How One Decision Changed His Entire Life | Ep. 77 [Lindsay Gorrill]

What would make someone walk away from a secure, prestigious career path and risk everything to build something from scratch?

In this episode of Industry Ignited, Lindsay Gorrill shares the pivotal moment that changed the course of his life. On track to become a partner at KPMG, he made a decision most people wouldn’t: he chose uncertainty over security. What followed was a journey filled with failure, high-stakes risk, global expansion, and ultimately, massive success.

From losing nearly all his initial investment to building operations across India, North America, and Europe, Lindsay opens up about what entrepreneurship really looks like behind the scenes. This isn’t a polished success story; it’s a raw look at the setbacks, pressure, and relentless decision-making that define true leadership.

If you’ve ever questioned whether you should take a risk, start something of your own, or step away from the “safe path,” this conversation will give you a grounded, honest perspective on what it really takes.

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https://www.linkedin.com/company/stargold-corp/

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Transcript

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 0:06

What does it really take to walk away from a safe career, put everything on the line, and build companies, sometimes literally from the ground up, across continents and cultures? Welcome to Industry Ignited, the podcast where we explore the leaders driving transformation across industry, energy, and manufacturing. I'm your host, Dr. Leanne Aguilar, and today I'm joined by Lindsay Gorrell, CEO and chairman of Star Gold Corp. With three decades of experience bringing companies from conception to market, Lindsay has built mines and manufacturing plants across India, Germany, Canada, and the United States, led companies from private to IPO, and raised over$1 billion in equity and debt across public and private markets. Lindsay, welcome to the show. Thank you, Leanne. I'm excited. Yeah, let's get started. Now you were on track to become a partner at a major accounting firm when you made the decision to walk away and start your own company. What internal signal told you it was time to leave security behind and bet on yourself?

SPEAKER_02 1:08

Well, I think I was uh, like I said, with a KPMG about to become a partner in Canada, and all my clients were mining clients. So a lot of people don't understand what mining's how mining actually works, but a lot of these companies were looking for a resource, trying to put it in production. And, you know, I was 28 years old, going to 29, and I just thought that, you know, I was good at accounting, but it wasn't exciting. It didn't excite me. And um, I was in a car accident, so I had time to basically sit and lay down, sit in bed for a few months and think about the rest of my life. And I thought that I could maybe step away from accounting and and and maybe start my own mining company. Uh most people thought I was crazy at the time, and I think 99% of the people thought I was crazy at the time, but I thought that I I understood it well and I think I I thought I could do it better, basically.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 1:52

Yeah. So that accident kind of put things in perspective and had you to like really take a look at where you were at and what you wanted to spend your your life doing.

SPEAKER_02 2:00

Yeah, if I didn't have the accident, if I wasn't laying in bed, I was in a hospital in a bed thinking about everything, I probably wouldn't have done this, right? You're working at a at a firm like that, you're working every day of the week, you're working hard, you're going hard, not really thinking about the next part of your life, you're just driving forward. Right. So that's that was a thing in a point in time in my life that made me think and then basically changed my whole life because of that.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 2:22

Yeah. Because entrepreneurship, I mean, that's no small feat. It's no small decision. You're exchanging security for passion, basically, and you're taking a risk and investing in yourself. And you know, that takes a lot to make that kind of decision.

SPEAKER_02 2:35

Yeah, and the and the and the risks we took, and it was a buddy of mine who's a partner who was a managed in the managing consulting side, we did it together, and uh all we had was sixty thousand dollars, put it together, and and this is uh in 1989, 1990, and um we uh picked up a deposit uh of garnet in Canada. And uh, of course, we didn't know at the time that it was 30 million tons of stuff that was worth zero. Uh so it was it was even it becomes even more stressful as you start going down the journey, right?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 3:06

Right. Yeah, because early in that journey, I know you experienced that real failure and you discovered that your first product simply didn't work. So tell me more about that and how that moment reshaped your understanding of risk, resilience, and decision making.

SPEAKER_02 3:20

Well, we had done it, we had done a lot of work on the market study of industrial garnet, where it's used at and how where it's used in the world, how it's used and who the competitors were. We thought we thought there's a there's an opportunity to get into the market with this with this product out of Canada. But when we actually processed the product and brought it to the market, and I see bring it to the market, I mean in the back of my Bronco with a bunch of uh five-gallon white pails all down the United States, bring it to the market personally to show it, we realized pretty quickly that it wasn't, it didn't work. So it just didn't work. So our first investment to go get a product to market, which we spent almost all the$60,000 at the time, uh, was basically worth zero. So it was pretty devastating. But during that whole thing, we had uncovered a mine in Idaho, United States, that had phenomenal product, but the owner was doing it the wrong way and was being basically getting a cease and assist from the Corps of Engineers and the government to shut it down because it was basically ruining the environment. And so we zipped back to Canada and we got our wits together because we were pretty devastated on that first journey. And that was in uh February of '91. And then March 91, I drove to Idaho and met the owner of this mine. And then by July, I had a deal to buy it. And by October, I owned it. And it was difficult, but it was uh again, I could have gone back to accounting. So after the first failure, I could have easily gone back to accounting, right? But I said, no, no, I think I can do this, we can do this. We we if we go down and we we acquire this company in Idaho, and we're not off to the races, but at least we're moving forward. If that didn't happen, I probably would have been back if that didn't happen.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 4:58

Right. So it's like that first failure is really it really taught you a lot about, for one, what you needed to succeed. And then I'm hearing it even motivated you to push even further, faster. And so it taught you a lot, I'm hearing.

SPEAKER_02 5:10

Well, it taught it taught even more, I think, because it it proved to us, because we weren't miners, we weren't the guys, we didn't understand the mineral side, we're more financial side at the time, understood that we didn't do the good, we didn't do enough due diligence on it. We believed Garnet was Garnet, and that's not the case. Uh Garnet hardness is the same, but structurally they're different, they grow differently, et cetera. So we did, we did a poor job of due diligence on that product that we try to bring to market. We would have done more work on it, we probably would have known right away not to not to do anything with it. So it taught us basically that that we failed. We actually completely failed in our due diligence of what we're trying to bring to market.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 5:50

Yeah, so it taught you the importance of really understanding your product and making sure that you knew what what you were even selling or buying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:58

Exactly.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 5:59

Now you said that working inside a large organization can sometimes feel riskier than leading your own venture. How do you define control of destiny and why does it matter so much to entrepreneurs?

SPEAKER_02 6:10

I think, first off, most important thing is you've got to believe in your vision, right? You got to believe in what you're doing. And I think that a lot of people who work in large organizations believe it's a safe haven to be in larger organizations. But we hear about a lot of people getting laid off and getting down. If you're if you have your own company, again, not all succeed, obviously, because it is difficult to grow. But if you have a clear vision and you can build a team around you that is super uh that are really good, it I think you're a lot safer driving your own business than in a large organization for yourself, for first on your growth and also on your opportunities.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 6:49

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I mean, it gives gives you freedom, I think, too, to explore and to um explore different directions and guide your your destiny.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

I think you have to have the drive to basically work every day of the week because whether you're actually working or not, mentally you're always working. When it's your own company and your own drive and there's and there's risk, et cetera, and you're trying to build something, you know, you're lay at night thinking about things. I drive, I have notepad by my bed since I was since I was 30 making notes about stuff. I wake up at two in the morning. Yeah, that's that's part of it, right? And I think everybody has it in them, but I think a lot of people have a lot of good ideas, but they don't want to take that step because of the risk, right? Uh-huh. The fear.

unknown 7:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:31

If you do your proper due diligence and you believe in yourself and you can see a clear path, it might not be the smoothest road as you grow, but you it's you should do it, right? You should do it.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 7:42

You believe in it. Right. Yeah. Well, because I mean it's like that passion and that love and that, I mean, people talk about work-life balance, but I'm like, well, as an entrepreneur, and if it's something you really love, there's really not a separation, like you were saying. You know, you'll be laying in bed thinking about it, and and that's enjoyable. It's invigorating. It's like part of what makes your life fulfilling.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Yeah, exactly. And work-life balance is, it can be there because I mean, I coached hockey, I coached soccer, I did all that kind of stuff with my kids while I was working, when I was building my company, because for me, it was important that because I worked so much that when I wasn't working, I made sure I had spent time with my family because you know, I didn't want to, I want to, you know, I didn't go out golfing all the time. I didn't ever golf because all my buddies golf, but if I had the time off, I want to spend it with my family. So I thought it was really important because the amount of time I how much I traveled, how much I worked, and when I was home and I wasn't doing something, you had to make sure you spent time with your family because it's important to give that, give that, I don't know, your, you know, help grow your kids, basically. I don't know how you say it properly, but you know what I mean.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 8:44

Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. I mean, you're investing in in your kids and their future. And yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 8:50

I think you had to do both, right? I think it's also good because by doing that, it also relieves your stress. When I went and did all that stuff on the side, on the personal side, it gave me time to, you know, even though people think coaching is stressful, in my mind, coaching kids was not stressful because people were thinking about that and not thinking about my business, and it gave me time for clarity.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 9:10

Yeah, and that is true. I mean, because you need that that risk and that time where you're not thinking thinking about business to like refresh yourself and to gain clarity, you do need that break and having those other other activities create a natural space for that, I think.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Yeah, you have to have something to do that releases your mind around your business because your your business is 24 hours a day in your head. So you have to do something to get out of that. And mine was always sports. Mine was either doing it myself or doing it with my kids.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 9:39

Yeah. Well, and sports are great anyway. I mean, because it's like it's your your body, mind, spirit. I mean, it's like you're exerting energy. And it's, I mean, that just lets you like um refresh yourself, I guess, in multiple ways. Yeah, I understand.

SPEAKER_02 9:56

So I just I because that for me, that's the best outlet for physical and mental because you're 100% focused on the game itself and exercising that. Yeah. So I it's just a good thing. It's a good release for sure.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 10:08

Yeah, a good way to right, exert that energy and then reset. And then it just right, yeah, yeah. So you've built operations across multiple countries, including extended time in India. What was the biggest leadership lesson you learned about managing across cultures, hierarchies, and belief systems?

SPEAKER_02 10:25

I would say the most difficult of it all was in India. And so this is this is an interesting story. This is how I think, which is crazy. So I'm in Texas. I have my my my mind and Idol is going well. I'm selling product in North America, Korea, Japan, into Europe, and now things are going well. The first couple of years it was a bit hard struggle. It wasn't easy, but we got through it all. Won a couple of national awards for restoration, which is nice, right? For we basically re-cleaned up the area. And I was in Texas, I was meeting the customer, and he said, I got some garnet from India, but it has this black stuff in it. So I brought it back to Idaho and did an analysis in my lab of what was in there. And there's something called Ilmanite and Zircon, which is basically a one was a titanium mineral. So that was '95, I think, '94, '95. And that was in April or something like that. And I called him back up and said, Where'd you buy it from? And called the guy in Los Angeles who bought it from a guy from what was called Madras, India, is now Chennai. I flew to India a month later. Never been there in my life. And went and looked at the property where it was coming from. And I said, I think I should own this. I think I should go do this. So that was in 90, sorry, late 94, and my first plant opened in 96 in India. So it was in two years. So I mean, cultural. So think about India. Where I am in India, so I'm in the southern part of India, very rural. You've got caste systems. So you know what I'm saying? Caste is basically, and it's bad, right? It's you're a higher caste, you don't, a lower caste doesn't tell you. I mean, they're all they're castes, right? So basically level, basically, level of people is how they just is what it is, which is sad. And on top of that, you've got Christians, Hindu, and Muslims. So I've got three religions and a bunch of castes. And I have to basically mold that into an organization where we're all running together.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Right.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

And and it it took a year for me to finally for every I used to say, 'Cause my company was called Transworld Garnet in India, and I used to say, finally, my I spent a lot of time talking to everybody, talking to people at the mining site, talking to people at the mill at the production plant site. And I said, once you come in within these walls, Trans World Garnet, we're all the same. I'm the same, you're the same. It took a long time, but because I had a lot of hiccups. I mean, it was it was a disaster early on. People didn't want to work together. Someone who had a Master of Engineering that was lower caste, the higher caste didn't want to work for them. And so it took me a long time to, I had to let people go and change people. And by the time, took me a year, but after a year, basically within my walls of my company, my walls of my thing, we're all the same. We're all working together. And I made sure all bonuses were based on the entire group working together. No single person could get a bonus unless everybody got the bonus.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 13:12

Right. So you really shifted from individual incentives to team-based rewards to overcome that internal friction. And how did that change performance? And what did what did it real reveal about human systems inside industrial operations?

SPEAKER_02 13:26

I think it was it was interesting because you had to break down those biases, right? You know, there's made all those biases within within a country. And I think it took time to and discussions and really getting my leadership of my company, both on the mining side and the manufacturing side, to buy in first, get the leadership to buy in. Because some of the leaderships are different casts too, but I had to get how to get them to buy in. And some guys wouldn't buy in, so I had to remove them and replace them, right? So get them to buy in. Here's we're all together. And it was amazing. I mean, the productivity went up two, three hundred percent, because people would people would actually sabotage at the beginning, people who are a higher caste would sabotage a production line because a lower caste guy was the boss to blame them. So it was unbelievably bad. And again, this is rural India, right? This is not the cities, this is rural India. I'm sure it's a lot better now after you know 30 years or whatever. But it was for me, it was really hard eye-opener because when I went in there, I saw this titanium deposit on surface that was unbelievably, you know, you can make a lot of money on it, right? We you know, a lot of a lot of hard work to get there, but I didn't understand any of the of the of the society of that.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 14:38

Yeah, the people part of it, right?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

The culture had zero understanding of that. I knew what castes were, I knew what religion was, I knew all that. But it took, man, it was it was hard. I was there, uh I was probably there 80% of my life for the first two years trying to get that going. So my family, young kids, right? Uh I got a fantastic wife, still after 36 years. Um, but it it was uh it was um it was tough. But again, this is we can make this work, we gotta work together. I gotta bring the right team in, the right people, we all believe, and then after a year, it was smooth simple.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 15:14

So that total alignment, you know, within within the organization, and like he said, and just figuring out within that cultural and with the variations of of caste system, like how you could make it work. So I guess problem solving and then ultimately trial and error to get it to work.

SPEAKER_02 15:33

I spent eight years in India building a company. That was stressful. Because culturally, it's really think about it, it's like when you look at it's like when people look at other countries in the world, you don't really understand how people think unless you're there, right? Right. And and even though I saw this unbelievable deposit in both in two states, unbelievable deposits, these things, they're sitting back home, we'd have these things going, and it was fantastic. But I what I miscalculated was the cultural differences of the people that I'm hiring. And I miscalculated that majorly.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 16:03

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:03

And then I had to just basically get it dive in and really work to try to get them to take my energy and my vision and try to get the leaders to believe in it, then the next level to believe in it, and the whole team to believe it. And then again, inside our walls, I used to say, there is we're all the same. This is we're all the same, we're one group, we move forward together.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 16:24

Yeah, at a team level. I like that. Yeah. Now you've raised capital in vastly different environments and market cycles. What separates founders who successfully raise capital from those who struggle, even with strong assets?

SPEAKER_02 16:39

I don't, I think, I don't know. I think that it's when you're going to work look for capital, right? I mean, the people you're looking for capital, who are trying to get capital from, hear from a lot of different uh people, right? You know, they have a lot of different pitches of people trying to get them to fund their businesses. And I think, you know, from the very beginning of my mine I bought in Idaho. Again, remember, we I had a deal to buy the mine in July. I had to give them two and a half million dollars by October and I had no money. So I had to bring all that information back and put together a proper plan to pitch to the investors at the same time as negotiate with the government to redo the uh environmental damage, to re-clean it up, to give me a permit to mine. And I think that was that really taught me how to basically put together the right package. And it's all about I think an investor looks at two things. They look at what they're invested in, the business itself, and then the people who are running the business. And if you can sort of show them that you have the knowledge of the business, and this is the business, and there's a growth pattern, and why this, why this will work, and here are the pitfalls, but we can get through them at the same time by self and the team around me. We together we've we can get this done and why. I think that's important. So I think it's important that it's not always just the entrepreneur, it's the entrepreneur at attracting the right team members, right? Yeah.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 18:05

Well, and that's not easy. Right. And I I get that though, because it's the team members who are actually doing the work and producing the outcomes for the investors. So I think that team does make a huge difference, knowing that there's the experience, the expertise, and the capabilities within that that team.

SPEAKER_02 18:25

You know, yeah, yeah, and I think the team, the team's so important because the team has to team has to be two pieces. They have to all agree on the vision, which is the vision of what we're trying to do, but you also have to be independent enough that they can provide input if they believe the vision is moving in the wrong direction, right? Or the drive is in the wrong direction. Because what's um what's really difficult for some companies that fail, I think, is that an entrepreneur is is so strong, I don't know what the word for it would be, is that no one will give advice because they're worried about the the the head is too strong, right? And I think and I think that's the wrong way to do it. I think what's important is you want to you want to attract people that are better at things than you are and take as much of their advice as possible.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 19:11

Yeah, right. So if the leader is is too dominant of a personality, if they're not open to feedback and if they are are more directive instead of listening and asking for the input of others, then I guess that that's what you're saying. It's a dangerous setup.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Yeah, and I've been there before. I've had people say I go to people who say, How come you don't why are you talking out in the media's that kind of sudden? Well, people have said to me, Well, you kind of scare me a little bit.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 19:34

You kind of scare me. Uh-uh. Intimidation, right? Intimidated.

SPEAKER_02 19:38

So I don't know I'm doing that. I never doing that, but obviously I was doing that somehow, right? So in my mind, I think I'm being more more giving information at the same time. People are worried. So it it takes time for even your team to understand. And as long as you it's good as a leader to understand that. So you can say to them, no, no, no, that's not what I why I said it that way. I was just trying to challenge your point of view. I actually agree with you. I even told this uh uh this point one time I said, I actually agreed to your point of view. I just wanted to ask you questions to see if you really whether you really believe in your point of view, and then you basically stepped away from your point of view, even though I thought it was a good point of view. And then I asked them why, and they said I they just they were, you know, I was the word scared as a problem, I can't remember the word they use, but you know what I mean. Like they were intimidated them basically to get them off that point when I wasn't trying to do that. All I was trying to do is to make sure they really believed in their point.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 20:34

Right. I can completely relate with you, and I've had that, you know, happen with me as well. I think it's sometimes just our position as leaders or or the owners of a company is intimidating for others. And you know, it's like, okay, well, I don't see myself as scary, but other you know, I've had feedback that it's like, okay, well, uh, people are afraid to approach you. It's like, okay, so what how can I how can I address that? How can I work? What can I do to change myself? Or how do I need to communicate better to encourage you know feedback and communication instead of coming across because like you, I mean, I have definitely have my ideas. I definitely am going to give input, but at the same time, I don't want that squashing other people's sense of contribution or or willingness to talk, you know, and contribute.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Yeah, and I think the problem is you might think, like I thought I was providing openness of discussion. Yeah. But some people thought that they were scared to say stuff. Exactly. So I'm in my head, I'm presenting in my head, I think I'm presented a certain way, yet other people's in their head, they're thinking I'm looking looking a different way. So it's it's it's also how you you know, how do you think other people basically what's the word for how people see you, right? Yeah. So I think people see me this way, but in those cases, they didn't see me the way I thought they saw me, they saw me more of a of an authoritarian kind of exactly, exactly.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 21:56

I know, and I've I've come across that as well. It's like I think I'm thinking, oh, I'm a Servant leader, or I'm thinking that I'm, you know, being open and and to feedback and um receptive. Yet they're they're thinking that, oh, I'm not going to say anything because I don't want to bother you, or I'm not going to say anything because she she said this and I don't want to challenge her. When I'm, you know, I do my best to reinforce that you're never bothering me. You know, please come to me, talk to me. I'm here. And, you know, I might I might tell you my experience and challenge you, like you said, challenge you because I do have a different uh experience set. However, that I do want to know your thoughts and your experience and your feelings. And, you know, so yeah, it's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 22:37

It's it's pretty interesting because again, you think you're doing that. You're thinking you're allowing me to, but but at the same time, looking at you and they're not doing it. So it's again, it's a it's like a it's a process. Life is a process, right? Yeah. Everything up there or especially as an entrepreneur, and and I've gone through different businesses, obviously, mainly in the mining sector, but different minerals. But every time it's not always the same team because it's different parts of the world, you're starting all over again. But what you've learned from the earlier as you go across, you bring that with you, which makes it easier the next time, I believe. Because you've already kind of had a lot. You gotta learn from your pitfalls, right? You you can't you gotta if you don't learn from your pitfalls, like you said, only doing it once is fine, but don't do it too.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 23:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like on once it's on you, on yeah, twice it's on on me, basically. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 23:27

Exactly.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 23:29

So when you're entering a new country or market, what do you assess first? The resources, the regulatory environment, or the people, and why?

SPEAKER_02 23:36

I I think I think the people side came a little bit later. Uh, I think the first thing, the first thing is on the on the mining side, the resource side is the resource first. So it's basically a geological review of the resource. Is the resource real? You know, then the next really biggest thing on that is market, right? Is there so you got to do some early due diligence? Early diligence is basically is the is the resource there? So is there enough of what you're looking for there, for example? Like in Canada, I built what's called the fluorospar mine. Now, no one in the world knows what fluorospar is, but fluorospar is in almost everything you do in your life, gives us fluorine, right? It's the fluorine that comes out of it. So even lithium batteries have fluorine in it. So I built a fluorospar mine. So the first thing I did was I looked at the geology side. Then I looked at the process side. Okay, so I have a lump of fluorospar, but it doesn't mean you can make it into anything. So I have to then do some work on the on making it into something, and then I do a market study. Okay, so if I if I have it, I can make it, I can make it at this cost, can I sell it? Once I understand that part, then more of the regulatory authority stuff, look at that. Now again, there's some things, there's some places, if you're in a mining sector and you're in certain places of the world, you just wouldn't go because it's either too dangerous or or whatever. Well, there's some places you just don't go, period. But knowing that it's a good jurisdiction, so let's assume you got you understand it ahead of time that's a good jurisdiction, do all the other stuff, and then you kind of look at the people, how do you acquire the, how do you bring the people in? Is it is a very rural area? But it's kind of a step by step. You really got to make sure that you before you spend any a lot of money, that you can, it's there, you can process it, and you can sell it. That's the most important thing. And then the rest of it, you've done you've done your due diligence a little bit on the on the people, of course, and on the jurisdiction, then you know you're pretty, you're gonna be okay, sort of, you don't know 100%. But the first part is the first part. You've got to make sure you have a it doesn't matter what you're selling in the world, whether it's a mineral or a widget or whatever, you gotta make sure you have a market for that product, basically.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 25:42

Yeah. Absolutely. And I've I've heard that a lot too, right? Before you go in and invest a lot, you want to make sure you've got the market and that it makes sense ultimately financially.

SPEAKER_02 25:52

We'll go back to my first point. My very first, my very first business, we failed miserably on the product due diligence and the market it was we've used for. Because the product we made looked fantastic, but it wasn't good enough for the market we're going in. So that was that was a failure on that part, right? So that's why now whatever I do, I do it that part so early before I spend any more money. Because if you don't understand that, if that doesn't work, that doesn't matter what you do, it doesn't matter how good you are, yeah, no one wants it, that means this fails.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 26:25

So you held a gold asset for over a decade before bringing it toward production. How do you decide when patience is strategic and when waiting becomes a liability?

SPEAKER_02 26:36

It's a good question because to hold anything costs money, right? And it was basically the collapse of the financial markets in 2009-2010, uh, when the mortgage thing blew up. Um at that time, you know, I and I traveled all over the world. So I've been all over the world and I've seen the debt that all the countries have, so all countries have debt, you know, not just America, all countries have debt. And in 2010, I saw the collapse of that and the financial crisis there. And I said, you know, there's got to be some value in holding gold and silver. Now I own gold and silver, but because I've built mines, I said, why don't I try to find a deposit that I could put into production? And so in 2012, around 2011, 12, 13, we looked for the property that we believe we could put in production. That was the one we found in in Nevada called Long Street, and I put into my company called Stargold Core. So we did, so again, go back to my first synopsis. We did the work, once I owned the property, I did the work on the geology. So I proved that there's enough gold and silver there that I can produce. I did the work on the metwork to make sure I can produce it. So good. So now I know I got the resource, I can produce it. And my belief was gold and silver prices were gonna go up in that period of time. Well, they never did, right? So every year, as I moved through the track of owning this property, I I mentally said, me and my my two partners in it talked every week, year, we had to spend money every year to hold good standing. Um, and it cost a lot of money. And you know, every year you're writing a check and it's worse than gambling. You may never come back. It's either it's either zero or something. There's no like percentages. You either write the check and you don't go to production, you get zero back, right? So we believe based on the world economy, what's going on, gold and silver has to go up. It has to go up just because of excess, people want to hold some value in something other than a paper currency, which is which is what a Bitcoin is, too, right? Yeah. So people are buying bitcoins, not because they understand Bitcoin, but they want something that's something else than a paper currency, which is what gold and silver is. So every year we did that, and now obviously we were well, it's luck, right? In some respects. We did know that gold and silver would go up, but uh now all of a sudden gold and silver has driven up quite high. And this makes this property that I own in Nevada very, very lucrative. Right. But again, it's gonna be when I go into production, it'll be people say that's an overnight success that took me 14 years to get there.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 29:02

And that's usually how overnight successes are, I think, from what I've learned.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

And it's really stressful because you're you're spending money, you may never get it back. That's why I go to Vegas four times a year to watch hockey down there, and I never gamble because my life has always been a gamble. My business is a gamble. I mean I don't, I I you know, you got to believe in yourself. So what we did there, we knew we had an asset that had very huge value as long as gold and silver prices went up. And I just wanted gold to go to$2,500 an ounce. At fourth, over$4,000 an ounce, it's more than valuable, it's ultra valuable now, kind of thing. Yeah. So now it's laser. So all the work we did in the past through the geology, metallurgical, and then we did all the environmental studies, cultural studies to make sure there's nothing there. So we did all the studies that now allows us to move forward a permit.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 29:53

Right. Yeah. So you're just waiting for that timing. And you, like you said, you took that huge risk, huge gamble, and now it's paying off.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah, exactly. So it's pretty exciting. It's really exciting now. Like I'm I can't believe gold to report that.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 30:07

I know, but super exciting. Yes. Yeah. Commodity businesses are highly exposed to forces outside a leader's control. How do you build conviction and discipline when markets, governments, and public sentiment are constantly shifting?

SPEAKER_02 30:21

I I want to go back. So let's go, because every mineral is different, right? You've got things like copper, nickel, gold, silver have a price set. That's on the market, right? That's one side of the mining business. And the other side is basically oblique, I guess, because fluorespar, titanium, garnet, those are deals on contract with an actual customer. So there's no global price for those types of commodities, right? So you have two different types of commodities. One that has a price globally that's traded as a price. So that and that again fluctuates greatly, and you have no control over it. And the other side is commodity industrial minerals, which is basically market driven. So both of them have very movement of price. I would say that on the opaque one, that's more a market demand-driven one. So I think that in the industrial minerals side, I'm negotiating with like a DuPont or Honeywell on a contract. So I'm negotiating on a long-term contract. Now, they're taking a risk, and I'm taking a risk that prices don't go up or down. But at the price we set of that, we both know we can make money. So we have a contract, and we said, and I've had I've written contracts where a month later, I waited a month, I would have got more money, but I don't break the contract because I have a long-term customer. I'm gonna I'm gonna supply the, I'm still making money, and that side. On the other side, when it comes to gold, silver, things like that, even though there's demand for things like that, that you have less control over that side of the market than you have over the the old, I call the opaque industrial mineral market. Because that's actually a user, an actual user that needs your product to make a product.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 32:08

Got it.

SPEAKER_02 32:09

Yeah. How do you so your question was, how do you get around all that? I think, I think the key is again different markets, right? Gold silver is different than fluorospar, titanium. So on the titanium fluorospar side of the business, darn it, it's all about who your customer is, what their demand is, what they need it for, and that you know that based on your cost of production, you can make money on selling into that marketplace, even if it moves a little bit, because the demand in that marketplace continues to grow. And as long as you don't have a competitor come in, like from China or somewhere else, which is also another risk, comes in with a lower with a product that is as good as yours and lower cost that floods the market, which has happened, right? That's how you get destroyed in an opaque market. Yeah. That's how you get destroyed. So if China, and it really is not just China, but China's the big one, right? That will bring a product in the market and the government will basically subsidize to get it into the market, control the market, get the other people out of the market, and then and then they bring the prices back up of that, right?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 33:12

Uh-huh. So just eliminating the competition, you know, basically and strategically, so then they can come in and dominate and raise the prices. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:19

Yeah. And that's dangerous on the opaque side. And the biggest side, nickel, nickel copper, less that. But again, that's how you're driven by just global market trends.

unknown 33:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

Another thing you sit in bed and not sleep, think about.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 33:33

Right, exactly. It's like, okay. Like you said, it's a game, right? It's a big game. So it's you've worked across mining, energy, storage, and battery technology. What do most people misunderstand about the relationship between mining, manufacturing, and the technologies powering the future?

SPEAKER_02 33:53

I think, I think the saddest thing is that when people think of mining, they think of the turn of the century mining when guys are underground, they got the coal lungs, they got the dust and all that kind of stuff. And and that's all gone. Like maybe it's maybe in some of the countries in Africa, Southeast Asia, maybe that's different. But in the in the West, that's completely gone. So I'll give you an example. So with my fluorescopy mine in Newfoundland, Canada, right? I have digging up the rock and all that kind of stuff. And I have basically a it's almost like a wrap around my entire property. Uh dirt, uh sorry, the amount of dirty water that flows off my property has less dirt in it than what you would have hosing your driveway off during the winter, right? Really? The things that we come under under scrutiny is so difficult, and that's why it's difficult to bring a mine in production. So the environmental controls over a mine in the West is so strong. So it's that's why it makes it harder for you to go into production, of course. But once you go in production, environmentally, you're not doing you're not hurting anything anymore, really. And I think the difficult thing in today's world is people still think about the turn of the century, the super funds, the dumping, and that doesn't happen anymore. It doesn't anymore. And that's the biggest hurdle that when you talk to just people that don't know mining because no one knows what mining is, really.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 35:15

Yeah. Well that yeah, that's interesting. So what about like copper mining? Because I mean, I'm from Arizona and we had copper mines, you know, all over, and they were these huge pits in the ground, right? So I mean, have processes changed like across, you know, all metals?

SPEAKER_02 35:30

Well, I think I think if you have an open pit copper mine, that's an open pit, right? That's what it is. So when the when the mine closes, I guess a lot of times you end up with a lake, right?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 35:39

And houses Yeah, a big pit and a lake at the bottom. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

When the mine empty when the mine closes, you basically fill the pit up, you have a lake with a bunch of houses around it, right? I let's go back, let me go back to what I said. You're still digging something out of the ground. So it's still gonna be, if it's if it if it's not underground, there'll be a hole, right? The hole gets if the deposit is big, it's it gets bigger. When the when the when the mine, so that maybe people don't like that side of it, but when the mining's going on, there's nothing environmentally or safety damage going on at the time, like we're air quality, stuff like that. But if there's if there's copper and it's an open pit, it's that's a big pit, right? Yeah, it's a big pit. There are big pits everywhere. At the end of the day, usually when it closes now, it becomes a lake with houses, usually. That's usually what happens. But I think what people don't understand is that your entire life you need metal, right? Everything you do in your world, you need metals, and it comes from the ground. And so people are against mining, say, in the West. But if you don't do it in the West properly, and you let it down in, say, I'm using Africa because Africa is has probably the worst environmental safety mines in the world that a lot of the Chinese companies are invested in, right? So would you rather have that? Or so it's it's catch-22, right? What do you do? You we need the metal to run our to run the world. We need the metal somehow. Whether it's industrial minerals or metals or whatever, it's got to come from somewhere. Would you rather come from somewhere that's done properly or somewhere that's not done properly? Absolutely. So it's again, and not everybody will say mining's good. I understand that. I I think it has the most negative connotations out of probably any type of industry just because of the the history of mining, right? But I think people should understand that when we with the mines that are going on in the West, what we go under environmentally, yeah, safety environmentally is so tight on us that they can they know at least we're doing it properly, right? Absolutely. Yeah. The whole itself, you might not like the whole, but we're doing it properly.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 37:47

But the least impact and and like you said, that I mean there's a lot of responsibility behind that and and f a lot of regulation. And so, right, you're not facing it's not the same as it used to be at the turn of the century.

SPEAKER_02 38:00

That's and that's why a lot of the large mining companies in the world that are not based in America are mining in other countries. Because they don't want to mine it in the West because they don't have to go under those extrinsic environmental and safety regulations, which is bad. So you you if you give her Google, there's there's there's there's deaths in mining all the time, not in the West, very like maybe once some weird thing happens, but in it in the in different parts of the world because there's no environmental or safety standards. Right. And so I'm a I'm a big believer on a global, if you're having a global, if you're having global markets, the entire global market should be under one system of it'll it'll probably never happen, right? But not in my lifetime. Well, I'm in my 60s now, so I guess not. But anyway, so in my lifetime, but I think that if you could get that point where the World Bank or the World Organization or United Nations get to could actually come to an agreement that the entire world economy has to run under the same environmental and safety standards, that'd be unbelievable for the world and for the safety of the people of the world. Yeah, but it I doubted it. What's going on in the world today? I doubt it.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 39:07

Yeah. But ideally, right.

SPEAKER_02 39:10

I I'm an idealist, so that'd be great to do that, right?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 39:13

So now you've faced extreme situations from geopolitical instability to life-threatening moments in the field. How do these experiences permanently change the way you assess risk as a leader? Now you've told me some stories, and I I understand you've gone through a lot.

SPEAKER_02 39:31

My best one because it's kind of a funny story and a hard story. It was in my Indian one of my Indian stories. I was leaving my house here in Idaho with my video camera, and my wife always says, You're gonna don't take the video camera, you're gonna lose it. And I go, No, I'm not gonna lose the video camera. So I go, so I had my my geologist in India looking for other titanium, titanium deposits, zircon, etc., garnet deposits. And they found one in the southern part of India on the coast. So I went in there with my managing director, a couple of my geologists, and a driver, and we drove to all these different parts. But there's one park I was drove, worked through this, walked through the bush. I'm on this hill, and I'm videotaping the property they're talking about. And down below, there's these six boats being loaded and unloaded. Don't know what's going on down there, but all of a sudden, my MD managing director yells me, Mr. Lindsay, Mr. Lindsay, the Gundas are coming. The Gundas means suns, basically, are coming. I go, what are you talking about? Look down. And these guys are running up the hill with machetes. Oh no. And I'm going, what's going on? I go, I think they want your camera. I go, why do they want my camera? I don't know. We should go, Mr. Lindsay. So we start running through this shrub, and I'm trying to get, you know, the old cameras that have the thing gulpers like this? And I'm thinking, I'm gonna get the tape out and put it down my pants. Can I want my tape? Because I've been traveling around India videotaping this property, and I don't have a copy. So I couldn't get it out because you're running, and all of a sudden we're surrounded by these guys, and they're screaming in Tamil, screaming, screaming, screaming. And they go, he they keep saying to me, You gotta give me your camera. And I'm my head's going, if I give my camera, my wife's gonna be pissed at me. My head's gonna be trouble. And there's like eight guys screaming machete. All of a sudden, one guy hits me, hit my manager director, and hit one guy hit me with like a pipe across my shoulder. I went down on a knee, thought I was gonna, I thought I'd broke my shoulder. And I go, okay, so I gave him my camera. First thing I did was open it up and see if the tape was in there. Thank God I didn't put it down my pants. Then more yelling, screaming. A couple were hit, they hit a couple of our geologists, took them up, hit him pretty hard, and then he left. And I go, what was that? I go, they go, that was the Tamil Tigers. We either videotape them unloading and loading guns or drugs. Oh no. Only reason we're not dead is because you, Miss Lindsay, were here. If you weren't here, if we were all Indians, they would have killed us all. They would have killed us all. We get out of the bush, my driver was almost dead on the ground. They took our Jeep, they'd taken our Jeep away. Um, we got the we got the driver to the hospital. He didn't, he lived, but didn't turn out very good. I got home, I told my wife I lost the camera. I didn't tell her that story for six years. I wanted to go back to India. Yeah, right, exactly. I just didn't go to that part of it. That was a comedy and also a uh a thriller kind of part. But it was there's been a lot of weird spots. So I was in I was in Sri Lanka, the same with the Talma Tigers. I was meeting the finance minister, and then a month later, at the exact same spot, a suicide bomber blew up the finance minister and a few other people, and I was talking to the guy in the exact same spot a month ago. So at least at that point, I decided I'm not gonna do business in Sri Lanka, I'm just gonna stay in India.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 42:25

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_02 42:26

So those are things that party life, I could be, I could, it could be my last day of my life, right? Right. I still went back though. I still went back.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 42:34

Yeah, I still went back, but just made you think about where you were doing.

SPEAKER_02 42:40

When they say miserable, don't go there, I won't go there.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 42:43

Yeah, exactly. So many people talk about taking risk, but few truly understand what sustained risk looks like. What's the difference between reckless risk and disciplined risk taking?

SPEAKER_02 42:56

I think well, I think I think me videotaping was reckless risk, right? I should I should have listened to my people around me, but I was so focused on getting videos of all the land, anyways. That's reckless, clearly as reckless risk. I think yeah, the other risk was it when you called it uh kind of uh what do you call it? What risk?

unknown 43:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 43:14

Oh, disciplined risk taking. Yeah. Yeah. So I think discipline risk is what we talked about at the very beginning. Everything in life is a risk. Whatever you do is a risk, right? And whatever you do, you can always go back and change it, hopefully. But whatever you do affects what you're gonna do next. So I think discipline risk is all about understanding in what understanding in what road you're moving down and how what path you're moving down, how you're gonna get there, and then understanding that that's the wrong road, or you're off a little bit to basically re revamp that plan and go this way. And I think that's the type of that's the type of risk that you can manage. And again, you find the pitfalls happen, of course, but you've got to re- und you've got to basically always never believe everything you say all the time, right? You're not always. Right, the people around you have ideas, make a decision, understand as quickly as you can when you made the wrong decision, hopefully quietly. If you make it too late, then obviously that's a big problem. And make the decision and come back and revamp that. And that's more of what you what you call your your kind of your your organized or your dependent risk or whatever.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 44:19

Yeah. Right. So it's realigning, learning from your mistakes and being educated about, I mean, something before you go into it, and then constantly adjusting and then not repeating the same mistakes twice.

SPEAKER_02 44:31

Hopefully you don't. Obviously you do sometimes. But um, yeah, and I think I think it's again if you if you do the due d I always call it due diligence. If you do your due diligence right, you understand what it doesn't know what business you're in, you understand your product, your market, your the people, the people who are gonna be around you to work and all that stuff properly, and you and you and you put that plan together and you go forward, you'll be successful. It won't be clear line successful, but you'll be successful with hiccups on the road that you've got to set back, analyze it, change it, and go forward again.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 45:05

Yeah. You've said belief in oneself is essential, but so is not overextending. How should founders balance ambition with financial and operational restraint?

SPEAKER_02 45:17

I think, and that's a difficult thing because when you get a when you get a vision, sometimes you do have the blinders on, right? And you're going full speed ahead. And I think I think the key is that as long as you have the team around you, because no one can do anything by themselves. As long as you have you groomed a team around you that understand parts of the business better than you, and you really will listen to their point of view, I think that will that will get you on a lot, that would that would remove a lot of down the road pitfalls that you would have had if you didn't do that. And it's it's difficult sometimes because everybody has egos, right? Yeah. Eagles, and no one wants to be wrong, but you know, it would I would say my ego was bigger when I was in my late 20s and 30s, early on in my business, because I was, you know, young and I could do everything. And you know, as my as I started building a business and made these mistakes, I realized that's not the case. I'm I'm I'm not that smart, right? I'm not that smart, but I'm pretty good at at attracting good people to help make it happen.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 46:20

Right. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I the ego, ego, I know it's there for protection ultimately, but it can quickly, you know, sabotage efforts and it's gaining that awareness, I think, and I think wisdom over time. It's like as we age or or get more experience, we start to keep our ego or put our ego in check more so.

SPEAKER_02 46:40

Yeah, yeah, I think I think I think it's important. I have a my I'm I'm a driver, I want to win, right? I want to win, obviously, whether I'm playing sports or whatever, but if I lose, I'm not ups, I'm not upset. I don't it doesn't destroy me to lose. So you want a winning atmosphere, winning attitude, I guess, winning attitude. But again, you have to be able to step back and know when you're not winning, yeah. Which you know, which means when you're not making your your your targets, and step back and say, okay, we're this is not a even if we want to win, we're not winning. How do we step back and fix that? Because you got and you gotta, you like I said, there's many times in my life that we I've almost lost all my money, right? India was one of the biggest things that that was the biggest risk, and I almost lost everything, right? At one point in time, and it was just that's a longer story, but thank God I didn't have that much debt, and thank God I worked hard. I basically left my home. I didn't see my kids for six months and just focused on getting this business running. But that was a that was a risk, that was a a personal risk I took with my wife. You know, talked to her and said, If I don't go do this, we're losing everything, right? And I gotta go do this. And some people maybe maybe would just follow that to say, we're done. Um we're we're gone, right? We're gonna close her down. But I knew we could get it going. And we did six months later, things are going great, and and that. But again, I said, I'm I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna spend six months full-time figuring this thing out, get this thing going. I believe in this, people around me believed in it. My personal, my wife believed in it, obviously, and she was a big part of this because she didn't believe in it be difficult to take off for six months.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:12

Um so it's good to have not just people around you in business that support you, but having people in your personal life support you too is a huge benefit of how you become something, right? Really?

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 48:22

Well, yeah, because there's a level of sacrifice that it's involved, especially. I mean, you had to sacrifice family life for those six months. So having that support, I think, is it's vital. Yeah, crucial. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 48:34

And I said, look, here's the thing. I guess I think I can get this return over in six months. If I don't do it, if I don't go down, we're gonna we're close, we're gonna go bankrupt. If I don't, if my successful six months, we're bankrupt. Yeah. Trust me, I think I could get this done. And I again, that's a that's another whole that's a that's a business model story I'm telling you. That'll take me three hours. But anyway, but so again, having support of the personal life, having people around me in the business life that helped me get do that. It it took a company that was going bankrupt to a lucrative company, basically. Yeah, right.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 49:08

Well, Lindsay, finally, for the next generation of entrepreneurs, operators, and industrial leaders listening today, what is the one principle you believe determines who endures and who fades out?

SPEAKER_02 49:20

I think, I think it comes down to believe in yourself, but make sure you do the work to make sure what you believe is really true. And don't just disparage other people's opinions because they don't line up with your opinion. Make sure you take other people's opinion. And if they have an opinion that's different than yours, even though you might not think it's right, take time to look into that to make sure it's not right. Because the the fit pitfall of entrepreneurs, because you do their drivers and eagle guides and that kind of stuff, with like I was when I was young, right? I think that if you do that, you'll be even more successful and really sell your vision to people. Sell your vision to people. Yeah.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 50:03

Well, Lindsay, thank you for sharing your extraordinary journey and for bringing such a candid, grounded perspective on leadership, risk, and global execution. For listeners who want to learn more about your work and follow you, where can they find out more?

SPEAKER_02 50:17

Uh, they can just go to my website of my company, wwwstargoldcorp.com, and they can they can actually send me an email for that.

Dr. Leeanne Aguilar 50:25

Excellent. And for those listening, if you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe and share it with a colleague and tune in for our next conversation. Until next time, stay bold, stay curious, and keep igniting industry.