Episode Transcript

Please note this transcript was generated by AI and contains errors including missing and misspelled words.

Meryl: Hey Alex, welcome to the show.

Alex: Hi, how are you doing?

Meryl: Doing well, and it looks like your Summer here over in Bali. How long have you been back?

Alex: So I came back here in January to escape the UK winter months and I've kept close the uk whether it still looks too cold for me to return.

Meryl: Just following the sun. What, when it gets to European summer, you might consider it.

Alex: Yeah, I've actually got those trips booked in already, so I need to take it easy and slow steps back.

Meryl: And how do you manage it with the UK time zone? I have to ask because with my business Bean Ninjas, in the first couple of years I used to do Australian sales calls, UK sales calls in the evening, and then US sales calls in the morning and it and the UK time zone was a nightmare from over in Australia. So how do you make it work?

Alex: Yeah, I think when you're in Australia, like you have to plan it a little bit different, but usually like I plan in advance what countries I'm going to be in and how it's. Gonna work best for me. But actually being in Indonesia works really well. Because what I do is um, uh, in the morning, like I wake up, I have my routine.

Like I'll go to the gym, I'll go to the beach, I'll do my meditation and do all the things that I want to do, like a really good work-life balance. I then do my projects and I focus on my side of the business and what I need to do. Sri Lanka and then it gets to about four, five o'clock and the UK wake up.

So I've had this entire day to do things and to get things done and take everything off my list before I can then sit and support the team with what they need. And so I then dedicate like between five and midnight ish to work with the UK team, all my team in Sri Lanka. So that works really well this side.

The beauty about me being this side of the world is actually I get to work closely and on this normal work time zones with Australian New Zealand, the clients I have over there. So it works really well when it comes to the states. That's a little bit more challenging here. But when I was in the uk then Australian New Zealand were challenges, so it would be.

My commitment and my responsibility is the fact that I have to take care of business and I have to take care of clients. And so if I get the opportunity to be anywhere around the world, then I like dismiss time zones. It's okay if I need to get up at four o'clock, I'll get up at four o'clock in the morning.

And that's just, that's my only thing I have to do then. I'm happy with that.

Meryl: Parts of that I'd love in my own schedule. I remember pre-kids, I was into a morning routine of the meditation and exercise and journaling. That's all gone out the window these days with a four-year-old and a one-year-old. And the objective is just to get a good night's sleep. But I can see the benefit also of having time for yourself to set up the day.

But then also get through all of your projects and then have calls. A and that's, I, that's something I try and do with my own workday is carve out time for deep work and exercise and then try and push calls later in the day as a different head space. But it's sometimes a bit tricky to do.

But I think time zones are on your sign at the moment.

Alex: Yeah I genuinely, when I was back in the UK that, I dunno how I. Managed, I think I was working so much and trying to, everything in, because again, in the UK everything closes at it's nine, five schedule for everybody and everything and shops and even going out in the evenings. Whereas here everything is four hours and so you can have whatever shift.

You need to have. And and so actually in the UK I do struggle with getting everything done in the morning before. Everybody wakes up at nine and I try to get up at six and go to the gym, but then I then, had a long day, at the end of the day and everything shut because then I could do the things I wanted to do.

So it was, it so genuinely, it's like when people say to me, why do you prefer this side of the world? It's because I have a really like good work life balance.

Meryl: I'd love to hear a little bit more about your background and about Soaring Falcon. Could you give just the quick overview of your career and then also a bit of a perspective of what your firm looks like these days?

Alex: Yeah, of course. I launched Soaring Falcon back in 2015. And it was a, Go paperless, digital and all that stuff from the very, very beginning and remote. So stepping back before I set the business up my, my intention was that I worked for practices. I wanted to learn all of the different areas, all the different sections of how to set up a practice.

So the goal essentially was to one day set up on my own. And because. I was in a situation where I did everything manually. I did everything on desktop. I did everything in the old traditional fashion. And then the cloud technology came out. My business setup came at the time where people were scared to use and utilize cloud technology, whereas I learn computer work from school, from, writing out books to being made to write, do my projects on a.

And so it was the next step for me was to use the cloud technology because it was gonna make my life easier and more efficient. And the people around me weren't so keen, and so I decided to launch my company utilizing all the technology that everybody was just scared to use. And then I launched.

And then that scaled quite quickly in the early stages because everything was all new. My goal when I set the business up was because I wanted to travel. I wanted to work from different locations, not necessarily be stuck in an office. One of my jobs I had I used to go in, in the winter months in the uk and if we started at eight 30, it was pitch black.

And then it was desktop and paperwork. So I felt like I was in a factory where I had. Paperwork on one side and then I was inputting it in, in the desktop and like all the reconciliations on an Excel spreadsheet or the software at the time. And then once I ticked it off and stamped it as paid and it'll side, I've spent all these years studying to become a qualified accountant.

And this is where I see myself. Thought I need to quit. And so at that stage, I decided that now is the time to make the change. Otherwise I was gonna leave the accountancy world. But thank God for cloud technology because that was just a turning point for me because then it allowed me to do all things I wanted to do.

And so from that point, I just put all the plans into place to launch or Falcon. My first trip was to New Zealand. Where I met at Zero Con Wellington, I met a lot of my international partners. So I thought if I wanted to travel, then I need to create a business that's going to allow me to do that.

And so I have a client avatar. My client avatar are to work with technology or creatives to work with people who want to go global. To people with people who are they basically want to launch in the uk or they're in the UK and they want to launch globally. And so majority of my clients are, have, are around the world.

And I look after the UK subsidiary and that's my niche.

Meryl: What an incredible niche that, that makes so much sense. Now that you've said that of and why coming out and traveling I've met. You were an accounting conference in Australia before, but having relationships and partnerships and of course this is all business travel with.

Alex: Exactly. You have to be smart. And so I get to see my clients and I get to see their work, and I see their environment in different countries. I just wanted to make my work enjoyable, through my life. Even when I set the business up it was an option at the time of, okay, I've got like 40 years of working life left.

What am I gonna do with that? And even now it's okay, I've got 30 years of working life. What do I wanna do with that time? And I don't want to look back and say I wish I started a business and I didn't. I just wanna try things and see how it goes.

Meryl: And so how does that work with what does your team look like and how does it work with you being in different time zones? It sounds like you make a lot of effort to be available to them, but could you describe. What that looks like these days and if there's been any changes from when you launched back in 2015 to now.

Alex: Yeah, of course. At the very beginning the team didn't fit my model. It was really challenging and it was really hard. And that was genuinely because we, there's some of our, some of the firms in the UK will class as the early adopters of the tech of the technology, which was great for somebody like myself who can set up a business, but it wasn't great.

For employment because people would know the traditional way and they wouldn't know the digital way. And so I found that quite challenging at the beginning. So I built a business based on support and advice and everything that people were telling me oh, you should hire people that, pay them like a good ray and, get consultants in and get an office like I was like you to business.

And I'll just follow what they say because I see them being successful. To do what they've already done and not make those mistakes. But I wished I, in my gut feeling was also, I shouldn't do that and I should just do what I think. But again, there was a, I was like stuck in between the two. And so an office wasn't right for me and those people weren't right for me.

And so I then went on a adventure to look for remote workers from early stages and offing. And in the end I tried various different countries. For the remote workers where I can, they'll be qualified accountants but they, I can then teach 'em the technology. And in the end during the Covid Times, I then launched a company in Sri Lanka, which is an offshore company with two co-founders and developed a team in Sri Lanka.

But for the uk we have remote workers. So I have pe person in Qatar. I have a person in France, in the uk I can't even think right now but they're just spread all the way around and obviously Sri Lanka as well. And so again, it was just finding the right people for my type of clients.

So I'm not a large company. I'm very small boutique firm, but I act like a large company in the respect that because of the size of my clients. I need to have specialist people in certain areas. So one client might be split into three or four different people because I need to do specialist work for them.

So that model works for me. Not a small firm when one person can do everything for that client because the clients are too big.

Meryl: That makes sense. And there's so many directions I could take this conversation, so I wanna come back around to the offshore team cause I think there's some interesting things we can discuss there, but I think. That turning point you mentioned where you'd followed other people's advice, you'd got an office, you'd hired the traditional staff, and then you came to a realization that wasn't right.

I'd love to hear more about that, of what was that process like, was there some pain involved in trying to unwind that and then go in that new direction? I think that sounds really interesting and I'd love to hear more about that.

Alex: Yeah, so absolutely. And it was, a lot of it was to do with feedback from clients. I wasn't, I had my avatar and I had a certain type of client, but. The right team behind me. So most startups, they try they go for like trainees or apprentices or people to support them in the background, but they weren't strong enough to deal with the type of clients that I.

And as much as I would love to have supported them at the time with covid and everything it just happened before. It just wasn't easy for me to ask them to do really heavy workload and to just jump in when the clients really needed the support. And so I had to then transition from having inexperienced people where I was with them and had the time.

To sit with them and train them to a situation where I couldn't sit with them face to face and train them and guide them and help them. I needed to have experienced high level people that could just do the work and support the client straight away. And so magic. And then not needing an office where, it was like the saving and saving those funds as well.

It was just about moving the. The expenses, in the business, keeping it lean as possible, but also spending it in the right places. So he was spending it with more high. High end, high, highly experienced people that can do certain areas of the job. And what I've done since then is with the offshore company, because I couldn't do that with my accountancy firm where I to train people, we now do that in the offshore company so we can take on people because they do have an office, because it's a different business.

Completely. And I feel like I'm giving back on that side.

Meryl: Absolutely. This is actually really interesting. You mentioned that on episode four of this podcast, we're talking all about asynchronous communication and remote work and how that impacts training in the kind of people that you hire. And so at my firm, we don't hire junior staff anymore because we are all remote.

And so it's just so much harder to train a junior team member if you're not sitting right next to them. And so we just hire CPAs and people that have got five years plus experience, GE generally, just because it's a different training model and much harder to do remotely. So it's interesting that you arrived at a similar conclusion of hiring the experienced staff, but then with the offshore team.

Are they all in an office together in Sri Lanka? Is

Alex: Yeah. Yeah. But they, we've, we. We had, we gave them the option to work, work from home, work remote, do this, do that. But everybody just genuinely wants to go to the office and they love it. I've just been, just, I've just come back from Sri Lanka and yeah, they just, they get excited.

They, I think it's like their community, it's different culture, they have their lunch together and things like that, traveling together and yeah, it's cute.

Meryl: And you mentioned you did a bit of research when you were deciding what country to build your offshore team in. I'm interested to hear more about that. What countries did you assess and how did you make that decision?

Alex: Yeah, sure. I looked into Zimbabwe, South Africa. I didn't, I. I interviewed people however, the cultures over there were, they're, they could do the work. Absolutely. But the early stages when I was looking for people over there, they were just more interested in the money. At the time.

I'm not saying that's for everyone, but this is the feedback that I got at the time. And so if somebody just offered them some more money, they would just jump. Into into another job, and I thought I couldn't really for that to happen right now.

And trialed and both event in the early stages. And when it came to India again, at the time because I'm a digital business, everybody at the time were used to working with traditional firms, not digital firms, and there is a difference. And so working in a traditional firm, If you turn a job around within six weeks, it's amazing because when I worked for a company, if something was if a client got their accounts like four, four months after the, after the year or six months, that obviously not very useful But this is how they used to run and how they thought it was normal. And that was early for everybody because it wasn't nine months and one day after the year end, which is when they're due. And so like the Indian companies, because they were almost one of the first ones to offer the BPO services that everybody was comfortable with their turnaround time was amazing for those firms, but it wasn't for me and I needed like a quick fast turnaround after the year end and it just wasn't there.

And so then I tried the Philippines. And with the Philippines, what I found was there were constant weather issues. And I was like, okay, so my entire team is gonna go down and I dunno for and I, and if I've got deadlines, I was. So conscious and I was like, okay, how am I gonna fix this?

So I needed to build like the business risk element, which I'd always have in the background. There was always, I've always constantly got like a group of people or support or consultants around me that I can tap into at any time. That's the business model that we need to have, right? Type of work. So that people can step in whenever deadlines are due.

And whilst I had the team in the Philippines, I was building that. Situation where I had the weather situation constantly going wrong and internet constantly failing. So I then decided to do countries.

I did have somebody get in touch with me through Instagram randomly which is now my cofounder in Sri Lanka. And once he reached out to me, we probably worked together for about six months, but I then looked into how Sri Lanka work, how they operated. And even with they, they obviously went through a crisis and they had.

Issues in Sri Lanka, but they still are able to deliver and that they're still able to work and we're still able to get good internet, et cetera. And so looking at coworking spaces, looking at like the infrastructure of how the team would work together and then that became like the new venture.

It's okay, right? If we are going to do something new and we want it to work, Then it's something that I want to be involved in, so then I can then create it around something that I need, and then I know what other companies are gonna need in the uk.

Meryl: It's interesting, so I've dabbled in different countries with offshoring too. So in the early days, I had three different team members in India, and I actually did a trip to India back in, I think, 2015 or 2016 to go and

Alex: Wow.

Meryl: meet them, and, but things didn't work out. I think that was partly because our processes weren't very good back then, so it just took a lot of time and the quality wasn't there.

But I think that was a lot on me for not having good enough. Documentation and systems and the time zone. I found, interestingly, I found the time zone didn't work that well in Australia because everything seemed to start late there, so there was a little bit of a gap, but then things didn't get rolling until nine or 10 over there, which was then getting into the afternoon.

And the my three. Staff over there were also quite entrepreneurial, which I like, but they eventually wanted to run their own BPOs, not be a team member of mine. And I wanted to build team culture of the being ninjas team culture, not someone else's. B p o team culture. So that ended up not working out.

And then years later I went to the Philippines and then had a great experience there. I did have some of the weather issues that you mentioned particularly in the early days, be before we found full-time committed team members. We still occasionally have issues with weather and electricity, but it seems like.

They've got better backups in place now and there's generators, or they'll just make up the time in the evening. So I haven't, it's not been an issue recently, but it made me laugh when you mention it. Cause I've definitely faced that in the early days.

Alex: Yeah, that's interesting with the time zones because that's why Sri Lanka would work well. Cause we have clients in Sri Lanka work morning and then time zones, and again, it's normal. So works really well.

Meryl: Yeah. And then I've heard of Vietnam more recently. I've got a few friends that have been building teams there, but mostly they actually already had relationships. So they either were Vietnamese themselves or they had family over there. But it is interesting looking at the different locations that are available.

I actually have hired a little bit in South Africa, but not accountants, though. Designers, developers. There, there's some talent over there. But I haven't actually, we've never hired an accountant over there.

Alex: No, I. I do have I do have other, like contractors that I work with or like partners in South Africa and in Vietnam as well. One of my clients does have the team in Vietnam, so they're pretty much everywhere around the world. So I think I, these were like early day problems. I'm not saying that they're issues now, that wouldn't be fair.

But at the time when I was trying to do it, these were the things that I came across. And I was trying to resolve those issues with my current firm, but now that we do have an offshore company, like I can see why we have the challenges.

Meryl: Yeah, and I probably should a add that as well. My, my experience was a long time ago too, so things probably have changed in India and that may not have been. Reflective of everyone's experience either. Let's jump into some remote work topics. I think you are very well qualified to speak on this, having a remote team yourself with people all over the world at all of the travel you do.

But what is, what are some of the trends that you are seeing around remote work in the accounting industry?

Alex: So I guess I've been doing the remote work since 2015. So it's been amazing for me. And at the early stages obviously I didn't really see that much going on. I didn't really talk about it that much because I felt as though it was a bit of a privilege and I didn't want people, I dunno what it was, I think I just didn't wanna share it.

But now I'm like, actually no, actually it's important to share because then I can then help other people to do the same or to inspire them, which is my goal. And I. A lot of people will say the remote working probably been a bit more okayed like since Covid.

Working in full-time jobs, but being able to work in other countries even if it's for a month at a time, and their bosses are allowing that, which is amazing because it gives them, their life experience as well as their work as well as them being able to do their job and not taking 20 days holiday.

In terms of like even my team as well, it's like they have the opportunity or they've always had the opportunity to work remotely. But you can see that it is growing and more and more firms are even offshoring and hiring remotely. Not just necessarily looking for talent in, in their country, but they are looking at Hiring people from around the world.

Majority of my clients do hire globally. And that's just something I've been used to from early days anyway. So I. The difference that I'm seeing now, more importantly, salaries. And so where, for example, I was in the UK and I would look to hire for something in the uk. I'd look at again, the cost because that is relevant.

And then you look at cost in other countries and yes, there is a difference, but they're all starting to creep up. And so people who. Were involved in the offshoring like some time ago there was a significant gap, but now that's closing. And so even when I speak to even BPOs cause obviously I keep, continue to do my research and my competition it, I'm starting to see that, for example, we could hire like own apprentice or we can hire like the graduate in the UK for somebody.

Overseas, but that person overseas might be till three years. Ex, experienced. So it's now coming the gap is closing a little, I would say. But in terms of the remote working side and the trends is that it is growing. And we are obviously gonna see more and more of that. It's just whether or not companies are still willing to break the mold.

Cause after covid, I do. I am aware of people coming back to the office but then not being given the options of hybrid. But those one, those people who were used to working from home during covid essentially want to work from different countries. Not necessarily just go to the office every day, cuz it's hard to just jump in.

Meryl: That's something that I'm noticing that the leadership team or the account. Firm owners might want everyone back in the office that they want team culture and morale and better client support. But on the flip side of that, it's not necessarily what the teams want. And I had a friend on the podcast recently who was talking about posting up there was she posted the same job role.

So I was looking for a bookkeeper in Australia and one was hybrid, so it was a little bit in the office and a couple of days a week. And then the rest were remote. And then she posted the same job, 100% remote, and she got almost 10 times the amount of applicants for the a hundred percent remote role.

And to me, that's just showing that people want that freedom. That, because then you could go and you could live in a different state. You could live in a different country to do that role. So that's something that I'm noticing is the desire for team members to want that flexibility a, and also control over their schedule.

So I, I think the nine to five. That's dying out that because you can do remote and be told you need to be online and log into Slack or teams and say hello and be there at 9:00 AM and finish at five. And I don't think that's what people want anymore. They wanna be able to go to the gym at lunchtime or they wanna go to and pick up their kids at three or go for a surf at 11 when it's great and still get their work done and prioritize their career, but not be told, oh, you need to be, bum on seat.

Working between these hours? I don't think, that's not, I never wanted that but I don't think many people want that anymore, apart from maybe the partners at some of the older accounting firms.

Alex: Yeah, no I guess I agree with you. And I guess coming from the staff perspective as well and also. So what I wanted I used to get my job done, at three, and then I would wanna do my own thing and then I'd wanna work late at night. But I was disciplined enough to know that I had my work to be delivered and meet the deadlines and get things done on time.

And I guess there's a fine balance between those that can be disciplined and those that want to work in their own hours, but not necessarily get the work done. And so it's the ones that. Don't get the work done that then could let it down for everybody else. Because they're not, they'll get distracted by home staff or people from home.

It may be they want to go and do their laundry or their day-to-day things in their house and get things done and then be distracted from their job. And like most bosses, if somebody's being paid a nine till five and they have to do their hours, they have to.

Cover like emails, they have to cover customer support. They have to ensure that the work is getting delivered on time, in time and not delayed. And so there is an element that during those working hours that they're under the brand of the company and those hours do belong to the company. And from the employee perspective, they don't necessarily see it that way.

They just think, wow, I've got the flexibility. I could just work in own time. But unless.

Meryl: Yes. Yeah. And it's a bit of a trade off. I think I think some individual contributor we've noticed this with when we've promoted people to team manager, so individual contributors who are senior and managing their own portfolio. They can seem to meet their client deliverables and communication expectations with the client and do everything in their own time.

But we've found when someone moves into a leadership role and they're there, they need to be there to unblock their team. If their team, it's no good eight hours later getting back to their team member to help them with something, a five minute question, which then sets them up for the rest of the day.

And so that's where we've noticed some challenges or because we don't have work hours everyone can. Once someone's proved themselves, then they've got flexibility over when they work. But that's created some issues for us with, okay, if you're a team leader, you can't just be working 8:00 PM because that's not gonna, that's not gonna work with the rest of the team.

Alex: Exactly, they'd need to be there for the team so that, so in a way there has to be some element of structure and there has to be some criteria and, rules and boundaries around what people should and shouldn't do, can and can do when they should be available or not available, because, Otherwise it gets outta control.

So we do run a business and they are employed by the company. And so the work still needs to get done, especially with our roles and our job that we do as accountants. We've got deadlines like daily, constantly they need to be. And so if and then there's time zones as well. And so if say for example, my team doesn't get back to one client and then it's Australia, then they've got 24 hours to wait before they get a reply.

And so we do need to consider that those factors and have some discipline around, remote working and what's allowed, what's not allowed. Otherwise it could fall apart quite easily.

Meryl: Yeah, and that's something I'm still thinking about and as our team size. Grows and we're, cause we're in six different countries, so that's a lot of time zones to consider. It's getting more and more complex and my initial thought has always been wanting full flexibility, freedom that's, you might be able to see it on the wall behind me.

That is our core value freedom. That's the purpose of what we're all about. But you're right, as we've got larger, we're almost 30 people now, that's a lot of different time zones and things to manage. So we are bringing a little bit more structure. I'm resisting it a little bit. Cause I wanna manage by outcomes of, okay, we need to re manage, we need to respond to clients within 24 hours they can schedule calls with us.

We, we need to hit all of our deliverables rather than managing the work hours. But as you said, it can get a little bit out of control, esp, especially as things get bigger, that's an interest, interesting problem to solve or try and solve.

Alex: Yeah, I think one of the client, one of the conversations I've had often actually, but just more recently with one of my clients, is that, if everybody, we as bosses, this is what we want for ourselves, so we. And so we want to give them the lifestyle that we've got, but actually we need to have different types of people in the business.

And we do need those people that want to come in nine five and to keep that structure because they're the ones that are gonna, they're the glue of the company. They're the ones that are gonna keep the company together. And so they need to have that structure in place. And so it allows us to do the things that we can do and what we want to do outside of the business.

So it gives us the freedom, but they have a different type of freedom. So their freedom. How they see is different to how we see it as the boss. So if they wanted the same type of freedom, they'd probably set up on their own.

Meryl: Yes, that's a great point that re reminds me of some personality profile that I did in the early days to try and understand my business partners better, and understanding that there's some people who are visionary and they've got big visions and great at relationships and maybe not so good at the details and process and holding people accountable and they need to pair up.

With someone else that has more of those traits, who's good at getting things done, but then the person who's good at project management and details and holding people accountable might not have that bigger vision. And so finding business partners and team members who can fit to strengths and weaknesses is important.

And something I didn't realize in my first couple of years of business, it took me a while to appreciate that and think, oh no, you wanna hire people like yourself. You wanna hire people you get along well with, but they don't, probably shouldn't be a replica of yourself.

Alex: Exactly.

Meryl: Let's change that slightly. I'm really curious about your life as a digital nomad. So could you share, what does that look like? Are you slow traveling? So do you have home bases in different cities, or are you literally, you've got your suitcase or your backpack and you are gradually moving around the world.

How would you describe it?

Alex: I'd like to say my base at the moment has been barley for the last six months. Prior to that was the uk but what I would do is I normally plan out my year and see what clients I can go and visit, go and see if they have events or if there's any support that they need. And for example, me being in Bali I've been able to spend some time with my clients in Australia.

And so I was over there a couple of times since I've been in in Bali. And also working on projects in the background. Zealand worked really well for months. Now I've got projects in the UK for example, but I don't necessarily need to be in the uk. I can be in Europe, which is what I'm looking forward to doing.

It's more about I would find a location where I would. Make it my base for, a few months and then I'll go and visit the countries that I obviously love to travel and love, see new culture, but I also enjoy, know. And doing the things that I need to do and having my exercise, I think that's like my high priority before I then focus on my work. And so I like to find a gym with a community that I can kinda get involved in and have some nice friends around me once I have that establishment and then I feel comfortable with traveling to and from the different places I need to go to.

But yeah I really enjoy it. It's not for everybody. I know people like to just, stay at home, but it's opened my eyes to so many things, opportunities that have just come my way, people that I've met, how people do business how people run their life so much. And it's really helped me enormously to, build new things and exciting things in what I do every

Meryl: area that I'm really interested in. So when I first, not many people probably know this, but. I had started being injured with a co-founder called Ben, and we actually met in a community for location independent entrepreneurs, which is like digital nomad. So that was seven or eight years ago and our goal was to build a business that we could run from anywhere.

But then I spent the first three or four years I. Work work, trying to build the business. And then I had kids, so I've not really done the digital nomad thing yet, but I live vicariously through other people of hearing that they're based in Bali or in Meine or they're in Lisbon. And there's seems like there's a lot of different places around the world that are well set up for digital nomads.

So when my kids are a little bit older, I'm planning to. Go and slow travel or go and be live, live 3, 4, 5 months somewhere similar to what you talked about, where you can get into that routine A and live a life somewhere differently rather than just constantly being on the move. Cause I think it's hard to be productive if you like that.

So have you got any other spots? Are there any other cities where you could see yourself being based in the future and what's on your bucket list?

Alex: Oh my God, there's so much. So I mean it's more. Or about, I started off with, oh, let's go to the Wonders of the world. That's how it all started. And I thought, I don't wanna do it all in one go, so I'm just gonna space it out throughout my entire life. And for example, I went to Great Barrier Reef, or I went to Niagara Falls, or I went to, I've been to I can't, the Grand Canyon for example.

So I was just like doing things like that. So they're like target things. Then I have a bucket list of, okay, I haven't done a safari yet, and so I'm going to South Africa this year, but I also have clients and I have accounting partners

Meryl: Another business trip.

Alex: I can tie those in together. Yeah, so it's just doing those things around there.

I've just been to Dubai cause a client had their first debut event in Dubai. So RL 100 and for recruitment and talent acquisition. And again, I learned and met amazing people in that industry. And then I have several clients there as well. I was able to do that. I'm heading to Europe in June this year.

So again, I'm help helping, I'm gonna be supporting my clients. We're gonna see my clients in Europe. And then I have a client event in the UK for a short time. And then I have, I'm speaking in Singapore in October. And then I'm going to a client summit in New Zealand in October.

So with the Gap. And so yeah, so my year is planned out and then I'll. Genuine do plan. If there's, if I'm in a country and they have events or conferences or entrepreneur meetups, and I genuinely try and tap into those because that's how I meet incredible people. I'm always looking for ways to improve myself as an individual, my business.

And so when I meet people around the world and what they're doing it just gives me like inspiration and it keeps my energy levels high. And I think that's important as.

Meryl: Yeah, abs. Absolutely. And how do you distinguish between. What's holiday time? So what's travel and you are relaxing or exploring and then what's, you living in a different country, but you're working at, but still experiencing some of the culture. H how do you, or do you differentiate between those and how do you get in those different head spaces?

Alex: Yeah, so one of the reasons why I'd like to lock myself down for a certain period of time is generally so I can get into a routine. And so I'm, I would say I'm pretty disciplined and focused and prioritize my business over anything. And so I'll look to see, okay, at the weekend or the evenings or like in, I have between the morning and.

Say five o'clock to do nice things. And then I work with the UK team or the Sri Lanka team. And so over the weekend then I'll try and do small trips or I'll go and explore. We'll stick to that routine as much as possible. If there is a one off event where it sits right in the, of the week and in the evening then I would put down that holiday.

In my diary and say I'm just taking some time off, which is not that

I've set safari.

Meryl: Yeah. Good on you.

Alex: So yeah, you do need to be disciplined

Meryl: Alex, thanks so much for coming on the show. One final question and then we'll wrap it up but what's next for you? What's in the future for you over the next couple of years? Where can we expect to see you?

Alex: Oh, over the next couple of years I have no idea. I don't plan that much in advance. I'd like to think that I'll still be traveling, living in a beautiful country with the weather and the beach and amazing sunshine. And yeah, just, I keep, just keep it consistent and keep enjoying my life as much as I can while I'm still here.

Meryl: Amazing. Thanks so much for coming on. It's been a great chat.

Alex: you so much for having me. It's been a pleasure.