Ian Buchan — Hunting the Dragon: The Story Behind a Radical Leadership System

what's your dream what's your goal what's your motivation what's important to you what's your passion what can you do to change the world this is what's involved conversations with thought leaders and change makers from around the world hear stories of hope and inspiration to help motivate people like you to live your life find your passion passion and live your dream together we can all bring positive change to our world now here's your host David Watts and once again it is what's involved and you know we have special guests I tell you about that all the time but this is one guest that I've really really been looking forward to to having a chat to its and when I saw the book come across my desk going okay before I read anything else just just the title of the book and the little dragon in the background I was like okay I need to find out who this man is and what the story is who am I talking about well I'm talking about Ian Bacon and the book is called hunting the dragon the story behind the world's most radical leadership system hello Ian nice to have you with us good morning David and lovely to be with you and your listeners right so first and foremost we've got the book we're going to be talking about but I think the more interesting part is probably going to be talking about Ian and about your journey so so let's check off a little bit and start at the beginning tell me a bit about yourself Ian I'm a country boy born in the thriving metropolis of Lusicki Siki in Ponderland which was a wonderful place to be my parents were doctors there and I had a brother and sister Alistair and Jenny and very soon my sort of wonderful freedom in Ponderland with all those beautiful people ended at age eight when I was bundled off to boarding school in Durban so that was a real shock for me to be an eight-year-old and going through boarding school away from home I wouldn't recommend it for anybody quite frankly maybe as a teenager I think it's great but certainly not at eight years of age and then I went through boarding school there and then through to Grahamstown boarding school then off to UCT where I studied engineering mechanical engineering took me six weeks six years to complete that degree and to this day I can't tell you how a motor cooperates so I was never destined to be an engineer I guess and we had one lecture on on business and that was my journey so I headed off in that direction and have been in business and marketing ever since so tell me about that because you say you've been in business and marketing and and does this mean that you have a string of successful businesses behind you I have to chuckle you know David there's a famous leader of leaders called John Maxwell and John has written maybe 30 books and I've I've read and studied a good ten of them and he talks about the fact that in California they did some research on what makes an entrepreneur successful and the average person and this is really important the average person tries one and a half times and then gives up okay and never does anything goes back to just working for somebody else and the people who are successful tried just one more time they tried two and a half times and are successful well sadly John Maxwell statistics don't apply to me I tried five six seven times and businesses up and I just smashed the more for various reasons so up until 1994 I built and crashed sort of fire fairly big businesses and a lot of little ones in between so it took me a long time to get it right but I think if I did anything in that time and what I would advise our young people in this country to do is you just never give up just get up again and go and I think that was my saving grace yeah one of my motto is that I that I have and I try and live by is is the whole idea of just keep on keeping on because very often you know what will determine your success is hanging on long after everybody else has let go so it's I suppose it's one way of looking at things but what interests me is you know you get a lot of people and they'll come across as entrepreneurs I've had a bunch of people on the show and the story is always about how successful the businesses what they've done etc etc etc but very seldom do you get into the nitty-gritty of the behind the scenes before you have the successful business and I think that's partly what I enjoy so much about your book is it's not just a book on leadership it's kind of part memoir as well and and to me it seems that that it comes across is this is in watson or I don't know if I'm just interpreting that but I certainly get that impression David this is one of the reasons why we ended up writing the book which will have said about just stop in 1994 I was when I look back now really really privileged to be able to go on on a transformation course and one of the fundamental things on that course that I took away in such a massive way is you just tell the truth all the time regardless of how good or bad it is and when you do that people trust you so you know if I look around that so many of our companies today most of our politicians and a lot of people we always trying to tell the good things this is why I'm so good about this this is why I'm so good about that and they just put spin on it you ask yourself a simple question where is the trust and you wonder why they are not trusted and yet if anybody I mean one of our politicians for example I don't want to mention any names if they just stood up and said you know what I want to apologize to South Africa I did steal that money they'd probably get voted in I mean it's it's it's crazy but you trust people who tell the truth and so when we set up to look at our leadership system and and this book it was really important to for me and and for my family my kids who helped me put the book together that's Zach Barney and Wallace just to tell the truth and because people can relate to that I can relate to David Watts who says to me at the beginning of this conversation Wow you know I only started to really get going in my life at 54 because then I know that you're in touch with the reality of who you are and I can relate to that whereas most people would never dream of saying something like that listen I must be honest and it's it's been I think both both a blessing and a curse is that I have and especially in terms of the radio show in the podcast the listeners get David Watson also so they they probably know more about me than than my own family because I believe in sharing because you know radio personalities if you're on a radio station it's easy to do the big fame thing and go look at me look how special I am but I think it takes a certain amount of bravery to go listen I don't have all the answers I don't know I mean I one of the things that fascinates me in this book is I've had a good few businesses in my lifetime and I've always managed to sort of get them going and then they start and then as they start to get a little bit successful and it looks like we're ready for blast-off I do something and I screw it all up and it's back to square one and that psychology that mindset is part of what interests me and certainly it interests me about your story because you also actually really got onto the onto your track you're calling so to speak I think you mentioned in your 40s in the book yes I was 44 44 45 in 1994 and wonderful year to celebrate our freedom and probably one of the most miserable years of my life because I just gone off the cliff again with absolutely no skid marks and I was in a really bad place in 1994 but again it was the turning point for me and one of the things if I could share with you as to that turning point on this course we played again and the game was two teams there were 40 odd of us and we broken up and it was just one rule and the rule was you have to win so in my typical fashion I kind of took control of the 20 odd people on our side and some guy turned around about halfway through and he said you know we needed to do ABC and I said oh shut up this is what we're gonna do and I push like mad and anyway after two hours nobody had won this game neither side had won and the invigilator a guy called dr. Baruch Benai he came across and he just gave us the gears and he said who said to you that for you to win the other guy had to lose and man it just hit me so hard because my whole life was on at boarding school for me to win you had to lose and what does business teach you they teach you for you to win the other guy needs to lose and only only the strongest survive exactly and it is just absolute rubbish and I cried for a week and it was the first time I'd cried in a long long long time and to this day on my little thing on my whatsapp says always win-win so our company today is for me to win you must win first so I will do everything I can to get you to win and when I get you to win then I will automatically win that's fantastic it is what's involved to my special guest Ian Bucken talking about the book hunting the dragon the story behind the world's most radical leadership system we'll be back in just a bit we'll be right back with more what's involved David would love to hear from you to leave a voice message visit what's involved calm and click drop me a voice note and we're back what's involved it is so good to have you along with us as I said my special guest Ian back in been really looking forward to chatting to him because it was almost as though going through this book he'd started reading my mail because there's just so many little points and bits and stories that I got oh yeah being there being there done that failed at that dropped the ball over there but what for me is inspiring Ian is that there is light at the end of the tunnel and this book is I wouldn't say it's the culmination of your journey because I think your journey is definitely continuing and the company's journey is definitely continuing but it is a summation of your learnings to date so we're gonna dive into the book because that's why primarily we talking to you but but tell me a little bit about the business what made you decide you wanted to start this business David at the time it was just survival I mean here you've got this highly qualified mechanical engineer from UCT okay you can't even fix a car and then I go through these corporates at Unilever and Smith and nephew and then I have a full go to all these different businesses and fail I started out just to survive being a door-to-door salesman so I just worked my brains out I had a door-to-door business during the day and at night and I was working perhaps 90 hours plus a week okay and I was just exhausted seven days a week so it was just survival I wish I could say that I'd set out to do something different what was different was not the business I started it was my approach to the business that this business had to be a win-win business so the context was different and I had a tough time in fact probably from age 45 to 50 to the turn of the century in 2000 was some of the darkest years of my life and I can hardly remember anything from those years it was just this continuous kind of wheel of just trying to to pay the bills stop my kids from being dropped from their schools because I couldn't pay the bills trying to pay off when my furniture was attached you know that kind of thing so there wasn't any kind of magic what was happening and I was also determined never to take on another partner so I had people saying to me look I'll become your partner I'll put money in and I just my wife Carol was just a rock she said never again because the partners as soon as you got successful they want to take money out and my philosophy was no we just keep on read just put the money in put the money in and I never want to borrow another cent in my life again and to this day by the way our company doesn't have an overdraft we don't owe any money we pay cash for everything people send us an invoice they get paid immediately that kind of thing and it is just a wonderful place to be and so some dark dark years and then not 2000 I started to turn around when I had some steady customers a base of about 6,000 customers and then the cash flow start to get positive yeah you know this is one of the many parts is when you talk about partners for example I think there are people that are wired to have partners and to have good partnerships I've always been told that I don't play well in the sandpit with other children so I'm a bit stubborn and pigheaded and so yeah that that but I can I can certainly you know my approach very much has been if I want your opinion I shall give it to you I have tempered that over the last while though I have definitely tempered that but yeah it's strange so why come up with the name that you did because that is making a big statement okay because it's the unlimited and it's like wow okay it's a big statement it's a scary statement are you talking about the name of the company the unlimited yeah I learned a long long time ago when I was cutting my teeth in marketing at Unilever about trying to find a brand name that wasn't that you could add some value so for example something took I've always thought was a great brand name for a shampoo because it kind of tells you what your hair is gonna look like and and stuff and and so I was looking for a name that wasn't just Ian Buck and incorporated or David Watts PTY Limited or whatever and so I came across a company in America called the Limited and in talking to my partners I said we we the exact opposite we unlimited why not the unlimited and that's where it was born and everybody just loved that idea kind of suited our our way of thinking and I've said it before I'm gonna say it again the journey is is what fascinates me the most because I think and particularly here in South Africa and I have a passion for for people who are wanting to get into business for for small businesses in my opinion the large corporates are pretty much doing what they do anyway but it's these in aspiring youngsters I came across two young guys the other day that have companies called Art of Aqua and and the the one young says studied he's got his is a mechanical engineer and he's got his LLB and then started an aquarium business of all things and yet these guys and the way they do it is absolutely phenomenal and at the one stage I was then I was chatting to the Dan he said why are you so interested in stuff like this I said because these this is the future this is where we need to go I mean we can sit and bitch and moan and whine about how broken South Africa is because that ain't gonna change in a hurry in my opinion you know as you said would be nice if somebody said yeah I took the money let's fix it but all signs indicate to that's not gonna happen so entrepreneurs and business and small business micro business that's where our change is gonna come from that's why I love what you guys are doing so the books as I said it's a handbook it's a it's a it's about leadership but to me it's so much more than that and you say you know the think win-win I think that that goes back to Stephen Covey but it's very difficult to do it's easy to go it's got to be win-win but you know business wise we're not always wired to do that so what is the unlimited do okay so we have a very very interesting model okay and it's the kind of question I love answering by the way and that is that we are product agnostic so so we don't have a fixed product in our business because we started the business art by teaching people how to run businesses and so it's not like I go to university get a degree and I've got all the theory but now what do I do we actually take kids off the street literally as long as they have a metric that's all they've got to do be honest and we teach them and we show them more importantly how to run a business and they they don't have to pay frick we grow them in that space and then they end up running their own business so that they could be selling anything from toys and books and calculators on the street we don't do that by the way but they could take their business to do that or they could be in financial services which is where we do most of our business so our model is we talk about we grow leaders to grow the business so we grow these youngsters on the outside we teach them how to sell and they just become incredibly good at growing other people training other people and learning how to run a business and then we do all the back-end stuff for them we do all the product we collect the debit orders for them and then we pay them their portion of it but it's their business it's it's not our business it's they we are not we don't manage them we just demand a certain level of ethics and we have a very tough what do you call it an SLA that we work to and yeah so if people struggle to put us in a box so we help them with that by saying we we are in financial services but we have a lot of other products that are outside of financial services as well some gap cover and stuff like that I think this is fantastic and you know what you're the kind of person that when I look at the time that we allotted for the show I'm like I don't have enough time I don't have enough time to ask you all the questions that we need to ask you but but we're gonna cover what we can cover in this one it is what's involved my special guest is in back-end we're talking about hunting the dragon at the book it's all about business leadership but it's not a book like any other you've ever read we'll be back with more what's involved in just a bit hey like what you're hearing share the podcast with your family and friends and spread the word this is what's involved and we're back with my special guest in back-end and I suppose we need to get onto the book hey because you know that's that's kind of what I said on the tin when I said I was going to be chatting to you let's talk about about hunting the dragon why did you write a book like this because clearly this is this is a labor of love and and it's a story and it's a journey so talk to me about the why if I could take a little step back before we get into the why which is why the title and where does this dragon hunting come from we would doing things we just I've read a ton of books and just listening to to you David I know that you've done the same okay God pick up entrepreneurs found entrepreneurs very quickly and I know and I know you've been in that movie okay the challenge was that we read a lot of books and we tried to implement a lot of the stuff in the company and in conversations and it just didn't work and we were at Broman Hills one day just chatting and our CEO at the time Steve said well what is it that we actually do I mean what makes us different and we talked about it for a good hour and during that time we said you know what we're not mainstream we different we out on the edge it's like those guys on those old maps of old where they the Portuguese maps and Spanish maps and they said those guys who sail over the horizon there be dragons and we said well what are we we said well we are dragon hunters we always looking for something better we're trying to do something better for our customers for our people in the business for our communities all of that kind of thing and so we labeled ourselves dragon hunters which is fantastic because it's really sorry sorry to interrupt you because I immediately flash back to Mark Shuttleworth and HBD which is here be dragons so the dragon analogy is brilliant you know I often refer to myself I refer to to having a business is trying to ride a dragon but the dragon and knowledge show you guys you got I told you entrepreneurs find each other okay we've all got dragons somewhere in our lives it's fabulous so we then started to look back and I'm not gonna tread on kind of a little bit of tricky ground here and we looked at South Africa step back and we started by looking at South Africa and just said what is what it what are we seeing is wrong and we didn't see leaders taking a stand okay we didn't see leaders in in the corporate world way back in the day one or two took a stand against crime and they were hammered by the government so a lot of corporate leaders today tend to be a little timid because they lose government contracts and stuff like that so they don't take a stand okay and they tend to work behind the scenes and that's not to say that they aren't doing some great work and there's some brilliant people doing some great work but certainly not taking a stand in public very few we then looked at our people okay and really mainly I'm thinking of of unemployed black youth primarily they've lost hope they've just lost hope and when you've lost hope it's it's a terrible place to be and when you start just to measure unemployment by not counting the people that don't apply for work that for me is just a disgrace okay so you talk about 38% unemployment no there's another 10 or 15 percent that are so disillusioned that they've given up looking for work so it's probably 45 or 50 percent of our youth maybe even more we've lost hope so we started to say in our journey of looking at leadership we're doing things differently we're breaking the mold it's much more practical what we've learned we've done our 10,000 hours okay of stuff we know that we what we're doing is working we need to get this message out and we need to attract leaders to come to us and whilst we hate people to join us work for us and leave and go on we also love it so we hate losing them but we also love the fact that we're adding value to the greater market as it were so we then said you know we're never gonna get credibility for what we do unless we write a book and it's just like that the guy that has the credibility is the guy that's read the book so we said right let's write a book or the company and we will it will help us to attract leaders we'll grow those guys and we know that many of them will go on and do other things and I could give you a list of 20 wonderful people that I grown when I think that they've left us they've left us and gone on and done amazing things in other companies and all of them they go with our blessing so the why was really to to start to introduce a new way of leadership that we think can start the process of shifting the country which yeah I agree with you 100% you were talking about about leaders and leaders in in our country I'm sure you've come across a gentleman by the name of Benang Makalay wrote a brilliant book called Behold the Turtle and after interviewing him as well I said to him why on earth are you not taking more of a role in the politics and and what's happening in this country and and his answer to me was because I believe that by influencing businesses big businesses small businesses that would be a better vehicle for change and and I found that a very very interesting sort of statement to make and you know he's got a point he definitely does have a point there so in before we go into into our next break cuz we're gonna wrap up when we come back and I really don't want to I might have to I might have to try and twist your arm and see if we can do some follow-ups here but who should read this book then I think they're probably two big categories okay young people fresh out of varsity who are looking for something more than just joining a corporate where you're not we don't think that you learn leadership in a corporate there's too much team building and stuff like that going on so people sort of 22 23 to 35 okay should read the book people who are want to be looking at ethical leadership leadership with values and leadership that's different and leadership that comes from the future not from the past so definitely those kinds of people I think will get an enormous amount of benefit out of it and those the kind of people that we are looking for and then young unemployed people and it's difficult for them to get access that we can always get help them with that okay to read the book because it's about hope David yeah there's an old story and I think it was John Maxwell who talked about it that leaders are dealers in hope and if there's no hope it's it's a tough world and I hope that our journey my journey and many people in our businesses journey of not giving up keeping going it's a mental journey it's just don't give up and if that book can do that to people we know that they'll win and our model for growing franchisees of which we've grown over a thousand by the way of hardcore guys who know how to run a business the guys who win are the guys who have got hope they have a dream and they just don't give up to get knocked down they step up stand up they get knocked down they stand up and suddenly they get it and when they get it man it's it's wonderful to watch and yeah I mean you don't even have to read the book in fact to get that message just get that message don't give up and just live your dream and how if we could leave that message with our youngsters today it would just be wonderful yep I agree with you strangely enough on on my podcast one of my little sort of lines that I've got these that I'm a dealer in hope and I did I shamelessly stole the dealer in hoping but that's what I aim to do with the show with this podcast is to be able to make stuff accessible and to make people accessible to those who may not be able to do it and I had a question the other day somebody said to me David you now on your 200 and whatever episode of what's involved and you've actually yet to make a cent out of it and I was like yeah I know why you why do you keep on doing it I said well two reasons and one of them is selfish because I get to chat to the most amazing people and the other reason is I keep thinking about people that would be in my or a similar position to mine that don't have access so you know it just it's one of those things we just keep on keeping on anyway and when we come back we're gonna we're gonna wrap it up with you this is what's involved so good to have you along with us as I said my special guest is in back and we'll talk about where to find the book and how to get hold of the company and find out what they do all of that when we come back this is what's involved don't forget to subscribe and leave a review or next and we're back what's involved it is we're wrapping it up with my special guest and back in we're talking about the book hunting the dragon the story behind the world's most radical leadership system so yeah the book where is it available all good bookstores all good bookstores Amazon take a lot all of those yeah and and I'm gonna say something now and then I've said it a couple of times on the show but this is something I believe you need to have in your library if you were all interested in in business and making business work and just having a look through it and then going okay yeah there is hope and and hope you struck it you you struck on that earlier on and that is so so important a good number of years ago I was working with a company called empowerment concepts and they were doing AIDS awareness in schools and we would go to these schools and we would do this whole thing and the kids would look at us and go yeah so you're telling me about a disease that might kill me in seven ten years we don't care we could we could get killed crossing the street tomorrow we could anything could happen what have we got to live for anyway and that was the one thing that we found with those kids is that behavior change will happen if there's hope but when there's no hope there's just that those guys those kids didn't see a future at all and it changed our focus as what we were doing then into kind of going okay well let's see if we can create a compelling future for you so that you then behavior change will actually flow on from that so I think it's a it's a brilliant book now this wasn't a solo if it's your your your children were involved in that and I wanted to ask you about this because you said earlier on about no partners so so where do the children fit in because of my work habits of 90 hours plus a week by 1994 the truth of the matter is that I alienated my family to a large extent my wife Carol and sack Barney and Wallace my three kids so yeah I sure we loved each other but I just wasn't there for them when it mattered and I went on a course and drew ended up drawing a picture which is in the book of what I saw my future like and part of my future was to start a company but based on love which fascinated a lot of business people and that this company would would make a lot of money and it would put that money into the environment put that money into early childhood development and also into more training but the most important part of it was be that my dream was that my children would and my wife would be involved in the business with me so after about five years of running it on my own and I could afford it my massive dream was to have Zach come on board and Barney come on board and Wallace come on board and over a period of time all three of them have done that and so we ended up becoming in a sense a family business and it that has been my greatest joy by a long long way yeah it is amazing because so often you get you get focused on the sort of end point the goal and that family and friends do get left behind the way and I think it's incredibly important that there is that balance there and as I said we are fast approaching the time when we run out of time if somebody wants to get all the book we said most good bookstores we've said it's available online how do people get hold of you guys do you encourage people to get a hold of you guys or how does that work absolutely we do they just go and and and Google the unlimited and it's THC obviously unlimited very simple and they'll get hold of us and there's a way of making contact with us equally we've got some 35 officers around the country and they can get a hold of those officers very very simply it's all on our website and those youngsters all I would say to those youngsters who come on board those who want to join us at head office we will give you an MBA in leadership in one year that'll do more for you and cost you nothing just hard work and you will ever get at a university I'll guarantee that and for the youngsters to join our sales side if they just follow our simple system we will be able to take you out of a tough tough place and get you to a place that you can afford a car afford a home for your your family for your parents that kind of thing absolutely guaranteed if you just follow our system so we'd love to hear from them just just Google the unlimited there we go so look it up it is the unlimited so it's THC unlimited and you can get hold of the gang they will happily have a chat to you and as you say you've got officers all over the place I mean what you said 35 35 different branches and it's a great website okay so it's the unlimited dot CEO dot is it a unlimited your life and I think that is wonderful the question I have now if you and before I finally let you go is where to next for Ian back and what what's next for you and for the unlimited we started to branch out beyond South Africa as the unlimited and our big what we call massive transformative purpose is to shift lives and we shifting lives with our people inside so we're offering them opportunities to go and work for us now in the UK and other countries we've already got people operating out of the UK so that's what we're doing in house but I think the thing which might for me personally my project right now is the unlimited child where we have 3,500 creations that we manage and look after in South Africa we put 250 250 thousand children we make school ready every year and our goal is to turn that to million children school ready within the next five years so that will without a doubt shift the country it's the biggest system of its kind in the world and we are just absolutely passionate about that nothing more important than early childhood development you see now that in and of itself is worth at least another interview he says nudge nudge wink wink but in another book is there another book in your thing David writing books is not for sissies I've started about a hundred times and I've just I wanted it's it's it's it's traumatic yeah there is another book it's we haven't titled it yet but it's it's this book is kind of the background and giving the context of everything the next one is is more a how do you implement this in your business it's how do you hunt the dragon kind of thing okay and most of that works done I haven't done that work has been done by head of leadership and my daughter Wallace and Linda young and they've done an outstanding job on putting that together and so that will be coming out probably in the next six to nine months so smaller companies will be able to get that book and say here is how I actually implement all of these things this is how I go into leadership that comes from the future not leadership coming from the past I think that's wonderful I am now publicly putting in my application for the interview the first interview when that book gets released so that I can chat to the relevant people so there we go brilliant listen it again we're out of time it we got to wrap it up and thank you so much I know you're incredibly busy man and thank you for taking the time out and sharing your passion your knowledge with us I really really do appreciate it and David wonderful to meet a fellow entrepreneur and if I could just end up by saying what I loved most about chatting to you was your comment about the fact that you've never made money out of it but you do it anyway and that always win the day always we always talk about do the right thing okay and the profits will follow so I love that coming from you thank you oh thank you so much there we go wraps it up for this edition of what's involved my special guest there was in back in the book we talking about hunting the dragon the story behind the world's most radical leadership system it's got to be on your bookshelf it is just an amazing book and and books like this are few and far between so go out and get it once again you can log on to the unlimited dot co dot z a and check out what they have to offer there as I said wraps it up to each and every one of you look after yourselves take care and thank you for listening thanks for listening to what's involved we hope this episode inspires you to find your passion and live your dream don't forget to rate review and share the podcast and to see what's happening what's going on and what's coming follow what's involved on Facebook and Twitter at what's involved thanks again for listening