i was asked a question there recently on an instagram live that i was doing
and the question was what advice would i give to my 20 year old self
25 year old self or whatever it's a fair question it's a common enough question and i didn't really
think about it too much quite frankly because i was busy enough trying to
answer a lot of other questions but i've thought about it since
as a 20 year old would be to recognize you're going to get more effective work
out of people if you treat them with respect and if you operate like a team
that's something that i had i was sadly lacking when i was 23 i was an employer
at 23 which is obviously very very young to be an employer to be an employer of anybody and
i was certainly mature in terms of dealing with people and so on and i did believe that the
best way to get the best out of people and make them uh compliant and so on was to be
strict and demanding and so on and so forth but it's not the best way i don't believe
since then i've come to learn from titans of sport like aidan o'brien willie mullins and jim gavin
that getting the best out of people involves very much putting aside one's own ego
and one's own views and demands and requirements and so on and focusing completely on the team
one of the things i do from time to time is i watch racing and i watch sport on tv a lot
ga obviously hurling football and racing of course one thing i've noticed over the years with the
racing in particular with the likes of vietnam in the brain after every single win will credit
and name drop at least three people maybe five maybe six people he'll be talking about jim who
looks after the horse mary who rides him out every day susan who you know looks after his teeth and
if he's credited the local postman for playing a vital role in the success of the horse in the
group one race it wouldn't surprise me that's how much he is what he's like in terms of
name dropping and being generous and recognizing the team that it's a team game that he's involved
in that it's a team enterprise even though it's a multi-million perhaps
billion dollar billion euro industry willie mullins the national hunt
champion trainer does the same thing he credits the girl who rides out the horse the girl who
looks after the fellow you know the jockey the owners everybody is credited and it's as if
this person willie mullins or aiden o'brien is simply a sort of figurehead everybody else is
actually doing the work and all they're doing is doing the interviews jim gavin then i read
an article a couple of years ago where jim gavin hadn't done a one-to-one interview with
anybody for something like four years after taking up the double job because his view was
it's a team game it's all about the team etc etc and the one interview that he was giving
when i actually read it was to the irish times and the only reason he was giving the interview
was to promote an air show somewhere in wicklow i think because of his involvement with the irish
with the irish aviation authority or his position there he was promoting an air show down in wrigley
or someplace that's the only reason he was given the interview for four years one of the most if
not the most successful managers in daily football and as the article points out most managers will
at the drop of a hat give a quote uh do an interview no problem and you can understand
there's egos nature human nature but that's what i would tell myself as a 20 year old or 23 year old
starting off again that the people that i employed would actually do better and would be more loyal
and it would be a better environment if i actually treated them very much as team members
rather than cracking the whip and obviously there's more than one way to skin a cat
and i've learned over the years it doesn't have to be all equipment can be carried so i hope
you find this video useful if you are starting a business or if you're running a business if you
are a young person starting off a business you can learn from the lesson or you can take this lesson
from my experience i'm self-employed 123. that's a long time ago in 1986 and i've learned a lot since
then but that's the one thing that probably would tell myself my 20 year old or 23 year old self to
treat people with dignity with respect and very much as part of a team hope you find the
video useful if you do i'd appreciate if you give it the thumbs up down below thanks a lot