Welcome back to Fire in The Belly! In todays episode, Pete goes on a deep dive with the one and only Speed Mentor Gavan Wall! Listen in as Gavan shares lessons learned from his own entrepreneurial journey, 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. Gavan Wall talks us through his transition from law to property to his new project of venture capitals as well as talking us through some of his personal struggles with the economic crash in 2007 and how he took himself from losing everything to being the success he is today.
Q. Tell us a bit about yourself.
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. 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. 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.
Q. Whilst you were working in law did you still continue your side hustles?
I was up to 50 houses, what happened was in 2006, I had gone from double-digit yields to getting outbid all the time by people who had never been in property before and I could not face giving up the business side. My mistake was saying, I need to get into the chain earlier, to feed properties to these people so I bought four bits of land and I got my planning through but I made a few mistakes, signed personal guarantee and 14-day demand loans. My wife somehow ended up as a guarantor on one of them! That land lost 90% of its value and one of the local banks served me with a demand notice, so I then lost everything including my family home.
Q. What would it mean, someone saying you’ve got something you shouldn’t have?
I don’t really know, I’ve got something about it. My wife sometimes talks about doing the lottery, and I say to her “you can’t do that, what if we won?” because then that would ruin the whole thing, somebody would be able to say we had it easy. Whenever we used to drive to school in my Dad’s car, there were only two of these cars in Northern Ireland and in one way it was lovely and in another way it was too much. I want to be able to say, everything that I have created with the support of my wife and my family has been created by us rather than come from someone else.
Q. What drives you day today?
A. The goal is to have an impact worldwide, the goal is to be the most successful entrepreneur in Northern Ireland. What is success? Success is the ability to be able to make a difference to other people. I am not money-driven, I took my first ever holiday for ten days last year. When I was a barrister I used to go on nice expensive holidays and drive a Porsche, now I drive an electric car and I am happy with that. I don’t go on flash holidays or spend lots of money, the difference is being able to make a difference, the ability to say I have helped the ecosystem in Northern Ireland. I wasn't Northern Ireland to be backed like it was in the industrial revolution. I want to help Northern Ireland get back to that, and I want to have a massive funeral. I want to have made an impact on so many people and to have changed Northern Ireland for the better.
Q. Do you see yourself retiring?
A. No, I will die in the middle of a deal! The best deal ever. I was thinking about all the things I have done since I turned 45 for the first time, definitely not retiring no way. I’ve done a lot of heavy lifting, and I will tell you my theory and it was a moment of clarity “it is all about creating value, with the power of the mind”. That's true. The lifting that you do with your mind created more value than the physical stuff you do out there in the world.
Q. What do you think people's perceptions of you are?
I know what they say about me, “He thinks he is just going to walk into the venture capital startup world?” “He just walks in and that's the way that he does stuff, he just pivots out of something else and he is just a shopkeeper”. What they don’t really know is that maybe their perception of me but that is not really what I am like. So I am listening to less personal development stuff at the moment because I am listening to stuff about venture capital and about startups because I know that I don’t know it. I may be a bit of a peacock walking it but I am trying to learn because I want to learn it. The people that are throwing the darts at me probably haven't had as much success as they think they should’ve had because they’re not prepared to do the work that I am.
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”
“My rise and success wasn’t lucked”
“To have made such a difference, those other people say ‘I want to make a difference’”
“It is all about creating value, with the power of the mind”
“You can’t expect to go into something new and be really good at it”
ABOUT THE HOST
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 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
Support the show: https://www.facebook.com/groups/430218374211579/
