He sold his company for over $100 million, and he says the day he signed was the first day he knew what he was doing.

If you have ever doubted that you could build something of your own from nothing, this episode is for you.

Today, Belinda Bradford is joined by Milan Debelak.

Milan co-founded Liftronic in 1985 and led it for 37 years, until it became Australia's largest independent, Australian-owned lift and escalator company and he sold it. Today he invests in businesses and mentors their leaders.

His family landed in Australia in 1963 with almost nothing. At 23 he could have taken a camper van around the country. He started a company from scratch instead, with a secretary, a draftsman and a payphone he had to stay near.

From $10,000 and a tin shed to a $100M+ exit took him 37 years.

In this conversation, Milan shares what happened in between: the day he made 14 people redundant, the supervisor who failed catastrophically and what he did next, the close calls when the company might not last another month, and the advice from his father that kept him going. If they kick you out the door, climb back in the window.

By the end, you will hear why he believes you might jump into the wrong hole, but you have to jump.

His one word for how he does business is morally. His answer to what Full Tilt means: "Whatever we tried to do, we ran at it very hard."

Mentioned in this episode:

Full Tilt with Belinda Bradford is brought to you by WEGroup Global. We design and run retreats, summits, and offsites for creators, growing businesses, associations, and enterprises. We build on a simple belief: human connection matters more now than ever. The world has never been more connected, and people have never felt more alone. As AI takes over the routine work, judgement, trust, and the ability to lead a room are what's left to compete on. That still only happens in person. That's why we do what we do. We handle the hotels, the venues, the bookings, the logistics, and all the risks, backed by a network of 8,000+ hotels and venues in over 100 countries, trusted vendors and tour partners, and access to VIP tickets and top speakers most people can't get on their own. All you have to do is show up and connect with the people in the room. One team, one plan, from first idea to final day. Learn more about us at wegroup-global.com Connect with us at connect@wegroup-global.com

Karin Sheppard now leads more than 1,000 IHG hotels across Europe. Her career started with dishes in an Italian restaurant in Denmark, and the move that changed it began with a weekend of crying.

From the restaurant came a year as an au pair in Geneva, IT sales in London and a move to Sydney. There she said yes to a promotion, went home, cried all weekend and quit. She had no plan, no money in the bank and a brother pointing out that there was no rich boyfriend or husband to fall back on. She called it a trust fall. A friend of a friend knew of a job at a hotel company, and on her first day she was pulled into a meeting about the cocktail menu. She called a girlfriend to say she had landed the best job.

That was 25 years ago. Belinda Bradford asks Karin how she got from that first day to running a continent. The part that will sound familiar if you have ever talked yourself out of something: when she was offered a much bigger leadership role, Karin told her bosses not to give it to her. Her HR director's reply: if your boss, your boss's boss and I believe you can do it, maybe just trust us.

What she did with that doubt is worth the listen. Karin switched off the little voice that lists why you can't and turned her attention to every reason she could, then took the top job in IHG's Australian business without ever having run a hotel. She explains how IHG went from 10 brands to 21, how a Kimpton and an InterContinental can sit across the same Paris street and both do well, and why her team meetings open with how are you feeling. She skipped it once. Her team noticed by the coffee break.

Karin is direct about being the only woman at the leadership table, and about Rise, the program she helped build to put more women on the path to general manager. When COVID and the war in Ukraine left her team exhausted, a two-day reset gave them a goal of 1,000 brilliant hotels. They had 750. They hit 1,005. Her first boss told her on day one that the job came down to hot food hot and cold food cold.

If you have ever talked yourself out of a job you wanted, this one is for you.

Her one word for how she leads is wholeheartedly. Her answer to what Full Tilt means: "Go for it, go full speed."

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Nominate someone to be our next guest: connect@wegroup-global.com

Mentioned in this episode:

Full Tilt with Belinda Bradford is brought to you by WEGroup Global. We design and run retreats, summits, and offsites for creators, growing businesses, associations, and enterprises. We build on a simple belief: human connection matters more now than ever. The world has never been more connected, and people have never felt more alone. As AI takes over the routine work, judgement, trust, and the ability to lead a room are what's left to compete on. That still only happens in person. That's why we do what we do. We handle the hotels, the venues, the bookings, the logistics, and all the risks, backed by a network of 8,000+ hotels and venues in over 100 countries, trusted vendors and tour partners, and access to VIP tickets and top speakers most people can't get on their own. All you have to do is show up and connect with the people in the room. One team, one plan, from first idea to final day. Learn more about us at wegroup-global.com Connect with us at connect@wegroup-global.com

“It's the myth of certainty that us humans hang on to. We think tomorrow is promised.”

Danica Bunch is the founder and director of Danica B PR and the author of She Has Breast Cancer. She spent 20 years in government and public affairs before launching her crisis PR agency just as COVID hit. In December 2022, a nurse called to tell her she had metastatic breast cancer and might have as little as two years to live. Days later, a second call corrected the mistake: the cancer was incurable, but treatable.

In this episode, you'll hear how she ran her own diagnosis like a client crisis, how a psychologist taught her the power of words like “treatable,” and how she turned that into a book, a national advocacy voice, and a push that helped change access to immunotherapy for women in Australia.

By the end, you'll understand why she says nothing in life is certain, and why that is the most liberating truth of all.

Mentioned in this episode:

Full Tilt with Belinda Bradford is brought to you by WEGroup Global. We design and run retreats, summits, and offsites for creators, growing businesses, associations, and enterprises. We build on a simple belief: human connection matters more now than ever. The world has never been more connected, and people have never felt more alone. As AI takes over the routine work, judgement, trust, and the ability to lead a room are what's left to compete on. That still only happens in person. That's why we do what we do. We handle the hotels, the venues, the bookings, the logistics, and all the risks, backed by a network of 8,000+ hotels and venues in over 100 countries, trusted vendors and tour partners, and access to VIP tickets and top speakers most people can't get on their own. All you have to do is show up and connect with the people in the room. One team, one plan, from first idea to final day. Learn more about us at wegroup-global.com Connect with us at connect@wegroup-global.com