Love Your Work with Greg Martin

george grombacher 0:03
Greg Martin is the managing director at Canada’s leading M and A firm origin merchant partners. He is also the host of the lifetime at work podcast. Welcome to the show, Greg.

Greg Martin 0:15
Thanks for having me, George. Yeah, excited to have you on, tell us a little about your personal life a little bit more about your work and why you do what you do.

Yeah, so starting off, I’m Canadian. I’ve always been living in suburbs of Toronto, where I was born, and now live. And,

you know, coming out of university, I had no idea what the hell I wanted to do. I was in I had this financing goal, I was always it was a good student. And I had some options, I guess, in terms of what direction I wanted to go to, started in, started the world in the world of investment banking. And it the challenge with that is, it’s, you know, 80 100 hour weeks are not uncommon. And so I said, I do it for two or three years, and I hit the 10 year mark had a bit of a crisis and and said, Okay, what am I doing here, and all in that I had started a business on the side, which,

which sort of, I think, led me into this whole journey around careers and, and, you know, why we do them what we’re trying to achieve, what we’re trying to get out of them what they can do for us. And, and I think that you know, some of that advice just around how do you how do you sort of get the most of it? So, so yeah, so today, I host a podcast called lifetime at work, and, and I’m still in investment banking, real quick of me and my background,

george grombacher 1:33
I appreciate that. Careers are a funny thing. We know that we’re going to have one or we assume that we’re going to have one, I don’t know. Do you have a sense of what percentage of people are so clear in what they want to do that they actually do it?

Greg Martin 1:51
I do think it’s I don’t know that answer. I have heard a lot of stats something around, you know, in the in the call it you know, 65 to 70% of people are unhappy with their jobs, or their career or their, their sort of work today, which I don’t love or it sounds sounds like it’s something that could be improved or, and you know, whether that be a mindset thing, or a new transition, or whatever it is. And I think I think part of it is that we just, we’ve well on our jobs quite a bit. They just they take up so much of our lives, they become a big part of us in our personality. I mean, you asked if I would set you know, tell me about your your personal life, you very quickly get yourself into the into the job. And that becomes a big part of you. And so I think that we just yeah, we think about it a lot.

george grombacher 2:39
And that’s something that that’s where we spend the most time. So I think it is valuable and really, really important to, to think about it. And like everything else I don’t I know that I’m guilty of I talked about about goal setting. And I had known about the importance of goal setting from about 10 years old, but it took me till about 35 to actually write it down. So just because I know that we’re supposed to be doing something doesn’t have to do it.

Greg Martin 3:02
Yeah, yeah, no, I understand. And, and I think we obviously learn as we get older and realize that oh my god, this very simple piece of advice that I got so early, actually, here is what it actually means. And here’s what I should I actually have been doing for a long.

george grombacher 3:18
Yeah. So how do you like to break it down? How do you say, okay, somebody says, I just don’t know what I should be doing? Or if this is right, for me, I don’t know. I just feel lost.

Greg Martin 3:32
Yeah, I would say so. I mean, preface I am, by no means a career advisor or any way you know, I’m not I’m not a consultant in that regard. I’m just kind of an observer, someone who has been fascinated ultimately by this whole concept of work and and so as a podcast, and I try to relay and think about a lot of the advice that I give based on my experience and where I’ve come from, and you know, what I’ve done in the world of work and so, you know, typically when I when I talk to people about their jobs and try to give them advice, a lot of times it takes very different forms. I think it a very, you know, when you’re first entering the workforce, or when you’re early it’s just exploratory like you’re honestly you’re just doing stuff to see who you are and what’s out there you don’t even really know what jobs are there are I mean, you kind of have to start and just be willing to do some different things and and try them out. I think as you get more old so call that your 20s as you get you know, later into your 30s I think you are you’re refining that all of a sudden now you have a bunch of skills you’re trying to figure out hey is this is this where I am trying to go and am I in like kind of the right field more generally and and it’s still exploratory but you’ve probably you know, in many ways, refined it and within a job then there are a bunch of facets around you joining and loving and I think the big thing is that you know as people we like to constantly be developing constantly be getting better, because we’re working on something. And certain jobs are really good for that where we enter them from right. And usually the beginning is the easiest part because we don’t know anything, it’s brand new. And over time, though, they get harder and harder because we’ve sort of figured out what we need to we’ve done the easy stuff, we’ve become acclimatized, we understand the basics of how to get the job going. And then it becomes harder, because we, we want to keep going, and we want to keep getting better at our job and moving up and, and, and having that impact. And so that’s where it starts to get challenging. And you start to have these questions and decisions around, okay, well, you know, maybe my boss isn’t super conducive to that maybe they want me to just keep doing the same thing. Maybe I have to do something that I don’t love to do, maybe and then and then it sort of, then you have these questions around? Well, you know, is this the right job? For me? Is this the right position? Do I need to think about something else? And I think we just constantly iterate with that we’re constantly thinking about, is this the right place? Is this the right position? Do I want the next one? And how do I how do I advance? How do I get to the next next spot, and I think recognizing that is hard. But it’s kind of baby step one.

george grombacher 6:05
That makes a lot of sense. And when you’re in the thick of it, it is really hard. Because you can feel like oh my gosh, my boss is just the absolute worst, I cannot spend another minute doing this. But if you were to take a step back and realize, well, you’re probably always going to have to deal with some co workers that you’re not happy with, maybe try to stick this out instead of trying to jump ship.

Greg Martin 6:31
Totally, yeah. And I think you can’t, I think one of the big things, and one piece of advice I’ve been giving people a lot lately around bosses is that you’re probably not going to change your boss. So right, you’re not gonna get hard, and you’re gonna fundamentally change who they are, how they treat you, they’re, you know, you’re probably stuck with them in many ways. And so you have to decide, can I work within the parameters, my boss is predictable? I know how they’re gonna react, you know, what they’re gonna do whatever, you know, can I work within these parameters or not? And you know, try to take it from their perspective, understand what they do, either, you know, can they be useful there? And I can I still achieve what I want to achieve or do my job? Well, with that being? And sometimes the answer is no, in which case, you either need to find a new boss within the same company or or find a new company, right. But yeah, it’s it’s one of those pieces of advice that I, you know, I think we try to change our boss, we try to complain about them a lot, thinking that maybe you know, things, and it’s not I, you know, I think it’s really challenging to change them.

george grombacher 7:28
For sure. So it strikes me that, that I’m not gonna love everything about my job, I’m gonna really enjoy some aspects of it that I get to do, but then there’s things I have to do. How do you sort of if there’s like a pie chart, or some kind of a metric that says, if you have for the five things you want, but the fifth thing is not great? Is Is that okay?

Greg Martin 7:54
Yeah, I mean, you’re, you’re never going to find something fully. I mean, I was a good example is I was an entrepreneur for a number of years. And this, you have so many damn hats when you’re, when you’re that when you started a business, because you’ve got to do first of all, all of anything wrong, that happens with businesses, you’re basically on you, everyone comes to you with their problems. But in addition to that, you’re doing HR, you’re doing marketing, you’re doing strategy and operations, you’re, you’re really involved, legal, you’re doing everything in the business, and you’re not going to necessarily like like all of those or repeat them. And so I think you have to, yeah, you have to on some just sort of say, Hey, do I enjoy? Do I like getting up in the day, like, in the morning and doing like, you know, do the good parts of it outweigh the bad parts of it? And, yeah, it’s a bit of an art. I mean, you’re never gonna find the perfect thing. Honestly, I think you’ve, you’ve got to kind of iterate and say, Okay, well, what are my what else is out there? What else could I do? Where else can I take my skills that I have today and translate them to something else. And so it’s, it’s a little bit of that, from my perspective, I do think that, you know, in some cases, we, you know, depending on your state and wherever you are, you think that you could get any job, but there are there’s, you know, the world is your oyster, there’s, you know, an infinite number of possibilities. And a lot of ways aren’t though, I think, you know, as soon as you have all one, you you gain a certain number of skills, and through school or, or, or through, you know, very early days, you get experiences, it’s going to allow you to be able to do a certain number, a certain number of jobs or certain type of job after that, but you can’t do anything. It’s sometimes it’s, sometimes it’s a lot of work, or sometimes a lot of more schooling you need or it’s more, whatever. And so I think you have to be sort of realistic within the skill set that you have and sort of what you’re trying to achieve. And then okay, what is the realm of what I can do, given all that and, and that’s kind of the purview and so, you know, Hey, am I, you know, what am I going towards is, am I going towards a situ, you know, ideally some going towards a situation where I’m doing less of this stuff I don’t like and more of the stuff that I do.

george grombacher 9:52
I can see where, and I certainly, I probably experience, I think about it as healthy anxiety. But I think that when you start to think about all those things like, oh, my gosh, can I still do this? Is there a chance that I could go back to school? And how would I pay for that? And maybe I’m not gonna like it, but I want to screw it up, one of my parents gonna think what am I friends gonna think of I change if I shift, and I keep doing this. And I bet that that caused a lot of people just to do nothing.

Greg Martin 10:26
Here, I mean, it’s not as bad is that bad, I mean, not gonna do anything. But if you don’t have conviction around the path, or the next thing, you know, it can be a lot. So my hope for people is that they that they aren’t afraid to explore. And that, you know, and that’s one of the things that I did, you know, I worked at a job for 1011 years, and then kind of left to do something completely different. And what was interesting or unique was that I, and I didn’t quite appreciate it at the time, but now I do, I’m incredibly well qualified to go back. So I think, you know, I did that thing for 10 years, I can go back to that original job that I had, and people will hire me, I’ve got lots of experience, in the new thing that I didn’t really have, under my belt, I, you know, it was, again, all new, I was not experienced in that. So I think, you know, when you’re thinking of a leap like that, hey, I’m going to school, or I’m going to really change careers, do it in a way that isn’t necessarily, hey, I’m going to, like have to mortgage my entire life to figure this out, is there a way where you can, you know, say you all of a sudden, really like law and you want, you know, yes, you can go to law school and spend, you know, 10s, or hundreds of $1,000 to do that dependent, or you can, you know, get involved in law a little bit at the beginning, you know, validate that assumption that you really like it work in a job that that doesn’t quite the same qualifications and just see if you like it, and then and then, you know, before sort of making this leap, but you know, especially if that leap is something that you’ve just feel is going to be huge for for you and your life and what you’re doing.

george grombacher 11:57
I love the idea and the practice of exploring, because how am I going to really know, if I’m gonna like something until I actually do it. So exploring those kinds of things. And, you know, I, maybe it’s just me, I don’t know that I really knew myself necessarily, when I was 15 years old, or when I was 18, or 25, or even here at 45. It’s always we’re changing and progressing. So probably a lot of value in conducting that exploratory sort of process just internally also say, Okay, how is how are my preferences changed? What am I willing to do? What am I not willing to do? What would I like to do more of

Greg Martin 12:40
it is never ending, you’re always, you’re always doing that you’re always iterating you’re always trying to figure it out. You’re always and the way I think about it is you’re you’re learning about yourself through your job. In many ways, you’re growing up through that you’re, you’re you’re exercising skills, you’re working with people, you’re doing all these things that are showing you who you are as you mature and get older. And and yeah, it’s hard. You probably ultimately don’t recognize yourself. When you when you think of the young person in in school.

george grombacher 13:11
I like that a lot. We learn a lot through our jobs, the work that we’re doing. And it’s probably really evidentiary that it’ll show you okay, you have really George having a hard time getting this done, but you really fly through this kind of work. And there’s probably clues there.

Greg Martin 13:31
Yep, for sure. Yeah. Learning by yourself, for 100%. And I think, again, that’s the that’s, that’s the experience, I think there’s I don’t know if you’ve done this, but a lot of people sort of, I think when, when you get into something, you think that you need to be really interested in the, in the subject matter. So say you’re a, I don’t know, just there’s a ladder thing behind me, you have to you know, to get into the ladder business, you have to really like ladders, well, no one really likes ladders, I don’t know. I mean, maybe they do. But, you know, it’s very, very few in between, getting into and working at a ladder company is a lot more about the skills that you have the communication skills, the, you know, flexing some of the interpersonal the, the, you know, the Yeah, honestly, the soft skills that you have to within it within a job and that’s a lot of what you are going to get out of it or you’re, you know, that’s going to dictate a lot of your love or, or, or not have a job and so you have to think that way, when you approach a job and the world of work is that it’s, it’s open, there are a lot of things out there. And just because you’re not interested in something today, doesn’t mean you can’t use a lot of the skills that you have. I think what we like ultimately and what we’d like to be good at stuff. Like we don’t want to start something and then feel like we’re I feel like we’re getting better like we’re gonna get good would be ultimately become an expert. And so you know, finding something where that can be the case where you’re you’re learning you’re You’re getting a little bit better all the time, I think is important anyways, at least that’s what I see talking to people.

george grombacher 15:05
I couldn’t agree more. I just couldn’t agree more. I think that if we focus on, I’m going to find what I’m passionate about, well, I hope that you do. But that’s not probably going to happen immediately. You one day might be the most passionate ladder manufacturer slash salesperson in the world. But let’s just focus on getting really good at understanding everything that goes into making a good ladder that people need and a bet that you’re going to become passionate about it.

Greg Martin 15:35
Yeah, and given us something you do get stuck.

george grombacher 15:39
Right? Yeah, that’s, I mean, and if you’re somebody who probably doesn’t care about getting really good, well, you’re probably not listening to this podcast anyway.

So from an entrepreneurial standpoint I feel like entrepreneurship has been really glorified and romanticized in in culture over the past, you know, recent just recently, do you think that everybody’s cut out to be an entrepreneur? Or maybe the better question is, how do I find out if maybe entrepreneurship is right for me? Because to your point, there’s a lot going on, you’re wearing a lot of hats. There’s a lot of demands.

Greg Martin 16:20
Yeah, I mean, firsthand experience, I like I’ve got it. I, you know, my, my whole I have a bunch of people on with my family who have been entrepreneurs, I totally agree with you. It’s been romanticized in many ways. And I think part of that is just because you hear so much more about the success stories, and that we really bury the failures when they when they happen. And I, you know, I you know, failure is a broad term, I think an error can be used as a broad term. In this case, I think going and doing things isn’t necessary. Just because it fails as a business doesn’t mean that it’s wrong or bad or was or it was a mistake. But I do think that if you have it’s kind of like with anything, it’s kind of like if you have this itch to go and start a business at some point, like, and that was my case, like, I just had to do it, it wasn’t really a function of if it was a win situation. And that’s why I took the plunge. But out there in the world, you do hear a lot of people tell you, if you listen, I think you know, all the reasons why you shouldn’t or all the challenges, all the hats, you have to wear all the all the guy was talking earlier about all the problems that come your way, if you are an entrepreneur, and you do, do start your own business, you do have, you know, there are a lot of things to think about. And that can be an incredible time to learn because you get to learn all these things. And it can also be just really challenging, because it never ends. And so I don’t know, I think there are also some very valid and it’s also very nice in many ways to have a narrow, more narrow job right where you are in charge of something within a bigger organization where you have, you know, carte blanche, or where you you know, to do what you need to do where you’ve got a steady paycheck. And the big thing too, for me, when you want to leave, you can just leave a job. It’s really not that hard. When you’ve started a business, it’s not easy to just leave, it’s yours. You’ve got a lot of things to do to try to, to take a vacation to try to add to the visit whatever you’re trying to do. So I totally agree view it’s been romanticized. At the same time, I think you can get involved in an entrepreneurial environment in a in a job with work with Park whatever to help make it so that it isn’t just all you if that’s part that that’s that’s giving you anxiety, but in the end, I mean, I do think you can’t you can’t totally fight it. If you really want to be an entrepreneur. Go up. You should try it.

george grombacher 18:37
Yeah, 100% it is a great opportunity for the right person, a terrible one for the wrong one. But there’s only one way to find out. Yeah, so I like it. Well, Greg, thank you so much for coming on. Where can people learn more about you? Where can they find the lifetime org podcast?

Greg Martin 18:55
Yes, you got a lifetime@work.com it’s also, you know, sort of Spotify or Apple podcasts, whatever, wherever you listen, and yeah, every every episode is just me talking to different guests and getting into the details of their job with the goal of you know, trying to glean advice and, and just learn about what they’re doing, what they’re getting out of their job. And the goal is to make people understand more about themselves through their work. So that’s what they call the podcast. So lifetime@work.com

george grombacher 19:21
I love it. I know that every time I listen, sort of you’ll pick something out of any conversation that will inspire you or make you think about well, I wonder what I would think about that. And just the more we can be thinking about these things, because we spend so much time at work. And I really hope that people to your point 65% of us don’t like our jobs or were disengaged at work. That’s a that’s a really crappy thing. So go to lifetime@work.com Check out the lifetime at work, podcast wherever you listen to your podcasts and make sure that you’re asking yourself those questions and figuring out that what you’re figuring out if what you’re doing is really what you want to be doing and how to make it a little bit better. Thanks again. Greg

Unknown Speaker 20:02
thanks for watching

george grombacher 20:03
till next time remember do your part by doing your best

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

george grombacher 16:00
So if I want my iPhone, and my Tesla and my Bitcoin to work, we need to get the metal out of the ground.

Pierre Leveille 16:07
Absolutely. Without it, we cannot do it.

george grombacher 16:13
Why? Why is there a Why has production been going down.

Pierre Leveille 16:21
Because the large mines that are producing most of the copper in the world, the grades are going down slowly they’re going there, they’re arriving near the end of life. So and of life of mines in general means less production. And in the past, at least 15 years, the exploration expenditure for copper were pretty low, because the price of copper was low. And when the price is low, companies are tending to not invest more so much in exploration, which is what we see today. It’s it’s, it’s not the way to look at it. Because nobody 15 years ago was able to predict that there would be a so massive shortage, or it’s so massive demand coming. But in the past five years, or let’s say since the since 10 years, we have seen that more and more coming. And then the by the time you react start exploring and there’s more money than then ever that is putting in put it in expression at the moment for copper at least. And what we see is that the it takes time, it could take up to 2025 years between the time you find a deposit that it gets in production. So but but the year the time is counted. So it’s it’s very important to so you will see company reopening old mines, what it will push also, which is not bad, it will force to two, it will force to find a it will force to find ways of recalibrating customer, you know the metals, that will be more and more important.

george grombacher 18:07
So finding, okay, so for lack of a better term recycling metals that are just sitting around somewhere extremely important. Yeah. And then going and going back to historic minds that maybe for lack of technology, or just lack of will or reasons, but maybe now because there’s such a demand, there’s an appetite to go back to those.

Pierre Leveille 18:33
Yes, but there will be a lot of failures into that for many reasons. But the ones that will be in that will resume mining it’s just going to be a short term temporary solution. No it’s it’s not going to be you need to find deposit that will that will operate 50 years you know at least it’s 25 to 50 years at least and an old mind that you do in production in general it’s less than 10 years.

george grombacher 19:03
Got it. Oh there we go. Up here. People are ready for your difference making tip What do you have for them

Pierre Leveille 19:14
You mean an investment or

george grombacher 19:17
whatever you’re into, you’ve got so much life experience with raising a family and doing business all over the world and having your kids go to school in Africa so a tip on copper or whatever you’re into.

Pierre Leveille 19:34
But there’s two things I like to see and I was telling my children many times and I always said you know don’t focus on what will bring you specifically money don’t think of Getting Rich. Think of doing what you what you like, what you feel your your your your your, you know you have been born to do so use your most you skills, do what you like, do what you wet well, and good things will happen to you. And I can see them grow in their life. And I can tell you that this is what happens. And sometimes you have setback like I had recently. But if we do things properly, if we do things that we like, and we liked that project, we were very passionate about that project, not only me, all my team, and if we do things properly, if we do things correctly, good things will happen. And we will probably get the project back had to go forward or we will find another big project that will be the launch of a new era. So that’s my most important tip in life. Do what you like, do it with your best scale and do it well and good things will happen.

george grombacher 20:49
Pierre Leveille 21:03
Thank you. I was happy to be with you to today.

george grombacher 21:06
Damn, tell us the websites and where where people can connect and find you.

Pierre Leveille 21:13
The it’s Deep South resources.com. So pretty simple.

george grombacher 21:18
Perfect. Well, if you enjoyed this as much as I did show up here your appreciation and share today’s show with a friend who also appreciate good ideas, go to deep south resources, calm and learn all about what they’re working on and track their progress.

Pierre Leveille 21:32
Thanks. Thanks, have a nice day.

george grombacher 21:36
And until next time, keep fighting the good fight. We’re all in this together.