What inspires a 19-year-old first-year uni student to be brave enough to take on the
challenge of ending extreme poverty across the world?
Despite embarking on a quest for good in the social venture space, what mindset allows
you to deal with the inevitable tall poppy syndrome that comes with wanting to change
G'day, it's Luke Darson.
The idea of self-improvement and leadership, both on and off the field, has been a lifelong
With one of my oldest friends, we created a leader collective, and I've had the privilege
of working with thousands of leaders in education, sport, industry, and the arts that have helped
shift to what we see as the 21st century style of leadership, where everyone has a voice.
In this podcast, we hear stories from these iconic leaders.
At the age of 19, Daniel Flynn discovered the alarming fact that over 900 million people
around the world did not have access to safe drinking water, and yet Australians spent
on bottled water each year.
That was back in 2008.
On the back of this, Daniel founded Thank You Water, a social enterprise that empowered
Australians to fund safe water projects in developing nations through the sale of bottled
Thank You Water expanded into the Thank You Group with over 50 products, taking on the
biggest retailers in the world in food, baby care, and hygiene.
100% of the profits are directed to Daniel's vision of funding an end to extreme poverty
It's a remarkable story of leadership.
And Daniel Flynn's been good enough to join me.
Nice to speak to you, Dan.
Thanks for having me on.
At 19 years of age, Dan, I think most of us were sort of struggling to organize school
these week and sort our lives out.
You were taking on extreme poverty around the world.
It was an incredible vision at that age.
Where did that sense of purpose come from for you at such a young age?
I mean, it's a bit of a funny story because I think I was the kid at school running around
like trying to sell everything.
You know, I was like selling whatever was on trend.
I had, you know, car washing business and all these little things I think people would
sort of describe as entrepreneurial ventures, you know, that.
So I was, I don't even know why, but I was locked onto this idea of making money.
And that's, you know, that would be success.
And, you know, so come 19, I wasn't thinking a whole lot about extreme poverty, but I was
thinking a whole lot about money and, you know, and investing and in particular property
and property development.
And I was studying.
In property development specifically.
So that's kind of me.
I had a moment at 19 that was a good shake up.
And it probably leans on a few things that came through from my parents.
I had sponsored a child through World Vision, which, you know, I think, you know, it's not
a bad effort, you know, by 19 and full transparency, it wasn't all me.
I think four friends, we all chipped in.
So it was kind of a bit of a joint, but then I had this, this moment where I was watching
stories on my computer.
And those that have heard me share the story before, I see it as a bit of a Genesis moment
where I was watching extreme poverty, you know, through a screen, but it still felt
And hearing the kids were dying every day from waterborne disease, hearing the numbers
and how big they were, to me, it felt very, very wrong, maybe because I had my head in
investing and in, you know, global markets.
It's like, wow, I kind of know we are very developed.
And that for me was a real wrestle.
I was dating shortly after this, my girlfriend, Justine, and now my wife and co-founder, thank
Her story is interesting because she loved business, but she was the real deal.
She traveled to developing countries from like 12.
She saved up money from bake sales, literally went overseas to Indonesia, stayed with people
I remember hearing her story, I'm thinking I would never do that in my teenage years.
But that was her.
And so, so when we got talking about this idea of extreme poverty and extreme wealth,
kind of in the same world.
Her, and I think I Jared, you know, we'd been best mates at school, and we'd, I mean, we
just, we just couldn't unsee the gap and also the idea, the idea of what if, what if there
was a brand that kind of was a bridge between, you know, the financial world and the financial
was a bridge between, you know, our world's two extremes. And so I think we're driven by mission
and the cause and then also vision. You know, when you see a picture and you can't unsee it,
you just, you want to chase it. That was that feeling at 19. Yeah. I want to speak to you about
Justine and the fact you've got two kids and that life partnership and partnership in this social
venture as well. I'm always fascinated by the dynamics of how that works, but you mentioned
numbers and you can see that your brain works in numbers and there's a brilliant simplicity in the
way you explain what is a global problem that no one's been able to solve. And your idea,
as you said, of combining, you know, extreme poverty, 736 million people around the world
are your numbers, you know, with extreme consumerism. And I know it's $63 trillion a
year spent in consumer products. You know, you read the thankyou.co website, the simplicity in
that. But in reality, when you go to tackle this, you're now going to take on the
biggest companies, the biggest retailers in the world. When you reflect back, that's the way the
complexity kicks in. When you reflect back on 2008, what do you think? Well, I loved how
young and naive we were to how the system in the world really works, you know, and we've fought to
keep that, I suppose you could call it the child, childlike thinking. And actually having a kid
has reminded me, Jed, who's five, the other day was like, dad, I think thankyou needs to be more
For the children. He's like, we wash our hands and stuff in our bodies. But I think you need
thankyou toys. Because, you know, thankyou has got to be fun. And I'm just like, I love it, man.
Like, that is, that's the heartbeat of this mission. You said it, it's simple. It's one
world, two extremes. And imagine together, if we could combine them and have this consumerism,
which is always going to exist, but if that could serve the end of this injustice, and
I mean, in 2008, we just
believed we could. And we have since learned, and really, it's been a 14-year learning curve
of the complexities of business, the absolute challenge of taking on really, really, really big
and, you know, good businesses. And it turns out that, yes, this idea is simple. And pretty much
most people you meet think it should exist. But there's a huge gap between that and actually
cutting into the real world and building a sustainable business that you can give profit away.
You are the CEO and the co-founder, as you mentioned, with your childhood friends and now
wife and mother of the two children, the social venture, which is taking on the biggest possible
vision. Have you been able to reflect on the type of leader that you are and what your strengths are?
Yeah, I mean, I definitely have had time to reflect. You know, we're not one year in.
We're sort of, we've gone on a lot of different life cycles that businesses go on from the
scrappy startup, kind of mature.
into you know a more established business with scale and then we definitely evolved into the
too many systems too risk adverse the kind of stuff you read about that can kind of end
companies when when they become kind of stale we got there as well and then we got back
to kind of the startup years which is where we find ourselves now and it's a real sweet spot
but i look at myself as a leader on that journey and yeah i mean i'd love to say it was all good
but it like i see a story of a pretty insecure you know individual trying to figure out not just
a big bold vision but myself you know and and that has been a big journey um you know and i think
if i look back and and say what what marked some of the early years of me as a leader yes i was
absolutely bold ambitious but i mean i also was probably trying to please everyone
in leadership doesn't really work um i mean you can be popular for a bit but in terms of getting
progress it's it's super challenging and so i think the leader i've evolved into now is very
different to the one you would have met five years ago or 10 years ago um and and now you know i i've
still got some some way to go but for me um i see my role as not just casting bold vision of hey
here's where i think we could go um but helping people to be able to do what they want to do
people see how we could get there so the actual plan but then how they could help us get there too
um and and showing people the part they play and and i know my role in that is
is you know serves a funny word not thrown around probably enough but it becomes like how do i you
know how do i help serve a team and not just have a team serve a leader um to to kind of use it in
in that flip and um i've learned a lot about this one word
humility and and the market keeps you humble and you can have these sort of you know high moments
and awards on stages and we've had a lot of different things happen in a lot of amazing
ways but i've i think i've learned that this is a long game and so that that long road of humility
being willing to learn listen um you know and and work really hard in that process i think these
things kind of mark me now and in the early days it may have looked a bit different
language you speak is is the language we're really passionate about that dan a lot of the
leaders are exactly as you said self-reflective constantly wanting to learn you know enjoy the
fact that life is this you know improvement journey from 19 to now and you would expect
to have evolved along the way but humility comes up in in all the conversations of this community
of leaders that really have a sense of purpose like you do and so i'm not surprised that you
what you're doing is is ultimate humility we haven't even spoken about the incredible
achievements yet and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and and
and they are many i mean we could spend five hours talking about the disruption i want to ask you that
i might jump into that uh now i mean what you did if you could retell that story of uh of really
getting your product into the big retailers coles and woolworth 70 market share you know you were
told as you have been many times along your journey and this is not going to happen it won't
work you're not going to be able to do it but can you share that story and and and where the idea
came from because it's it's genius yeah look and i think this story um you know which which
we call the coles and woolworths campaign this kicked in kind of year five um and so you got
to understand the background to this was a lot of no's and a lot of setbacks and we tried to solve
them right now our biggest challenge if i could sum it up it was getting this idea that again
most people would say that's cool product that exists all for extreme poverty as long as the
product's good i'd buy it getting that into the real world and one of the things about getting
into the real world is getting mainstream retailers on board and that's where we found
our problem for five years we had a series of no's but also other people take probably the
idea we shared and do it themselves and a whole bunch of different scenarios and we got to this
point where we launched a video and it was a pretty bold call but we said to our community
of supporters which at the time was i think like 20 000 people on facebook so not small
but after five years it didn't feel as big as maybe it we'd hoped it would be
said hey everybody two weeks from today we're presenting thank you water and new products we've
developed a personal care range a hand wash and body wash and a food range and we're presenting
it to coles and woolworths and for five years they have said no but uh in two weeks time we're
wanting you to come with us to the meeting and tell them that if they stocked it you'd buy it
and so we asked people to upload a video or a post uh directly onto the coles and woolies facebook
page and it was controversial but it meant it worked i mean people were like oh my god
people recorded videos i think in the first 10 minutes or something we just saw hundreds and
hundreds of posts on their page uh koshi from sunrise was a legend they'd covered a uh thank
you before but he kind of put his support behind it and then more people put their support behind
it and we ended up having you know people singing dancing and rapping and and then two helicopter
pilots which is one of our favorite parts flew helicopters above the coles and woolworths head
office um and then we ended up having you know people singing dancing and rapping and and then
so they carried these 30 000 square foot signs dear coles dear bullies thank you for changing
the world in brackets if you say yes because we hadn't met them yet um for this sort of big
official meeting and so these literally circled with the head office um and yeah i mean the
message got through loud and clear and when we walked into those meetings they were a little
bit tense we had definitely stepped outside of convention and people made that clear you know
it was said excuse me that we had made some people's jobs quite difficult um but you know
on a personal note uh one particular person summed it up well for me he said well done like yeah it's
gonna make our lives hard um and and and coles agreed to arrange the products five hours after
the meeting in woolworths for three hours later but he said hey on a personal note i i just i
think you did what you needed to do to stand out and we'd gone for five years and we had
is telling people, this is the vision, this is the mission, it's going to change the world, and we
really believe people will back it. We added the people backing it in, literally, thanks to the
internet, social media, and it led to, well, one of the fastest product launches in this country,
and today, you know, a market-leading brand and millions of dollars to impact, so.
Amazing story, an amazing story of leadership, the power of the people. I didn't realize,
I would have estimated your community was maybe 10 times that of a 20,000 on Facebook. Given the
attention it got, it felt like you had a much, much bigger following the noise that you made.
There's so many parts of that I love, but, you know, the big multinationals have got so many
ways to say, no, this is a commercial decision, shelf space not available, you know, multinational
companies pay for this, so we can't give that. I mean, there's so many ways that they can do that,
and they're reasonable, you know, they exist for shareholders, I mean, effectively.
You've shown a way that says, well, actually, it can happen. It is possible. Maybe you made a few
people's jobs a little bit harder, but in the end, you've opened up this path, and I'm going to jump
ahead because, you know, reading the thank you story in preparation for this today, it looks
like you're going to try and take on even bigger fish than that, and are we able to jump to there?
I mean, Procter & Gamble and Unilever are, the scale of them is almost impossible to understand
just how big and how far their reach is, and I mean, is that,
the international model is to try and see if you can get access to them, and obviously,
we might talk about the licensing story that's coming up, but what's the plan? Is it replicating
what you did and trying to do that globally? For those that have followed along, there are
definitely similarities from some of the past things we've done, but I think we've gone on a
journey from that Coles & Willis campaign in 2013 to literally, well, 2020 is when we launched this
call out to P&G and Unilever, and I'll give some context to it, but I think it's a really, really
long journey, and I think it's a really, really long journey, and I think it's a really, really
But in that journey, we went of seven years of listening and learning, and that is sort of
often not seen when you get the highlights, reels of a company, but we went on this really hard
journey, and we got into the big business, and we did, we had the number one hand wash for five
years. We then launched into the baby category. We had 10% market share in the first three months.
That was our best launch. It was industry, it was incredible, but it also, we went from off the radar
to 100% on the radar of, you know, we're going to do this, we're going to do this, we're going to do this,
of big business, and, you know, it is hard for, I think, consumers to understand the scale of
some of these multinationals. They do, you know, run the world is a, it's a fair call. I mean,
they have, you know, Unilever's got 400 brands under their portfolio, and the average person
may not have heard of Unilever, but they may know of Dove, and Streets Ice Cream, and a whole bunch
of brands within their portfolio. So, we competed against a lot of big companies, and it is
But they have a job to do, and it is to, you know, and they do that well. After seven years of the
battle, we did something that I think every leader has to do. In fact, Simon Sinek talks about this
idea of an existential shift. He says you can, and I'm paraphrasing, Simon Sinek would say this way
better, but he says something along the lines of, you can take a 180 degree turn as a leader,
as an organization, if it helps you.
And we sat back, and we said, hang on a second. We're competing against, you know, 10, 11, 12 of
the biggest companies in the world, and a whole bunch of other medium-sized local players. We have
absolute global ambition for thank you. But now most of these companies are talking about purpose.
They're talking about how they're going to change the world, and they are changing the world.
And hats off to them. We'd watched them for over a decade and thought,
that is some cool stuff they are doing. So, that led us to this hypothesis of what if instead of
competing against them as we take thank you to the world, what if we invite one of them to make and
distribute our hand wash products? What if we invite another to make and distribute the food?
And, you know, we started to play that out, and we thought, well, they've already got the factories
and the supply chains. They're trying to replicate essentially purpose, and what we do, we're trying
to replicate them, you know, global capability. Hey, let's work together. Now, the key ingredient
in our view would be you just couldn't own thank you.
It can be a commercial relationship, and yes, you can make money in the process because we pay
factories now, we pay trucks, we pay warehousing. So, there's money to be made, but it's not an
ownership story. We knew that would be the sticking point, but in 2020, we launched No Small Plan,
and it was bold. It was a video. It got a couple of million views. I think, in fact, the video
helped us get 840 media features in 38 countries, which was pretty cool for us.
You know, since we launched it in lockdown,
in a garage in Melbourne. So, we were pretty stoked about that, but the campaign was a simple
call out to Unilever and Procter & Gamble. They are the two biggest. In the video, we also invite
nine others, and we don't name them, but essentially, we invited the biggest companies
in the world, and we said, this is an invitation to change the world together. And a critic would
say, hang on, you're David taking on Goliath. Why are you joining Goliath? And the way we went on,
this seven-year journey was, these big companies aren't Goliath. What you talked about at the start,
Luke, extreme poverty and extreme consumerism, that's Goliath. Maybe we need some big partners
to help us become a bigger David, right? Take on the real. And so, as leaders, I suppose we
humbly went, what if we can't do it all ourselves? And what if we found others who were aligned on
that mission? And together, we made an even bigger impact. This is not about a cool little social
brand. This is not about founder. This is not about founder. This is not about founder. This is not about
getting credit. This is about a mission. And so, to us, this became a great way forward.
And in 2020, we invited them boldly. They got some one-and-a-half-meter wooden crates delivered to
their head office in these 26-foot glass trucks. And so, one went to London, one went to Cincinnati.
We were very bold. And in that was an agreement that some of the, I don't know, best minds in
partnerships around the world, I think, helped form. And it's an agreement that isn't about
ownership. It borrows on this phrase,
licensing, which Disney and Virgin and a heap of really successful brands use.
And so, we invited them to join us. Now, I'll tell you, that was 18 months ago. It has been
a roller coaster of a ride, as we've met with not just two, but some of the nine others and
other companies came forward saying, hey, what about us? And so, we've literally for 18 months
been meeting with companies all around the world, thankfully via Zoom, but trying to find who's the
And whilst we have no public announcements, it's been very clear, there is definitely a group that
would fit in the bucket of, I think, yesterday's businesses, which is, we can't change what we do
at all, because the boxes must be ticked. And then there's others going, the way the world is
doesn't work. And if we reshape that, there's a win-win for shareholders, sure, but for humanity,
and that's the bit we're interested in.
So, as you can imagine, the first group, we may have not gelled with the second group we have,
and there's many companies in that group, and we're working through those details.
But look, we haven't changed our ambition. It's global product, and it's globally available. We're
just thinking, what's the fastest way to impact and take the 17 million raised into hundreds of
millions raised very soon. So, that's the current mission we're on, and it's a work in progress.
It's not done yet.
And I love the thinking behind it, Dan. It's incredible. And I like to think that maybe,
you mentioned now companies are really trying to find a sense of purpose. Manufacturing on purpose
is potentially the new currency now for businesses. And I think you had a huge impact on that. And I
think, thank you, and your story maybe embarrassed some companies into it. And I realized that you're
100% for profit with a social venture and giving back, and that they worked out perhaps there was
commercial opportunity. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing.
And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing.
And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing. And I think that's a great thing.
And success in that. So, I totally love where you're going in trying to extend that reach. And it
makes sense to find the synergy to do good, which you've done from the age of 19 and all the way
through. So, jumping back around again, Dan, it started, as you said, as a vision as a 19-year-old,
this vision to try and end extreme poverty. You started it with your then-girlfriend,
and you have two kids. Tell me about the dynamics and the rollercoaster of taking on something as
big as this, achieving what you've achieved, but finding the balance in family life as well.
Have you managed that? Yeah. Look, it's been a wrestling journey. I think in many ways,
it's been incredibly powerful because Jussie and I were dating. That was pretty high risk
in startup days, but now married. But we're aligned in the vision of where we see this going.
And so, I think on those longer days, on those harder seasons that we've walked through,
we both really knew why. And so, there's that incredible alignment and passion, and it's shared.
It's a real shared vision. And we still have that to this day. The challenge, though, is that
when you're really passionate about something, it can kind of eat into everything. I mean,
you would have found this with sport. I mean, I think every leader struggles with it.
Like, yes, the work required is there. There's no two ways about it. And that can eat in if
you're not careful. But the passion, it sometimes pushes you a bit further. And you end up saying
yes to a whole bunch of stuff that's kind of on your mission, but you're not realizing you're
saying no to family time or no to a date night. And I'd never call Justine and say,
hey, babe, I just want to call you to say no. No, we're not.
I'm not going to date next week. I'm not going to do that. That's a weird phone call.
But that's actually what I was doing by committing to a talk or this or this trip or this really
important must-be-in-person thing. And so, we started to learn and thankfully had some really
great mentors and people around us. One mentor summed it up beautifully when he said, when you
say yes to something, you are saying no to something else. And it's a real critical
look at your yeses and your nos. And so, I had to go from the yes guy
to basically the no guy. And I would say we've carried that forward. So, in terms of boundaries,
we've just built in rhythms. And I'm not a super rhythm or planned guy. I'm more spontaneous.
Justine is too, but she's become, since having kids, a lot more planned. But I've actually
seen the benefit of really good planning. Like there is one day a week, Sunday, sometimes a
Saturday, but one day every week where there is no work.
No emails, no calls, no event could get on that day. We don't even say the T word,
thank you, in a work context. We'd say it to be polite. But it's like we really try and have a
24-hour period to reset the mind. We have other practices that we've built in the moment. This
has been helpful for us, but we have a morning each. So, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, she's Tuesday,
Thursday, Saturday. This is her idea. It's brilliant. But that's our own
morning. We have a morning each. So, Monday, Wednesday, Friday, she's Tuesday, Thursday,
and we don't have to look after the kids. So, the other one will look after the kids. And so,
you wake up, you might get up early and you know, hey, between now and like eight o'clock,
I've got time, clear my head, read, exercise or whatever, catch up with someone.
And these little rhythms, date nights locked in, these things seem trivial, but
they're in the diary and they make a massive difference.
Yeah. It's system-based, isn't it? It's fascinating to hear you talk along those lines,
and systems have given you incredible success in the social venture space, and you've done
amazing things on that. But a lot of people don't apply that same thinking to their home life,
and it diminishes, I think, your opportunity for happiness. You mentioned Simon Sinek before,
read a lot of his stuff around just what are the things you do day-to-day that allow you to be
happier and improve that journey. I mean, you mentioned the yes-go to the no-go. I mean,
some of the things that you've said yes to are incredible. When you're in a relationship,
when the former President Obama rings and says, I'd like to interview you, Dan, that's a yes.
Keynote speech in front of 30,000 people in jail. You've done some amazing things. Has there been
one moment, and maybe I just summed two of them up, where you've gone, wow, this is big?
Yeah, there's, I mean, there were big ones. That President Obama thing was at a whole
another level. I think the funny thing is we didn't know about it. So all we knew,
the Obama Foundation were hosting their kind of post-presidency. It was like a launch of their
foundation or a relaunch. And we had this invitation for me to go and sit in the audience.
And that's a huge honor, but it was very like, oh, five days plus travel, you know, and from the
whole yes-no thing, like it was a big call. The business needed, I needed to be here, family.
But there was this part in Bojassi and I where we felt that peaceful, like, just do it. Like,
you don't know what, who knows? Who knows?
Who you'll meet. You know, everyone's like, you should get a selfie. When do you get there
with the president? I'm like, yeah, I'm sure everyone's got that idea. And so we get to this
event and I had, you know, I'm queuing up for registration. These two girls came up who were
organized and they said, Daniel, are you Daniel? Yeah, yeah. So she didn't get back to her email.
And overnight they'd written an email, I was jet lagged, saying President Obama has asked if he
could interview you on the live stream. And so in that moment, in that queue, I was like,
And then I found out stuff later, like apparently this summit, 20,000 young people had applied to go,
500 were selected. We'd never applied. So it was sort of, I think we were the token Aussies,
but it was a huge honor to be there. And then hearing all of this and then that interview was
like made a little more stressful by the secret service locking the room down. And it was like
a movie. And I was, it was one of those moments of, you know, like I would have been fine with
a selfie, but he's asking Daniel, you know, this is amazing. When's thank you coming to like the
world? Like this should be everywhere. I'm thinking, yeah, it should like, this is, you know,
and so that was a moment of, oh, okay. This, this is, well, we'd never planned for that or thought
this, yeah, success would be a president. It's more like in our heart, we'd hoped that everyone
would get on board with this idea. And so that was a great glimmer. And so that was cool.
I think there are many moments though, that are just pinch, pinch me moments. And so yes,
there's that, but I remember doing a school's tour in New Zealand and there was like 10,000
young people, but through kind of different cities and hearing some of their stories at the events.
And then later from like what they went on to do or want to do, because they heard some stuff we
thought about it. It's like, whoa, okay. These things we didn't plan for. We thought we're
going to help sell product, make the profit and make an impact.
And you hear about these other things kind of flow on. And yeah, man, I do think there's five
hours in it of highlights, but then equally there's five hours of moments that are just
pretty rough too. And I think every leader resonates with that, that reality.
And Daniel, I might, I might touch on that because that's the reality of life, isn't it? You know,
the extraordinary moments and, you know, sitting where you've said the impact you've had, but
there's an old saying, no good deed goes unpunished. You would think, you know, when you set your mind
clearly, you've got a commercial bent. You could have gone into any part of finance, I assume,
and made whatever you needed to make in that space and pursue that. You've decided to go
down the social venture path, but then, you know, when you do research and people
always want to attack. And I wonder whether some of that's come from taking on the big guys. They
play for keeps and people don't understand social ventures have admin costs and wages costs and
travel costs and flight costs. And so how has that been dealing with critics?
Who've come after you? And have you got advice for other people who've started a social venture or
want to do something in that space? Yeah. You know, you're going to have to
cut me on time on this because I could end up talking about this forever. But just, just,
you know, just give me the signal to stop talking. But I think, I think this is, this is the,
it is the hard reality. If you, if you claim to do good in any form, I think as a society,
there is a really heavy natural skepticism.
And it has come actually because a lot of people that claim to do good did bad, you know,
and that sucks. Now the, that's probably fueled a lot more by our kind of media addiction around
controversy. I remember in PR training once I've done it once, but they, they were like, okay,
so you've got to understand with media controversy sells. So it's always about looking for the
controversy and finding that controversial angle. You know, when it happens and there was a couple
of articles that probably two that have popped up over 14 years that were really kind of,
that hit piece feeling. And it's so hard. Cause I'm like, oh man, like you had access to four
years data. You picked the two worst, which we publicly told everyone. These were, they were
our hardest years. We're getting hit on every front by, from retail to competition. They are
our hardest years. Call it the dark, the dark years. And then the media kind of like, and look
how, look at, thank you. It's like kick a dog while it's down. It just, it's like, okay guys.
But then also they could have zoomed out to other data.
They had, and I may have emailed the reporter that wrote that article because we had a pretty
good last couple of years. And, and so we ended up actually financial review put us in the number
29 in terms of giving for all companies within Australia. So they kind of rate rated all the
givings and everyone above us is sort of these billion dollar enterprises and little old. Thank
you. I mean, as a group of people, we actually were on the list. And so I said that to him,
I was like, Hey, maybe we could just, you know,
like tell a different story. And obviously that email didn't get any response, but, and like,
that's not that person's fault. I think that you'll get critique. My dad said this thing that has just
stuck with me forever. And, and he said that a person of integrity expects to be believed.
And when they're not, they let time prove them right. And I love that because a lot of people
have said a lot of things about me, Justine, thank you. And I did used to get caught up on that,
you know, and now it's like,
we've got a secret weapon. It's called time. Like we'll still be here. Like write your piece,
do your best. We're not like, we'll still be here. And, and, you know, I mean, we worked really hard
back of house to make sure that key risks, you know, things that shouldn't happen, don't happen.
So we, we, we put a lot of work into that. I don't think we'd ever claim to be perfect,
but we certainly are well on the side of what is integrity as a business and a leader. And,
and so I, I sleep very well at night. Now that's also because I've gone, people will just keep
hitting us and then time will prove us right. And I think our world's probably due for a bit
of a shake up on this whole cancel culture, whole phenomenon that's happening. Cause it's stopping,
I think leaders from stepping out. I don't know. No one wants to get canceled, say the wrong thing,
launch the wrong thing, have the wrong idea. And my encouragement, and I'll stop here,
but my encouragement to myself actually, in all of us is like,
the world needs change and there's some pretty big challenges it faces and we need people to
just get out, you know, and, and, and help make that change. Even if you're gonna get
shot a couple of times, you know, I, I, I just think we got a, what choice do we have? You know?
It's a great, uh, it's a great answer, uh, Dan, and, and I, and I'm not surprised. I love the
advice from your dad, you know, person of integrity expects to believe, be believed. And if not time
will, will, will prove you're right. It's a fantastic way to think about just continuing to
In my mind, as you're talking, I'm thinking of, and, uh, without, uh, sounding like a name dropping
here, the Shane Warne foundation existed in Melbourne. If you've ever come, Shane is one
of the most generous, uh, interesting, uh, collaborative people you'll ever meet and
raised hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars in a Shane Warne way. It was a lunch
we'd go on, an invite would come out and connect people. And a lot of money went to a lot of good
causes. And then the same sort of pieces came, uh, that, that, that I read about,
thank you. And, and so someone who's travels and has a life, unfortunately, you know, that goes.
And so, you know, the last gift I think Shane Warne gave was, you know, close to half a million
dollars to a brilliant young story. I believe a young boy called Will Murray here, who's ended
up in an amazing contribution to someone's life. And if you went back and saw all the contributions
now, you know, the mainstream media can end that pretty quickly. And I think, you know, that is,
um, that is a sad tale in lots of ways. So it, it,
it's a great conversation to have with someone like you to understand it. And just, you know,
I love the way you think about it. Time will be here. We'll continue to do good. Our values and
our integrity are strong and that's, that's all we can do, I suppose. Is that, is that how you
think about it? Yeah. Look, I mean, we, we, we, yes. And also we are thinking, okay,
is the house in order? What base isn't covered? You know, like, and that's, that's just a good
map. That is good management. But I think there is a massive,
massive problem with the whole nonprofit charity sector. Um, I mean, you know, there are many
problems with every sector, but we as humans judge for-profit and a completely different set of rules
to nonprofit. So a for-profit going through the same challenges that shame worn foundation went
through, right. Actually can easily weather that because there may be some mismanagement. There's
also some reality of like, Hey, revenue dropped and expenses couldn't drop that quick. Right.
Right. And without knowing,
all of the shame worn intricacies, I'm not able to fully, fully, fully comment on it,
but I would say this, the, the different set of rules is diabolical for those that need help
because we're willing to back, you know, as a society, the Facebooks and the Amazons of the
world and say, go, go, go, you good thing. Um, but, but actually, you know, and we, I mean,
I mean, Jeff Bezos was amazing. He came out and said, Oh, look, iPhone fail.
They tried a phone. It failed. I think he lost a hundred million. Someone listening may know the
real number. Maybe it was a couple of hundred million or 50 million. They lost a lot of money,
but they tried something new as innovation. If you were the CEO of name, any, you know,
charity or nonprofit and said, Hey, so we tried a thing. Um, it was really innovative.
We lost like 50 million, but you know, we're going to learn from it and we're going to go again.
Everyone would say the end, the end, like that is it.
We like, if we crush innovation, innovation means trial, failure, learn, trial, failure,
learn. So, Hey, thank you. If anyone's listening, we're going to keep trying, failing, learning,
and some things will work and that'll get celebrated. Some won't, you can critique it,
but we're going to keep doing that. And I'm so, I think there's a job for us to sort of fight the
norms that have ended many good foundations and good people's work. And it probably shouldn't have.
Yeah. And I read, you know, what you did with the food business, you sold 750,000 boxes of food.
Effort, you know, it reached and contributed positively to so many people, but you've worked
out, you can do more from what I'm reading and have greater impact. So you're shutting down,
you know, what on the surface looks like a great opportunity, but I appreciate the lens that you're,
uh, you're attacking things through. And look, I don't know the intricacy of the
Shane Warne Foundation either. I just look at it from a, from someone who lives in the city
of Melbourne, understood that there was a lot of good that came out of that space and felt like we,
we should all be behind supporting initiatives like you're doing. We, we thank you.
And, uh, we'll get to that in a minute. Thank you.com. You need to check out Dan's website.
It's a really brilliant summation of, uh, the power of the work that, uh, that Dan Daniel's
doing now. I want to ask you, um, a set of leadership questions. We're, we're, we're
interested in different leaders in different spaces. You know, we, we, uh, from sport and
industry and the arts and your work you're doing in the, in the not-for-profit sector.
And we're seeing all these different dimensions of leadership, Daniel, where you can expand on
as much as you like, or see how they relate to you. But we see all leaders firstly,
think about self-leadership. And, and when I ask you about self-leadership, what does that mean to
you? I mean, that to me means it is, it is where the game is won and lost. And I didn't know that
at the start. And I think I liked the idea that there wasn't a huge link between the internal
battle or the internal challenges I face. And then the organization I get to lead and it turns
out they're, they're intrinsically linked. And so if I'm, yeah, and that, that's the hard reality.
But I think as, as a leader, that's the first job it's leading yourself is taking the time to
reflect. And that's not like a 10 minute job that takes time. Um, and, and you probably need help
coaches, mentors, advisors. And I had them all. In fact, a couple of years ago, I, I got a
2018, I think I, I, I booked a session with a psychologist and I promised you I was going to
cancel. And then I, I like, I, I hid myself on the way in and I'll in my head, I'm like,
I'm doing this once. Cause people are like, you should see, you carry a lot of pressure.
And I'm like, I'm going to do one. And in this session, I reckon he figured out I was only going
to do one because he said, Daniel, you say that you have this fear of failure, but I don't think
you do. And he said, I actually think you have a fear of rejection. And as he said, I started
crying. I couldn't stop it. I don't know where it came from, but he, and then we ended up unpacking
this like, Oh, what fear of rejection? Yeah. It turns out that was a thing in me and it went back
all my life. And,
and that inward journey helped me to the point that man, I kept those sessions going and now
I'm not like hiding my way in. I'm not trying to tell everyone, like, talk to someone. Do you
know what I mean? Like, like, like you crazy if you don't have a psychologist, like it's, it's,
it is something shifted in me. Cause I've kind of detached from however I was thinking,
but that's actually helped me lead a lot more transparently and authentically.
So I think that's the job for every leader. Yeah. And it's a, it's another powerful thing
I, I, I tell the story, you know, as a, as a full-time Australian rules football player,
there was, there was access back in the early nineties to psychologists, but you would be
reluctant if someone saw you walk into the office because they would think, God, he's,
you know, he's going to break up with his wife or his girlfriend or not what you're doing and
saying, which is such a healthy thing. Like I've got this great life or I've got some challenges.
How do I improve? And the positive psychology movement is, is such a power. I've heard you
mention mentors a couple of times, just, uh, the digressing,
a moment. How important is mentors? But can you, can you share with us a mentor that's had
an impact on you? Yeah, look, I, there are many, um, you know, I just thought once around like
mentoring, it's kind of like this time travel thing where you get to sit with someone and in
a moment they can drop a sentence or a story or a piece of advice that took them decades to learn.
And so I think that's, it's like the closest thing we have to time travel. And so you,
should get on it as much as you can. And there have been many different mentors and, and, you
know, people that have provided advice over the years. And I'm so grateful for it. When I was
younger, I did some work experience with, um, uh, a guy named George. He was the CEO of Medibank
and he was so kind to let me follow him around in it. I give my credit to my dad on this because
my dad is another mentor for me. And I've had a, you know, been lucky to have a really good
relationship with my father. And, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and,
but dad, he wasn't like a connected guy. He just was a go get them kind of dad. And at a breakfast,
he walked straight up to the speaker, which was this guy, George, and said, I think my son might
be like you one day. Can he do work experience with you? And he kind of put him on the spot.
And this guy, George was the nicest guy, George Saviti is very kind. And so he kind of was like,
ah, we'll consider it. And a long story short, it happened. And I was like, man,
dad, you have got guts. And, you know, but there's been many different voices,
over the journey, um, some for a season, some for longer. Um, I think we personally have had
to detach from, it's a very, very formal process. And for me, it's become more informal, but, um,
I try and have regular touch points with people who know a lot more than me. And that's really
helpful. We see leaders conscious now around how they positively impact others in their
environment. I mean, thank you is all about positive impact, but do you,
consciously think about your impact day to day on those that are around you?
Yeah, definitely. I think, I think the state of an organization on the inside,
it's going to come out and so it should. Right. And, and, and so if you've got good values inside
and good culture inside, that's going to come out into all of the things you do. Um, but if you
don't, and so if you're projecting, and then this is often probably where some things get critiqued,
Rightfully as they project a very positive image on the outside, but there's massive dysfunction
on the inside. And it's that dysfunction that everyone eventually says, well, that doesn't
add up. How is, how can you be double minded or double life or like what? So, so I think it comes
back to that, like our internal culture and our internal, you know, I suppose the flow and effect
of me as a, as a leader is huge. And I've probably seen the years when, in the times when I was not,
I was not really focused on that. I was just focused on results and sales and outcomes and
impact with, with sort of missing the, the internal impact. But I think it's a really
cool question and it's a very important focus for any leader of people.
Yeah. And you can imagine, you know, wanting to impact the world to do that with your team
first and foremost is, uh, is important. It sounds like you've got a great handle on that. And as you
said, eventually, you know, that becomes who you are anyway. So whether you like it or not, that,
that story is, is one that's going to be a big part of your life.
That's going to be told. Um, we see leaders really, um, identify how they go about creating
and sharing their vision. I mean, your vision to end extreme poverty in the world is, is
extraordinary. I mean, how have you thought about it? Cause it's, it's, it's such a bold thing. I
mean, how do you share it and create it with a team? I mean, what, what, what's the process?
Look, we, I mean, we have a day coming up, um, in Melbourne where all our team gather for the day.
Um, and we're just going to, we'll do content, which is really vision,
lasting vision and the plan. And then we'll hang out for a couple of hours, which I think
we've learned is the secret sauce to great vision and great organizations. It's the actual fun
slash personal building of those relationships. You know, and I, I used to be like all about the
vision and the plan and then like, yeah, catch up afterwards if you want to go out for drinks
or something. And now it's sort of, we've, we've inverted that. But, um, look, I think it's
important to have a bold vision. And I think people are compelled to make that decision.
Move to bold vision, as long as they can see a plan behind that, that is a step or a couple of
steps to that vision. And, and so I would say publicly helping end extreme poverty. And we're
only one of many organizations on that mission. It's very lofty, very lofty, but over time people
like, okay, no, no. Well, I suppose what you're doing here in Australia, more categories. Yeah.
And then more countries, maybe, maybe you could make a dent, but I can tell you on the inside,
there's a bunch of us, myself included.
That are fully convinced this is going to work. And it's only because we're, we're working on it
and we're building plans and we're seeing how it can all come together. And so I think that's
the important thing is, yeah, you can want to do something, change something, but if you don't have
a really good plan, I don't think people can really buy into that. I know I couldn't buy into
that. So, um, you know, that's, that's a bit of the approach. So literally before this call,
I was kind of scrambling to work on the detail of some of the plan.
I'm a bit more big picture, but not everyone is. And so really trying to fill in the gaps of the
detail behind the steps to build the big plan, I think is really important.
And made some huge dents. I mean, firstly, $17 million is an extraordinary contribution from,
from, from one foundation alone, but, uh, the impact on really leveraging off the, the,
the big players in the industry and making them sit up and think, and, and, and perhaps even
already their behavior changing, uh, is an amazing story that hasn't been told as, as,
as widely. We see great leaders in this current setting. Uh, Daniel is being really curious and
curiosity drives their approach to learning and development. Does that, does that resonate with
you? Yeah, it really does. One of the values that we have had a thank you from the start
is a pretty old school word. It's learning. And we've kept it there to kind of jar people a little
bit like learning, like this is a startup. I can't, you come up with a cooler name or like what,
but learning for us, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
it is, it is the secret. So it is about staying curious. And we started, thank you, not even
joking, just literally Googling how to start a water company. And we Googled everything else.
And today, I mean, I had to Google the spelling and this is only because my grammar is a bit
average, but of licensing, like we got into licensing and we're dealing with these people
in New York and the global licensing business. And then people are like, Daniel, you keep
spelling licensing wrong. I'm like, no way. Do I?
Turns out there's like a, of course there's a US and there's a UK version and, you know, and,
and so I've, I, but like random example, but we, my point is we keep Google, we keep learning,
we keep reading, we keep listening. And, and that is, I think it's a posture. I think if you turn up
into a room, even if there's 30,000 people in the room and you're lucky enough to get a segment to
speak to them, if you're not in that room to listen and learn and wonder and wonder what you could
pick up, you're missing out. And so I think it's a posture. I think if you turn up into a room,
you're missing, you're missing and you probably won't grow. And so that, that's been our approach
in, and, you know, another saying I heard once is the smartest person in the room is they that know,
they know the least. And I don't think that's meant to be like a self-deprecating thing. I think it's
meant to be wherever you turn up, no matter your level of whatever you think you've achieved,
you can learn from anyone. And so I, I resonate with, with what you put forward.
Yeah. Communicating with clarity is a, is a key dimension of, of leadership that,
that we see regularly. And you're, you're an incredible communicator and incredible
speaker and you get your community to, to really act, you know, when, when you do communicate,
I mean, what, what's been the secret for you with, with your communication?
Yeah, we, we stumbled into it by, by, you know, I love telling the story, but I can tell you my
mom and dad growing up are like, Hey Daniel. Okay. So you don't need to find a quicker way to tell
that story. Right. And so that was,
I grew up in that, like, you need to figure out how to say it quicker. And so I think my whole
life I've gone from, I love to just share what's happening in the story. And Jed, he's a splitting
image of Jesse and I, like he can, you ask him what happened, he just goes, but like, so, but
clarity matters and, and, and it is a very noisy world and cut through is hard. So it has become a
thing that I've had to refine over time more and more and more. And, and someone gave me a couple
of clues and maybe these are secret.
It's for people, but they said, and I found this helpful. When you tell a story,
you must always tell it as if it's the first time you told it. And I do that. And it's, I just do.
I, I, and it's been, it's, it brought the fun back into telling the story about Coles and Woolworths
again. He brought the fun back in because I'm like, yeah, this, they don't know. I know. And
I can help, you know, and then the other thing on clarity, I think that's clay. Oh, I'm already
talking too long in this answer, but I sat down once.
I've had two different opportunities, maybe three for refinement of clarity. One was a,
I think it was a thing for Samsung or it was some kind of brand partnership ad thing, but
they wanted the thank you story, but in 45 seconds, and I was like, wow, I like, I do it in like an
hour. Like, what do you mean? And so I had this day and there's like 20 people on the set and the
cameras and the producers like, cool. Yeah. So, so what you said, just say that quicker. Cool.
Quicker. And he just went and he went and it was grueling. And I eventually said it in like
that particular sentence in a few seconds. And, and I walked away from that day. I didn't love
the process, but it helped me communicate clearer. And there's been a few of those moments. And I
would say, if you don't naturally find places where you'll get refined, you need a coach and
you need to figure it out because it's important. I feel like I want to put you on, on the spot.
I love the idea of telling a story. Like it's the first time you've told it.
And certainly the first time someone's heard it, but you know, with 45 seconds to sum up that,
what were the sort of words that you remember? What did you condense that down to? As you said,
it's, it's even this interview, I feel like I've, I could go for another four hours. There's so many
different areas to go. I mean, it's a, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and my favorite thing, my favorite
thing about podcasting is it is long form. Like there's a podcast I've been following a bit and
it goes for three hours, three hours, but it's a long, long form conversation is beautiful. That
I mean, I still struggle with it, but essentially we live in one world, two extremes,
extreme poverty, extreme consumerism. And thank you is a bridge between the two and our secret
people for years. We couldn't get into mainstream retail until one day we, we called out and people
supported rap, danced helicopter pilots, flew the helicopters above the retailers. They both said
yes. And today products on shelf, we hit a number one hand wash and $17 million has been raised.
I don't know. I don't know if I nailed it, but like the,
I think you nailed it.
I think you did. Yeah.
But like, but my favorite way to tell that story is in a 45 minutes, you know, I love that. And,
but you have to learn to not love what you love and, you know, fit in with the world and society
a bit, you know, the final dimension that we're asking leaders about is this idea of collaboration.
And we see great leaders now really focusing on collaboration and where thank you is that now it
feels like that's really a huge part of, of, of chapter two. I'll speak about chapter one,
uh, before we finish up, but, but chapter two is that you're going after these huge,
uh, multinationals again and, and looking for collaboration. Why is that so important?
We've gone all in on this. We called it engine two and we started building it in 2018. Um, and
it's a, not a physical engine, but engine one was the way we were building. Thank you. And I could
like, without critiquing ourselves too much, I'd call it the death star model.
So we're trying to build this giant thing. And I went to Facebook's head office and I was like,
ah, yes, this is it. Hundreds of thousands of people in the office. And we're going to build
this. But actually over time, I started to see the challenges and the frailties and everything
with that. And also, I mean, just in nine, 10 years, and we went through, she went through
burnout. I feel like I did, but nearly did. And we read a book and it transformed both of us
personally. And this guy talked about as a leader, he said 5% of what he said, he actually said 85%
Someone else can do. Most people won't admit it, but that's truth. 10% of what you do as a leader,
someone who you highly apprentice and train can do. And 5%, well, that's the bit that only you
can do. And he went on to list his 5% and it was confronting relationship with his wife,
his faith, his sleep. He's like, you can't outsource sleep. And then he's like,
and there's a bit left and that bit left is for your organization. So we were personally like,
gosh, we've been, we need to rethink things.
And when, well, thank you, needs to rethink things. Gosh, we're trying to do 100%. 85% of what we do
running a product company, that company, that company, that company, let's be humble enough
to say they're doing a really good job. They could do that bit. 10% of what we do, we're building.
If you walked into our old office, you'd be like, wow, you have a finance team,
the size of an accounting firm. You have a creative team, the size of a creative firm.
And we did, we built it all in house. We had 60 staff going on a hundred in our heads,
But we actually learned, man, we can't do everything well. And so we now have a network
of partners and I would just call it that ecosystem model. We've figured out what's our 5%.
Right now, thank you. We have 20, 20 on team, which is like the exact opposite of what I thought
we're going to be building. But we have a network of creative partners, product partners, innovation
partners. And together I'm like, man, this is, this is a secret. And you, you, you know, you
talked about it. I think this is the world we live in now. The, the death star models are probably
not going to be as nimble as they need to be in the new world, a highly disrupted world.
And I think we should all be thinking a lot about this.
And other leaders speak about that in, in, in slightly different language, but exactly
identifying what you said. And that is, you know, one of the versions, I think it might
have been Brian McNamee, who is the, the, the CEO of CSL, one of the greatest, you know,
business stories from turned an old government agency into Australia's biggest company. And
he, he talked about having a couple of cards you dealt in life.
And they're your cards. And can you play those cards well? Because someone else can
always do other things better than you can. And focusing on those cards and using them
wisely was, was his advice. And you know, it sounds like, you know, your cards really
well now, thank you. You know, the community, you know, the power, you know, what you do
that others can't do. And it feels like you've, you found a sweet spot. Is it, is that how
it feels for you, Daniel?
It, look, it does. I would say we're still running where, where we are. Engine two is
more and more the business, but we still have elements.
Of kind of what we were running and how we were running it. And so I look forward to
kind of just that engine to full focus takes time to transition, but it is, it is the way
We've been asking our ladies these two final questions. Daniel, who has been the greatest
leader in your life?
My dad, my dad has, because I mean, and he, he, Alvins, he's a big known leader of any
Um, but I just think he led himself really well and the impact that had on my mom and
my sisters and me was yeah, like, you know, incredible, actually incredible. So, you know,
I, I've appreciated that huge impact on me.
Yeah. It's a, it's a, not an uncommon answer to the people, you know, lucky enough to have
someone close to home, a father or a, yeah. And when you do, I feel very, very blessed
in the same way, you know, great influence, uh, for, for my dad as well. But, but, but,
you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's,
from my dad as well it's not surprising that came out very quickly as it did from you then
if you could collaborate with anyone in the world uh in any form i you know i'm assuming there's
some collaborations you're thinking about now might be a loaded question given what we've spoken
about but uh is there a person or or someone that you thought god this is who i'd like to
collaborate with oh such a cool question i mean look it's i need to rethink this because there
was someone uh his name is virgil um he was the founder of off-white and sadly he passed
away a couple of months back and so but he was so so off-white is i mean he was a one of the
most disruptive fashion fashion architecture creative kind of guys out there and he pushed
the boundaries in so many ways in fashion i think he was kanye's uh one of his yeezy
original designers and went on to do stuff for louis vuitton and others but if you follow his
work and it is a little underground his work but it's very very disruptive and i i always thought
man it'd be fun to sit in a room kind of collab on a product or something and just see where his
mind went and in fairness you know he has passed and his incredible legacy but there are many many
many people like that and i just look forward to at some point just seeing what happens because
come together and collaborate you can go way further and make a way way way bigger impact
and that is the ecosystem view not the kind of the death star i can do it all myself for you so
it's a it's a it's a brilliant note to finish on as i said uh in the interest of your time and i
really appreciate it uh there is a lot to follow up it'd be great to do it again sometime if we
found it but my final message is to just you know check out thank you.co support the thank you
products understand the impact understand this story because it it's a great thing to do and i
it's a great australian story i think it's going to be a great global story and you wouldn't back
against daniel and and his team because uh they've shown a great ability to to um to find a way where
others can't chapter one is the book we didn't even get a chance to speak about chapter one but
it's another great story look it up thank you.co you can check out what uh and more disruption
in uh in what daniel flynn did with his first book chapter one i look forward to chapter two
and many more chapters it's a fantastic uh uh space that you've created and i feel really
that you spent some time with me today thanks daniel thank you so much luke and i'm happy to
come i love talking so anytime you know anytime empowering leaders was presented by me luke darcy
produced by matt dwyer with audio production by darcy thompson start your leadership journey i
encourage you to go to elitacollective.com take our empowering leaders indicator tool and understand
the impact you have on your environment join us at elita to learn lead and collaborate listener
with us at elitacollective.com