My story … The short-ish version …

Some people who visit this site might wonder how the hell I got into what I do and what else I’ve done over the years.

It’s difficult to summarise.

I’m tempted at every turn to name the people who’ve been part of the journey and honour them, but that would make this story overly long and probably dull and, let’s face it, you don’t wanna read all that. So I’ve just tried to provide the basic narrative. Please assume that any time I did something good on this journey, I was supported by someone wonderful or given a terrific opportunity by some marvelous soul. Any time I did something poor on this journey, I probably did it by myself and was then forgiven, encouraged or guided by someone to recover and get past it. So … Big love and thanks to all those people. They know who they are.

I’ll start in high school …

High School. Debating. Drama.
Every story has a hundred beginnings, so here’s one: I joined the debating team at Carine SHS in Year 8. That was a turning point. That was twenty years ago.

I was a lousy debater at first but I persisted and in Year 11 and 12 our school won the WADL Debating State Final and I was hooked on public speaking.

In Year 12, my teachers entered me in the Australia-Britain Society’s “Plain English Speaking Award” and I was lucky enough to win the State Final in Perth and then the National Final in Melbourne. (My topic was “Communication”. I didn’t know it would become my life!).

Also in Year 12, I took Theatre Arts and developed some drama skills, including a bit of writing.

Uni. Almost.
In 1992, I spent eight weeks at UWA. It wasn’t for me.

The most significant thing I did at Uni was a Woody Allen play called “Death”. I stayed enrolled long enough to draw Austudy and pulled out the day before the HECS fees would’ve kicked in for the year.

I would go on to do two more brilliant productions with the same director – “Class Culture” and “War of the Worlds”. They were not only great fun, the experience would be useful much later on when I would write, direct and produce a musical.

Travel.
I went to London after leaving Uni, in March 1992, to represent Australia in an international speaking competition. I didn’t win – or even come close – but I did have a ball and it got me to England.

After the competition, I went to see my sister in Cambridge. Then I hitched from Cambridge to Harwich, got the ferry to Zebrugge (Belgium), and then hitched to Brussel and caught up with the guy who won the international contest. I stayed there a couple of nights, hitched to Antwerp, and then to Rotterdam, and then got a train to Amsterdam. What a crazy place!

Back in England, I went to Scotland and spent a weekend with a couple of mad Scottish stoners before returning to London and then home to Perth.

It was a two month trip. It was awesome. I learnt so much. I was 17 years old.

Work.
On return, The West Australian front page said, “Worst Unemployment for 50 Years”. I’d never had a job (I know, what a slacker) and became worried about getting one.

I started as a counterhand at Miss Maud’s. Over the next two years I would also work for MYER, Lake St Liquor Supply and Greenpeace and as a DJ and door-to-door gardener (my old school mate Dave and I just knocked on people’s doors and asked if we could do their gardening).

A couple of these jobs I did before I started in business and a couple I did to support my income while I got going.

“Speaking With Confidence”
When I was 18, mopping the floor at Miss Maud’s, I had an idea: I decided I should promote myself to schools as a gun public speaking and debating coach.

I had no money, no formal qualifications, no contacts, no teaching experience and no equipment – not even a computer. All I had was the awards I’d won, the advantage of naivety and encouragement from others.

I borrowed $500 from my mate, Dean, to buy stationery and a second-hand suit. I hand-wrote a letter – which Dad typed up – and I sent it to 25 schools.

The first school that called was St. Mary’s. “Would you like to come and speak to our whole Year 11 group?” I think I said, “Hell yeah!” Or words to that effect.

I worked with five of the 25 schools, which was a pretty good percentage. I then sent out a new letter to every school I could find in the White Pages and called every single one of them. (The White Pages, for any Gen Y’s reading this, was an actual phone book. There was no copying and pasting from the internet – I wrote out all the names and addresses and phone numbers. And the phone was a dial phone, connected to the wall with a curly cord …)

I kept calling and selling myself until I was teaching public speaking and debating to school students. I wore my second-hand suit to every single presentation. I used an overhead projector. I was giving 90 minute lectures to Year 7’s (). I wasn’t making a lot of money but I was making some – and of course I was having a ball!

I was really very lucky. Although I was still a teenager – and often had to bluff my way into things – a great number of teachers and principals believed in me and gave me a chance.

A debate between Year 7’s at Hale School and St. Mary’s – for which I coached both teams – soon became an interschool debating competition, incorporating Perth College and All Saints’ College and, later, other schools. I ran the programme for seven years.

When I started, I wasn’t actually registered for business and knew nothing about how to run one. Dean’s Dad, Brian, said I needed to register a name. It was early days and I couldn’t afford the registration fee (about $80) so I did two days of labouring for him and he paid it for me.

I had all sorts of ideas for names. My Dad – my ongoing, unpaid business advisor – said, “You wanna make it something simple like: Speaking With Confidence.” And that was it.

From schools to corporate/Government.
My first adult training presentation was for the State Department of Minerals and Energy. I ran a one day training course in communication skills for the Resources Division. I was 20.

The night before, I got so scared that I cried. I called my Dad and said, “I don’t know if I can do this!” He said, “You’ll be fine mate”. I wasn’t so sure.

I’d planned a full day of games, fun and interaction. I didn’t know at that time that was not how everybody did things – training in those days was mostly “talking heads” but I didn’t even consider that approach. The whole day was designed to be fully interactive and experiential.

The participants loved the humour and engagement and raved about the day. I used the feedback from that course to sell the next ten.

Katrina and Ovations.
While I was finding my feet in my own business, an old high school debating partner, Katrina Bercov, was starting her business, too. It was called Ovations Edu-tainment. She had run a business in fairy parties in New Zealand and was now back in Perth starting again.

At first, the business was mostly focused on Fairy Parties for children and Murder Mystery Parties for adults (which were not nearly so well known and widespread as they are now – it was still a pretty unusual idea back then). She was also working in corporate training and schools.

I contacted Katrina because I was coaching debating teams and had been encouraged to form a University team. I loved the idea of getting back into debating – not just coaching – but I wasn’t at Uni. I’d been told it might be ok if I teamed up with someone who was. We never did form that debating team together but we started performing and presenting together, which would lead to many new adventures.

We also had ideas to start a club for young self-starters.

Navigation.
The club was named Navigation.

It was mostly a great idea – an association in which a group of young self-starters could network together, support each other and not be cut down. We were all extremely motivated to succeed and everybody inspired everybody else. Most of us are still friends today and remember, with great nostalgia, the humble beginnings of what have become outstanding careers.

It also had some serious flaws – we don’t all remember it the same way now but I feel uncomfortable about how exclusive the club was and how/why we kept interested people out of it. That’s a topic for a whole other discussion and I don’t want to undermine other people’s fond memories of the club. I just feel the need to say that while I gained so much inspiration and support in that group, I also learned some things about what not to do. Things that I’m still integrating and working on. I personally feel that we did a lot of good for our members and did some damage to a couple of excluded people. I guess you live and learn.

On the whole, it was a great time.

In addition to our internal focus, we built up a considerable student development programme called Directions, beginning with Katrina’s concept of a student leadership training camp. This camp led to us providing the student leadership training for St. Mary’s prefects and captains for seven years.

Rotary.
Before I explain how all this led to a partnership between Katrina and I, I have to mention Rotary. Many of the elements of this story happened at the same time.

On the night of the Rotary Livewire awards, Katrina and I were sharing our Navigation concept with some of the young entrepreneurs there.

John Garland overheard my conversation and turned and introduced himself. He was the Chairman of the Small Business Development Corporation and a Past President of the Rotary Club of Perth. He invited me to lunch.

A few months later, I was interviewed by Ray Della-Polina – then Chairman of Marlow’s and also a Past President – and then accepted as a member of the Rotary Club of Perth. Most of the members were professionals, business people and high-ranking public servants. I was 21 years old. One of the older members informed me one day that I was the youngest Rotarian in the world at that time and the youngest ever Australian Rotarian. I felt like it – the average age of my Club was 54!

Although some were (quite reasonably) unsure of me at first, I was soon welcome in the Club and held several Club and District Leadership positions before being named a Paul Harris Fellow three years later. At 24, I left the Club to focus more on my business.

It was a wonderful time and I learnt a hell of a lot from those people. There are a great many truly generous, brilliant and inspirational people in Rotary and I was extremely fortunate to be mentored by some of them. I cherish my memories of the Club and District 9450.

“Men’s Work”.
I should also briefly mention that through all of these years – from the age of 21 onwards – what is broadly called “men’s work” has been hugely important in my life.

Through this work – and in parallel with many other things, such as great relationships, counseling, personal reading and so on – I reckon I’ve lived a deeper and happier life and taken on demons I would otherwise still be denying.

I feel blessed to have found this work and to be able to share it sometimes with others.

Partnership.
OK, so, between establishing Navigation as an association, building the Directions student development programme, joining Rotary, entering men’s work and continuing to work on our own individual businesses, Katrina and I we were working together more and more.

We were not only doing the impro theatre stuff together, she engaged me to run her Murder Mystery Nights and I asked her to run some of my debating classes. We worked for each other and with each other and sold ourselves as a dynamic duo and slowly, slowly, we were becoming business partners. She astutely pointed out that we should be marketing ourselves as a duo – not as two businesses that could be engaged together – and that’s what we did.

This process took a couple of years and can’t easily be summarized in a couple of paragraphs but basically we felt we had similar reasons for being in business and similar dreams and were a good complement of each others’ strengths and weaknesses. Ironically, we’d both always felt like we would never take on a partner, but there we were. And choosing to be in that partnership is one of the greatest decisions I have ever made!

Ovations Edu-tainment became a partnership and Speaking With Confidence was no more. Our fates, our income, our assets, our liabilities, our very dreams were intertwined!

Katrina bought a house in North Perth and our office slowly took over the whole place as we employed more and more people. We were expanding our services, improving our professionalism and constantly striving for bigger and better things.

The Rise of Ovations
Over the years that we worked together, we achieved many things:

We built a hugely successful personal and professional development programme in WA schools.

We were slowly in more and more demand as speakers and trainers for WA companies and Government departments.

Murder Mystery Nights became a house-hold name. (Although we weren’t the only ones doing it, we feel we were a major part in them becoming common and popular for private and corporate functions throughout Australia.)

We worked with a lot of fantastic actors, presenters, comedians and creatives. (At our peak of activity, we had about thirty employees and sub-contractors in four States).

We ran Werzel’s Comedy Lounge for a year.

The business won several awards.

We expanded our services from training and conference keynotes into facilitation and MCing orchestral concerts and special events, and continued to improve what we did and how we did it.

By about 2003, we had finally gotten to the point where the phone “just rang by itself” and I was being flown all around the country. We’d finally succeeded in establishing our name.

Song-writing
Inspired my what I was learning in the “men’s work” – and by a performance of a high school musical – I decided to write a musical about boys growing up in Australia and what it means to be a man.

I couldn’t sing or play guitar and most of the songs I’d written before that time were pretty lame. But one day, driving the car, a song poured out of me – lyrics and melody together – which would become “(I’d Really) Father Not”. After that, one song after another came flooding out.

My friend Paul Kooperman taught me how to play the song on guitar which made the songwriting process a bit easier.

My friend Cameron sent me a note about a local song competition, which I entered – and I won the Acoustic Category of the WAM Song Contest (now the WAM Song of the Year). Part of the prize was a performance at Wax Lyrical, organized by the Australian Songwriters’ Association. I did my first ever public performance – three songs – in the front bar of the Leederville Hotel.

I won some more awards, including National Songwriter of the Year (2000) and WAM Song of the Year (2003), and released three CDs over about six years.

*Comedy *
I started doing stand-up comedy somewhere around the year 2000.

From being a punter at Werzel’s Comedy Lounge, I became a comedian, and a close friend of Werzel and the comics I was admiring.

Over the years, I MC’ed for or supported Tripod, Adam Hills, Peter Rowsthorn, Wil Anderson, Akmal Saleh and Bob Franklin.

Katrina and I managed the Comedy Lounge at the Hyde Park Hotel for a year while Werz took a break, which was another great experience.

The Comedy Lounge is now being run by John McAllister and still presents great comedy every Thursday night (but at the Charles Hotel these days). And I still perform there occasionally when I’m in town.

”Mick the Demotivational Speaker”
One day, I had the idea to do a parody of a motivational speaker at Werzel’s Comedy Lounge. I called him “Mick the Demotivational Speaker”. He went down a treat.

I was asked by the Australian Institute of Company Directors to do the comedy performance at their annual Christmas event and decided to try “Mick” out on them. They loved it. Back at the office, Katrina and I discussed the corporate potential for “Mick” and decided to promote it.

“Mick” continues to grow in popularity to this day. I have even had to hire another comedian – the wonderful Malcolm Dix – to perform the same character. We present as “Mick” all around the country and even overseas. Ironically, a character opposed to success and speaking of the benefits of mediocrity, has been hugely successful.

And so on …
There were many other achievements over the years, too numerous to effectively summarise.

Basically, we moved from tiny businesses in the bedrooms of our parents’ houses, to a real business, with income, overheads, staff, expansion plans and happy clients.

We employed outstanding staff and had an office in Vincent Street, West Perth. We aimed to mature from teenagers to professional service providers and responsible employers.

An ending
After nine years of working together, it became clear to Katrina and I (actually, it became clear to Katrina – she had to point it out to me) that our futures were no longer intertwined. It was time to dissolve Ovations and move on.

We didn’t make a lot of money but we made a lot of people laugh and think; and we had an incredible adventure.

I don’t know how to summarise how much I learned in that time except to say that it still feeds me today and I expect it will for as long as I live.

We wrapped up the business on June 30, 2004.

A new beginning: Horabin Company Pty Ltd
I went back to working solo, from a home office in Mt Lawley.

I had to remember how to do all those things I hadn’t been doing for years and to be responsible for every facet of the business again.

I soon moved from feeling overwhelmed to feeling exhilarated – and with a whole new set of dreams and plans.

The diary was busier than ever and interstate business continued to develop and grow.

In 2005, I went to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival with a show called “The Dead Set” – Xavier Michelides, Claire Hooper and Andrew Horabin.

What A Man’s Gotta Do
After working on the musical on and off for several years, it was finally time to commit and do something with it.

My friend and mentor Gary Williams asked me if I wanted to do a Country Arts tour of WA. I was excited and we put together an application to stage a one-man version of the show. The application was successful and in June 2006, I was touring from Albany to Karratha with the one-man show.

In September 2006, I directed and produced a version of the show with a cast of twelve, which sold out The Rechabites Hall in Perth. The cast and crew were fantastic – it was one of the most challenging and enjoyable experiences of my life.

The show had many faults – almost all of which were expressions of my own – but I still feel that it was a great success, as so many people came to see it and went away discussing the themes.

The soundtrack of the musical features some of WA’s finest bands and artists, including The Kill Devil Hills, Hip Mo Toast, Bobby Blackbird and the Bluejays, Rachael Dease, Sascha Ion, Pete Stone, Mo Wilson and many others.

You can read more about “What A Man’s Gotta Do” on the musical section of this website or go to: whatamansgottado.com

A new partner
Early in 2006, I went to the Flying Scotsman in Mt Lawley and was introduced to the girl who would become my girlfriend and then wife.

I encouraged Janet to quit her job and come work with me (mostly so I could spend more time with her!).

I also asked my sister Rachael to join us. Together, we began The Eldership Project with a Forum on Eldership.

The Eldership Project
After many years of “men’s work”, it had become apparent to me that we desperately need to recreate Eldership in our culture.

The vision for this project – and its origins – are summarized on the site itself: eldership.com.au

To Melbourne
In 2007, Janet and I took the solo version of What A Man’s Gotta Do to the Melbourne International Comedy Festival. It was staged at the Northcote Town Hall.

The show was a bit of a flop but the trip was a great success as Janet and I decided not only to move to Melbourne but to Northcote – we liked the area so much, we bought a house there!

We married in March, 2008. For our honeymoon, we drove to Melbourne.

The honeymoon was wonderful and moving to Melbourne was the best possible thing we could’ve done for ourselves and our relationship. (And as I write, we’re awaiting the birth of our first child!)

It’s also been great for business!

BULLSHIFT and other books
In the first couple of months after arriving, I was knocking back WA work to leave more space for east coast work so I had a little time on my hands. I was used to being flat out with engagements all the time but actually had whole weeks that were open. So we took trips to the country. And I wrote three books:

BULLSHIFT
Lose The Teenage Face, and
The Listening King

BULLSHIFT is easily the best thing I’ve created in the 18 years I’ve been in this business. And, considering the success of “Mick the Demotivational Speaker”, that’s saying something.

I think it’s genuinely new and useful stuff and I love teaching and facilitating it.

We’ve now sold many thousand copies of the book across Australia and overseas.

I dig the other books, too – as do the people who buy and read them – but BULLSHIFT is, I believe, something special.

Over the next 12-18 months, I aim to focus on developing the book, the presentations and other methods to help make the learnings stick.

Returning to Perth
Given that I took a hundred flights in 2008, I was happy to be in Melbourne, closer to some of my regular destinations. We loved the town – such great energy in so many forms. We enjoyed having some distance from home and also the new friends and relationships we formed.

However, we also now had a munchkin and just felt it was more important to get her back to her extended family, almost all of whom are in Perth So in September 2010, we decided to return. In April 2011, we took a slow drive from Melbourne through NSW and the Barossa to Adelaide before boarding the train home.

We now live in White Gum Valley, five minutes from South Beach and a 40 minute walk from Fremantle, and we’re loving it.

Needless to say, the munchkin is over the moon. So are the grandparents!

Next …
We’re working on a possible national tour for the solo version of WHAT A MAN’S GOTTA DO.

I’m returning to the comedy rooms in Perth.

I’m reconnecting with the men’s work. Reconnecting with friends. Reconnecting with the roots.

And who knows what else is coming?

Thanks.
That kind of brings you up to date. I left heaps of stuff out and could easily have named and gushed about a hundred more people who have taught me so much. All I can do is say a thank you to all who’ve loved and supported me. You know who you are.

I hope this story has provided some insight. Thanks for visiting.

Andrew