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Greg is a proud husband and father of two young women, all living in Victoria, Australia. He has a long history of playing local cricket (poorly) and being involved in the volunteer effort required to run several cricket clubs. He also heads up the local chapter of Tough Guy Book Club, a great global organisation that aims to get men to read more, talk more and have more friends. Formerly a mechanical engineer working in the industrial sector, he has more recently opted for a slightly slower pace of life, managing automotive and small engine workshops.
Comments
Glad it all worked out David. And as you mentioned, we all need a good dose of luck along the way.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
Your point about customer service is key - treat every customer in a manner that you would like as a customer. Unless I know their name, I always greet customers with Madam or Sir - some look a bit puzzled, but it always gets the conversation started in the right direction.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
I like the transparency that you described. I think that approach helps in many, many fields to put people at ease. It's easy to say "I'm acting in your best interest" but can be harder to actually demonstrate that fact. One particular scenario that sticks in my mind is when we would recommend lower priced tyres to a customer and they would express concern that they would be driving around with poor quality, unsafe tyres on. When I explained that we just believed that these tyres represented best value-for-money and that I had them fitted on my wife's car, it almost always turned into a sale. And often a "thank you" that we didn't try to up-sell them to a higher priced tyre.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
Pleased to hear that 40 years of work turned into a pleasant retirement for you.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
I think we all need people around us to help us along. When success does come, it feels tempting to claim lots of credit ourselves. But usually it requires a lot of different people and a healthy dose of luck.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
Agreed Norm that well run company should bring advantages to employees. We also felt the same with customers and suppliers. Often suppliers are "beaten up" over price, delivery etc. but we always believed that our relationships with suppliers were critical to our long term success.
Post: Success, from another angle
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
Anything is worth what the market will pay. Yep, it seems like a lot to me, but people choose to spend their hard earned on what they value. Each to their own.
Post: Money to burn?
Link to comment from January 25, 2026
As best I can tell, the "credit score" circus isn't a significant factor for home loans here in Australia. The focus appears to be on a good track record of saving a down payment, which would then translate into being able to regularly and comfortably make the loan repayments. The term "credit score" thankfully barely seems to rate a mention for us Aussies.
Post: The Debt Free Penalty.
Link to comment from January 24, 2026
I think the idea of funding financial planning as a gift is a wonderful idea. Nicely done.
Post: Are you and your spouse synchronized?
Link to comment from January 20, 2026
My wife Cindy and I were just reflecting recently on how we ended up in a comfortable financial position. Fortunately we both are pretty well aligned with our financial behaviours, so have had very little disagreement along the way. Over time we have both gravitated towards what works for us - Cindy looks after the day to day financial matters, and I tend to spend more time and energy on our investments, as well as our business finances. This has worked out really well for us. One thing that I appreciate is that Cindy has loosened up our spending as our financial situation has strengthened. I think old habits would have still had me being tight-fisted, but as I see Cindy spend a bit more, I recognise that she is 100% correct, and pointing us in the right direction.
Post: Are you and your spouse synchronized?
Link to comment from January 18, 2026