Vincent Saunders: today's episode is a powerful one. In construction, we always talk about pressure, performance and responsibility, but not always about what's going on underneath. That being the mindset and decisions we make. Today my guest is a performance business coach helping leaders perform under pressure rather than be overwhelmed by it. What looking forward to unpacking in this is mindset, self-leadership and everyday decisions that shape outcomes whether it's safety performance or how we show it for our teams. James Fisher, to have you on and really appreciate your time. How have you been going?
James Fisher: Great to be here, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, it's been great, it's been busy. Work and life is busy, as everyone is, but it's good to be here. I'm looking forward to it.
Vincent Saunders: Thanks for coming on. To kick us off, I was wondering if you could potentially just take us through sort of your journey from sort of, we specifically looked at maybe volunteer firefighting, your extreme sports you did, all the adventure stuff you did, kind of feels like you should have been at the X Games at some stage, and into performance business coaching. How did you end up there?
James Fisher: you Yeah, unexpectedly to start with. So life started off very different. was, you know, low income, council house kid in the UK, growing up on the estate and, ⁓ you know, being a young ADHD kid, mum knew that that energy had to go somewhere. Otherwise it was going to go somewhere else, right? So there was a lot of opportunity to do sports, did lots of outdoor sports. So that's kind of how this all started was. From a very young age, I was doing very hardcore extreme sports. So for example, before I was 17, was in kayaking some of the hardest rivers on the planet. We were in Nepal, Austria, Switzerland, all over doing all these crazy things. And went through right up through to my ⁓ and ⁓ on into my 30s. at level, ⁓ the is basically get it right or you die. At very young age, it gave me this very different mindset of one, being able to stay really calm under pressure and two, being able to make quick decisions. honestly, like ultimate confidence in myself, almost bordering arrogance, right? was like, I can do this because I simply didn't have a choice. When you're kayaking these rivers and you're doing these climbs and you're in these extreme environments in the mountains or in the snow, whatever. If you mess it up too bad, it's bad, you know, it's really bad. So you kind of just got to get it done. then, you know, life carried on and lots of things happened and eventually found myself a builder, you know, working in construction here in New Zealand, working as a builder up through the project management, which ⁓ if anyone's done project management before, you know that it's got a shelf life. ⁓ It ⁓ pretty for not much reward a lot of the time. And then. I went through a bit ⁓ of a mental health crisis after a break up with long-term partner, went through a bit of a moment where I was like, what's going on here? ⁓ Why this keep happening? and I needed to go on a bit of a journey. So one of the things was realising that I was incredibly selfish. I'd spent a life being really selfish, you know, travelling around the world, doing whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, with whoever I wanted, whenever, like all these crazy things, super exciting life that most people couldn't dream of. But I realised, man, I've been really selfish. So being quite an extreme guy, the way that I decided to overcome that was to do the most extreme thing I could to not be self-risked, which was become a firefighter. this was in between full-time work. So as a volunteer firefighter and ⁓ in, I live in Queenstown. So it's a volunteer service here. The big cities have paid. So it'd be full-time work as a project manager, studying business as well, and firefighting and stuff. So it got pretty hectic. And then in that process, through studying business and firefighting and all these things and still working, this job came up as a business performance coach with a professional builder. And it was a bit of a, it was an incredible thing to realize that existed because it brought my entire life of all the things I'd done and it brought it into one job, into one thing. and yeah, that's kind of how I ended up there. So we're niche in what we do, which is perfect because I'm a builder by trade and I understand the management and the business stuff. So it, it's, ⁓ it's almost like the job was written for me.
Vincent Saunders: No, it sounds like an incredible journey and I think kind of a construction, and I talked about this previously, but construction is kind of, I feel like it's going on this little bit of a reset at the moment. it's kind of like there's a lot of, obviously there's a lot of people that have kind of been, I guess, thrown into construction for an early age, but now with the trades becoming a bit more. I guess with the, I don't want to say respect, but there's a bit more impetus on some of the trades and they get a lot more light shined on them now. Like think the whole industry as a whole is, and hopefully in 10 years time is a lot more maybe professional rather than just going from a builder to a business owner. There's like a lot of training and a lot of different things happening the moment in the industry. It's quite exciting.
James Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. And it's competitive as well, right? And that's why you've got to separate yourself. You've got to distinguish yourself and building a house is one thing. Like when we do our apprenticeships, we get taught how to build a house, right? That's one thing. Builders are great at that, but building your business is a totally different set of skills. knowing that set of skills, I mean, you can't just, you can figure it out, sure, but how long is it going to take and how many mistakes are you going to make along the way? And what's it going to cost you? So yeah, that's where And so many businesses are popping up, so many people, know, generally what happens is you would go builder, get qualified, do you know, you do your time and then you got to make a decision. Are you going to be building forever with your boss? Are you going to go into management or are you going to start your own business? So then a lot of people go business and it's like, then what? I've got me, maybe you've got an apprentice. Where do I go from here? The skillset doesn't exist unless you learn it.
Vincent Saunders: yeah, and yeah, it's a great conversation to have. could probably talk about that specific ⁓ for such a long time because ⁓ kind of, yeah, you could go so many ways with it. But anyway, I'll try to back to what we were actually meant to be talking about, which is I got a section here around the decisions making under ⁓ and under pressure. You've ⁓ about your experience potentially under pressure in some of those ⁓ extreme of what...
James Fisher: Yeah
Vincent Saunders: ⁓ So how does mindset influence decision making in high pressure situations for yourself and what has maybe changed with your decision making from early on to what you're doing now?
James Fisher: It's again, it's a bit of a learned skillset, right? Decision making under pressure. And it's one of those things that you can't get unless you've been in the situations. So business is one thing. Everybody, every business owner knows how stressful and how much pressure you can be under running a business. whereas my path was very different coming from extreme sports where it was, you know, there'd be me, my friends, whoever we'd be in these environments, which Like I said before, if you get it wrong, likelihood is you're dying. So you had to not only be able to be confident in yourself and your ability, but to be able to snap decision, make the decision on what you were going to do and then pull it off and do it. And you have to do this calmly as soon as ⁓ freak out or emotions get involved, then you stop making decisions. It stops happening. And that translates right through to. ⁓ The extreme sports are making those decisions, keeping yourself safe, keeping your friends safe. If you're guiding, of course it's customers too. But then it goes into, you know, the fire service, same thing. got to know exactly what you're doing and you've got to be able to keep it cool and make a decision. There's always a time constraint, but you also can't rush it. So ⁓ comes down to a lot of experience, to be honest. And I've just, it's a skillset that is difficult to teach, but beauty is that reflects right into business. maybe not do or die situation, right? But it's a of the time these decisions they have to happen and you have to just make it. And it comes with the confidence of knowing this is the right decision. Sometimes it's not, that's okay. You learn from it and you move on.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, like what's your, kind of talked about decision making in those high pressure environments. Like, are you able to maybe walk us through sort of what your process is, like in your head, like sort of, I know it might be a tough question to answer because maybe you don't want to give it away or whatever, but you know, like what's your sort of process on sort of, you know, you've got, I don't know, I'm just thinking of example, you're trying to jump off a. I don't know, waterfall with your kayaks, you know, like pretty serious thing. Like what's some of those processes that you will go through in your head prior to, you know, executing that?
James Fisher: Well, first off is, you said not giving it away, but that's fine. That's literally my job. So that's fine. We can give it away. That's what we do. me, so let's the waterfall, for example, like that's happened a lot. I've had a lot of those times where I'm literally about to go off a waterfall in a kayak. And the first thing comes down to your preparation. You're not going to be in that situation if you didn't think you should be there. So ⁓ not, you know, there's a progression, right? You're not going to go straight to the top of a ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah.
James Fisher: a 10, 12, 20 meter waterfall if you haven't already learned the skills before that. Same in business, you're not just gonna go straight in, here I am, one man band, three million dollar bill. Like, it's not, there's a progression, right? So first of all, you need to know you should be in that situation and you're prepared for that. And then when you get in there, the big thing is trusting your team. You're not doing these things alone, especially with extreme sports and with business. Your team around you, everything. You know that they're keeping you safe and you're keeping them safe as well. So that's hugely important and knowing that you have that support. And then once those things are in place, you're prepared. You've got your team there. You've set up, you've done your, you know, your diligence. You've figured out what your line is, what your move is, where you're going to go. And then it comes down to being in the situation it's a decision, right? It's it's a, can I do this? Yes or no. If there's a no ⁓ these life-threatening situations, if that thought creeps in, you don't do it. And that was very well known in the extreme sports, the kayaking or the climbing or the, you know, the when there's big avalanche risk or whatever it is. We're trying new moves on a paraglider, something like that, right? It was a, if anybody says no, I'm out, the team would be like, oh good, no worries, see at the bottom. But if you made that decision to go and you buzz yourself up and you're like, you know what, I've got this. And you believe with a hundred percent conviction, you're prepared, your team's around you, you figured out your line. and you've decided you're going, then you just, you have to just go. Otherwise that doubt creeps in again really quickly. As soon as you hesitate, the doubt creeps in again. I found a lot of the time there would often be a lot of, ⁓ a lot of breathing, a of trying to relax and get into the zone. But then I would often go the other way and be like bang, bang, hitting you on the head, splashing water, like whatever it was to get that fire up again. And then, yeah, it's a case of just the decision and that's it. Once you've made a decision, you're going.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and I think it's kind of like also potentially tying this, trying to tie this into construction somehow, but like if you're on site making a decision and like, like you sort of said, if the decision's wrong at the end ⁓ the day, then that's fine, but backing yourself ⁓ make that decision and potentially not sort of getting halfway down the, know, halfway through that sort of. like this project or that piece of work and just say, ⁓ hang on guys, we need to stop again and rethink this through, like backing yourself, backing the team to bring that together, I think is quite a cool sort of relation back into the construction piece.
James Fisher: Exactly. And not just making the decision like in business too. If there's a problem to solve, you've got to solve it. You've got to say, this is what I'm doing. You've got to make that decision and you've got to go with it and you've got to see it through. Otherwise you have make loaded decisions. Nothing happens. You see them in the same place. But the beauty is with business, you're probably not going to drown or end up in an avalanche or die or whatever it is. Right? So if it goes wrong, You can stop, can recalibrate, okay, that wasn't the right decision. How do I fix this now? And you can pivot, you know, it's okay to change your mind and change your decisions. You can pivot. If it turns out to be the wrong decision, now you know, and you do another one.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah well in construction leaders balancing sort of safety program costs and people all at once what does strong leadership look when things aren't going to plan?
James Fisher: It often is very obvious what it looks like physically. It's calm. It's often calm. You know, whether you're at a road traffic accident, there's been a crash, there's a firefighter, or whether your concrete truck's turned up but no staff are there, or you just run out of concrete and you've half poured it, half poured a slab, or you're at the top of a waterfall and you've got, you know, it's always calm. You'll know the person who's in charge because they're the one that's calm and they are making the decisions without freaking out and you'll see everybody looks to them. Who are we looking at? The calm person. very obvious usually.
Vincent Saunders: and so how do you hold, how do you hold accountability without being ⁓ over controlling in those situations? Like you're talking about being super calm, ⁓ like want to, if everyone's looking to you for direction, you want have that calm demeanor but you want to maybe control that situation. How are you doing that without being too, I guess ⁓ lack of better word, bossy and driving the team a bit too hard ⁓ potentially if don't need to be? ⁓
James Fisher: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in business, ⁓ would be a little bit different. We use a thing called radical candor, a great book. and not necessarily just for when stuff goes wrong, but all the time for holding standards, creating culture, maintaining culture, and making sure that everybody one wants perform, can perform, but knows when they're not performing and they can, and it can be fixed. Right. So everybody knows that their position and what radical candor is, is the idea of There's a scale. It's high care, but also high challenge. So you got to really challenge somebody, a way where it's showing that you really care about them. Whereas if you go low care and low challenge, it's just that it's just the apathy. just, you don't care. Right. Nothing happens. Whereas if you go high challenge and low care, you'd just be in a bit of a dick. Right? So there's that, that middle ground. It's called radical candor, which is great. High care and high challenge. How can I ask you to do something that you need to improve on, but in a way that I really care about it because it's about your growth as well as mine.
Vincent Saunders: Where do you see the most improvement maybe in some leaders ⁓ the construction space specifically? Or what have you seen over your with your team there?
James Fisher: It often comes down to one, the confidence, like I can be a leader. The identity is a lot of the time what holds people back construction. wherever you going to identify now as a qualified builder or even just deciding to identify as an apprentice, right? I'm going to do this. I'm an apprentice now. You've got to commit. He's got to be your identity. And that keeps going right up through the scale from builder to business owner, to project manager, to business. you know all the way up to entrepreneur and whatever it's an identity I am this person so it starts with that and then it comes down to knowing that you have the skills to do it. You've got to obviously know that you're doing as well. And once you know you have the identity and the skills, it's often the people who allow the small things, the things to be done by somebody else. Like you said earlier about, you know, not managing too hard or micromanaging, it's letting go, right? Business owners, cannot do it all by yourself. It's impossible, right? It's getting a bit easier with AI now, but you can't be using AI to do stuff and swinging the hammer, right, still. So you've got to allow other people to do things and you've got to give up some of that trust. And the easiest way to do that is know that you've set them up for success. So what systems do you have in place already? to make sure that when I go tell Vincent to go, you're now running toolbox talks or this or that. Okay, have I set you up to be able to do this properly? And then you can relax because you know you've now created another leader. So we say is a leader, the best leader is someone who can create other leaders. Otherwise you simply are doing it forever.
Vincent Saunders: Like a good manager empowers, I shouldn't say below, but empowers them to get up to that same standard as they are. Like a good manager will kind of just make their own job redundant in theory and they're just looking at the bigger picture of things.
James Fisher: Exactly, yeah. So a good leader is going to create other leaders and they're going to empower the other people to do the things. Because ultimately what we're trying to get within any business is the leader, the owner, whoever it is, should be managing the people. And then the people should be managing the systems and then it's the systems that actually run the business. And then this just goes full loop. So yeah, you have to create the leaders. They're going to be able to lead the other people or the systems or whatever it is.
Vincent Saunders: Okay, and potentially just sort of touching on sort of bit of your stuff you do in and around sort of how you sort of look after yourself. Like you're obviously extremely busy at the moment. You've got a lot going on with your job. You do a lot of social media and you get out and do some hunting, motorbike riding and probably a of other things down there in Queenstown. how do those physical challenges or those adventures for you sort of give you back energy, I guess?
James Fisher: That's exactly what it does for me. It gives me energy. I believe that energy begets energy, right? The more we use, the more we generate. these things for me, they're They are absolutely necessary for me. Without fail, I'm at the gym every single morning. It's the first thing I do. Before I eat, I drink coffee, I go to the gym every single day. Well, maybe not Sunday. Sometimes I do yoga. And that allows me to be ready in the morning. I've already moved. I've already got the hard thing out of the way. And it means I'm like, right, I'm ready to sit at my desk for probably up to 10, 12 hours, whatever I'm up to, right? Because I've done the thing and I know that I'm going to be able to relax and do it. And then the outdoor sports and the extreme sports. One, I love it. It's incredible. There's no feeling of freedom. Like, you know, being attached to your kite and your 10 meters in the air above the water. Like that's my thing at the moment, motorcycles and kite surfing. There's no better feeling like it, it's ultimate freedom. Everything else disappears. Everything. And what a lot of people don't do, especially business owners, is allow that space within their minds, within their brains. They're just constantly on in work mode. Which is fine if it's positive and it's growth, but if that's stress, coming back at you. Like it's to feel like that. And a lot of people don't put themselves in that situation where it's even possible for everything else to disappear. You know, not in a positive way anyway. Some people go out and get blasted and be drunk, right? Everything will disappear, but you're going to pay for it for four days afterwards, if not more, right? Whereas being in a very extreme and scary environment for me, that's when everything goes quiet and there's nothing, you know, that's it. I'm locked in and it feels like freedom and it allows me to just reset.
Vincent Saunders: he, yeah, sort of how does that, how do you know I need to go back to the gym or I need to go back on a hike or something like that? Like what does that feel or look like for you? ⁓
James Fisher: ⁓ Yeah, you know, ⁓ it becomes very obvious when I haven't enough or enough or fulfilled myself in some way, whether it's progressing in my career, this that, like ⁓ I become quite agitated and I know ⁓ pretty quickly I'm either dehydrated I need to go for a run something. I'm like, okay, this guy's coming back again. It's because you didn't run or gym or whatever for the last few days. So you're getting antsy. So for me, that's kind of how it manifests. it took a long time for me to realise that that's what it was. Honestly, it's either water or exercise for me every time. And I that's the key is realising what's happening within you and then looking inside, instead of projecting it, looking inside and going, what's triggered this? because we all have triggers and they're often a lot simpler than most people think. And for me, what happens if I don't exercise enough. ⁓ I wouldn't be very good at my job if I wasn't exercise enough, to be honest. I'd be miserable all the time.
Vincent Saunders: Oh, funny. I think this could be like a whole nother 10 part series that we could do on journeys and how we got to where we are and mindset and all that. It's just a phenomenal sort of, guess, change in the industry as well. That kind of that is now well, I think it's hopefully it is in most businesses front of mind, like sort of that mindset, how your how your team's feeling, how your leaders feeling. Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty cool space to be in.
James Fisher: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, so advice for sort of construction leaders, like if a site leader or project manager is listening right now, sort of where should they focus their energy on first? Like if things maybe aren't going right sort of on the job site for them at the moment, sort of are you able to shine a bit of light on that?
James Fisher: for sure. As project manager, you know, I used to manage up to ⁓ 15 at once and being in Queenstown, all of them over a million dollars. was hectic. It was crazy because I was working for a great home builder. So it got very busy very quickly. So I this as a great example because I feel it personally. And what ⁓ I now and what I would do ⁓ and advise the hardest thing to do. I would...
Vincent Saunders: you
James Fisher: you've to stop and you've got to look inside and be like, hold on, what am I doing wrong here? What can I do differently here? Because often it's something that is very within our control. And it's like, I didn't prepare enough. I didn't send those emails that I should have yesterday. I was feeling a bit, a bit slack. So instead of doing the materials, I went to the pub I didn't go to the gym this morning because baby was crying all night. you know, and I couldn't sleep, you should have gone anyway. Like, you know, whatever it is, often there's something we can be doing that is going to change that. That's always the first place I look now looking inside instead of outside. And then once you fix that, you go, ah, it was that thing. I didn't drink enough water. I was just miserable. That's why I was being a dick or, know, whatever it is in that work environment. I would say you got to look in first. What can I do differently? And nine times out of 10, That fixes a lot of it. And then you can look external. Okay. So now I've got to work with my team. Why did my team not perform? Did I give them the tools to perform? Did I set them up for success or did I just say, have at it? You know, whatever it is, there's always something we can improve on to ensure that we get the result. usually starts here.
Vincent Saunders: And then kind of just into that, I completely with you, like I think ⁓ just a bit of my student story when I was sort of I live in Turinga now, used to work in Auckland. We built a house down in Turinga here and for about nine months my wife was living down here. She was pregnant with our second kid and our first kid was down here as well. So I was pretty sad to be stuck up in Auckland working, trying to find a job down in Turinga. And I found you kind of just go down a hole of maybe having one beer, two beers a night. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden I got to a stage where I was like super sad. and lonely in Auckland. And then you just say, okay, well, why don't I just stop drinking for a bit? And then that one day or one week turns into a month. And it was like, okay, I'll stop drinking till Christmas. And it's been probably about three years and I haven't had a drink. Well, no, sorry, I won't say I haven't had a drink. I've tried to have drinks with friends and stuff, but.
James Fisher: epic. man.
Vincent Saunders: kind of got to a stage now where I'm like, okay, now this isn't for me. And I was just talking to my wife other day and it's just like, kind of, ⁓ without alcohol in the system, it's really hard to explain, but it's like everything from say the back of my brain, looking out my eyes, it's
James Fisher: That's awesome.
Vincent Saunders: it's not hazy or foggy anymore. My eyesight is a little bit shot these days which is a whole different story but I feel it's just the process from the back of your head through yeah it's very hard to describe but through your head through your eyes that's like perfectly clear yeah
James Fisher: Yeah. Yeah. It's a cheat code man, not drinking is a cheat code. People don't really.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and it's, and I wasn't to say like, I wasn't to say I was drinking a huge amount, like, you know, we're probably talking, yeah, not a huge amount, you know, but just those extra couple of beers or whatever, pals or whatever it was per week, and then you just stop it. It takes a while, but yeah, it's, it's, yeah, that was a big game changer for me.
James Fisher: Yeah, agreed. For me too, you know, especially when I was on the tools. you drink a lot, you finish on a Friday, boys are going to work. Everyone's great. You go, yeah, of course I'll come for a beer. One turns into two, turns into three, turns into something else. You know, we've all been there and it's fun at the time, but you don't realise the price you're paying. And the problem is, is it creeps up. ⁓ get a little bit vulnerable here. There was one point when I was on the tools that, went through a bit of a rough patch and I was spending most nights, this is, know, I don't know, seven or eight years ago or something, most nights drinking a bottle of wine, listening to music, smoking fags, thinking that I was like, this is awesome, like I'm so cool, I'm so cool, like on my own. And then at one point I was like, wait, this isn't normal. But don't realize because it creeps up. and it creeps up. I was still doing all the activities, still doing all the exercise, still working, still doing these things, just zero sleep. But that's the problem with the alcohol is it creeps up, it creeps up. And then all of a sudden, you can't not have a drink because you feel like you can't function in front of your friends. You're not as fun or you can't sleep or whatever it is. And you've got to kick yourself out of that cycle. And now for me, you might feel the same. It's the opposite. If I have a couple beers now, when I feel awful. I wake at four o'clock in the morning guaranteed I can't sleep and then I'll be hungover for days and people don't realize the benefits of not drinking until they stop drinking. you said the clarity it's a cheat code man.
Vincent Saunders: Hmm.
James Fisher: Not drinking is a cheat code for life. And don't get me wrong. I love it. I love a drink. The best of them, right? I sit and have a bit of a whiskey here and there. If I go out in town with someone, I might have a few cocktails, of course, right? We're humans, but there's a difference when it's kind of more structured and it's for a special thing like that. Or if it's just what you do to switch off, that's when it's a problem. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's like kind of, yeah, I don't know, you kind of ⁓ maybe New Zealand, maybe other side of the world, it's that, oh, I've had a tough day at work. The first thing to do is grab a beer or a wine or something like that. That's just what we've been taught as a society. It's like, have a hard day, you need a beer, you need a wine or you need a whiskey to relax, where that should be the last thing you should be going to grab. There's all those other things you've talked about, especially. Yeah, didn't anticipate this going down a no drinking discussion.
James Fisher: Be creative. Yes. That's the beauty of a conversation, right?
Vincent Saunders: but it's a yeah exactly and it's yeah just to kind of close it off yeah I was on the beach a family friend's 40th birthday and my wife drinks a couple glasses of wine I was like I can have a smell of that smell of that and it's just like no it's just yeah I've gotten to a stage where she's like no I'm good not having it which is which is a long cry yeah yeah I just
James Fisher: I drink zeroes man, I'll go out and have a taste of beer, drink a zero. Same thing's happening, you're just not turning into a dick at the end of it.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's a long, it's a long, it's a long, like it's a polar opposite of 10, 15 years ago, but yeah, it's a great, I think it's a great thing. And yeah, just that mental clarity, there's just no fogginess, I think is the biggest thing. And that's, quite hard to explain, but fogginess is where it's at.
James Fisher: Yeah, agreed. And then if you go back to the under pressure thing, you know, making decisions under pressure, being a business owner, being a family person, being a husband, a partner, a wife, a brother, whatever it is, being an athlete, being in the gym, all of that goes out the window. If you've been drinking anyway, you can't make these decisions because you haven't slept or you're grumpy or you're hungover or you're tired or you've got that fog light, all goes out the window. And I genuinely believe not drinking. mean, whatever, if you have one or two, who cares? But not drinking is a cheat code for life, business, for relationships, for fitness, for everything.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it kind of just feels like, I don't know, for me, got two kids, obviously working full time, trying to build my own sort of stuff at the moment as well to hopefully do some stuff for me as my own sort of personal business. I feel, so everyone's all under pressure. I'd like to run. I like to try and do some kettlebell stuff. two kids running around, like I think for me, I think the not drinking part of it is just there's more, you've kind of got more buffer for of stuff. You're not just going from you arrive home, you're straight annoyed ⁓ one little thing. It's you've got sort of more of breathing space before you kind of, ⁓ don't want to say lose it, that's not the right word, but you've just got a bit more breathing space with your own sort of personal, I don't know. Yeah, personal mindset, I think is probably for me what I notice the biggest difference.
James Fisher: Yeah, 100 % agree. I guess what I'm taking from that, what I'm hearing is similar to what I feel is like my, not just from drinking, but from doing a lot of work inside and figuring out me and looking inside instead of out. What happens is the triggers stop or they become, either they disappear or they become much later or they don't trigger you anymore at all, right? Like trigger points that we all have. they start changing and like you said, if you're tired, hungover, unfit, miserable because you're not doing what you wanna do, your business isn't going right, you're not, whatever it is, these triggers become right here at the forefront.
Vincent Saunders: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, it's a great, it's a great, yeah, it was a great discussion. is yeah very intriguing very intriguing could go again that could be a whole nother single episode or five ⁓ part series on why to drink or maybe ⁓ stop ⁓ anyway don't want to say not to drink because you've got to enjoy if you if you like it you know one or two is all right but yeah it is that clarity piece which is which is pretty crazy all right well a couple more got a couple more questions a bit of a quick fly around before we finish so kind of thing that comes to comes
James Fisher: Oh yeah, we can get all of it, keep going. Yeah.
Vincent Saunders: to mine for yourself. think you've probably already answered it but early start or a late night for you. Yeah I was actually gonna say that was the first thing that popped into my head sounds like it might be both. Early start okay sweet. One mindset tip leader needs under pressure.
James Fisher: Four, kind of both, but early start. Early start. early and stop and trust yourself to make the decision. Think about it, trust yourself, take a breath. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Take a... Yeah, perfect. ⁓ One habit that improves instantly.
James Fisher: Personal fitness, every single time, every time. If anybody is struggling with anything in their life, go for a run, go to the fucking gym. Start that routine, life will get better.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah and talked about it talked about it a lot on other episodes on this but yeah you know tired at home big day two kids kids are going to bed all I want to do is hop in bed and scroll through your phone but if you get up walk outside walk around for five minutes you might notice ⁓ I've been doing this for 15-20 minutes that turns into a run it just energizes you
James Fisher: Yeah. Even easier than that, get on the carpet, 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, and that, takes literally three or four minutes.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, there you go. And then that that whole blood flow energy return is so good. Best way to reset for yourself ⁓ after a tough day in front of the computer.
James Fisher: Every day. First thing I'll do is look at the weather and what sport am I going to go do? Which one is it today? Yeah. Find something you love. It doesn't matter what it is. Find something you love. Do that.
Vincent Saunders: That's right. One message to construction leaders.
James Fisher: Construction leaders. getting tough, right? It's going to get hard. It's always going to get harder, but the people that win and the people that go through are the people that are willing to push and are willing to seek help. People that are willing to say, I can't do this by myself, or I'm not sure the next step, who knows? But there is always a way out. And the people who win are the ones who don't think they know it all already.
Vincent Saunders: No, perfect.
James Fisher: ask people who have been through it.
Vincent Saunders: Perfect. so if listeners just take one thing away from today's discussion, would you want that to be?
James Fisher: One thing, remember that ⁓ in our business, in our lives, in everything do with, ⁓ in families, our children, whatever, all it starts here. It starts with you looking inside and going, can I do something better? Should I be keeping fit so that I don't feel like shit anymore? Should I be eating better? Should I be... holding different boundaries and standards with the team. Whatever, always look inside first because that's where it always starts, every time.
Vincent Saunders: can people get in contact with you if they want to get in touch with yourself?
James Fisher: for me, my ⁓ is coachjamesf. Pretty coachjamesf. But if you're a builder specifically, then on theprofessionalbuilder.com or you can reach out to me on there. ⁓ But yeah, where. But if you just want to chat, then happy days, reach out, I'm all for it.
Vincent Saunders: thanks James. Well yeah, really appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience. ⁓ a lot I think people can take from that. ⁓ lot of extra little bits maybe that weren't quite planned but hey that's just the way it is and I think it was a great conversation. To listening, if this resonates with you, share it to someone might be under pressure right now. This has been Mindsets and thanks James for a great chat.
James Fisher: Thank you, Vincent. I appreciate it.
James Fisher: Great to be here, yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, it's been great, it's been busy. Work and life is busy, as everyone is, but it's good to be here. I'm looking forward to it.
Vincent Saunders: Thanks for coming on. To kick us off, I was wondering if you could potentially just take us through sort of your journey from sort of, we specifically looked at maybe volunteer firefighting, your extreme sports you did, all the adventure stuff you did, kind of feels like you should have been at the X Games at some stage, and into performance business coaching. How did you end up there?
James Fisher: you Yeah, unexpectedly to start with. So life started off very different. was, you know, low income, council house kid in the UK, growing up on the estate and, ⁓ you know, being a young ADHD kid, mum knew that that energy had to go somewhere. Otherwise it was going to go somewhere else, right? So there was a lot of opportunity to do sports, did lots of outdoor sports. So that's kind of how this all started was. From a very young age, I was doing very hardcore extreme sports. So for example, before I was 17, was in kayaking some of the hardest rivers on the planet. We were in Nepal, Austria, Switzerland, all over doing all these crazy things. And went through right up through to my ⁓ and ⁓ on into my 30s. at level, ⁓ the is basically get it right or you die. At very young age, it gave me this very different mindset of one, being able to stay really calm under pressure and two, being able to make quick decisions. honestly, like ultimate confidence in myself, almost bordering arrogance, right? was like, I can do this because I simply didn't have a choice. When you're kayaking these rivers and you're doing these climbs and you're in these extreme environments in the mountains or in the snow, whatever. If you mess it up too bad, it's bad, you know, it's really bad. So you kind of just got to get it done. then, you know, life carried on and lots of things happened and eventually found myself a builder, you know, working in construction here in New Zealand, working as a builder up through the project management, which ⁓ if anyone's done project management before, you know that it's got a shelf life. ⁓ It ⁓ pretty for not much reward a lot of the time. And then. I went through a bit ⁓ of a mental health crisis after a break up with long-term partner, went through a bit of a moment where I was like, what's going on here? ⁓ Why this keep happening? and I needed to go on a bit of a journey. So one of the things was realising that I was incredibly selfish. I'd spent a life being really selfish, you know, travelling around the world, doing whatever I wanted, wherever I wanted, with whoever I wanted, whenever, like all these crazy things, super exciting life that most people couldn't dream of. But I realised, man, I've been really selfish. So being quite an extreme guy, the way that I decided to overcome that was to do the most extreme thing I could to not be self-risked, which was become a firefighter. this was in between full-time work. So as a volunteer firefighter and ⁓ in, I live in Queenstown. So it's a volunteer service here. The big cities have paid. So it'd be full-time work as a project manager, studying business as well, and firefighting and stuff. So it got pretty hectic. And then in that process, through studying business and firefighting and all these things and still working, this job came up as a business performance coach with a professional builder. And it was a bit of a, it was an incredible thing to realize that existed because it brought my entire life of all the things I'd done and it brought it into one job, into one thing. and yeah, that's kind of how I ended up there. So we're niche in what we do, which is perfect because I'm a builder by trade and I understand the management and the business stuff. So it, it's, ⁓ it's almost like the job was written for me.
Vincent Saunders: No, it sounds like an incredible journey and I think kind of a construction, and I talked about this previously, but construction is kind of, I feel like it's going on this little bit of a reset at the moment. it's kind of like there's a lot of, obviously there's a lot of people that have kind of been, I guess, thrown into construction for an early age, but now with the trades becoming a bit more. I guess with the, I don't want to say respect, but there's a bit more impetus on some of the trades and they get a lot more light shined on them now. Like think the whole industry as a whole is, and hopefully in 10 years time is a lot more maybe professional rather than just going from a builder to a business owner. There's like a lot of training and a lot of different things happening the moment in the industry. It's quite exciting.
James Fisher: Yeah, absolutely. And it's competitive as well, right? And that's why you've got to separate yourself. You've got to distinguish yourself and building a house is one thing. Like when we do our apprenticeships, we get taught how to build a house, right? That's one thing. Builders are great at that, but building your business is a totally different set of skills. knowing that set of skills, I mean, you can't just, you can figure it out, sure, but how long is it going to take and how many mistakes are you going to make along the way? And what's it going to cost you? So yeah, that's where And so many businesses are popping up, so many people, know, generally what happens is you would go builder, get qualified, do you know, you do your time and then you got to make a decision. Are you going to be building forever with your boss? Are you going to go into management or are you going to start your own business? So then a lot of people go business and it's like, then what? I've got me, maybe you've got an apprentice. Where do I go from here? The skillset doesn't exist unless you learn it.
Vincent Saunders: yeah, and yeah, it's a great conversation to have. could probably talk about that specific ⁓ for such a long time because ⁓ kind of, yeah, you could go so many ways with it. But anyway, I'll try to back to what we were actually meant to be talking about, which is I got a section here around the decisions making under ⁓ and under pressure. You've ⁓ about your experience potentially under pressure in some of those ⁓ extreme of what...
James Fisher: Yeah
Vincent Saunders: ⁓ So how does mindset influence decision making in high pressure situations for yourself and what has maybe changed with your decision making from early on to what you're doing now?
James Fisher: It's again, it's a bit of a learned skillset, right? Decision making under pressure. And it's one of those things that you can't get unless you've been in the situations. So business is one thing. Everybody, every business owner knows how stressful and how much pressure you can be under running a business. whereas my path was very different coming from extreme sports where it was, you know, there'd be me, my friends, whoever we'd be in these environments, which Like I said before, if you get it wrong, likelihood is you're dying. So you had to not only be able to be confident in yourself and your ability, but to be able to snap decision, make the decision on what you were going to do and then pull it off and do it. And you have to do this calmly as soon as ⁓ freak out or emotions get involved, then you stop making decisions. It stops happening. And that translates right through to. ⁓ The extreme sports are making those decisions, keeping yourself safe, keeping your friends safe. If you're guiding, of course it's customers too. But then it goes into, you know, the fire service, same thing. got to know exactly what you're doing and you've got to be able to keep it cool and make a decision. There's always a time constraint, but you also can't rush it. So ⁓ comes down to a lot of experience, to be honest. And I've just, it's a skillset that is difficult to teach, but beauty is that reflects right into business. maybe not do or die situation, right? But it's a of the time these decisions they have to happen and you have to just make it. And it comes with the confidence of knowing this is the right decision. Sometimes it's not, that's okay. You learn from it and you move on.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, like what's your, kind of talked about decision making in those high pressure environments. Like, are you able to maybe walk us through sort of what your process is, like in your head, like sort of, I know it might be a tough question to answer because maybe you don't want to give it away or whatever, but you know, like what's your sort of process on sort of, you know, you've got, I don't know, I'm just thinking of example, you're trying to jump off a. I don't know, waterfall with your kayaks, you know, like pretty serious thing. Like what's some of those processes that you will go through in your head prior to, you know, executing that?
James Fisher: Well, first off is, you said not giving it away, but that's fine. That's literally my job. So that's fine. We can give it away. That's what we do. me, so let's the waterfall, for example, like that's happened a lot. I've had a lot of those times where I'm literally about to go off a waterfall in a kayak. And the first thing comes down to your preparation. You're not going to be in that situation if you didn't think you should be there. So ⁓ not, you know, there's a progression, right? You're not going to go straight to the top of a ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah.
James Fisher: a 10, 12, 20 meter waterfall if you haven't already learned the skills before that. Same in business, you're not just gonna go straight in, here I am, one man band, three million dollar bill. Like, it's not, there's a progression, right? So first of all, you need to know you should be in that situation and you're prepared for that. And then when you get in there, the big thing is trusting your team. You're not doing these things alone, especially with extreme sports and with business. Your team around you, everything. You know that they're keeping you safe and you're keeping them safe as well. So that's hugely important and knowing that you have that support. And then once those things are in place, you're prepared. You've got your team there. You've set up, you've done your, you know, your diligence. You've figured out what your line is, what your move is, where you're going to go. And then it comes down to being in the situation it's a decision, right? It's it's a, can I do this? Yes or no. If there's a no ⁓ these life-threatening situations, if that thought creeps in, you don't do it. And that was very well known in the extreme sports, the kayaking or the climbing or the, you know, the when there's big avalanche risk or whatever it is. We're trying new moves on a paraglider, something like that, right? It was a, if anybody says no, I'm out, the team would be like, oh good, no worries, see at the bottom. But if you made that decision to go and you buzz yourself up and you're like, you know what, I've got this. And you believe with a hundred percent conviction, you're prepared, your team's around you, you figured out your line. and you've decided you're going, then you just, you have to just go. Otherwise that doubt creeps in again really quickly. As soon as you hesitate, the doubt creeps in again. I found a lot of the time there would often be a lot of, ⁓ a lot of breathing, a of trying to relax and get into the zone. But then I would often go the other way and be like bang, bang, hitting you on the head, splashing water, like whatever it was to get that fire up again. And then, yeah, it's a case of just the decision and that's it. Once you've made a decision, you're going.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and I think it's kind of like also potentially tying this, trying to tie this into construction somehow, but like if you're on site making a decision and like, like you sort of said, if the decision's wrong at the end ⁓ the day, then that's fine, but backing yourself ⁓ make that decision and potentially not sort of getting halfway down the, know, halfway through that sort of. like this project or that piece of work and just say, ⁓ hang on guys, we need to stop again and rethink this through, like backing yourself, backing the team to bring that together, I think is quite a cool sort of relation back into the construction piece.
James Fisher: Exactly. And not just making the decision like in business too. If there's a problem to solve, you've got to solve it. You've got to say, this is what I'm doing. You've got to make that decision and you've got to go with it and you've got to see it through. Otherwise you have make loaded decisions. Nothing happens. You see them in the same place. But the beauty is with business, you're probably not going to drown or end up in an avalanche or die or whatever it is. Right? So if it goes wrong, You can stop, can recalibrate, okay, that wasn't the right decision. How do I fix this now? And you can pivot, you know, it's okay to change your mind and change your decisions. You can pivot. If it turns out to be the wrong decision, now you know, and you do another one.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah well in construction leaders balancing sort of safety program costs and people all at once what does strong leadership look when things aren't going to plan?
James Fisher: It often is very obvious what it looks like physically. It's calm. It's often calm. You know, whether you're at a road traffic accident, there's been a crash, there's a firefighter, or whether your concrete truck's turned up but no staff are there, or you just run out of concrete and you've half poured it, half poured a slab, or you're at the top of a waterfall and you've got, you know, it's always calm. You'll know the person who's in charge because they're the one that's calm and they are making the decisions without freaking out and you'll see everybody looks to them. Who are we looking at? The calm person. very obvious usually.
Vincent Saunders: and so how do you hold, how do you hold accountability without being ⁓ over controlling in those situations? Like you're talking about being super calm, ⁓ like want to, if everyone's looking to you for direction, you want have that calm demeanor but you want to maybe control that situation. How are you doing that without being too, I guess ⁓ lack of better word, bossy and driving the team a bit too hard ⁓ potentially if don't need to be? ⁓
James Fisher: Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, in business, ⁓ would be a little bit different. We use a thing called radical candor, a great book. and not necessarily just for when stuff goes wrong, but all the time for holding standards, creating culture, maintaining culture, and making sure that everybody one wants perform, can perform, but knows when they're not performing and they can, and it can be fixed. Right. So everybody knows that their position and what radical candor is, is the idea of There's a scale. It's high care, but also high challenge. So you got to really challenge somebody, a way where it's showing that you really care about them. Whereas if you go low care and low challenge, it's just that it's just the apathy. just, you don't care. Right. Nothing happens. Whereas if you go high challenge and low care, you'd just be in a bit of a dick. Right? So there's that, that middle ground. It's called radical candor, which is great. High care and high challenge. How can I ask you to do something that you need to improve on, but in a way that I really care about it because it's about your growth as well as mine.
Vincent Saunders: Where do you see the most improvement maybe in some leaders ⁓ the construction space specifically? Or what have you seen over your with your team there?
James Fisher: It often comes down to one, the confidence, like I can be a leader. The identity is a lot of the time what holds people back construction. wherever you going to identify now as a qualified builder or even just deciding to identify as an apprentice, right? I'm going to do this. I'm an apprentice now. You've got to commit. He's got to be your identity. And that keeps going right up through the scale from builder to business owner, to project manager, to business. you know all the way up to entrepreneur and whatever it's an identity I am this person so it starts with that and then it comes down to knowing that you have the skills to do it. You've got to obviously know that you're doing as well. And once you know you have the identity and the skills, it's often the people who allow the small things, the things to be done by somebody else. Like you said earlier about, you know, not managing too hard or micromanaging, it's letting go, right? Business owners, cannot do it all by yourself. It's impossible, right? It's getting a bit easier with AI now, but you can't be using AI to do stuff and swinging the hammer, right, still. So you've got to allow other people to do things and you've got to give up some of that trust. And the easiest way to do that is know that you've set them up for success. So what systems do you have in place already? to make sure that when I go tell Vincent to go, you're now running toolbox talks or this or that. Okay, have I set you up to be able to do this properly? And then you can relax because you know you've now created another leader. So we say is a leader, the best leader is someone who can create other leaders. Otherwise you simply are doing it forever.
Vincent Saunders: Like a good manager empowers, I shouldn't say below, but empowers them to get up to that same standard as they are. Like a good manager will kind of just make their own job redundant in theory and they're just looking at the bigger picture of things.
James Fisher: Exactly, yeah. So a good leader is going to create other leaders and they're going to empower the other people to do the things. Because ultimately what we're trying to get within any business is the leader, the owner, whoever it is, should be managing the people. And then the people should be managing the systems and then it's the systems that actually run the business. And then this just goes full loop. So yeah, you have to create the leaders. They're going to be able to lead the other people or the systems or whatever it is.
Vincent Saunders: Okay, and potentially just sort of touching on sort of bit of your stuff you do in and around sort of how you sort of look after yourself. Like you're obviously extremely busy at the moment. You've got a lot going on with your job. You do a lot of social media and you get out and do some hunting, motorbike riding and probably a of other things down there in Queenstown. how do those physical challenges or those adventures for you sort of give you back energy, I guess?
James Fisher: That's exactly what it does for me. It gives me energy. I believe that energy begets energy, right? The more we use, the more we generate. these things for me, they're They are absolutely necessary for me. Without fail, I'm at the gym every single morning. It's the first thing I do. Before I eat, I drink coffee, I go to the gym every single day. Well, maybe not Sunday. Sometimes I do yoga. And that allows me to be ready in the morning. I've already moved. I've already got the hard thing out of the way. And it means I'm like, right, I'm ready to sit at my desk for probably up to 10, 12 hours, whatever I'm up to, right? Because I've done the thing and I know that I'm going to be able to relax and do it. And then the outdoor sports and the extreme sports. One, I love it. It's incredible. There's no feeling of freedom. Like, you know, being attached to your kite and your 10 meters in the air above the water. Like that's my thing at the moment, motorcycles and kite surfing. There's no better feeling like it, it's ultimate freedom. Everything else disappears. Everything. And what a lot of people don't do, especially business owners, is allow that space within their minds, within their brains. They're just constantly on in work mode. Which is fine if it's positive and it's growth, but if that's stress, coming back at you. Like it's to feel like that. And a lot of people don't put themselves in that situation where it's even possible for everything else to disappear. You know, not in a positive way anyway. Some people go out and get blasted and be drunk, right? Everything will disappear, but you're going to pay for it for four days afterwards, if not more, right? Whereas being in a very extreme and scary environment for me, that's when everything goes quiet and there's nothing, you know, that's it. I'm locked in and it feels like freedom and it allows me to just reset.
Vincent Saunders: he, yeah, sort of how does that, how do you know I need to go back to the gym or I need to go back on a hike or something like that? Like what does that feel or look like for you? ⁓
James Fisher: ⁓ Yeah, you know, ⁓ it becomes very obvious when I haven't enough or enough or fulfilled myself in some way, whether it's progressing in my career, this that, like ⁓ I become quite agitated and I know ⁓ pretty quickly I'm either dehydrated I need to go for a run something. I'm like, okay, this guy's coming back again. It's because you didn't run or gym or whatever for the last few days. So you're getting antsy. So for me, that's kind of how it manifests. it took a long time for me to realise that that's what it was. Honestly, it's either water or exercise for me every time. And I that's the key is realising what's happening within you and then looking inside, instead of projecting it, looking inside and going, what's triggered this? because we all have triggers and they're often a lot simpler than most people think. And for me, what happens if I don't exercise enough. ⁓ I wouldn't be very good at my job if I wasn't exercise enough, to be honest. I'd be miserable all the time.
Vincent Saunders: Oh, funny. I think this could be like a whole nother 10 part series that we could do on journeys and how we got to where we are and mindset and all that. It's just a phenomenal sort of, guess, change in the industry as well. That kind of that is now well, I think it's hopefully it is in most businesses front of mind, like sort of that mindset, how your how your team's feeling, how your leaders feeling. Yeah, it's a pretty it's a pretty cool space to be in.
James Fisher: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, so advice for sort of construction leaders, like if a site leader or project manager is listening right now, sort of where should they focus their energy on first? Like if things maybe aren't going right sort of on the job site for them at the moment, sort of are you able to shine a bit of light on that?
James Fisher: for sure. As project manager, you know, I used to manage up to ⁓ 15 at once and being in Queenstown, all of them over a million dollars. was hectic. It was crazy because I was working for a great home builder. So it got very busy very quickly. So I this as a great example because I feel it personally. And what ⁓ I now and what I would do ⁓ and advise the hardest thing to do. I would...
Vincent Saunders: you
James Fisher: you've to stop and you've got to look inside and be like, hold on, what am I doing wrong here? What can I do differently here? Because often it's something that is very within our control. And it's like, I didn't prepare enough. I didn't send those emails that I should have yesterday. I was feeling a bit, a bit slack. So instead of doing the materials, I went to the pub I didn't go to the gym this morning because baby was crying all night. you know, and I couldn't sleep, you should have gone anyway. Like, you know, whatever it is, often there's something we can be doing that is going to change that. That's always the first place I look now looking inside instead of outside. And then once you fix that, you go, ah, it was that thing. I didn't drink enough water. I was just miserable. That's why I was being a dick or, know, whatever it is in that work environment. I would say you got to look in first. What can I do differently? And nine times out of 10, That fixes a lot of it. And then you can look external. Okay. So now I've got to work with my team. Why did my team not perform? Did I give them the tools to perform? Did I set them up for success or did I just say, have at it? You know, whatever it is, there's always something we can improve on to ensure that we get the result. usually starts here.
Vincent Saunders: And then kind of just into that, I completely with you, like I think ⁓ just a bit of my student story when I was sort of I live in Turinga now, used to work in Auckland. We built a house down in Turinga here and for about nine months my wife was living down here. She was pregnant with our second kid and our first kid was down here as well. So I was pretty sad to be stuck up in Auckland working, trying to find a job down in Turinga. And I found you kind of just go down a hole of maybe having one beer, two beers a night. And then all of a sudden, all of a sudden I got to a stage where I was like super sad. and lonely in Auckland. And then you just say, okay, well, why don't I just stop drinking for a bit? And then that one day or one week turns into a month. And it was like, okay, I'll stop drinking till Christmas. And it's been probably about three years and I haven't had a drink. Well, no, sorry, I won't say I haven't had a drink. I've tried to have drinks with friends and stuff, but.
James Fisher: epic. man.
Vincent Saunders: kind of got to a stage now where I'm like, okay, now this isn't for me. And I was just talking to my wife other day and it's just like, kind of, ⁓ without alcohol in the system, it's really hard to explain, but it's like everything from say the back of my brain, looking out my eyes, it's
James Fisher: That's awesome.
Vincent Saunders: it's not hazy or foggy anymore. My eyesight is a little bit shot these days which is a whole different story but I feel it's just the process from the back of your head through yeah it's very hard to describe but through your head through your eyes that's like perfectly clear yeah
James Fisher: Yeah. Yeah. It's a cheat code man, not drinking is a cheat code. People don't really.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, and it's, and I wasn't to say like, I wasn't to say I was drinking a huge amount, like, you know, we're probably talking, yeah, not a huge amount, you know, but just those extra couple of beers or whatever, pals or whatever it was per week, and then you just stop it. It takes a while, but yeah, it's, it's, yeah, that was a big game changer for me.
James Fisher: Yeah, agreed. For me too, you know, especially when I was on the tools. you drink a lot, you finish on a Friday, boys are going to work. Everyone's great. You go, yeah, of course I'll come for a beer. One turns into two, turns into three, turns into something else. You know, we've all been there and it's fun at the time, but you don't realise the price you're paying. And the problem is, is it creeps up. ⁓ get a little bit vulnerable here. There was one point when I was on the tools that, went through a bit of a rough patch and I was spending most nights, this is, know, I don't know, seven or eight years ago or something, most nights drinking a bottle of wine, listening to music, smoking fags, thinking that I was like, this is awesome, like I'm so cool, I'm so cool, like on my own. And then at one point I was like, wait, this isn't normal. But don't realize because it creeps up. and it creeps up. I was still doing all the activities, still doing all the exercise, still working, still doing these things, just zero sleep. But that's the problem with the alcohol is it creeps up, it creeps up. And then all of a sudden, you can't not have a drink because you feel like you can't function in front of your friends. You're not as fun or you can't sleep or whatever it is. And you've got to kick yourself out of that cycle. And now for me, you might feel the same. It's the opposite. If I have a couple beers now, when I feel awful. I wake at four o'clock in the morning guaranteed I can't sleep and then I'll be hungover for days and people don't realize the benefits of not drinking until they stop drinking. you said the clarity it's a cheat code man.
Vincent Saunders: Hmm.
James Fisher: Not drinking is a cheat code for life. And don't get me wrong. I love it. I love a drink. The best of them, right? I sit and have a bit of a whiskey here and there. If I go out in town with someone, I might have a few cocktails, of course, right? We're humans, but there's a difference when it's kind of more structured and it's for a special thing like that. Or if it's just what you do to switch off, that's when it's a problem. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's like kind of, yeah, I don't know, you kind of ⁓ maybe New Zealand, maybe other side of the world, it's that, oh, I've had a tough day at work. The first thing to do is grab a beer or a wine or something like that. That's just what we've been taught as a society. It's like, have a hard day, you need a beer, you need a wine or you need a whiskey to relax, where that should be the last thing you should be going to grab. There's all those other things you've talked about, especially. Yeah, didn't anticipate this going down a no drinking discussion.
James Fisher: Be creative. Yes. That's the beauty of a conversation, right?
Vincent Saunders: but it's a yeah exactly and it's yeah just to kind of close it off yeah I was on the beach a family friend's 40th birthday and my wife drinks a couple glasses of wine I was like I can have a smell of that smell of that and it's just like no it's just yeah I've gotten to a stage where she's like no I'm good not having it which is which is a long cry yeah yeah I just
James Fisher: I drink zeroes man, I'll go out and have a taste of beer, drink a zero. Same thing's happening, you're just not turning into a dick at the end of it.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it's a long, it's a long, it's a long, like it's a polar opposite of 10, 15 years ago, but yeah, it's a great, I think it's a great thing. And yeah, just that mental clarity, there's just no fogginess, I think is the biggest thing. And that's, quite hard to explain, but fogginess is where it's at.
James Fisher: Yeah, agreed. And then if you go back to the under pressure thing, you know, making decisions under pressure, being a business owner, being a family person, being a husband, a partner, a wife, a brother, whatever it is, being an athlete, being in the gym, all of that goes out the window. If you've been drinking anyway, you can't make these decisions because you haven't slept or you're grumpy or you're hungover or you're tired or you've got that fog light, all goes out the window. And I genuinely believe not drinking. mean, whatever, if you have one or two, who cares? But not drinking is a cheat code for life, business, for relationships, for fitness, for everything.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, it kind of just feels like, I don't know, for me, got two kids, obviously working full time, trying to build my own sort of stuff at the moment as well to hopefully do some stuff for me as my own sort of personal business. I feel, so everyone's all under pressure. I'd like to run. I like to try and do some kettlebell stuff. two kids running around, like I think for me, I think the not drinking part of it is just there's more, you've kind of got more buffer for of stuff. You're not just going from you arrive home, you're straight annoyed ⁓ one little thing. It's you've got sort of more of breathing space before you kind of, ⁓ don't want to say lose it, that's not the right word, but you've just got a bit more breathing space with your own sort of personal, I don't know. Yeah, personal mindset, I think is probably for me what I notice the biggest difference.
James Fisher: Yeah, 100 % agree. I guess what I'm taking from that, what I'm hearing is similar to what I feel is like my, not just from drinking, but from doing a lot of work inside and figuring out me and looking inside instead of out. What happens is the triggers stop or they become, either they disappear or they become much later or they don't trigger you anymore at all, right? Like trigger points that we all have. they start changing and like you said, if you're tired, hungover, unfit, miserable because you're not doing what you wanna do, your business isn't going right, you're not, whatever it is, these triggers become right here at the forefront.
Vincent Saunders: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, it's a great, it's a great, yeah, it was a great discussion. is yeah very intriguing very intriguing could go again that could be a whole nother single episode or five ⁓ part series on why to drink or maybe ⁓ stop ⁓ anyway don't want to say not to drink because you've got to enjoy if you if you like it you know one or two is all right but yeah it is that clarity piece which is which is pretty crazy all right well a couple more got a couple more questions a bit of a quick fly around before we finish so kind of thing that comes to comes
James Fisher: Oh yeah, we can get all of it, keep going. Yeah.
Vincent Saunders: to mine for yourself. think you've probably already answered it but early start or a late night for you. Yeah I was actually gonna say that was the first thing that popped into my head sounds like it might be both. Early start okay sweet. One mindset tip leader needs under pressure.
James Fisher: Four, kind of both, but early start. Early start. early and stop and trust yourself to make the decision. Think about it, trust yourself, take a breath. ⁓
Vincent Saunders: Take a... Yeah, perfect. ⁓ One habit that improves instantly.
James Fisher: Personal fitness, every single time, every time. If anybody is struggling with anything in their life, go for a run, go to the fucking gym. Start that routine, life will get better.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah and talked about it talked about it a lot on other episodes on this but yeah you know tired at home big day two kids kids are going to bed all I want to do is hop in bed and scroll through your phone but if you get up walk outside walk around for five minutes you might notice ⁓ I've been doing this for 15-20 minutes that turns into a run it just energizes you
James Fisher: Yeah. Even easier than that, get on the carpet, 10 push-ups, 10 sit-ups, and that, takes literally three or four minutes.
Vincent Saunders: Yeah, there you go. And then that that whole blood flow energy return is so good. Best way to reset for yourself ⁓ after a tough day in front of the computer.
James Fisher: Every day. First thing I'll do is look at the weather and what sport am I going to go do? Which one is it today? Yeah. Find something you love. It doesn't matter what it is. Find something you love. Do that.
Vincent Saunders: That's right. One message to construction leaders.
James Fisher: Construction leaders. getting tough, right? It's going to get hard. It's always going to get harder, but the people that win and the people that go through are the people that are willing to push and are willing to seek help. People that are willing to say, I can't do this by myself, or I'm not sure the next step, who knows? But there is always a way out. And the people who win are the ones who don't think they know it all already.
Vincent Saunders: No, perfect.
James Fisher: ask people who have been through it.
Vincent Saunders: Perfect. so if listeners just take one thing away from today's discussion, would you want that to be?
James Fisher: One thing, remember that ⁓ in our business, in our lives, in everything do with, ⁓ in families, our children, whatever, all it starts here. It starts with you looking inside and going, can I do something better? Should I be keeping fit so that I don't feel like shit anymore? Should I be eating better? Should I be... holding different boundaries and standards with the team. Whatever, always look inside first because that's where it always starts, every time.
Vincent Saunders: can people get in contact with you if they want to get in touch with yourself?
James Fisher: for me, my ⁓ is coachjamesf. Pretty coachjamesf. But if you're a builder specifically, then on theprofessionalbuilder.com or you can reach out to me on there. ⁓ But yeah, where. But if you just want to chat, then happy days, reach out, I'm all for it.
Vincent Saunders: thanks James. Well yeah, really appreciate you coming on and sharing your experience. ⁓ a lot I think people can take from that. ⁓ lot of extra little bits maybe that weren't quite planned but hey that's just the way it is and I think it was a great conversation. To listening, if this resonates with you, share it to someone might be under pressure right now. This has been Mindsets and thanks James for a great chat.
James Fisher: Thank you, Vincent. I appreciate it.
