Turning Setbacks into Success | Francisco Gaffney

Matt (00:03.733)

Okay, we are now recording which is a beautiful thing. So let's do this

We'll do the introduction afterwards. We'll do that afterwards. Do that afterwards.

Matt (00:21.749)

Okay.

Matt (00:27.493)

In fact I think I'll just do the whole thing afterwards Francisco because

Matt (00:40.341)

Quick. Okay. Good. All right, here we go. Francisco, welcome to the podcast man. Great to have you on here after no one, the listeners won't know, but we've had a fair few technical issues to get this far. And you've stuck with me, which is very kind of you, but welcome to Push To Be More, man. How are you doing today?

Francisco Gaffney (01:05.42)

Thank you very much for having me. Yes, I'm doing very well today. And yeah, I appreciate the opportunity to be in your podcast, which is quite impressive. Thank you.

Matt (01:13.686)

It's great to have you on and we said in your bio when we introduced you that you've been in Argentina, you've been in Ireland and now you're in Barcelona. It's an interesting sort of journey around the world. Are you enjoying Barcelona?

Francisco Gaffney (01:28.396)

Pretty much, particularly now that we have 27 degrees and well.

Matt (01:31.509)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (01:36.844)

Compared to Ireland, my son is still in Ireland, working there and it's 12 degrees or something like that. I say, yeah, I don't miss that summer of 12 degrees.

Matt (01:39.508)

Right.

Matt (01:44.565)

No, not at all, not on any kind of level. It's 15 degrees here in Liverpool today. And at the time of recording, you're kind of like, this should be summer, what's going on? And clearly it isn't. So I can see why you're enjoying the 27 degrees. I get to fly out to Dallas next week.

I'm speaking at an event over there going subsummit if anyone's you know, joining us in subsummit be great to see But yeah going to subsummit and I'm going to enjoy that whatever it is 25 30 degree heat

Francisco Gaffney (02:17.26)

Actually, I had a chat with somebody yesterday in Austin and it was 33 degrees. Yeah. Austin, Texas. So, yeah.

Matt (02:21.718)

get in.

Yeah, yeah, beautiful part of the world. Beautiful part of the world. So Francisco, let's start with my favourite question actually, twice everybody. This show is sponsored by Pod Junction, which specialises in helping business leaders grow their business with podcasts. So what we'd like to do is ask the podcast question. If you could, if you had your own podcast, right, and you could interview anybody.

on your podcast. You know, a bit like we're having a conversation now from your past or your present. The only caveat being that they've had to have had a big impact on your life. Who would be a guest on your show and why?

Francisco Gaffney (03:03.628)

impacting my life. That's a big one.

Matt (03:08.054)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (03:12.492)

I think it's a number of people. I don't know where to pick because...

Matt (03:15.638)

Okay.

Francisco Gaffney (03:22.476)

Actually, I don't quite remember the name of the gentleman. He wrote 10 books back in the late eight hundreds and was called the secret of successes or something like that. So he went through history as we know history and started all the big names that we know, Alexander Mango, Magno.

Matt (03:36.983)

Right.

Francisco Gaffney (03:50.156)

Well, you know, back in history, back to now, to the time of these writings. And I think there are 10 books. It costs like a million dollars because he wrote those books to teach people where the successes are, where the mindset is. And now it's very common to talk about mindset, but at the time, I think that was like how long? Like 120 years ago? Talking about mindset, how people thought things through to be successful, I think was revolutionary.

Matt (04:04.725)

Yeah.

Matt (04:16.469)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (04:20.524)

And there's a famous phrase that is attributed to, how is it called this guy, Tony Robbins mentor, Jim Rohn, I think it's called, Jim Rohn. He says, you are the average of the five people that is around you mostly. But that phrase comes from that book, from that encyclopedia of success.

Matt (04:29.781)

Yes, yes it is Jim. Yeah.

Matt (04:35.957)

Mm -hmm.

Matt (04:42.453)

Hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (04:44.332)

Sorry, I cannot remember the name, but actually I know that actually is very rare. It was written exclusively for certain families at the time and for them to be more mindful of what success was meaning and how to achieve that much faster and in an easier way without the struggles of the time. Remember that time was the beginning, well, mid end of the industrial revolution.

Matt (04:59.637)

Mm.

Matt (05:12.725)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (05:13.644)

So those families say, what is next? What is coming next? And that guy took the time to write all these things to say, okay, what is coming next? So you are very prosperous. You have your industrialists and then we have the Carnegie's and all these guys that came to America. And many of these guys got these books. So you see the early 1900s, you see a big prosperity also in the world in terms of consciousness.

Matt (05:17.493)

Mm.

Matt (05:29.877)

Yeah.

Matt (05:37.813)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (05:39.308)

And I remember Carnegie in particular because he said this guy came from Scotland to New York and he built the biggest asset in the world at the time. I think that today comparable if you do exchange rates, still one of the biggest in the world known today. All the JP Morgan's and all these guys that we know today as the big big names of the early 1900s.

Matt (05:55.893)

Yeah, it is. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (06:06.636)

Jesus, and I think that this guy will be interesting to interview what triggered him to do these kind of things. Because I like to go to the root as far as I can of the knowledge. And for example, when I was into Tony Robbins, I said, who teach this guy? Because this is coming from somewhere. And then I found Jim Rohn. And when I found Jim Rohn, I found his mentor, which is Lee Hoff or G Hoff or somebody like that.

Matt (06:10.453)

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt (06:20.277)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (06:34.924)

And then I found this other book and I said, so then you start to see how the knowledge is transferred by some people that appropriate that knowledge as their own intellectual property. And I don't feel easy with that because at one point they don't have the whole, how it's called, the whole integrity, not integrity as a personal integrity in terms of values, but I mean the integrity of the knowledge. At one point.

Matt (06:45.557)

Hmm.

Matt (06:59.733)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (07:00.588)

the marketing start to fail because actually they don't have the values that triggered that knowledge. They just repeat and rehearse, not rehearse, remarket or repackage the same knowledge in different ways. Anyway, so that's the person that we bring to a podcast.

Matt (07:16.597)

I think that'd be really interesting. The guy I'm thinking of, I don't know if it's the same guys, because I know what you mean. And I think I've, I can picture Dale Carnegie's book, you know, the How to Make Friends and Influence People and the other books that came out of that time, like Think and Grow Rich with Napoleon Hill. People like that, sort of old school, the original sort of self -help guys, weren't they? They're sort of the old school guys, all books which have had, like I would say, probably one of the most profound books.

Francisco Gaffney (07:31.02)

Yeah.

Napoleon Hill, yes.

Francisco Gaffney (07:40.172)

Yeah.

Matt (07:46.421)

that I've read is how to make friends and influence people. You know, it's an incredible book. It's probably one of the few books that I've insisted my kids read, you know, because I think the principles are still timeless. And the name will come back to me at some point for what I think you're thinking of. And people will be shouting at the screen or the podcast, because I know what you mean. But I think you're right. Some of these sort of old school original pioneers in, you know, this sort of...

Francisco Gaffney (07:54.796)

Yeah.

Matt (08:13.173)

movement would be really, really interesting people to talk to. You know, just like Elon Musk, who would be a modern day equivalent would be a really interesting chap to talk to. I think Dale Carnegie, you know, would be, would be extraordinary. Andrew Carnegie, you know, who was attributed as saying he wanted his epitaph to read, here lies a man who knew how to hire people smarter than himself. You know, which you'd think is great. So yeah, totally with you on that.

totally with you on that. It's an interesting one. So I'm gonna find out the answer to that question after we've ended this conversation. I'm gonna hit myself in the head for not remembering it during the conversation. Why did you not, anyway. So, you know, Francisco, we read in your bio that you've been involved in IT, you've been involved in e -commerce and Amazon and selling all over the world. You're now involved in mergers and acquisitions and.

and building a gross acquisition, things like that. What's a key challenge in all of that that you have faced? Because it sounds, so it's a wonderful resume to read, but I'm assuming it's not all been that straightforward or linear.

Francisco Gaffney (09:27.692)

No, by far it is not.

Francisco Gaffney (09:33.996)

There's so many things in there. I think... How can I put this?

Francisco Gaffney (09:43.936)

You're really making me think very hard. Thank you for that. Because it's interesting that not many times, I'm journal, my thank yous and the things that actually I learned to put a keyword in the journal and say what I am the most grateful in the past 24 hours that brings you to the present for one of the things I'm doing. But actually,

Matt (09:48.629)

That's what we like.

Matt (09:57.717)

Yeah.

Matt (10:04.245)

Mm. Yep.

Francisco Gaffney (10:09.26)

Now you're making me think because I never think in what happened 10 years ago, 15 years ago and that kind of stuff. I think that is ambitious, ambition, but not in the bad way. Like I want everything for me. It's like nature.

Matt (10:23.445)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (10:30.668)

Something that is not coming across in my resume ever is I lived for four years between the frontier between Argentina and Brazil in the rainforest. So pretty much my house, well, not my house, my parent house was a hundred yards from literally the black rainforest. Black, I mean that actually you cannot see through. So it's so thick that actually if you don't go with somebody that knows the area.

Matt (10:54.869)

Wow.

Francisco Gaffney (11:00.492)

you get lost there because you cannot see where you are after walking, I don't know, five minutes, 10 minutes into the rainforest. If you don't know the path or the marks that they leave, you get lost forever. So literally the rainforests suck you in and you don't know where to get to exit. The amazing thing about that is that the city council of our little town used to have this big...

Matt (11:17.589)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (11:29.964)

Bulldozers with the we changed like we're big like a torso of a man and the claw Not plot they will go with this bulldozer around the town to avoid the rainforest to go over the town because it grows so fast that actually you can physically see in a week time how fast is growing so every month they have to go and kind of a mole the rainforest so

Matt (11:55.061)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (11:57.676)

And that's what I mean with ambitions. I, that gave me a massive impression that, that the world is very, very prosperous. That is prosperity. I mean, naturally the world recovers, even if, if this bulldozer gone destroy everything a week later, you could see how it's growing again. So that for me was like, so if that is done by nature by itself, how much we can do.

Matt (12:06.997)

Hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (12:25.036)

when we can manipulate things, manipulate in a good sense, like I said, for example, in business or in education or human relationships and that kind of stuff. So that, I think that this is the nature of my ambition. I say, when I started with IT in 96, 98, I went to school, I started programming and that kind of stuff. And I thought, I said, this is amazing. This is amazing things that we can do here. So I, that...

push, I think mostly the unconscious push to do things come from that learning, I think. And then when e -commerce started to explode back in, well, actually in 98, I wanted to do one of, now it's very common to see this kind of a booking .com or the, I don't know, lastminute .com, that kind of things. And I wanted to do a travel portal because I say, we are going to decentralized.

Matt (13:09.461)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (13:20.588)

or democratize, whatever you want to call it, the travel agencies, they capture their audience and they are the guys that have the knowledge. And that in some way pushed me to in some way or how that obviously didn't work out. But, but did, did grab the attention of people in, in Sabre, which is a, the GDS from American Airlines. And I, my first corporate job was in with American Airlines, but not in the, in the travel industry rather to serve in the travel industry, selling.

Matt (13:22.965)

Mm -hmm. Yeah.

Matt (13:49.109)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (13:50.508)

the booking system. Now we can do it online. The same thing that you can do online before you had to go to a travel agency for them to do the process. And so one thing, I think that this is the kind of things that drives you to different areas in life. Let's say, okay, I have a push to go somewhere. And then the people start to notice that drive, which is not, it's quite a selfish list. So I don't have an intent to say take advantage of anything or anybody is the nature of exploration.

Matt (13:55.733)

That's right, yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (14:20.46)

finding things, be amazed about how things can be work or kind of work. Another example is, I think that helps a lot when you have a kind of a capacity, I call it the candy crush, no, candy crush, the Tetris mindset, where you can join and put pieces in places where other people cannot see it or even if they see it.

Matt (14:25.362)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (14:47.724)

they don't know how to move the pieces around to put it correctly, or they don't have the skills, or they don't have the connections, or they don't have that kind of things. And later, probably we're going to mention my new ventures, which is incorporate advisory boards. One thing that I'm helping somebody is to expand globally, but they were looking for funds, like heavily looking for funds, and they couldn't manage to get the fundraising.

Matt (14:48.915)

They can't figure out how it works. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Matt (15:09.395)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (15:16.812)

And when I say, hold on a second, I say, there are companies that are looking to service these kind of things. Why we don't look for this company, they already have the infrastructure to resell your products and we don't have to raise funds. We pretty much have to sign a contract and that can initially start to get the ball rolling until the whole thing is proven.

enough for an investor to say, I like what you're doing. I see some revenue coming in perhaps in 18 months, 18 months or two years time. We might fund this process to you launch your sales teams or your whatever is the case. So that capacity to join DOTS also helped me. It started to spark my interest to say probably I will be more valuable helping companies to.

expand in different areas or unblock them from wherever they are today than rather being an individual contributor that actually in the corporate world, actually you have your patch and say, this is my patch, my territory. This is what I have to do. I have my team to help me out. But then you say what I do with all the things that I can do that today are not used. So that's what, sorry, I'm diverting a lot in different angles, but.

Matt (16:15.73)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (16:42.112)

This is perhaps one of the things that starts to motivate me to go through different things throughout the years.

Matt (16:47.474)

Yeah.

I'm curious, Francisco, if I can go back very slightly, why were you living 100 meters away from the black rainforest? I'm kind of curious as to what...

Francisco Gaffney (16:53.1)

Yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (17:02.204)

sure, that was 1974 I think. My father was a pilot in the Argentine Air Force. He left the force and he decided to be a farmer. And he was very, very keen into renewable farming.

Matt (17:06.866)

wow.

Matt (17:14.098)

Hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (17:27.436)

And the timber industry was one of the most impacted in that kind of things. So he bought a plot of land. Well, a plot of land, somebody might say in the UK, like a patch. But there in the middle of the forest was a, sorry, I was about to course, was a massive place. It was fairly big. So fairly big. And...

Matt (17:27.442)

wow.

Matt (17:33.522)

Mm -hmm.

Matt (17:47.154)

Yeah

It was very big. It was very big.

Francisco Gaffney (17:55.404)

And he was one of the pioneers doing a re re no recycle reforestation for the timber industry, particularly pine. Yeah, back in the seventies. And the reason why is because the soil is so rich that they can plant the pine. They have a cycle until before you can cut it for, for the timber industry, because they need to certain thickness, certain humidity, certain length in how tall it is. And there is a particular.

Matt (18:03.025)

Well, back in the 70s.

Matt (18:19.697)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (18:25.228)

pine that grows very fast and very good in that area. So he decided to go there and move the whole family from a 14th floor apartment in the middle of a city center to the middle of nowhere.

Matt (18:38.352)

Wow, that's amazing. That's amazing. And I mean, I grew up in Dalby, which is, you know, it's a very beige town in the middle of England. Never experienced in anything like that. So that must've been quite impactful. And I can see how your drive to sort of grow beyond that and learn beyond that.

Francisco Gaffney (18:40.108)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (18:46.092)

Yeah.

Matt (19:00.593)

I can see why that would be in those kind of situations. And I liked your Tetris thinking analogy, you know, the ability to join dots and sort of put stuff together. What's been your biggest success as a result, do you think?

Francisco Gaffney (19:07.148)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (19:17.452)

Probably not in the corporate world, but mostly with my son and my daughter. I think I'm an awful parent. Nobody teaches you how to be a parent. And pretty much you learn as you go along, pushed, and I think that pushed by your own children needs, if you may. So very grateful because all...

Matt (19:29.488)

Yeah, it's very true. Yeah.

Matt (19:43.568)

Hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (19:46.604)

all very healthy children, very intelligent, at least from my perception of intelligence. But at the same time, both very rebel, if you may. So they want to experiment things in early ages and doing things actually, at least in my interpretation of parenting or education, I say, why are you going to do that? No way. And...

Matt (20:00.815)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (20:14.508)

But I learned, also I learned quite particularly in teenagers, when they were teenagers, the thing that I learned, particularly with my, I have a son and a daughter, particularly with my son, I learned that actually it's not about restricting them, it's about giving more tools to help to, they can, how can put this, assess situations, not being influenced by the circumstances and the peer group.

and have their own personality. And I don't mean personality being like on the phone, like an influencer, that kind of thing. So personality is saying, I'm saying no because I know why I'm saying no. And I'm saying yes, why I'm saying yes. And this is why I'm saying yes for something or why I decide not to get involved in anything at all. And I think that that was my biggest success because both my son and my daughter, they are quite independent.

Matt (21:01.264)

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (21:12.364)

happily now financially and in in they my son only called me once and again he's 28 years old he's still living in ireland he has his own job he's developing his career in 3d design for for video gaming and he never rings the mother is not happy but i say okay what's going on with this guy and and i have to ring him say what's going on and i say i'm fine what you want

Matt (21:14.32)

Yeah.

Matt (21:32.562)

Ha!

Matt (21:40.05)

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, stay in touch, bud, stay in touch. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (21:43.308)

And I say, okay, so no calls. Yeah, I stay in touch. No calls. Everything's fine. But he calls, he calls now and again. But the interesting thing that now he's calling for things actually are how he develops relationships for, to create his own studio, how he network with people, how he, so it's more in the business side. And I say, okay, now he already explored what it means being employed.

And we're happy now that he's exploring and say how I develop my own business. So, well, my daughter is finishing masters now with it also in art, well, digital arts, which is 2D design or movies, cartoon, that kind of stuff. And he's connected. Well, she learned from the mistake from the other guy and she's going very fast into connecting with people very quickly. And...

Matt (22:15.666)

Hmm.

Matt (22:25.746)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (22:39.98)

She's still living with us and you know, 24 years old. So I know her, she's alive when she wake ups around 11 in the evening. When I'm going to bed, she's waking up. But I guess that actually is normal at that age. I remember at that age, I was, yeah. So I say, she say good morning, I say good night.

Matt (22:50.546)

Hahaha.

Matt (22:56.595)

Yeah, yeah, I want to be that age again, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's really, I love that how when I asked you what's been your biggest success, you immediately go to your family. I can't begin to tell you, I mean, the amount of podcasts I've been on and people talk about success, what is success for you? And I always maintain that I wanna succeed at home first.

And I think if I can do that, well, that's a really interesting, really, I count life to be successful. I have three kids, my middle child, my youngest son, at the moment he's on a beach in Jersey lifeguarding, which is a brilliant summer job. He's getting paid to sit on the beach, rescue people and do workouts basically. It's his ideal life.

Francisco Gaffney (23:48.012)

Yeah.

Matt (23:50.163)

And I think if I didn't call him, there's no way he would call me all summer. You know, it's just, he's so into what he's doing, which is great. And I think one of the biggest things, if I look back over at Francisco, one of the biggest things I think we've done well in teaching our kids is the art of resilience, to be resilient. And I think it's super, super important, you know, the ability to network, to be, to hustle, to make a pound. You know, we never actually paid our kids pocket money when they were growing up.

Francisco Gaffney (23:54.892)

Yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (24:13.548)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (24:19.052)

It's quite impressive, like...

Matt (24:20.404)

Yeah, well, we didn't do it. What we said to the kids was, listen, if you come up with a business idea, and I like the business idea, I'll invest in it and we'll see what happens. So my eldest son, when he was, I think maybe eight, nine years old, he decided he was gonna set up his first business, which was a chicken business. And so we built a chicken coop in the garden. We went and bought some chickens. I invested in the business and he looked after the chickens. He cleaned them out. He fed them. He bought the food.

and he sold the eggs and that's how he made his money, you know, and it was, it's that, it is that desire to teach a kid something which is gonna take them beyond yourself, isn't it really? And I think it's a wonderful thing to be able to say you've done.

Francisco Gaffney (24:52.78)

Nice.

Francisco Gaffney (25:03.724)

Yeah, well, thank you. But I like that. I think that is a keyword there with this resilience because it's many, many things that happen in the middle between the idea to saying, I've done it. I'm making it. And it doesn't always means cash in the bank. Sometimes means that the idea has been accepted or then how you fund it or how, for example, the Amazon business.

Matt (25:18.003)

Mm. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (25:33.104)

When I started to do white labeling, at the end it ended up being three brands. But at the very beginning, the first thing I've done was to source the material from other people importing into the UK. I was living in Ireland at the time, so where Tita was. But I wanted a very specific...

was a learning curve also what is a good tea towel and what about the tea towel what is a bad tea towel so the plastic the polyester whatever is okay so I wanted cotton certain amount of threads hundred threads per square centimeter well all these these technicalities my wife helped a lot there because she was saying I don't like this one so we went to Tesco's and bought a lot of tea towels and said which is the best one so which one we want to sell so in thinking

So it was a small steps until we finally went to China. Well, we went first to Pakistan, but then we find out in China was a better value in terms of quantity, prices, etc. And the quality was pretty much the same. But so until we develop to to outsource pretty much the whole operation. So I was two people moving containers between China, Europe and the US.

We were packaging in our sitting room at home. And my brother that was living just around the corner was, you're absolutely nuts. Why are you doing this? There's no point to doing these kind of things. But I think that it's a joy also to what people call the journey. I don't think it's really a journey personally. I think that it's something that you have to do and how you treat it is perhaps a journey. The journey.

I don't have an analogy, sorry, I'm diverting a lot about here. But I have an analogy that somebody showed me once and I think that that's quite interesting. So there's two, it's a family going to Disney World. From home to Disney World is kind of a trip of like a couple of hours. So you have two children in the back of the car and one guy is, are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet? So all the time asking for the time. So the goal is exactly the same. The destination is exactly the same.

Matt (27:25.619)

Yes.

Matt (27:40.371)

Mm -hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (27:52.268)

The purpose is exactly the same. But one guy is all the time thinking, I have to get there now. The other son or daughter is just watching the window. look at this. I love this. look at cow. no, I see a horse or whatever. So enjoying the stuff. So is there any difference in the time lapse and in the purpose, in the destination? There's no difference. One guy has a very, very stressful way to see things. I want to be there right now.

Matt (28:10.227)

Mm.

Matt (28:20.595)

Yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (28:22.636)

And the other guy was like, trusting the process, as they call it too. I trust the process. Sometimes it's very hard to trust the process. So then you stress out with the destination or the objective or the goal. What happened in the middle? The car breaks down. So it's a massive delay. So the guy that is out there yet, get massively frustrated, anger, start to get aggressive, et cetera, et cetera. And the other guy will say, look at tall truck.

Matt (28:27.123)

Yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (28:50.348)

I want to go into the cabin, hey, Mr. Tall Truck Driver, how you doing? Blah, blah, blah. So even with circumstances that makes the, apparently, the circumstances difficult towards what we want to achieve or we want to get there, is how we treat the environment, the situation, the circumstances. And this I learned from Wallace D. Wallett. I don't quite, I cannot pronounce that name. I...

Matt (29:08.53)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (29:17.74)

Back to the conversation at the beginning of the podcast, is a guy that wrote a booklet that is called The Science of Getting Rich. It's only, I think, 80 pages. You can read it in one sitting. It's an amazing book. It's a very little booklet, but it's quite impressive. You have an audio book in YouTube if you don't want to read. And one of the things that this guy is saying that actually really, really impact me.

Matt (29:18.802)

Yeah, yeah, they are guys. Yeah

Matt (29:29.138)

Okay.

Matt (29:40.689)

wow, I'll check it out.

Francisco Gaffney (29:47.564)

was saying exactly that thing about this analogy of the children going to a decent work. What's that I say is people have to focus in the living, the achievement and whatever is going on with you in the circumstances, the daily circumstances, it doesn't really matter and you shouldn't be worried at all with what's going on. So setbacks, frustrations, this is not working. So we have technical issues at the beginning.

That's fine, we're going to sort it out. We cannot sort it out now. No worries, we can schedule another time. But people get very frustrated and angry. But I know it's...

Matt (30:23.025)

Yeah, they do. Is that why you do gratitude journaling? Is that why you do gratitude journaling?

You write down what you're thankful for, but it just brings you back to the presence. You're like the kid in the back of the car enjoying the journey, being grateful for what is actually going on in the moment rather than being constantly frustrated that you're not where you think you should be.

Francisco Gaffney (30:39.02)

Yeah. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (30:44.684)

Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. And I actually did a PowerPoint also not to forget what I'm grateful for. The five things I'm looking for for today can be something I actually I ended up writing the five things I'm looking every single day. So and I do that first first thing in the morning. I wake up around six every day. Not every day but mostly that's my usual time because...

Matt (31:07.058)

Hmm.

Francisco Gaffney (31:13.803)

I like early compared to my youth. I now prefer early mornings.

Matt (31:16.658)

I found the same thing as I've got older I get up earlier I don't know what that's all about.

Francisco Gaffney (31:21.704)

Yeah, we had nice coffee early morning. The window of my office, my home office, is facing the... I live in a little village outside Barcelona, so I can see the square. So it's a fountain, the church and everything. So I can see the rise of the morning, if you may. And the first thing I do is my journaling. That's what I call my...

Matt (31:26.066)

Mm.

Matt (31:33.33)

Mm -hmm.

Matt (31:37.49)

Mm -hmm.

Matt (31:46.77)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (31:50.988)

day attitude towards today. What it will be my attitude and the things I'm looking for is the five things I'm looking for. So one of them is this is a one of the things I'm I don't quite remember exactly the wording but actually I but it is one is I have to respond to people during the day. So it doesn't matter what mesh is coming through. I have to commit to respond to people during the day. The other one is this is an average.

Matt (31:53.49)

Right.

Francisco Gaffney (32:18.764)

This is the average day in my, sorry, this is my life and an average day of my ideal life. Yeah. So just having this back to the journey, going to this and that. So if this is a day in, or an average day in my ideal life right now, right here, like having this conversation with you, that's perfect. Because then I'm already leaving my destination. So then that.

Matt (32:29.906)

Yeah, yeah.

Matt (32:36.626)

Mm.

Matt (32:44.05)

Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Francisco Gaffney (32:46.796)

change, completely change the way that you see things, how you treat people, how you interact with people, how you see things through. and then I have another few things actually, sorry, not for the podcast, because I quite private, more, more related to my goals and my aspirations, et cetera. But these two things can be shared because, coming back to people is very important. I think it's respectful because if you're delaying things to say, I come back because I too busy.

Matt (32:54.066)

Mm.

Matt (33:01.01)

No, fair play. Yeah.

Matt (33:11.794)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (33:16.204)

So somebody bothered to message you in any way, like WhatsApp or email or LinkedIn or whatever. So at least have the, I don't know, the finesse is the word or the link. Yeah. I say, listen, too busy right now. I come back to you tomorrow in two hours or whatever. No, I don't mean right away answer, but two hours later, it doesn't really matter. But I say, yeah, I receive it. Sometimes I put this message. I receive your message, bear with me. I come back to you.

Matt (33:26.643)

courtesy.

Matt (33:32.179)

Yeah.

Matt (33:44.755)

Yeah. Well, that's just politeness, isn't it? It's just common courtesy. And I think it's a good idea. Listen, Francisco, I'm aware of time. And I feel like we could just talk for hours and hours and hours. And we maybe should one day around a beer, I think, in Barcelona would be quite nice. If people want to find out more about you, I know you're into mergers and acquisitions and you're getting involved in that whole side of things. What's the best way for people to do that?

Francisco Gaffney (33:44.94)

And then I made a commitment to come back to it. Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (34:12.972)

I'll say LinkedIn is the first protocol, if you may. I have LinkedIn on my phone, I have LinkedIn on my PC. So in the laptop, wherever I go, if I see a message in LinkedIn, a connection or something, I answer. In the day, I am LinkedIn three or four times a day. So that's the first protocol, if you may. And then we take the conversation from there. It depends what it is. And lately I'm having like a three lines of communications. People are looking for fonts.

Matt (34:22.387)

Mm.

Matt (34:31.22)

Mm.

Francisco Gaffney (34:41.708)

that I can help people looking to do business, which we have to look what kind of business is. I'm mostly focusing in the UK now because I think this is a very, very, very interesting market today to work in the UK. Also the legislation and the maturity of the people doing business in the UK, I love it. It's particular for my nature of being a house called.

Matt (34:43.636)

Mm -hmm.

Matt (34:59.476)

Yeah.

Francisco Gaffney (35:11.628)

I love the UK because when they say no, it's no. When they say yes, it's yes. And there's no more wiggle in the middle. But I'm from Argentina. I live in Ireland 18 years and Irish people is famous for this thing. They say, leave it with me. And there is no end for that. So when I come back to you, when I answer this, which is lovely, but sometimes in business is very frustrating because they say, leave it with you, but what's next?

Matt (35:16.052)

Hahaha.

Matt (35:31.476)

Yeah, yep.

Matt (35:37.844)

Mm -hmm.

Yeah, what does that mean? Yeah, I need to know right now, please. It would be, yeah, no, brilliant. Listen, Francisco, it's been a genuine joy chatting to you, man. Loved hearing your story, loved hearing about the family and your gratitude journal and even the analogy of the Disney car, and I'm gonna find that booklet and I'm gonna download that. We will, of course, link to you in the show notes as well, so if you wanna reach out to Francisco, do check him, do do that, just reach out on LinkedIn, great guy, great, great guy. But Francisco.

Francisco Gaffney (35:41.708)

Yeah, exactly. Yeah.

Matt (36:07.733)

Thank you. Thanks for coming on the show, man. It's been a genuine treat and I've genuinely loved it.

Francisco Gaffney (36:12.908)

Thank you, I really appreciate the invitation because I probably say things that I would normally not do or say, which is the family. I keep it quite private, but I feel very, very comfortable in your show and I appreciate that.

Matt (36:25.749)

super kind of you, man.

Francisco Gaffney (36:27.98)

Welcome.