The Highs and Lows of Business: Facing the Canon with Graham Dacre
welcome to my youtube channel my guest on facing the canon is graham daker entrepreneur and businessman [Music] [Music] graham daker welcome to facing the cannon i'm very pleased to be here i'm delighted to have you graeme we've been friends for several decades i think almost 30 years we've known each other you don't look a day older thank you graeme you're looking good yourself well i've got your book here so much from so little so you've been an entrepreneur a businessman let's start with your grandfather your grandfather was a businessman but also an evangelist he was he was he found christ and um and it changed his life transformed his life and when he became successful he took off around the country with a caravan covered in texts and would go into the village green set up a tent preach the gospel and go home so he as well as being a businessman he had a mobile church he did and he had a mobile gas showroom um that he used and the he'd pull that onto the village green open the sides down and convert it into a a church building and that's where i found christ as a child okay you you found christ as a child but later on rediscover jesus and we'll tell that story but your grandfather was the one that introduced you to business he was the entrepreneur and uh and certainly through my mother i became an entrepreneur yeah so he first of all gave you that first opportunity in one garage he did and you were quite young then i was 20 years old yeah now you started selling cars to a pastor who was buying the cars to give them away and then this pastor invited you to have a sauna with him in his garden is that correct that's absolutely true yes he did he invited me to church and i wouldn't go because i knew he wanted to preach at me but one day he invited me to a sauna bath and i thought i couldn't um get into trouble there so i went you went so you're in in his sauna in his garden and he's telling you the story of the prodigal son well he told me about we talked about everything um and finally when the evening was coming to an end he said just before we go can i tell you a story and he shared the story of the prodigal son i responded to that and is that when you rediscovered the wonder of god's grace that's when i with my life was transformed that night in that sauna bath totally transformed and since that day my faith has mesmerized me contained me excited me fulfilled me um been the thing at the forefront of my my whole existence so you walked out of that sauna knowing that something had transformed you or in the words of jesus that you were born again absolutely i went from black and white to color i went from unknowing to to being known i i had a relationship with christ it was amazing it was totally and utterly transforming and that pastor became your father-in-law he did i don't think he approved of that but well i think it was your mother-in-law initially it took a bit of time to warm to you towards you that's true but so you you encounter jesus how did that affect you in business well by at that time i was only just being a car salesman um i've always tried to be basically honest um i can't say that it changed my business ethics but i can say my faith today determines what i do how i say it what i think it it can it it impacts everything and and obviously you were hugely successful how would you graeme define success well one person could say that success is being happy others could say um success was going from being absolutely broke to the sunday times rich list today success is actually having peace in your heart isn't it but of course you were successful from one garage was it 23 garages you eventually acquired and a big property portfolio but during all this time you're seeking the lord and you hear god say to you that one day you're going to build a church i did no doubt about it i just felt that that was my calling and that was the reason for some of my success and um so yeah i did yeah and ultimately when i sold up um i did my best to build and to grow a church so you you eventually what made you eventually sell all your businesses what prompted you well i always built them to sell them it wasn't i wasn't building them just to keep hold of them i always wanted to generate some value and to realize it tell us about that church where is that church well the church that we built was in norwich it was called tlc which stands for tender loving care tender loving christ christ has for us we don't realize that sometimes but it doesn't so i ran the church for seven years um loved it it was the probably the hardest thing i've ever done but it was probably the most profound and beneficial thing i've ever done you know when you're leading a church and you're you're speaking every other week it takes some doing and leading people it's a challenge um but i thoroughly enjoyed that and i look back on those years with great affection and your business you called it lind what does lin stand for well at the time i was involved with robert linda gordon bob gordon and he had an involvement in that his name was lind and when he was preaching the change of the name from the old name to the new name which was lind he stood up in front of the staff and said right guys lin stands for life in new dimension and that's what you get when you find christ it is literally life in new dimension and you know the experience i had in the sauna bath gave me life a new dimension and so we communicated that to all the staff and to the customers that's that that's what it meant absolutely what selling your businesses for a substantial amount of money graham challenges you as it would any of us to be responsible with what god has entrusted to us how do you discern what to do with what god has given you well i i i tend to always stick to the principle now i do always stick to the since the principle of tithing um as the basics um but up and beyond that um god has blessed me and whenever i feel that something i've been prompted by the holy spirit or i feel there's a rightness in or something is merited then i'm i'm uh there to support and to encourage so you're someone who kind of like hands open lord it's it's it's you it's all your time it's all your talent it's all your treasure i'm just the guardian i can't say i'm as nice as that what i do say is that i've got two hands one there and one there and i learned early on the benefit of giving and that he who waters will himself be refreshed and i leave that hand up in submission to the lord at all times and when he puts things in that hand i take them out of that hand and i turn it up and i allow him to take anything out that hand that he wants because i know that if i'm faithful in my giving he will replenish he will he said he that um has pity as pity on the poor lends to god yes and he will repay okay i don't do this out of asking i do it out of submission in humility keeping my hands upright giving to god absolutely and that's really what we should all be doing uh irrespective of the amount that we're responsible for because i think the thing is would you agree graeme you know if we don't uh tithe one pound we're never going to tie the million pounds i i always remember the the tithe that i made when i sold the business it's a multi-million pound i and i did it joyfully absolutely joyfully that's my first port of call that's god's money absolutely now you write in your book about the big mistake and you were a target of fraud can you tell us a little bit about that um i was approached by a very clever consortium of white-collar criminals who indicated that they could produce money from the banking system and i was convinced eventually that what they were doing was going to produce substantial benefit for the kingdom in the end it turned out to be a fraud and and i had to write off 12 million pounds did you get any of that back i got some of it back because i i had quite i had by this time i some friends in high places and the crown prosecution brought them in and um they uh after a long trial i got a couple of million pounds back and they got 47 years in jail so they're still in prison no they're out now they're out now yeah but i i'm not bitter about it i i i went on television uh the night after the trial and the uh six o'clock news anchor said to me mr daker what is it like to lose 12 million pounds and i looked at him and i said well what i'm going to say to you is this i might have lost it financially but i'm not going to pay for it emotionally and i moved on and you just yeah let go move on i moved on it's only money and um and thank you go out and make it again do you think those men were remorseful repentance i don't know i really don't know i'm sure they were very uh subdued spending you know five to eight years in jail and losing all their assets it kind of been comfortable no it couldn't have been comfortable at all no am i angry no am i bitter no um it's all part of the rich tapestry of life my grandfather said to me graham he said this is before he died obviously um in business you have to support the thief the beggar and the rogue and i've got the full deck yeah you've got the whole lot no as well as being a a businessman entrepreneur i mean you are very much an evangelist graham in your own way with the people that you interact with you i know in our own conversations that we frequently have that you're always trying to introduce people to jesus it's very interesting um i eventually had to let the church go because of a divorce there's real sadness there and i did wonder because obviously i was partially responsible for that whether i would lose my ministry and my giftings and things it was tough but i found since the lord hasn't taken away the gift of evangelism for me you you evangelize on a worldwide stage i evangelize on a one-on-one stage and i joyfully do it i introduce people to christ and i can do it i i use your method very matter-of-fact black and white do you want an introduction if you are bow your heads you know there's a bit more to it than that of course tell us a story or two well i i i love talking to people and etc etc one of the one of the things that i remember that um christ did when he was on earth he always talked to people exactly where they're at and what interests them whether it's the man and his money whether it's the man who is lame whether it was the lady at the well who had five husbands he always went to where they're at and i find talking to young people fantastic all right would you like to know how i do that how do you do that well what is the one thing that young people is the most important thing in their life it's a telephone their tablet but the most in the one thing they would not want to lose is their phone so let's use the shall i give you an example give us something to give you an example i know you've brought a lot of problems i've got two things all right there and there all right you talk to young people about their phone all right and and i always often start off with do you know that god when he made you surreptitiously put a phone in your heart let's pretend that's the old-fashioned phone that's in your heart okay and this is the new modern uh smartphone okay you've got both of them right and here you are you get your new phone you open it up okay you open it up and it's beautiful all right and you take this out you take off the the protective cover protective cover and you know what it's like this is it it's lovely it's beautiful you can't believe that you've got the latest phone okay yeah what's this to do with the gospel well here it is but you know what that's absolutely useless that's just that's just the technology you've got to have something else you've got to have a service contract you've got to get a sim card you've got to have a service provider and they say oh yeah of course yeah yeah yeah yeah all right what's more when you get to your service bro you have to sign the terms and conditions all right now i've got a mobile phone in my heart most young people they they don't know they've got one but they have got one okay but you know for this phone too you need a service provider all right and you can't you this this phone is dead or it's in your heart it's dead all right but you can't if you want to say a prayer you come to me because you know my service my my phone's alive my one in my heart so i can say the prayer but you can't but you can and here is a phone that's in your heart and all you have to do is to get the service provider and some years ago some years ago jesus became my service provider and when i signed the contract with him once i entered the contract once i accept the terms and conditions this phone in my heart all right was suddenly alive and i can talk they are i can talk to the heavenly father because christ says no man comes to the father except through me you talk about the mobile phone they understand it you talk about god being a contemporary god you say well you know he might he is he's not on facebook but he's certainly my best friend all right he's not on on on the internet but i'm connected to him and there's various there's various ones you can talk about it you know it's much more what's up than whatsapp is fantastic why do you think most of us are reluctant to tell people about jesus well you're not reluctant i'm not reluctant but other people get a little bit embarrassed they worry about the other person um i just happen to have it's it's at the top of my agenda it's it's in my heart it's it's my what overflows from me it's the most important thing in my life i can't help but talk about it so but other people aren't quite so forthcoming they're a bit more embarrassed they're a little bit more probably more sensitive than me i know but it is a fantastic story do you want a fantastic story dawn graham in church i overheard pastor bob gordon turn around to my friend gary gary is a hard and solid 25 year old taxi driver and i heard pastor pastor gordon say to him gary said how do you get on when you're telling the mates about jesus on the taxi rank i'll never forget gary's response he said well he said sometimes you have to buy him a pie yes and if you want to open somebody up give them a present yes that's a real it's it's just give them something buy them a coffee buy them a coffee do something for them yeah you know i know but we're reluctant you know and like i don't know i i'm i'm like you i just love sharing the gospel sharing faith leading people to christ and seeing them flourish etc as you look back in your life i mean you you yourself mentioned about your divorce graham as you look back in life do you have regrets in life absolutely there's regrets i have from working so hard uh how it affected my children um do you think you were an absent father because no i i wasn't but you know you hear even as adults their pain and me not being about and sending i sent them to boarding school and they probably would have preferred to have been at home yeah of course we do i have regrets you know we've all got failings we've all got failures we've all got stuff that we carry yeah what do you do with your regrets and your failings what do you do with that as far as i'm able i i attempt to remedy my regrets put things right keep things sweet with people sometimes it takes an apology sometimes it takes a gift sometimes it takes humility my failings i can only take to god i can only ask for forgiveness i can only receive that forgiveness and um in return uh i can be more accommodating in forgiving others yeah what would you say graham and i'm sure people are tuned in all over the world young entrepreneurs or people just beginning in in business in the world in secular life from your experience of being a successful businessman what advice would you give them well practical advice um outside of the spiritual i would say find your passion um go for it be unrelenting be determined don't let anybody set you back go for it and do what you do time and again time and time again keep doing it i was a good car salesman so i kept selling cars i kept selling cars i sold more cars than anybody else i made more money than anybody else um i bought one garage i bought two i bought two i bought six um and i just went on and on and on life for me was people think it's it was magic it wasn't magic it was one brick on top of another brick on top of another brick until this structure became very big and what do you do what do we do should we do when we face disappointment discouragement possibly bankruptcy what do we do then well what can you do um you get up and go again i mean i i've i faced the black blackness of the night many times but i push my way through i've i've always felt that god has everything under control and he will help me through have i had failings yes have i had losses yes have i have i hit the buffers on one or two deals yes but i never quit i just kept going if um if six out of ten deals works i'm going to come out in front don't give up don't give up keep going so what advice would you give to your younger self what advice would i give to my younger self well i'm actually quite happy with what i did and how i did it you know today i challenge myself on two points do i like how i think and do i like how i act all right and both of them i'm very comfortable in my own skin so i don't look back with great condemnation i could could i've worked harder probably not could i have been even more successful yes undoubtedly am i happy with what i've achieved i'm grateful to god and i have more than sufficient and i'm and i'm and i but i still have to live actually this is an interesting thing you don't find very many wealthy people who are either happy or satisfied all right and how i counter that for myself is i enjoy what i have and i live with a grateful spirit and a thankful heart and that keeps me humble and and broken before god you like cars i like cars you've always liked cars that came from my grandfather yep and you enjoy driving them i enjoy yeah i do enjoy some rather lovely cars here what's your favorite car to drive my favorite car to drive um if you said to me you can just have one car for the rest of your time i've enjoyed being a porsche dealer and having new 911s all the way through my lifetime today i have a porsche taken uh electric car or awesome out of this world absolutely and what would you say to people who might say oh i'm not sure jesus would be driving that today what would you say actually on your bike [Laughter] so jesus would be driving it i don't care whether jesus i'm going to enjoy it so even though jesus came on a donkey to jerusalem you're going to drive your porsche no but you're you're the thing is you you have been a successful businessman you have stewarded as best as you can the resources that god has entrusted to you but you also enjoy life i'm having fun yes i do i've i have a very young spirit and i max life i enjoy people i enjoy environments i enjoy london i'm enjoying the people i i live within a big community in london and uh yeah i'm blessed and is that do you feel that there's other initiatives or projects that god may have for you for the future i'm hoping so yeah and i think there are yeah i'm sure there are one or two i'm looking at i'm helping others not so much me at the forefront anymore more being a support me being a provider um but yeah there'll be things to be involved in you're obviously a person graham who's uh very grateful to god and very content yeah i'm in a good place in god i love god i i love my walk of faith i'm enjoying my life god's blessed me um but i do have to stay humble i do have to stay thankful um and and have a spirit of gratitude or an attitude of gratitude um and and i do that yeah what would you say to people who are kind of discontent at the moment in their lives and struggling and maybe feeling well they they wish they could have this or that what would i say you know i remember that little song we used to sing count your blessings name them one by one um and it will surprise you what the lord's done if you look back and be grateful for the things god has done you put yourself in his hand you know read psalm sorry read proverbs 3 make sure your life is right god will bless you god knows what you have need of he knows your heart he longs to give you gifts you know he what does the bible say every good and every perfect gift comes down from the father of light he wants to give us gifts he's always given he's given us his son what's it romans 8 32 says will he not with him freely give us all things he will you think well i'm never going to get it but you give you you put your heart and your life and and and your future in god's hands and you will be blessed even if you don't have everything you'll be blessed because you'll be happy with what god is doing in your life enjoy god make him your savior make him your lord give him your life put everything in in his hands you will come through and you'll be blessed out of your socks god is faithful he's the giver of all good things graeme so much from so little it's been a joy to have you on facing the cannon thank you for joining us thank you too i hope that has inspired you i i hope particularly those of you that are just starting out in the world of business i pray and hope that some of graham's words will have been an encouragement to you thank you so much for joining us on facing the canon please join us again [Music] [Music] you
2022-07-04 14:31
