✦ Veronica Lind catches Andrew Morello, winner of the first Australian Apprentice, to share some insights on success, the enigmatic 3am 30-second pitch and evolving life achievements!
Andrew Morello, winner of the first Australian Apprentice with Mark Bouris cites Port Macquarie as one of his favourite places in the world!
"It's such a beautiful community-oriented area. Every time I come, there is just such a warm welcome. I've done a lot of philanthropic work here and I love how you can always rely on the community in Port Macquarie to be so welcoming."
Who exactly is Andrew Morello?
Andrew is well-known by many because of the variety of work he does. He is also the head of business development at The Entourage with Jack Delosa. He does a lot of philanthropic work and at the moment of the interview, he was at the Luminosity Youth Summit in Port Macquarie with almost 600 children from all over Australia, in particular, First Nations people. He does work with First Nations people with Seed Foundation, and also has some work in Cambodia with Geraldine Cox.
AI Workshop at Charles Sturt University
The community at Port Macquarie got a royal treat in July when Andrew did an amazing event with Veronica Lind, CEO of Brilliant Online and Business & Marketing Strategist at Vermilion Pinstripes, bringing amazing strategies to business owners on how to use AI and Modern Marketing to elevate their businesses to new heights.
"There was a room full of accomplished business owners that do know a lot and have succeeded in business. The beautiful thing I loved about them is that they're all hungry to learn. It just proves that it doesn't matter if you've been in business for six months, six years or 60. I think you should always go into it with an open heart and an open mind and be prepared to learn."
Andrew's 3am 30-second Pitch
"Here's a neat little mindset shift to help you get really focused on what you really want. It's something my life coach said to me when I was in the real estate game in 2021.
"What if someone came to your house at three o'clock in the morning, points a gun to your head and asked, 'Why you?' And if the answer wasn't good enough, your life would be over.
"This question, plus my travels around the world and getting to know about the atrocities that humanity has experienced, has given me a good perspective. My 30-second pitch is looking at where my life is at, and what I want is to make lots and lots of money, to pay other people to do really well the things I don't want to do, so I have time to spend with the people that I love. As someone with a young family, for me it is really important to spend time with my beautiful three-year-old son Ryan. As he gets older, I want to have the capability, flexibility and freedom to be able to spend that time with my family."
*Anyone can take the idea of the 3am 30-second Pitch and be free to mention it and apply it to their lives.
How do we achieve that ability to live the life we want?
"Those who attended the event at Charles Sturt University will remember what I shared about the entrepreneurial hierarchy.
"Most of the businesses that we work with now are stuck very much in technician mode. We want to get to a position where we go from technician to manager, manager to leader, and then leader to entrepreneur. It's not an overnight process. And a lot of people have woken up to the reality of their current situations especially with COVID and the aftermath of it. We don't necessarily need to be the entrepreneur and have the $100 million business or the $10 million company.
"The question is to ask how do I become a really quality business owner or leader in my business, where I am able to pay myself and my wife 150 grand each, where we get to pick up our son from school three days a week and get to take school holidays off.
"What people are perceiving as success is definitely evolving in Australia. Lifestyle has become more important. At The Entourage we see people join for lifestyle purposes. That is probably the first and foremost reason, to spend more time with their family. The second reason for joining is to scale up their business, and thirdly, to sell their business. Some join because of a combination of all the reasons. Some people want to have a lifestyle business that they can build up and perhaps sell later on."
What is Andrew's idea of success?
"I saw my dad work seven days a week for his whole life in service stations. That's all he knew, because he came off a boat from Italy in 1956. For me, success is getting myself towards the flexibility and freedom to spend time with my son. Sadly, my mother passed away, but I did spend a year with her prior to her passing. So that in my eyes, is success, because I could go and spend the last 12 months with her. I would have regretted it if I wasn't 'successful' enough to be able to take a sabbatical year off to do this. It was amazing to spend literally a year with my mother."
Watch Veronica's interview with Andrew.
Does Andrew think he has made a lot of money already?
"It's a good question, because the bar keeps getting moved, doesn't it? Before you have children, you think, I need X amount to live a comfortable life and so forth. Then you have children, you start looking at schools for children and there's a big difference between public, Catholic, Christian and private schools in Australia. There's even a big difference between Sydney and Melbourne. So I have a residence in both cities. When you start to look and think where do I send my son to school for the next 15 years, you're looking at about a million dollars from prep to Year 12. That's just in education alone.
"Rather than say there's a specific number to how much is enough, I think it's about being smart about it. I've got quite an extensive background in real estate and I do make an effort to do my best in investing. I'm not giving financial advice here. I try and proportionate a part of my portfolio and invest in some crazy and wild ideas. For example, I invested in a vegan plant-based beef patty, and this is Australia's first plant-based beef patty which is being exported to Singapore and the US. It's called Buds Burgers if you want to buy it from your local IGA in Australia. It was just something I tried.
"Sometimes, things don't work out. I was part of a vegan restaurant in Bondi, which lasted a few years, because Bondi is a very seasonal area, and F&B wasn't my forte. So in hindsight, that was not the best choice.
"People get the misconception that I've got it all figured out. There are projects that still end up not working. It is true that I have very good advisors, coaches, mentors. financial planners and mortgage brokers, have friends who are private bankers, and am still good friends with Mark Bouris, I am very blessed and lucky to have great advice."
What else does Andrew want to achieve in life, personally?
"When I did the Kokoda Trail, I lost 25kg, so I probably need to pick a goal like that for my next achievement! I also climbed to the summit of Mount Kinabalu in Borneo, which was great, and I need to pick a new challenge to get this area of my life right.
"The other thing is my philanthropy. I'd like to spend two or three months a year in Cambodia. With Geraldine, it's a very nourishing trip. I'll need two and a half to three weeks this year, and that would be the longest I've ever gone. With this amount of time, you're just starting to get into your momentum and flow and nourishment, and really feeling yourself change. It would be great to stick around for another six weeks and really get in the jungle and spend some quality time with the children there. While Cambodia is not the only place that is struggling, for me it's my focus. It's a very crucial time in Cambodia with a lot of influx of Chinese investment in the country so there's a two-speed economy going on there with some sections booming and others in extreme poverty. It would be good to see a little bit of settlement across that and help be a part of that as well.
"In Australia, I'm involved with the Seed Foundation Australian for Indigenous Education. We go to Northern Queensland and Northern Territory and we're looking at partnering with Mid North Coast and beyond. We are looking at getting involved in New South Wales. We provide certificates there for indigenous children or students that want to move into the health sector. We've been doing that for nearly seven, eight years now. The Kokoda Trail I did was for raising money, half a million dollars in fact, for this specific purpose."
Luminosity Youth Summit
"This is a youth summit for youths 14 to 18. We have those who came ten years ago and they're now in their 20s and they still come because it's so much fun! They buy a ticket to come every year! It's a really good summit to come to, and while we don't like to call it the adults and the kids, but we do have them sectioned off with the adults upstairs and the kids downstairs. If you are an open-minded loving person, and you want to be inspired and heed some really good stories of courage, perseverance and resilience, it's a really good summit to come to."
After doing so much for others, what is Andrew doing for himself?
"I do go off every two to three months and spend time with a holistic healer. I am always on the go, so when I do switch off, I make sure I do it completely. When I was in Cambodia, the phone was off. I didn't have my laptop with me. My theory is if my team couldn't work it out for themselves for two to three weeks, then I was doing something wrong. So I try to do as much switch-off time as possible.
"I fly back tomorrow to spend the next two days full time with my son and he wants to go to the Ferris Wheel at Bondi. He's got a whole agenda ready to go and I'm looking forward to spending time with him. I also love spending time with my dad. Since my mom passed away, my relationship with my father has become more like mates. I really enjoy the fact that we've got this beautiful relationship now where actually we're mates who can have a beer or whiskey, or go to a nice restaurant and have a chat. Before my mom passed away, he was very much just my dad. And he was very old-school Italian too, so lots of lessons for me to learn."
Andrew's favourite drink
"I'm a Jameson fan so if anyone wants to buy me a gift at any point a Jameson's Whiskey will be lovely. I do like to switch off my day with a nice glass of whiskey. Although if I do decide to do the Everest base camp next year, which a friend of mine is doing, then I might have to just leave the whiskey out during the trip!" ❋
Next AI in Marketing Workshop on Wed 21st August 5.30pm at CSU
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Contact Andrew Morello
The Entourage
Website: https://www.the-entourage.com/
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