Stephen Wools – Be a Cockroach: You Can Survive Anything

Stephen Wools has built creative agencies, toured Jordan Peterson and Theo Von, opened one of Melbourne's most talked-about bars, signed the biggest hospitality lease in the city's history four weeks before lockdown, and lost a house and millions of dollars along the way. His advice on how to survive all of it: be a cockroach.

Stephen walks through how a floppy disk and a hungover all-nighter got him through his one and only year of uni, how a chance meeting at Big Brother auditions turned into a 20-year business partnership with Josh Lefers, and how "everything's for sale" became the concept behind Pawn & Co, right down to the grand piano someone bought off the DJ booth. Then comes the harder part: signing the lease on a 2,500 square metre venue in January 2020, watching the brewing business collapse under COVID, and rebuilding while banks called in their money.

He gets honest about what he'd change, what resilience actually costs, and the three life lessons he's learned the hard way: being ruthless about who you surround yourself with, learning to respect risk instead of running on pure optimism, and knowing when more stops being more.

Find Stephen

Stephen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-j-wools-b5240811/

Ballers Clubhouse: https://www.ballersclubhouse.com.au/

Good Times Tech: https://www.goodtimestech.com.au/

Pawn & Co: https://www.pawnandco.com.au/

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