Welcome to an electrifying episode of The Tradie Show! In this power-packed session, we’re thrilled to introduce Stacey Yeadon, the dynamo behind JDY Electrical. Stacey, a beacon of inspiration in the trade industry, shares her incredible transformation from an early childhood educator to a trailblazer in the male-dominated electrical sector.
Key Takeaways:
- Breaking Barriers: Stacey’s experience in challenging gender stereotypes and encouraging more women to pursue careers in trades.
- Award-Winning Excellence: Insights into Stacey’s numerous accolades, including the prestigious NECA NSW Women in Energy award.
- Balancing Act: Discover how Stacey and her husband Jack master work-life balance, setting an example for trade entrepreneurs.
- Community Focus: Learn about Stacey’s commitment to fostering local business collaborations and her vision for the future of trades.
- Empowering Insights: Stacey’s strategies and wisdom that can inspire and empower trade professionals across the industry.
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Ange
Get ready for a powerhouse episode today as we sit down with the incredible Stacey Yeadon from JDY Electrical in Goulburn, New South Wales. Stacey, a Lifestyle Tradie member for six years, is rewriting the rules for women in this male dominated trade industry. She has a dream and a desire to encourage more women into trades. Can’t wait to hear about that. She’s also featured in my book, tradie wife, why winging it isn’t working and breaking old habits will help and bagged a plethora of awards, including a huge recent win, taking out the title of NECA, New South Wales, women in energy. We’ll dive into Stacey’s journey from career transitions to tackling the challenges of an industry where it’s historically been a man’s world. Stay tuned for insights, inspiration, and a whole lot of tradie lady wisdom.
Andy
You’re listening to The Tradie Show. This is the podcast for trade business and contracting bosses like you, who want to lead with confidence, make more profit and create a better lifestyle.
Ange
We’re your hosts, Andy and Angela Smith, husband and wife team and co-founders of Lifestyle Tradie. Are you ready to have some fun?
Andy
Hell yeah!
Ange
If you want 2024 to be your year and you’re tired of the endless grind, then join us at our brand new in person event, Lifestyle Tradie on Tour.
Andy
No more late nights, quoting and invoicing, no more second guessing your decisions or missing that Arvo surf with your mates. Don’t miss out on this game changing opportunity. We’re talking real actionable strategies that have already changed the lives of thousands of tradies just like you.
Ange
Well, what are you waiting for? Head over to lifestyletradie.com.au and register now. So Stacey, firstly, massive congratulations on your success and being such an inspiration to women in the trade industry. I can’t wait to dive into your story today. So welcome to The Tradie Show and thanks for being with us today.
Stacey
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to be here.
Ange
It’s gonna be great. Now we’ll get into the book, your amazing accomplishments and what you are doing this year to help women in trades a little bit later. But first, I would love for you to share your backstory because you certainly didn’t start in trade. So to set the scene, as I mentioned, you own and operate a successful electrical company in Goulburn and New South Wales. J D Y Electrical. You work alongside your husband, Jack. So can you maybe just tell everyone a little bit about your business?
Stacey
So we are an electrical company in Goulburn. We have three employees. It’s five of us, including Jack and myself. We primarily do industrial electrical. Uh, that’s, that’s Jack’s specialty. And then we also have a domestic team as well.
Ange
How long have you been operating?
Stacey
So Jack started JDY Electrical in 2015. So, eight-ish years ago? Yeah.
Ange
Love what you do?
Stacey
I didn’t. I didn’t love it. Now I do.
Ange
Cool. Look forward to tapping into that little sentence then.
Stacey
Yeah.
Ange
So, we both know that there are lots of different ways that the females end up coming into a trade industry. So, for many of us, this wasn’t initially our dream career fair. So, some start off helping, maybe even just bookkeeping at night, say, after they’ve finished their day and maybe their own career. Maybe they’ve transitioned into the business because they’ve decided to stay home, have a baby or whatever. All the alternatives, some like myself, were pulled into the business because the business actually grew so quickly. I know you have a little bit of a different story. So the question I want to ask you is, what was your career prior to joining the business? And why did you join Jack at JDY Electrical?
Stacey
So before joining, um, JDY, I was a senior early childhood educator at a good start center here in Goulburn. I had been there for 12 years when I left fully. I joined the business because I came home one night and I found Jack clutching his chest on the bed. And he said, I think I’m having a heart attack and nobody wants to hear those words, right? So I said to Jack, I’ll call an ambulance and he said, no, don’t call an ambulance. I can’t afford to take time off work. And I said, well, I’ll call your mom. And he said, don’t call my mom, she’ll call an ambulance and I can’t afford to take time off work. So the next morning I accompanied him, demanded he go to the doctor and he was very unwell. His blood pressure was dangerously high, we’re talking, you know, 210 over a hundred and, you know, 60 or something like that. And his iron levels were four times what they should have been.
Ange
Ouch.
Stacey
And the doc, yeah, the doctor said if you don’t bring your blood pressure down, reduce your stress, you’ll be dead before you’re 40.
Ange
And how old was he at that point?
Stacey
Uh, that was 2018. So, I can’t even remember how old my husband is, a few years ago, early thirties, early thirties. Yeah. So,
Ange
You’ve got two little kids, two hasties.
Stacey
We do have two little kids. Yeah.
Ange
How old are they now?
Stacey
Evelyn is going on 17 and Brightest just turned 12.
Ange
I can’t imagine when you, when you have a full time career and you’re looking after these two gorgeous children coming home and seeing him so unwell and actually saying to you that he doesn’t even want to look after his health because in his head the business came first. How do you feel about that?
Stacey
That’s exactly right. It shocked me and it scared me. I didn’t know what to do at this point. I started taking one day a week leave, long service leave from my job that I was doing. That’s And I started coming into the business just doing some back end stuff. I started off by reconciling accounts that hadn’t been done for, you know, three years. And I was just taking on little bits like that, like that in itself took me probably 18 months to catch up on just sitting there, reconciling accounts. And then I eventually dropped and started taking another day long service lead and was doing two days. And then eventually I dropped it all together and I started working full time in the business. It was a bit tricky at first. The business was always, you know, Jack’s baby.
Ange
Yes. I know this sentence.
Stacey
Yeah. And he didn’t want to give up control. He wanted me there to help out, but he didn’t want to give me possession of stuff to do because he felt like he was losing control of the business if he did.
Ange
So even in this time when He had these chest pains. Did you have qualified tradesmen that you could lean on or was Jack pretty much it? Is that the reason why he didn’t want to walk away and go to the hospital? Did not have any assistance?
Stacey
No, we, we did. I believe at the time we had, um, we had a subbie and an apprentice working with us. So he was the primary supervisor for the apprentice. So yeah, it was a bit tricky. And it was just, he just got in this mindset that he couldn’t afford to have time off work.
Ange
So I would imagine too that the subbie was qualified to do the style of work that you do. Like you were saying, it’s quite intricate. He’s, you know, he’s chosen a field in electrical, but if you’ve got a subbie coming to work for you, he actually can do that work. So he just didn’t want to let go.
Stacey
Yeah, absolutely. So the subbie that we had at the time was a previous apprentice that Jack had trained at a previous company. So we even knew his work. And I think maybe we even did one tradie on the tools as well. I can’t remember because not long after this whole thing happened, we went to Bali. So I think we did have a tradie and an apprentice and this subbie.
Ange
So for the fact that you left early childhood education as a full time career, coming into running a trade business that you knew little about, were there any skills that you found you could bring with you to help with the business?
Stacey
Um, well, I think about it now and I kind of think, you know, from a management point of view, running a trade business now is kind of like having a classroom full of children. Working with kids to, yeah. Working with kids taught me a ridiculous amount of patience. Yes. I’m a very, very patient person, a very tolerant person. And I think childcare set me up to do that in a trade business. Like we all know you get difficult people in a trade business and I’m generally the one that deals with them because I have the patience to do that.
Ange
It’s interesting you say that because we obviously have lots of conversations in membership of Lifestyle Tradie around behavioral, you know, people’s behavioral traits and personality styles. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re five in early childhood, you know, looking after these little people or whether we’re big adults, we still own these sorts of personality and behavior, um, styles and therefore not everyone is going to get on all the time. So I can imagine times when things are a little heated or the pressure’s on, you know, especially coming into busy periods of time or whatever. Workloads are so intense that whether it’s out on the job or whether it’s internally inside that office, I could imagine the pressure can get really high. So I would say that your trait of being patient is something that is excellent in this industry.
Stacey
Yeah, it’s, uh, it definitely helps, especially when you work with a group of men. People say working with women is bad. Should try working with tradies. I often say to Jack. Tradies are bigger gossip than high school girls, but the amount of stuff I hear come through the office about hawkers, what I just heard at the wholesalers, is ridiculous.
Ange
Well, that’s the best. So as a female coming into the trade industry, what are the challenges that you’ve come across and how perhaps have you dealt with them?
Stacey
The biggest one I’d come across, especially earlier on, was stereotypes. Nobody wanted to talk to me because I was female. Um, nobody wanted to deal with me because I was female. I would rock up to someone’s house to do a quote and they’d go, Oh, where’s the tradie? Um, you know, I’d go to a job site and you know, someone on the job site would say, Oh, you got the boss working with you today. She wouldn’t want to get her hands dirty, would she? And like, just stuff like that, stereotypes were the biggest thing that I’ve had to deal with.
Ange
And do you think it’s changed? Since you’ve been working in the business?
Stacey
I think in our area, it has changed because people know me and know who I am and know what I do. And I’ve very widely advertised the fact that I’ve won all these awards and the guys haven’t. So I think people have gained a little bit of respect for me knowing what I do for JDY. Yes. Which is good because now, you know, they’ll wave to me or they’ll say hello at the wholesalers or, you know, they say to the guys, now you better watch out guys, the girls are on site, you know, they’ll show you up type of thing rather than before it was like, Oh, there’s a girl here.
Ange
So it’s interesting that you feel like you’ve even, you’ve had to kind of prove yourself through just the consistency of being resilient, just not letting their words get to you. The fact that you’re showing up on a job site, I can imagine it is steeped in history, right? Of being such a male dominated industry, even more so perhaps because you’re in a regional town. I hear people talk about going to a job site and there are no female toilets. Like they’ve, it’s not a unisex toilet. So you kind of go, well, what, where do I go? So I can imagine the banter and the jokes even around women can happen too. We hear this as well. And they’ve got to learn, you know, there’s another side to this, which I think even the blokes have to learn how to treat women whilst they’re on site and they’re not used to it either. So I think it’s really good that you’ve been thrown into the mix and the fact that you’re being very patient and calm and just consistent with showing up really professionally, uh, has really put you in a good stead for the business so that they actually understand this isn’t just Jack’s baby. Like the two of you are an absolute powerhouse and well known in the region for doing such a professional job. So absolutely huge kudos to you.
Stacey
Thank you.
Ange
I feel you’ve really embraced your role within this business. How do you feel about that? What do you think is a bit different?
Stacey
Um, it was a struggle to embrace my role, you know, I was often referred to as just the office girl or something like that, but Jack has really helped. He started calling me. I was going by the administration manager for a little while as my job title and he started calling me the operations manager and he said, well, that’s what you do. He said, you operate a business. So now I really embrace that. That is my title. I am the operations manager and everything comes through me more or less. Like I book all the jobs and take all the phone calls and answer all the emails. And so anything to do with operations, that’s my job and we know it, we have clear boundaries. Like Jack and I, I manage this side and he manages the, you know, the tactical side I guess you could call it, or the practical side. And yeah, we embrace each other’s roles and we support each other through it. So,
Ange
I love that you talk about that. Um, ’cause it’s so true, right? We talk about the fact that there’s really two sides to a trade business. You know, the group that are the trades people who are out on the tools actually doing billable time. Yet, there’s this whole operations office kind of base as well and two sides can’t operate without the other. So it’s really good that you’ve taken ownership and really set these boundaries and they’re really clear around kind of where you sit. I know in my latest book, which you are a contributor, thank you, I launched a book as you know, called Tradie Wife, Why Winging It Isn’t Working and Breaking Old Habits Will Help. And one of the things that we talk about in there is, how the females coming into the business who don’t really feel like they are really a part of the business. They’re really just working for their partner, you know, cause they own this business. And to your point, even though they hold a solid role, they haven’t owned it by a name. I think what Jack’s helped you do by calling you the operations manager was really clever. He, even though you gave yourself a title, most women don’t give themselves a title and that’s a problem. I do think it is really important that Jack has helped you embrace, well, this is what you do, Stace. Like this is what you have control of. I don’t step on your toes. You don’t step on mine. So own the name. So for anyone who’s listening, it is really important that you give yourself a title and that you own it. So those boundaries need to actually be really clear. For the fact that you work with your husband and obviously these conversations that happen inside the business that now often come inside to the house, you two are equal in this business. Can you tell us more about how you’ve kind of worked out how these boundaries work?
Stacey
We don’t take work home. We have our office, so all work is done at the office and home is for home. Sometimes, especially during school holidays, I will work from home, but I have a spot in the house that I work from. Work does not leave that spot. And then Jack will ring me when he’s finishing his last job and we will have a phone conversation while I will step outside and he will talk to me in the car and we’ll discuss what’s happened for the day. We don’t have work inside the house apart from this little square that I work in when I work at home. So we have very, very clear work home boundaries. At work we’re treating each other like, you know, obviously we’re still married, we’re still husband and wife. But we’re, we’re partners, business partners at work and at home, we’re, we’re life partners, we’re husband and wife. And that’s how we keep it in that, you know, that works for us because we have this very clear and strict boundary.
Ange
Yeah. One thing we definitely don’t like, I remember very often that Andy and I would talk work at home in the early days in front of the kids. And we’ve now got a rule about business that says it’s a weekend and I do actually have something about work I want to ask him about. We’ve agreed that you have to ask first. It’s a, I know it’s a Saturday. I do have a work question. Are you open to hearing it? If your partner responds with, nope, not right now, not in the mood, then you have to just agree to walk away and leave it for the week, regardless of how important you might have thought it was. But if they agree that it’s okay, then you can actually ask that question. But no conversation about work at the dinner table in front of the kids. I love that you’ve even got a boundary of like literally a box, like a square, invisible box inside your house. I think that’s really clever. So do you have meetings with him during the week when you’re at the office to ensure that the two of you are kind of on track together?
Stacey
We, we do. Yeah. Usually twice a week we will have, um, what we call a management meeting. We won’t do it at the office because our team is free to come and go from our office and our lunch room is at the office. So we will take it away to a cafe or something and we will have lunch and we will do our management meeting. So we do catch up and we do have a chat. Now, there do come times where I go, Oh, I forgot to tell you about. Blah, blah, blah. When we’re at home. Yes. But we’ll take it outside.
Ange
Clever.
Stacey
And we’ll take it out to the deck or out to the driveway or sit out the front with a cup of coffee and we go over whatever it is. But yes, we do have meetings twice a week with each other where we’re away from everybody, the kids, our staff. Like, we don’t do that in front of our staff or our children, that’s, we have our time twice a week to do that. So, yeah.
Ange
Yes. Management meetings. Great idea. So, you feature in my book, Tradie Wife, Why Winging It Isn’t Working and Breaking Old Habits Will Help, which is all about helping you feel more confident in co-leading your trade business with your partner. So, in the book you mention how you have these clear work home boundaries now and have become really equal in a business that originally, what you even mentioned earlier, started out as Jack’s Baby. So, you felt like it was still Jack’s Baby. Do you feel the same way now?
Stacey
No. No, he quite often says to me, Oh, it’s my name on the door, you know, but it’s usually when I’ve made some sort of decision that he doesn’t quite approve of, but no, it’s, it’s not Jack’s baby anymore. It’s our business. And we tell each other it’s our business.
Ange
That’s awesome. At the end of the day, the two of you have agreed to work really hard and solidly to ensure that you’ve set the foundations right for this business together. I mean, this is where you get paid. This is where the profit comes from consistently. This is how you end up with a lifestyle and the freedom that you have and, you know, to have these opportunities to go away. This is why you do what you do. So I love that he’s changed his mindset about that. So I want to make a shift a little bit and talk about all these incredible awards that both you personally and your business have won or have been finalists. I’ve actually counted nine in just the last few years, which is Incredible. Some of these have included winners of the Goldman’s Chamber of Commerce, Best Trade Business three years in a row. You were a winner for New South Wales Business Awards Business Leader over 35. You were a finalist at the Australian Trade Small Business Championships for 2023. And your latest award was the winner of the Women in Energy for NECA New South Wales Excellent Awards for 2023. My gosh, this list is incredible. So firstly, I want to say Absolutely wow and congratulations. It was so much fun to come with you, uh, with your, as your plus one to the excellence awards for NECA. We had an absolute blast there. Can you tell me which of these, if there is one that you are most proud of and why?
Stacey
I am very proud of all of our awards. I’m very proud that we did Goldman’s best trade business three years in a row. It was surprising, but also not surprising because we are so well known around town. This year, we didn’t get best trade business, we were runners up for best trade business. I was runners up for women in business and I did win New South Wales Business Leader of the 35. That one was a complete shock to me, I’m, I don’t think I’ve processed that one just yet because I was not expecting that, but I am most proud of the NECA and New South Wales one. That, uh, never in a million years did I think I would take out a state award just Um, doing what I’m doing and that one had the most, um, intense application and program to go with it. I had to go through panel interviews and all that sort of stuff for that one. So that one would be the one I’m most proud of.
Ange
For the fact that, and it is a huge accolade, so huge congratulations to you. With regards to that specific Women in Energy Award, you obviously had this opportunity to promote women in energy. Can you tell us why you’re so passionate about this and where you see this going perhaps in the future?
Stacey
According to NECA, only 2 percent of people in the electrical industry are women.
Ange
Wow.
Stacey
And I just, I, I just see that as kind of a flaw. Like I think something needs to shift and change there because it’s not a bad industry to work in. I know probably 0. 5 percent of that 2 percent are over in Western Australia doing FIFO, like fly in, fly out work. And I just don’t see it as, I just don’t see it as good enough. Like, I don’t know whether it’s because women are scared that electrical is a man’s industry or It’s just not promoted enough to women to work in the electric, electrical industry. So I have contacted NECA and I plan on visiting schools on the 24th and doing talks with them at careers days and not just for our area, but for South East New South Wales. So I will be heading down the coast and to Canberra, I think Canberra is in that as well to do talks with them about. Um, trying to bring more women in and not just women, but you know, any young, any young people, there is a big shortage of skilled trade in Australia, as we all know, regardless of what trade you’re in and JDY is built around training and retaining apprentices. So why can’t other businesses run like that, train and retain, keep your apprentices and build good businesses?
Ange
Absolutely.
Stacey
And why can’t women do it?
Ange
Yeah. Why can’t women do it? It’s really true. I love the fact that you’ve been in contact with them and they could kind of understand what you could do to be a little bit more involved. And I love your idea around going to talk to the youth because you’re right. It’s not just about women in trade. It’s just about trade in general, isn’t it? About coming into the electrical industry. It’s there’s so many opportunities. It’s not just about maintenance electrical, you know, there’s mechanical or do you just even start thinking about like the solar industry and what’s happening now with EV cars, like batteries, like all of that is, there’s just, it’s such an incredible future for the industry, yet there’s still not a lot of people coming into trade and I can’t help but feel that every school still is caught up about talking about when someone ends up deciding they want to leave in year 10, they say, I’ve chosen to drop out. Like, why do they use the language of a dropout? Why haven’t they changed the language to say, this was my life choice. I have decided to leave because I’ve decided to join trade. I feel like this whole shift of the industry from the youth coming up that needs to start with us as adults in the schooling education system needs to completely have a shift because we’re having 50th right now, right? This is my era. So plumbers, no plumbers, no plumbers. So we were at a mate’s 50th. There were probably at least 10 different plumbing companies that we knew. We’ve known for a really long time and their children now, uh, you know, we’re all there. And there were quite a number of their sons who were like 14, 15, 16. And a couple of them, there was one specifically that I was talking to and I was like, Oh, so what have you decided to do? You’re now going into year 10 and that, what are you going to, what are you going to do for your future? And he said, Oh, I’ve decided I’m going to drop out. I’m going to go work with my dad in plumbing. And straight away, I was just so shocked by his language. And I did say to him very quickly, I just want you to know that was your life choice. You decided to do that. You’re not a dropout. You’ve just decided that school’s not where you want to be. So I would say that whilst you’re going to the schools, then we’ve really got to start seeding this new language around. How incredible this industry really is. So, um, I’m really excited about your voice as a female in the electrical industry and what you could do here in New South Wales and nationally with NECA to inspire others to come into this trade. So, um, I really look forward to seeing what happens for this little journey of yours. It’s incredible. I take my hat off to you.
Stacey
Thank you. I’m quite excited to see where it all goes as well. And hopefully I can pull it off amongst, you know, being a mom and working full time, but I’m sure, I’m sure something good will come of it either way. As you know, our daughter did leave school this year. It wasn’t for her and that is her word. School’s just not for me. And now she’s got an apprenticeship as a hairdresser. So she’s essentially going into a trade as well.
Ange
Yeah, amazing.
Stacey
So. And yeah, you’re right. With the wording about dropping out, even her teachers at high school were saying he’s dropping out the right choice for you. And, we had to have this discussion about her not dropping out. School is not for her. So she’s going to build herself a career elsewhere. Yeah. Doing something she wants to do. So yeah, you’re right.
Ange
Even one school at a time, Stace, I mean, everything you know, big had to start with something small. So it’s just these single conversations that you just don’t know that group that you have an opportunity to speak to. You just don’t know who’s listening, whether it’s one of the parents or one of the children that actually goes, Oh, this is actually really interesting. Why haven’t I considered choosing this industry? So yeah, start small and you never know where this will take you. So with regards to your awards, I do want to say, um, I love your latest, um, share into our Lifestyle Tradie Membership Group about your gorgeous windows that are just plastered with all of your awards. You’re on a roundabout, aren’t you, in Goulburn?
Stacey
We are. We are. We are on one of the main roads in Goulburn, right on a roundabout. So yes, all of Goulburn gets to see our signage whenever they drive past. And I do promote it a lot. Some might say brag, but I say to promote that we have won so many awards. Everything, the bottom of my emails or my social media is all plastered with multi award winners. So everybody knows that we are multi award winners. And like you said, nine, nine awards in three years. Sorry, four years, nine awards and five of them have been this year. So
Ange
Amazing.
Stacey
I promoted a lot.
Ange
And so you should. It’s one thing that as you know, we’re huge supporters here at Lifestyle Tradie. Tradies just don’t do that though, don’t they? They don’t brag. We have tall poppy syndromes really rife here in Australia. So people don’t want to hear you talk about stuff like that. But the reality is your customers do want to know. So it is important to shout it from the rooftops around what you are doing as a multi award winner. So, you know, kudos to you. It’s not easy winning those awards. You do go through a very intense judging process to end up being even a finalist, let alone a winner. So I love the fact that you’ve taken this to the next level and actually reminded everybody in Goulburn that you are a multi award winner. And that way, anytime they’re driving around, uh, probably a good multiple times a day, to be honest, hitting that roundabout in the main streets, they are constantly reminded and putting you as a company top of mind of, if I need any electrical services, I know exactly who I’m going to go and use because that’s exactly what’s going on.
Stacey
Yep. That’s it. Even if I’m not in the office, which I’m not a lot at the moment, I’m on the tools with the guys a lot of the time.
Ange
Awesome.
Stacey
Even if I’m not in the office, everybody’s still seeing this signage. So it’s, it’s paying for itself, having it there on the roundabout. So.
Ange
Exactly. And the more people know you in your region, the more they will use you anyway. And I must say, you’re a really fantastic advocate of ensuring that people support local and buy local and getting local businesses to get to know each other. So that’s again, yet again, another huge kudos to you for being that connector because I can imagine business owners in general are quite secretive around what goes on inside their business and even whether it’s a regional town or whether it’s a suburb or region in a big city like Sydney or Brisbane, to be that connector takes effort, of course, but to be the instigator to drive relationship building so that people are driven to actually buy local when it’s so easy to buy stuff online, right? What made you do that?
Stacey
Well, I have a bit of a motto. My motto is why compete when you can collaborate.
Ange
Hmm. Nice.
Stacey
So we work closely with two other electricians in town. Why would we compete with them when we can bring them into our business and use them to our advantage and they can use us to theirs, but it’s, I just feel as though teamwork is better than individual work. So why? Why compete with people? I have a very good friend that’s a florist. So we’ve dragged her into our business and whenever we need gifts or hand puzzled flowers for our customers, we go to her because she’s local. She knows our business and we know her business. And it’s the same with our, our VA is there, they’re local as well. And I know them and we use them and they would recommend us whenever they hear of, you know, someone who needs an electrician in the area. And we have plumbers that we work with. And I just think it’s kind of like a big circle. We use them, they use us, you do good, it comes back to you type of thing.
Ange
It’s true. The kinder you are to others, it will always, fate will always repeat or return the favor, so to speak, right? So be kind to others and be inclusive. I think that’s what humans are generally built to be is people, people. We want to be around people. So try and be that connector. I love the motto, and we know that the power of collaborating with others and hearing other people’s ideas, that’s definitely one that we love in Lifestyle Tradie to ensure that everyone has this opportunity to talk to each other. So, Stace, we have a little segment called Rapid Fire where I’m going to ask you three questions one at a time. You have about 10 seconds to answer. Are you ready?
Stacey
Sure. Shoot.
Ange
All right, so what’s one strategy you use to start your day right?
Stacey
Making the bed.
Ange
Good.
Stacey
Doesn’t matter where I am or what I, where I am or what I’m doing, I’ll always get out of bed and make it straight away.
Ange
How does it make you feel when you do that, like you’ve set up for the day?
Stacey
It makes me feel like I’ve achieved the first thing on my list of things to do for the day. If I make my bed, I can do anything for the rest of the day.
Ange
Oh, nice. I like that. What’s something that made you smile recently?
Stacey
My son is graduating in year six.
Ange
Aww. Cute.
Stacey
Yeah, a little bit of background. Our son is autistic. He’s had a really rough time going through school. He’s grown, grown, In masses. And seeing him walk down the church aisle with his candle at the end of year six was incredible.
Ange
Love that. And last question. What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received?
Stacey
Never go to bed angry with your partner.
Ange
Oh, especially when you work with them. Absolutely.
Stacey
That’s exactly right. Yeah.
Ange
So does that mean if you have an argument, you’ve actually got to talk it out? You’ve actually got to get a result, find a resolution.
Stacey
Uh, not necessarily final resolution, but talk it out before we go to bed. We, Jack and I, hardly, hardly ever, and I know it sounds really strange, but as a couple, hardly ever argue. Like, it’s, it’s never really a thing, but when we do, it doesn’t go into the bedroom. It stays out of the bedroom and we never go to bed without, you know, at least talking to each other first.
Ange
Yeah, I love that. Amazing. Thank you so much for being on The Tradie Show today, Stacey. I’ve loved every minute of having you here. You are such a keen student and open to learn. And clearly this has paid off with amazing results that you’re achieving in your trade business as a powerhouse with your partner. So a huge thank you for you being so open to our Lifestyle Tradie community, sharing all your wins and your challenges because it really helps every business owner when others are truthful and open. We know that this industry really needs people that will share their secrets. So not a common tradie trait, but that’s where you come in. You’re super genuine, you’re real. And I really want to thank you for that.
Stacey
No worries. Thanks, Ange, and thank you so much for being a huge inspiration to me. You in particular, but you and Andy are great mentors and coaches. And, um, I really appreciate everything you have done for our business.
Ange
Thank you. I appreciate those words. We’ve worked together for quite some time, haven’t we?
Stacey
Yeah, going on seven years, I think.
Ange
Incredible. And we’ve watched these little people turn into big people.
Stacey
I know.
Ange
So, thank you so much again. It’s amazing to have you here. I’m sure plenty of lessons have been learnt from our listeners. Nothing beats hearing from real tradies talking about real results. See you all next week.
Andy
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