Fire Meets Speed! Pt1 Deep Dive
Welcome to this weeks Speed Mentor Podcast! In todays episode, Gavan Wall is interviewed by Pete Lonton on the Fire in The Belly Podcast!
Gavan shares lessons learned from his own entrepreneurial journey and talks us through his childhood, school years, career and what lead him to where he is today. Tune in to hear advice and insights that can help you in business and in life.
Make sure to listen in next week for the conclusion, where Gavan and Pete talk transitioning from Law to Property, Market Crashes and rising from the ashes!
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself.
A. I’m from Belfast, Northern Ireland with a background in law, I then went into business about 12 years ago and ever since then I have been working at trading businesses and mentoring hundreds of other business people across Northern Ireland trying to bring my blend of high energy and go-getting. I have a number of businesses employing over 130 people and the latest project is in venture capital. I am raising a ten million pound fund at the minute and we’re looking to turn that into ten billion pounds over ten years.
Q. How was school for you?
A. I look back on my school years and there's absolutely no doubt that I had ADHD. Even though I was one of the brightest in the class, they ended up putting me in the remedial class to control my behaviour. It is amazing how many people become entrepreneurs after they have that kind of stuff happen to them. I was bright but there were a lot of control issues. I was really good at maths and I found those things easy, but once I felt that I had mastered something I was bored.
Q. Did you get up to do your GCSEs and A-Levels?
A. Yes, I got to do O Levels and then on to do a degree in law. My dad was in law so it was always thought that I would go into his legal practice. Two of my three A levels I didn’t even do for A-Level, I picked them out of a hat. One of those was economics, which I really enjoyed. At sixteen I asked my parents if I could leave school because I felt my A-Levels wouldn’t go very well because I was not interested and I really wanted to go to business college and learn things that were of interest to me. I was also running businesses out of school, I got a sewing machine for Christmas and I started taking in peoples trousers for them. I think from about the age of eleven or twelve I was also asking for shares in the stock market for Christmas.
Q. You said that it was thought you would join your Dad’s solicitors practice, that is very non-personal language used to describe that?
A. Yes, it is, I have processed a whole lot of pain surrounding that. My life felt like it started at 27, my Dad in old school, he keeps himself to himself. He didn’t force me to do law but it felt like that was expected of me but I wanted to do business. I did 5 years of law and it wasn’t really my thing, two weeks before I qualified as a solicitor my Dad came home with some beers on board and told me “Son, you’ll be paddling your own canoe I am taking an early retirement”. That was two weeks before qualifying as a solicitor, I discovered I wouldn’t be going into my father's successful practice. Two weeks later I was probably the first and only unemployed solicitor in Northern Ireland. So the whole thing about me using impersonal language about that is because it took me a long time to get over that.
Q. Did learning come easy for you?
A. I am probably a quick learner, but I get bored very easily. I actually look back and wonder if I was afraid to pit myself against the top members of the class. Those guys were machines and they were working really hard from day one. I remember on day one we came in and we had to write an essay, and mine was the best in the class, and that was a high point of my education. Whether I thought that I couldn’t keep up with them, I loved to be able to say I was the best at doing no work but still getting the exams. I was definitely the best at that.
Q. It is interesting that you already had a perception of yourself at that age?
A. No matter what, I am a survivor. If I knew at that stage I wasn’t going to end up doing law, I would’ve gone and done business studies but I didn’t know that so I repeated my A-levels for three days. I knew how painful it had been (to not get the grades) the first time around.
Q. Do you remember your parents' perception at the time?
A. My mum is my harshest critic, but only because she cares. They set a high bar, and I remember when I got my results for my A-Levels my Dad said: “Your wee brother Ben would’ve done better” and my brother was 2 at the time. It was tough stuff. They knew what I had put into it, which was zero and I had done remarkably well considering that I put no effort into it.
Q. Do you think the writing was on the wall from the beginning?
A. I was working at various things, I was full time in the civil service and ultimately I realised I was different from everybody else there. About 20% of the people there carried the other 80%, but everybody complained about hating their jobs. All these changes were coming and I was really excited and nobody else was and at that moment I wanted to leave, what they were looking to get out of like was not what I was looking to get out of life.
BEST MOMENTS
“I think from about the age of eleven or twelve I was also asking for shares in the stock market for Christmas”
“I picked two of my three A-Levels out of a hat”
“Everything I’ve done I’ve done it for me”
ABOUT THE GUEST
Welcome to the Speed Mentor Podcast.
Do you want success and abundance in your life?!
Do you want to hear how to achieve it?
Then you’ve come to the right place where the world’s only Speed Mentor, Gavan Wall will mainline you with micro bite-sized chunks of inspiration fused with knowledge, built into a daily routine to help you deliver success.
After walking away, a decade ago from his gilded life as a leading Barrister and property investor, Gavan Wall started his entrepreneurial career in suspicious circumstances as he lost everything in the property crash.
But he refused to give up, re-building a financial fortress from scratch, until now he leads multiple successful multi-million £ companies across FMCG, Franchise, Tech, Property and Mentoring.
He’s the Speed Mentor and serial entrepreneur, who shares with you all the breadcrumbs of success and just as importantly the failures. If you listen you can avoid the potholes and learn to conquer your fear and live a life of success and abundance just like him.
But be warned, his message can be stark and will not be for those seeking shortcuts. If you’re wanting to be told that the law of attraction will deliver success wrapped in a bow to your front door, then this Podcast isn’t for you, as that’s never going to happen! It’s time to own your own sh#t, never blame others and take the massive action to create the attraction.
The opportunities and whitespace are everywhere. Gavan will help you get outside your comfort zone, connect with others, shed the scarcity mindset, set gorilla goals and achieve so much more.
If you want to make your ideas soar…then talk to the Wall!
CONTACT METHOD
Gavan’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gavan-wall-b828a56b/
Gavan’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gavanwall
Gavan’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/gavanwall
Speed Mentor Podcast Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SpeedMentor
Subscribe to Gavan Wall’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCZyfsl7Au5_tM7gKA_vuitw
Gavan Wall Official Website: www.gavanwall.com
Email him at success@gavanwall.com
