Meet Doc Business Dr Sam Hazledine learns tenacity from his daughter, writes business coach
Zac de Silva.
ENTREPRENEUR DR Sam Hazeldine is the founder and managing director of Australasia’s fastest-growing recruitment company, MedRecruit, which has featured in the Deloitte Fast 50 as the fastest-growing service business in the country.
The doctor, speaker and number one best-selling author was Ernst & Young’s Young Entrepreneur of the Year 2012 and the 2014 recipient of the Sir Peter Blake Leadership Award.
He will be speaking at the upcoming Nurture Change Business Retreat in Fiji in November. Sunday Business and Stuff.co.nz readers have a chance of winning a coveted place on the retreat (see below). Who is a leader who taught you something incredibly valuable and what was the lesson you learnt from them? Sir Eion Edgar has a saying that he wants to die with everyone owing him a favour! He taught me that the secret of success is to give more than you expect back in return. When you apply this rule, things just seem to work. What lesson in business do you try to pass on to others? Success lies at the intersection of mindset and action. The psychology of the business owner is the biggest chokehold on any business. Yet when people aren’t getting the results they want, they generally only consider what they need to do differently. But results come from actions, which come from behaviours, which are ultimately driven by beliefs. So I encourage people to always address their beliefs and mindset first, as that builds the foundation to take the right actions to drive the results you want. Who do you think is a great innovator (individual or company) and why? My two-year-old daughter Flossie. She will keep trying new ways to get what she wants until she gets it! Innovation is about being flexible and coming at a challenge from different angles. The most flexible will win, as Flossie demonstrates. What has been your biggest learning in business to date and why? We have good days and bad days – and we don’t know which is which at the time. Some of my darkest, toughest days in business, which I didn’t enjoy at all at the time, were the days when I dug the deepest and discovered who I was and what I was capable of. They were the days when I grew the most. It is in the crucible of battle when the warrior is created. If you were 21 years old again and could do anything you wanted career-wise, what would you be and why? I have no regrets at all. I wouldn’t do anything differently. I love being an entrepreneur and I wouldn’t change becoming an entrepreneur through being a doctor, because that is where I found my mission: to help doctors to live exceptional lives and to help medical organisations be exceptional. I believe that any person or any organisation can be exceptional, and that exceptional people change the world. I love playing my part in that. What are you most excited about in attending the Nurture Change Business Retreat in Fiji? I absolutely love sharing the lessons I’ve learnt to help people get into the sweet spot, where a focused mindset meets deliberate actions and success becomes almost inevitable. Plus I’m bringing my family – my daughters are pumped about saying ‘‘bula’’ to everyone, so I’m excited about that.