5 Business Lessons From Dion Nash- Behind The Pod

This week I had the surreal experience of listening back to an episode we recorded over two years ago.

It was with former Black Cap Dion Nash, recorded with one microphone, at his Triumph and Disaster headquarters in Ponsonby in 2022.

The surreal part is that I felt like I was listening to it for the first time. It was a gripping ep, but so much of it had faded from my memory.

And when he started describing his thought process, and fears, of going out on his own, and starting his own business, it really hit close to home.

The recording went for two hours, with the first 90 minutes focused on his upbringing, family and his professional cricket career.

But for this week's Business in Between podcast release, we focused on the home-straight, where we switch to his business journey – and it’s a compelling 30 minutes.

Dion talks about his first job out of cricket and his idea to sell bottled water, how he became marketing director for 42 below and his journey working for Bacardi, why he left and how he had the courage to start his own business, Triumph and Disaster.

I started taking notes of the best bits and by the end of the ep, nearly had an essay.

I've transcribed the best business lessons for you here.

1.Take Action

The thing that really scares the shit out of me is doing my own business and starting my own brand.

And so I thought ‘f**k, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to do it.’

I was 39, had a great job, had just agreed to a flat in London and moving my family overseas, and I just reneged on everything.

2.Break Stereotypes

I thought any street cred I ever had was about to go out the window because I used moisturiser now.

I thought, no, this is an opportunity, people are changing.

Back then, there was a term called metrosexual… I thought, oh, if I can change that, make it more natural for people to use it… It’s an opportunity.

3.Everyone’s Bluffing It

I remember sitting in a corporate office in Miami and there were all these guys in there with double MBAs, you know, and I just remember sitting there thinking “shit, just shut up.”

There was this really intimidating vice president of the whole business… He was speaking for about 45 minutes one day. And eventually I was like, ‘this dude's just totally talked around in circles and totally contradicted himself. And nobody's picked up on it.’

That gave me loads of confidence. Cause then it was like, oh, I don't need to worry anymore.

I think everything in life's just about confidence, isn't it? There's truth in that statement, ‘fake it until you make it’.

4.Respect the Form

When you're young and you slip into form… the first few times it happens, you sort of piss it up against the wall.

Whereas the older you get, the more you realise once you get into form, protect that like it's your life.

You respect every net, you just do the basics and go over those drills and try and stay in that state as long as possible because that's what you need to perform at the top level. 

5.“A Life with No Regrets is a Bullsh*t Life”

You're always represented with paths that diverge and you've got to take one.

Whether it's with, friends or girlfriends or business decisions or careers… you're always choosing and you're always cutting one path after another. 

Any person that says “I’ve got no regrets” is just bullshitting either themselves or you or both… It's about dealing with the what-ifs and having the coping strategies to go, well, I chose this path, so that’s the one I'm going to live with and commit to. 

We're really excited about the opportunities Business in Between will provide to revisit old eps, and soon we'll start creating original content for the channel to. Please make sure you give it a follow and subscribe in your podcast apps!

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