he was a year in 1990 that Alex and Gina
first came to Australia they had the
little money they spoke very little
English they didn’t understand the
Australian culture and nor did I
understand how to deal with corporate
Australia but against all odds they
built from scratch a company not now
employs over 300 people rivals household
brands like Blackmore’s and Swiss to
become the largest vertically integrated
vitamin and supplement company in
Australia my name is Michael whoo that’s
me in the little red shirt there I used
to be cute a lot has changed them long
before I became managing director of
nature’s care I had the fortunate
experience to see the entire journey
firsthand today I want to share with
everyone the inspirational story of my
parents now why is this important
because four weeks ago my first son was
to my wife watching at home this is the
applauses for you so holding Erin in my
hands for the first time I instantly
felt my life changed forever I felt so
much love for him I felt the joy I felt
gratitude but the one thing I wasn’t
ready for what’s that I also felt fear I
felt feared for the responsibility of
how I was going to raise Erin into this
fast-changing world then I thought about
my parents and thought about my
childhood and the lessons they gave me
of all the things I learned from my
parents there was always for about four
recurring themes we hear a lot about the
new business the new way of doing
business the business models the forever
changing social economy now I think the
same thing is we can be said about
raising a child there’s new ways of
raising children there’s always new
techniques but today I want to share
with you for the old ways of doing
business the ways that my parents live
by the values in which they built the
business on the values which they taught
me and my brother these are the same
values i use today running the business
it’s a values i hope one day I can still
into Erin you all know these values
they’re very simple values you may live
by these values but it’s very
unfortunate that we don’t talk about
these values anymore the first value
that I was Ben I was taught while my
parents was always to be brave to defy
conventional wisdom and believing
yourself
27 years ago my parents did the bravest
thing they could have done in their life
they moved to Australia like a lot of
migrant families before them they did it
because of me and my brother I was six
they sacrificed so much they moved away
from everything that they were familiar
with they moved away from their families
their friends and they came to a country
where they would struggle to communicate
with now strella is known for a country
of opportunities but when they came here
the face a lot of criticism there were a
Australia is Australia’s difficult place
to start a business but what they did
they started a manufacturing company
which I believe is a lot more difficult
there’s a lot of that that the labor
force is expensive there’s excessive
regulations and the government provides
little support or incentives for the
manufacturing industry everything was
stacked against them but they defied
their critics that defied those people
who doubt them and beat the odds every
time they faced the challenge every time
they saw difficulty whether it be if
from the family or from a business
perspective could be from the competitor
or regulators they stood tall they stood
firm and they always believed in
themselves yes they’ve had setbacks I
think everyone does but the dare to defy
the conventional wisdom the dead to
continue to expand the man if
facturing capabilities the capacity
while manufacturing industry was dying
now this laid this was the foundation
they built to allow the business to grow
he was their bravery that their
willingness to challenge that helped
business grow now the second value that
my parents instilled in me from the very
early age was work ethic a lot of you
have probably never heard of nature’s
care until tonight let me tell you
nature’s carrot is an overnight it’s an
overnight success story that took 27
years in the making three months ago I
had to meet a client in Korea it was a
for one hour meeting it was a very last
minute call the different the unusual
thing about this trip was I had to
travel across three countries was in
transit for 50 hours so I can make this
meeting on time my friends were puzzled
about my decision to do this they asked
me why did I do this it seemed very
natural to me at a time because that’s
what my parents used to do for all of
their customers from a very young age I
would see my mother fly country from
country to country with a suitcase she’d
fill the suitcase of products and
brochures to go to exhibitions to
exhibitions meeting customers after
customers I would see my father drive
from cine to Brisbane with a couple
boxes or products in his car so that he
can deliver these products to the
customer more amazingly he would drive
from Sydney to Brisbane and back total
of sixteen hundred kilometres all within
now I don’t know about you but when I
have to fly to Brisbane and back in one
day I already find that tiring now I
can’t imagine myself being able to drive
them back within 24 hours but a lot of
people when I told this story to a lot
of people question will say you know
that seems like a waste of opportunity
cost but to my father that was an
opportunity gained not any was he able
to save the money on freight costs he
was able to deliver the products in
person to the customers to meet them
face-to-face so in my my situation I
could have simply dialed in make a phone
call to the customer set up a video
conference and it all been done but with
that when you put in those hard yards
especially I believe dealing with
customers overseas you DEP them know
immediately how important they are to
you now this brings me to the next value
to be compassionate and responsible as
our business has grown we’re often
chased by numbers we chase with growth
with cells with market share we also had
a you know as our business grew we also
had a growth in the number of employees
as I mentioned before we now employ over
300 people and a majority of these are
production workers technology has
advanced a long way in our industry with
a lot of automation we could have laid
off a lot of employees substitute them
with the automation and increase our
bottom line increase our capacity and
efficiency but what my parents showed me
was that you have to stand in the shoes
of the people who you employ
you have to see from their perspective
all they want is a stable income a
stable job so you know in our company we
always wait we wait till there’s a need
for us the increased capacity and when
that occurs we install these new
machinery the altimeter machineries it’s
a win-win situation our employees
maintain a stable job they have good job
security while for every time we put
these machines in we increase our
capacity are we can increase our
efficiency it’s always very important to
step in other people’s shoes walking
people walking others people’s shoes has
a profound impact in many aspects of
business I believe it cut it is
especially true when you’re dealing
business across different cultures in
recent year we’ve dealt with a lot of
companies in Asia the actual fact about
fifty percent of our products ends up in
Asia unfortunately Australia is a very
risk-averse country before we do
anything is always a contract that needs
to be signed in hand over but you know
it this is a way for us to protect
ourselves when we’re working with people
overseas but put yourself on the other
side of the table if you are the one who
assembling products for the person like
for me in Australia and I hand you a
document 50-page thick legal document to
say sorry you need to sign this for us
because I need to protect myself what
would you think I think immediately
you’d start protecting yourself as well
and this is where this is where
relationships breaks down instead of
thinking how do I protect myself in
business how do I protect myself in this
deal think about learning about their
culture and how business is done over
there
honestly speaking sometimes a handshake
or bottle of multi will work wonders
beyond your belief now the final value I
want to share with all of you and this
is the one value that my parents showed
me the most throughout their entire
lives is humility and knowledge
knowledge has always been a very
important part of my upbringing I
actually believe it was because of this
that we moved into Australia it was not
about the exam marks or the test it was
about allowing me and my brother to have
all rounded education to have the
ability to learn new things to play all
the different sports we have in
Australia to have different hobbies I
remember the 1994 bushfire our house was
four houses away from the fire so we
were asked to evacuate we took the
important documents but then I saw my
father come from the back and loaded the
boot with my violin and my setup
encyclopedia now for the younger
generation out there you may not know
what encyclopedia is it is not a click
of a button to Wikipedia it is books now
the volume I think one volume would be
about this big and weighs a ton I didn’t
think much about it then I reckon I
probably complain to dad saying why
didn’t you load my nintendo system why
did you bring these books out but now
when I think about it I realized how
much they valued knowledge over other
substance other other things so
throughout my upbringing I helped a lot
in the business so we’re a manufacturing
company manufacturing
products supplements skincare products I
worked in all sides of the company I
started in warehouse I worked in a
production area I learned how to operate
the machines I worked in sales and
marketing in operation and I think I’m
probably the only one in my industry the
only managing director in my industry to
hold a forklift license but the thing is
my parents show me the importance of
being humbled to show humility they
always kept my ego in check and asked me
to never stop learning honestly speaking
this day and age especially when you’re
working it is very hard to do but a
couple weeks ago my dad again
demonstrated to me this this value to me
in the most unexpected way mr. Jack Ma
had a event down in Melbourne the launch
of Alibaba and we were invited there
were a lot of Industry CEOs and
Chairman’s who along with my father now
when mr. ma talks I can imagine all the
CEOs and all the Chairman’s any one of
such high titles to be sitting there
looking at him nodding agreeing not my
dad
he took out his phone instead of filming
he SAT along with all these CEOs and all
the Chairman’s out there and started
filming not only that afterwards he took
the video home and started watching the
video over and over again he’d literally
studied it now you don’t have to you
don’t have to agree with everything you
hear they have to agree with anything I
say but without the humidity you would
not be able to absorb this knowledge you
will never be able to recognize these
pearls of wisdom even if it was right in
front of you so finally I want to say
this my parents not only taught me this
the very remarkable thing was there
never said it to me they never say you
have to be brave work ethic show
compassion and show humility they
demonstrated to me they led by example
through everything they do babe I day
year by year they haven’t changed a bit
this are the values that they live by
and as a business leader I hope I can
instill this simple traditional values
into everything I do and every decision
I make and hopefully like I can teach my
son through my example so that one day
he will follow these values now before I
they are a little education on culture
my culture we’re not allowed to take the
kids out of the house for 30 that for
the first month this was his first date
first outing you can see he’s wearing a
tie his first outing was we took him
straight to work now thank you [Applause]