In business, what's more important…Work ethic or brains?

This is a question I have asked myself constantly over my entire business life.

I grew up in a household that paid no respect to education whatsoever.

In my primary school years, aged say 6 to 12, I spent more time working on the small family farm and playing football than learning.

A typical day would be out of bed at 5 - 5:30am.

My 7 brothers and sisters and I would make our way to the warmth of our heater in the dark, cold of the morning (being very careful not to wake our parents) and flick on the TV to watch cartoons.

The old Looney Toons was the go to back then and for me it was my only peace in the day when I didn't have to worry about anything or do anything.

When I say peace, it was always an uneasy peace as in the back of my mind there was always the darkness of what mood my mother would be in and how that would affect my day. Would I be with my friends at school learning and enjoying being a child or would I be working/ cleaning, trying to keep mum in a good mood?

The Looney Toons solitude lasted about an hour before my parents started barking orders and the peace was shattered and the work began.

We all fed ourselves, dressed ourselves, made our own lunch, cleaned up our mess, and often had jobs to do before school.

Our mornings were made easier if our mother was in a good mood, however if she wasn't then those mornings could be thrown into absolute chaos.

To cut a long story short, if my mother felt I should stay home and work then that's what happened, so at least one day out of a normal week I would not be at school.

I never did any homework, EVER.

It just wasn't important at our house.

Afternoons I worked and or trained football and weekends I played my game then worked.

Having friends over or going to someone's house rarely happened. We were too busy working.

We rarely had time to play, or if we did it was often interrupted because we had to work.

You might know (recall?) I went overseas at a very early age to play football, so whatever education I was getting stopped then.

So clearly I lacked a typical education, but all my hidden learning was about work ethic, through my home life, upbringing and my football.

I was always a relentless competitor and still am.

When I was overseas on my own from 14, I'm sure a big part of my hidden learning was becoming street smart.

"Was this where I GREW A BRAIN"?

So, I knew how to work but was I smart?

I think the answer is, I had potential to be smart but hadn't tapped into it yet. One thing is for sure, I needed to be interested in something to learn about it.

When I was in school I was hopeless, really hopeless, and was in all the lowest classes in every subject.

I don't think anyone ever even cared how hopeless I really was or read any of my reports. I think everyone already knew what they contained.

But I think most people just said, ‘don't worry about Kazan, he's going to be a football star!!’

When I eventually gave up football due to multiple serious injuries, and concentrated on building and on my company, I discovered something about myself that I don't think anyone knew, something "I certainly didn't".

And that was that I was interested in something other than football for the first time in my life, and every single thing I learnt, that I was taught or I saw relating to building stuck. Even mathematics came easy to me when I used it in the context of building things, a subject I was clearly interested in now.

So this meant I only needed to be shown or taught something once, and I knew it forever.

The biggest thing was though, because I was so interested, my work ethic, " how hard I tried " went through the roof.

I wouldn't let anyone ever work harder than me, "NO WAY" and I could work literally until I fell asleep with exhaustion, or I finished a job, whatever came first.

For me work ethic wasn't just physical though. It was also the relentless effort and perseverance of the day to day mundane tasks of running a business - making that phone call you just didn't want to make, staying back that extra half hour to finish something properly, making sure your client was always happy with you and your team, arguing your point for what you believed in often against some very intimidating character's in the building game.

Most importantly, the constant coaching of all your team around you how to believe in and maintain your standards hour after hour, day after day, year after year, never dropping the ball… NEVER EVER DROPPING THE BALL.

Author

Kazan Hadden

Director

0416 024 369

kazan@nickaz.com.au

Board Member, The John Maclean Foundation, jmf.com.au

www.linkedin.com/in/kazan-hadden-nickaz

Address: Suite 101, 22 Brookhollow Avenue, Baulkham Hills NSW 2153

Phone: 02 9659 3387

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