, fourth page in the book. It's such an important concept. So I've spent my life as an entrepreneur and surrounded by entrepreneurs and there are all of these patterns that I see time and time and time again.
And it comes down to two things, which is a two by two matrix and it is discipline and patience. So owner led companies, how do we get into this problem of being undisciplined Well, it comes about because of freedom. So entrepreneurs, owner led companies, people want freedom. That's why you started your own business so you could get freedom, right? Now in a corporation,
or perhaps even in a startup, okay, that's managed or has very large investors, you are held accountable by the board and the shareholders. So if the shareholders don't get their return, what they expect, you will be fired. So that's a great accountability mechanism, okay? And some people don't like that and fair enough. so what that means is that we get to a point where people want freedom. That's what we want people to have in their life.
freedom, that's excellent. But with freedom comes a challenge because you don't have that external accountability. What that then leads to is people can pursue anything. So it's the fact that you can do anything with freedom that becomes the problem. And that's why like I just said, only focus on what you can be the best at. What we often see people do is they they have a business and it's gone pretty well. So then they decide to start a satellite business.
If I was so good at this thing, then I should be good at this other business. And then they spread their load. It is this freedom, this failure to focus that creates what we call an impulsive risk taker. So this is a person, an owner led company, an entrepreneur who has the freedom to do anything, but they don't understand that they can't do everything. And so what that means is that they are low discipline and low patience.
They're not, they're doing anything that they want. They're not focused in on executing primarily the plan. in terms of their patience, they're impatient. They want to get everything done now. And this is kind of the signature of many of the entrepreneurs that we've worked with when we start working with them. So our job is to make them, and probably your job frankly as well, Mike, is to make them go from being undisciplined and impatient to being disciplined and patient. To take them from being an impulsive risk taker
to being a strategic executor.
Mike Goldman (16:46)
Is there such a thing as being too patient?
Brad Giles (16:50)
Yeah, yeah, well.
A person who is patient but not disciplined is what we call a measured optimist. So they never really get what they need to done. So they're patient to execute the longer term plans. What are the big shifts, the big moves, the big strategic moves that you want to do in the three year context? As we know, Shannon Susco calls it the three hag. So in the in the long term, how whatever framework you're using, or whatever you're thinking, we want to
be able to execute and have the patience to get out of this quarter to work on the big things that are gonna move the needle and differentiate the business.
Mike Goldman (17:32)
But I guess what I'm asking Brad is, so I've got leaders that I work with, CEOs, owners that I work with that are very disciplined, they're very patient. When I say can someone be too patient is they are very patient with the team around them that may not be as disciplined, that may not be doing what they've committed to do.
but this leader is very patient and sometimes those challenges go on for months and quarters and even years. So help me out when we talk about patience Is there such a thing as being too patient or am I just defining patience in a different way?
Brad Giles (18:20)
So in my world, I'll refer you back to Made to Thrive, the first book that I wrote, which is about the accountability role. So this book, Bigger Isn't Better, is about the mindset and primarily, and understanding these four flywheels that you can move and avoiding the five doom loops, okay? So.
We must have accountability. There is no doubt. If people aren't performing, they need to be held accountable. They need to understand that they're not performing primarily, and they need to be coached to perform or exit. I think that that is prima facie. That is foundational and absolutely, absolutely critical. But.
Mike Goldman (19:07)
So patience
doesn't mean we're allowing, we're patient with people who aren't doing what they say they're gonna do. We still gotta hold people accountable.
Brad Giles (19:15)
No, Patience is the idea monkey who rocks up on a Monday because on Sunday they read an article that said, you know what you need to do, Mike, you need to open a web store in Taiwan or whatever it is. And so then they said, so now we're gonna open a web store in Taiwan. All of these crazy entrepreneurial ideas that keep popping up all the time.
Mike Goldman (19:37)
You talked about the flywheels in the book and this is probably the only book I've seen with more flywheels is Jim Collins book that that's about the flywheel. and I love that. And I want to talk about one in particular, no shock, which one I want to talk about. Cause you've got, you've got a flywheel for, for remind me it's you've got a ⁓ finance flywheel and offering flywheel, a customer flywheel.
Brad Giles (19:47)
Yeah.
Customer.
and better team. So better team.
Mike Goldman (20:07)
better team.
And that's the one I want to focus on it and help me understand you talk about in the book and it's so interesting, the better team doom loop versus, and then you talk about the better team flywheel. Talk about that a little bit.
Brad Giles (20:18)
Yeah,
so bigger feeds the doom loops. Each of the sections, each of the chapters, better team, better customers, better offering and better financials, the mindset of bigger leads to a doom loop. Okay?
And this is, I'll reiterate what I said earlier. This is bona fide written with the blood, sweat and tears of entrepreneurs that I've done myself and seen other people do. So if we understand that the bigger mindset leads to these doom loops, then inversely, what is the flywheel that builds a better business? So I want to start by talking about the bigger team doom loop. So with a bigger,
is better mindset. We start by hiring B & C players to fill roles quickly. We gotta get bigger. For whatever stimulated you to think in an owner led company, we gotta get bigger. So we're gonna hire B & C players to fill roles quickly. Now they don't sit there and go, come on, let's go out and find all, we'll scrape up all the B & C players that we can. But they shortcut.
good hiring or they don't understand. They're just like, we've got to get that in there. There is that sense of undisciplined and impatient, that impulsive risk taker who's like, we got to open that Taiwan web store or whatever it is. Now, if we do that, we can't help but, and that's Jim's phrasing around the flywheel and the doom loop. It is a logical next step. We can't help but form dysfunctional and unproductive teams. Because we could be just brought in a whole heap of B & C
If we do that, we can't help but experience low efficiency and focus on low impact work. Because these are B & C players, right? If we do that, we can't help but achieve poor results. And if we do that, the impulsive risk taker, the undisciplined impatient leader can't help but misinterpret those poor results as a need to grow bigger.
You know what we gotta do? Okay, so this hasn't worked, but let's get bigger again, because they got that mindset. Then they push for aggressive growth to solve problems. Let's get bigger. And then we can't help but hire B and C players to fill roles quickly. And we go back to the top of the doom loop. And we doom loop downward and downward. And we don't understand why. And it's all born of this mindset of bigger is better. Now, when we think about that, and I've seen that I've...
I would say I've borderline mastered that myself in my early career, right? Thank you very much. But then we think about, okay, so what is the better team doom loop? Excuse me, what is the better team flywheel? I'll get this phrasing right one day. The better team flywheel. So what's the inverse of that? How do we compound our team? So we start with a better is better mindset. We start by selecting A players infused with passion.
Mike Goldman (22:54)
Congratulations.
Ha
Brad Giles (23:18)
Now, passion and soul, that was the word that I used at the beginning of today, right? If we select A players, not just A players, but A players infused with passion, we can't help but build high performing, productive teams with soul.
They're good teams, like they're great. They've got that soul, that mojo. If we do that, we can't help but have higher efficiency and focus on high impact work. In that environment, better efficiency, people are doing better and more impactful work. And if we do that, we can't help but achieve outstanding results. We do that, we can't help but enhance our reputation as a great place to work. And then if we do that, we can't help but replenish and grow the talent pipeline.
but we want to come and work for this awesome place with soul. And then what do we do? We select back at 12 o'clock, we select A players that are infused with passion. And so we complete one circle of that flywheel and we commence that compounding. So you can see these two scenarios when it comes to the bigger team doom loop versus the better team flywheel. And it's a choice and that choice is, it comes from a mindset for an owner led company around bigger.
isn't better, better is better.
Mike Goldman (24:39)
So I want to get some, to make this real, I want to get some coaching, one coach getting coached by another coach right now. You could send me an invoice for this if you want. So next week, I walk into a brand new client to do a two day kickoff. And one of the things we're going to do is create a vision and plan for the future, which includes
Brad Giles (24:47)
Not props.
Mike Goldman (25:04)
what revenue they want to achieve and what kind of profitability they want to achieve at different points. Today they are at point X. Where do they want to be by the end of fiscal 2028? How should I be thinking of that differently? Because as a coach, I would typically go in and you know, where do you want, where do you want to be in three years? Do you want to double the business? Do you want to grow, you know, 20 % per year? Where do you want to be?
And we'd say, here's how big we want to grow. And then we'd come up with a bunch of ideas on, okay, if that's how big we want to be, how do we want to get there? Like, does that still work or is there something inherent in this new mindset that changes the way we ought to be thinking about planning and strategizing for the future?
Brad Giles (25:54)
revenue is vanity, profit is sanity and cash is king. Right? So I'm going to go back to we're in that bet workshop and they say, want to get to a hundred million dollars. Cool. How are you going to pay for it? So we don't know. Well, this is the bigger is better mindset. Now I'd want to know that owner.
that entrepreneur and I'd want to have a bit of an understanding of what their goals are as opposed to the team. I'd want to know that that owner is broke or they're rich or they're motivated to build wealth for their family at a generational level or whatever it is or they want to exit.
whatever it might be. So I want to get a bit of an understanding on that. But we want to really like I come back to one point, we are not in any way saying curb your ambition. What I'm saying is channel your ambition to be better, rather than bigger. Because when you channel it to better compounding occurs, and the result is that you become bigger, that's fine. So you
So yes, we probably need a revenue target, but that shouldn't be the headline. Okay, it should be, how are we going to build a business where we can maximise the long term value of our clients? How many clients have we got today? We've got 10,000. What's the average customer value $1,000? So we can kind of calculate that. Now, that's pretty rough.
How are we gonna maximize the business that we've got? How are we gonna focus on what we can be best at, do better than anyone else? And then thinking about that lens of the better offering. So what are the 100 things that we're going to do that no one else is going to do for our offering so that we can sustain that long-term value for customers?
Now these are secondary questions in our mind, there's no doubt. We certainly need those things, but walking into a room and saying, let's go for $100 million is vacuous. it's a bubble wrap business plan. There's a layer, like it's just air and puff in there. Like we wanna focus on, what do we really want? How do we, this leadership team, how can we make this leadership team so awesome that you guys think to yourselves,
I want to devote my creative energies here and I never want to leave. Why? Because we've made it so awesome.
Mike Goldman (28:41)
So it's really a focus whether you start with the number or you start with where you want to get better. What I hear you say is it's not just about the number and it's okay to say you want to double in three years if that's what you want, but drive that through what are we doing to build a better team? What are we doing to acquire better customers? What are we doing to create a better offer? What are we doing to have better financials? It's about improving those things.
And if that results in growth, that's wonderful, but that needs to drive versus just let's get bigger.
Brad Giles (29:19)
Absolutely, absolutely. Because if I get to a hundred million dollars, you know my neighbors will think that I'm an impressive person. Who gives a shit? this is the recipe for misery. And what that really outlines is chapter seven, right? Which is a better life by design. Because these two things are interlinked for owner-led companies. And the sub...
sections or the components within chapter seven, how do you build a better life design? Well, you've got to have better health, better wealth, better happiness. So healthy, wealthy, wise, happy. I know I said those in reverse and then a great family. So healthy, wealthy, wise, happy, great family. And there's a structure and a component and a way to think around each of those areas because
The business is means to an end. Okay. I have devoted my entire life to building great companies and I get it. It's important. But when you end up divorced and you lose half your net worth because your balance sheet is divided by two, there is no point in all of the work that was done. And so you've got to understand that
Business and life are one for entrepreneurs and owner-led companies, and they need to, as a mindset, be all tied together.
Mike Goldman (30:50)
It's funny, Brad, as you say that, you may have seen me, I looked up into the right. I'm looking over my desk is this cork board and on the upper right is a mind map with my vision. It's a three year vision. And it's so aligned with what you just said, right in the middle, which is kind of the main idea. And this vision ends in 2027. I created it in 2024. So it's 2027 vision.
Brad Giles (30:55)
Yep.
Mike Goldman (31:20)
vision, freedom, abundance, impact. And then all of the ideas what I want to create it and what I want to point out is that word freedom. Because that what that word freedom drives for me as a coach. I'm a coach and I don't have a whole bunch of other coaches. I'm not administering a firm, but I have plans for growth through some products that I'm creating that I think could scale my business have impact and a lot of value.
Brad Giles (31:24)
Yep.
Yes.
Mike Goldman (31:47)
And the reason why I built it that way is because my number one value in life, turned 60 earlier this year and a lot of people are thinking of slowing down. I feel like I haven't reached my peak yet, but my number one value is what I do in my business. I want to create freedom for me and my family. I want my business to give me choices, the ability to go to New Zealand as I did in
Brad Giles (32:00)
Yeah.
Mike Goldman (32:15)
January or Iceland as I just did a few weeks ago or you know help my daughter out or do you know that it's not about money for money's sake size of a business it's about the freedom that it gives me and the fact that I love it every day and it's driven me I could probably build my business tenfold by hiring a whole bunch of other coaches and administering a firm but that's going to give me less freedom so that's the that's the way I kind of
Brad Giles (32:41)
And if we got...
Mike Goldman (32:43)
Take what you're saying and make it real for me. I think it aligns very closely.
Brad Giles (32:49)
And if we got 100 owner led companies or the owners of those companies and we interviewed them one after another, I could almost guarantee you 100 % of them would say, yes, it comes down to freedom. That's why I started the business, because I wanted to get freedom. Now, they might say financial freedom or time freedom, but if we distilled, like this is why we do the hard work is for freedom. Now, if we focus on bigger,
Like why do people end up and that's the key question in the book. Why do so many entrepreneurs, why do so many owner led companies end up with the opposite of what they set out to? Like entrepreneurship doesn't do what it says on the sticker of the tin. So.
Why? Because we, because of these three forces I've spoke about before, our DNA, a society that is focused on bigger and our psychology are pushing us to be bigger, bigger, bigger, bigger. Now, it doesn't mean that we won't grow, but what it means is that we must put that freedom back at the centre.
Mike Goldman (33:55)
Yeah, I love that. And I remember when I started my first business, which was not coaching, it was a staffing business. And man, that was a horrible business for me over three years. I always said I started the business because I wanted more time, more money, and more freedom. And a year in, I had less time, less money, and less freedom.
Brad Giles (34:11)
Freedom!
So if we're so clever, right? If we're so clever as coaches and entrepreneurs, we should be able to figure out how can you have those things, okay? And retain that freedom. how can you compound a better team in that staffing business? How can you compound better customers? How can you compound a better offering where you're doing the 100 things that others won't? How can you compound...
better financials, and then how can you compound a better life by design? If we're so clever, we should be able to figure out that, and that's the mindset I'm trying to advocate.
Mike Goldman (34:57)
Love it, love it. In starting to wrap up, Brad, tell me a little bit about your business and the way you help clients around this concept and I know many others as well, but tell us a little bit about your business. Who do you help? How do you help them?
Brad Giles (35:17)
Yeah, so I've got a very small business. My objective is a coaching center of excellence. And so there's three coaches that in our team at the moment, if we stay at three for the next 10 years, I'm totally fine. If we get to 10, I'm totally fine. But I you know, I'm aiming on better, not bigger. Who would have thought that I would say that, right? But you know,
really, we're just endeavouring to be we got coaches, excuse me, we've got clients from all over Australia and New Zealand. And really, yeah, we are just focused on getting better and better and better in this context of a coaching centre of excellence to do the best possible work that we can. And really to be the hidden success formulas for some of our region's most successful companies that no one really knows about, to be honest. And so we, we do only one
thing which is strategic planning and coaching with owner-led companies.
Mike Goldman (36:13)
beautiful and and where should people want to find out more about you and your team and your coaching where should they go?
Brad Giles (36:21)
Yep. So first and foremost, evolutionpartners.com.au. As mentioned before, I've got a few other books, which is made to thrive about the five roles of a CEO. Onboarded, which is about onboarding new hires to make them a successful fit. And then on boarded for managers, a different type of book for that. And then the podcast again, Evolution, The Evolution Partners is the name of the podcast. Where I have great guests like Mike on.
Mike Goldman (36:47)
and when you
I was going to say, when you listen to that podcast, find my episode first, and then it's only uphill from there. Hey, Brad, this was great. I always say if you want a great company, you need a great leadership team. Brad, thanks for helping us get there today.
Brad Giles (37:05)
Mike, thank you so much. been an awesome conversation.