[Applause] 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 born 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 at the time my brother was 10 months old 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 lot of critics a lot of doubters and 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 24 hours 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 end 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]