Success Lives in the Moment Before You Go Over the Edge with Jemia & Tim Zagiel

Success Lives in the Moment Before You Go Over the Edge with Jemia & Tim Zagiel

Tim Zagiel: When you're 30, 40, 50, a hundred, 300 feet up in the air, you look over the edge, you know, either you wet yourself or you got this, I have this like, let's go mentality, and I've always like jumped over the edge. I've only named it recently through some discovery with Jemia and somebody else in our group.

But, um, I've always been excited and I've, I've kind of taken that, that responsibility on with a little bit of thrill seeking probably in the back of my head, right. Never putting myself in danger, but if you can't get past the safety aspect and you can't trust yourself to do it, you shouldn't be doing it.

Intro: The Great Mark Cuban once said, business happens over years and years. Value is measured in the total upside of a business relationship, not by how much you squeezed out in any one deal, and we couldn't agree more. This

is the Business Development podcast based in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. In broadcasting to the world, you'll get expert business development advice, tips, and experiences, and you'll hear interviews with business owners, CEOs, and business development reps. You'll get actionable advice on how to grow business, brought to you by Capital Business Development capitalbd.ca.

Let's do it. Welcome. To the Business Development Podcast, and now your expert host, Kelly Kennedy.

Kelly Kennedy: Hello, welcome to episode 318 of the Business Development Podcast, and today it is my absolute pleasure to welcome to the show an extraordinary husband and wife duo who are redefining the limits of industrial access and safety.

Jemia and Tim Zagiel as the powerhouse team behind Pacific Ropes, they've built more than just a business. They've created a movement, one that is setting new standards and efficiency, safety and innovation in the construction and energy sectors. Jemia is the strategist, the visionary leader who takes bold ideas and turns them into reality with a deep understanding of operational excellence, business growth, and team development.

She has cultivated a culture of collaboration. Pushing the company and its people to achieve more than they ever thought possible. She sees challenges as opportunities and has played pivotal roles in making Pacific Ropes a recognized leader in its field. Tim is the pioneer, the industry disruptor, who has spent nearly two decades pushing the boundaries of what is possible in rope access solutions.

His commitment to safety training and efficiency has not only elevated Pacific Ropes, but has also raised the bar for the entire industry. He's not just making high risk work more accessible, he's transforming how companies think about industrial access. Proving that rope access isn't just an alternative, it's the future.

Together. Jemia and Tim are a force to be reckoned with leading Pacific Ropes with a vision, passion, and relentless drive to push boundaries. Their work is about more than just scaling heights. It's about reshaping industries, empowering teams, and proving that with the right mindset, mindset, nothing is impossible.

Get ready for an inspiring conversation with two trailblazers who are rewriting the rules of the game. Jemia and Tim, it's an honor to finally have you on the show.

Tim Zagiel: Thanks Kelly.

Jemia Zagiel: Thanks for having us.

Tim Zagiel: Pleasure to be here.

Kelly Kennedy: It's, uh, honestly, I'm really excited to have you guys, I've never had anybody from rope access and actually I kind of feel like until we met and we met a really long time ago, long before I was a podcaster back in my, uh, back in my business development days, working with Engrity actually I had never even heard of Rope Access, I think, until we met for the very first time.

And once I did, I was like, wait, that's a job. That's so cool.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah. And I still haven't got into my harness all these years later.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, Heights is something I struggle with, so we're gonna talk about this, right?

Tim Zagiel: We'll unpack that later.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. I have no idea how you guys do this. So I, I'm really excited, like I said, to have this conversation.

It's such a cool field and such an important field. You know, there's a lot of scenarios where frankly, scaffolding just doesn't make any sense and it's frankly expensive. And so the idea that. Some superheroes, hop up on some ropes and, and do work is pretty, pretty incredible, you know? How did you guys end up on this path?

I would love, you know, I have both of you here today and I would love to hear both of your journeys independently because they are so different. And then, and then obviously the same. Jemia, I wanna start with you. You started, you know, a long time ago working in the film industry, you know, take me back.

Who is Jemia Zagiel? How did you end up on this path?

Jemia Zagiel: Well, long story short, I married into the business, so Tim was on this path already and I just, uh, happened to be there at that same time. When we started dating, Tim was already on his path of building this business. He's got a very strong entrepreneurial spirit and is always looking for.

Ways improve whatever he's doing. And at the time he was yeah, working for some other companies. And when I met him, I think I was in the phase in my life where I was just looking for new experiences, new things to do. I think I still am, I think it, that's just kind of who I am. Yeah. So when I met him and he told me that he worked on ropes as a job, I thought that was kind of cool.

So I asked him if he would hire me. Um, he said maybe but uh, he never did. So I think he there, he did take me on a job one time, but this was after we started dating and yeah, I was scared. It was really, really scary. But yeah, so I think how I really got involved was when we had. What I call our first unicorn project.

It was on the Portman Bridge. We helped install the de-icing mechanisms.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay.

Jemia Zagiel: On that bridge in 2013 or 2012, I think. 2013. Yeah. And at that time I was, my career trajectory at the time was in film and tv. You're correct. I just finished film school. I was working on set in a variety of different roles, mostly in the Sound Department and sometimes as a script supervisor, I was just trying to get my hands in everything.

Um, but my real drive for that was storytelling. I really feel TV and film was a great way to share stories and for people to connect with each other. Um, so that's what I really wanted to do. But then,

Kelly Kennedy: yes,

Jemia Zagiel: Portman Bridge came, and at that time, Tim and I were, I was helping him with some of the administrative work already.

We had like two employees, I think, or he had two employees. We were working out of our living room. And then one day he came home and said that he got this massive job, which is very high profile. And we needed to hire 50 people immediately.

Kelly Kennedy: Wow.

Jemia Zagiel: So I was like, okay, I'll help you. Oh my gosh. Of course, right?

As a partner, you don't, you know, it's such a great opportunity and it was so exciting and I wanted to help him achieve that and be successful at it. And then, and then I just kept going. I guess. I don't know. I think at one point to be honest with you, earlier, earlier on there were a lot of questions of, oh, did you give up your own career to help Tims?

Mm. And it would've been an easy answer to say yes. And, you know, we had fights about that too. Right. You know, especially when we were. Stressed and and whatnot or you know, like any couple, you always feel,

Kelly Kennedy: yep.

Jemia Zagiel: You always have fights about like being underappreciated, blah, blah, blah. Right. And it was easy to kind of use that as an excuse of like, well, I gave up my career to pursue yours.

But really that's really unfair to say at this point because it was my decision, you know, he never asked me to do that. He never asked me to choose one over the other. I made that choice whether I knew that or not. Subconsciously. And I think it's because there is a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in me and you know, like I didn't stay here because of what we do.

I stayed here because of the people in it. And I think that's really where my motivation is still today, is just creating a space for people to really thrive and have opportunities that they didn't think they had. Um. Be able to create environment where people can thrive in areas that they thought, which was never possible to them.

So it's not an easy journey and it's hard. Like the, the thing that motivates me to keep going is also the thing that stresses me out the most. Right. But yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: It's, um, it's an entrepreneurial challenge I think.

Jemia Zagiel: I felt like I said a lot of different things.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. I, I completely agree. I can't imagine, Tim, you know, take me back.

Did you think, you know, when you were a teenager that you were gonna run a rope access company? You know, walk me back when you were, when you were younger, how did you end up on this path? What was it that drew you to this?

Tim Zagiel: So when I was a kid, I think since I was probably five, four or five years old, I thought I was gonna grow up and be a firefighter.

And this was something I'd seen as a kid. I'd probably seen them in action and I always wanted to help. And so I had that kind of deep, innate ability to want to go into danger to help people for some reason. And so when you look at the path to where we are today, obviously I've chosen something that's a service that that appears to be a bit riskier without the right checks and balances.

It is for sure. You know, but I think that was my, in my heart, kind of for the majority of my childhood and then as a kid so I would not have guessed that I would've been doing this type of work, let alone starting a company and kind of pushing to create an industry here in Western Canada at all.

That wasn't even on my head, in my head until probably early to mid two thousands when I first moved to Vancouver. Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Were you, were you like climbing for fun at that time? Like, you know, it kind of sounds to me like something that was a passion project. You're like, holy cow. I think, I think we could ultimately do this for industry, you know, walk me through it.

I. Like I said, I'd never even heard of rope access until, I wanna say like, 2014 I think was my first introduction. And literally it was my introduction to you guys where it was like, this is what rope access is, here's how we can help support. At the time it was the quality industry and inspections. I was like, man, that's so cool.

I'd literally never heard of it. There's a lot of major advantages to it and we're gonna get into it today. And I think for a lot of people, Tim, they're hearing about rope access for the very first time. But before we, before we dive deep into what is rope access, like I said, was this a passion for you?

Was this something where you like an avid climber, you know, growing up in British Columbia?

Tim Zagiel: Uh, no. So I actually grew up in Saskatchewan and I kind of moved out here right. Around when I was 20.

Kelly Kennedy: Oh, okay.

Tim Zagiel: And yeah, so I didn't really have, my climbing background in the prairies was climbing spruce trees and pine trees and stuff like that.

Right. Like getting stuck at a young age and then figuring out how to get out when I was a bit older. So.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: You know, I've always been that guy that's climbed into hard to reach spots. And my mother hated me for it 'cause she would want me to get down and I'd be too afraid somebody had to come get me when I was, I think I was like six or seven.

I kind of have vivid memories of that. And I got better obviously, throughout my teens. But no, there was no real kind of rock climbing, mountain climbing, anything like that until I actually started working on rope here. So I'd moved to Vancouver and kind of the early two thousands, and to my surprise, it was March.

The grass was green. You know, the cherry blossom people were talking about the cherry blossoms already. 'cause they were starting to, but, and in a week or two there was gonna be this cherry blossom event.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: You know, and I'm kind of scratching my head going. It's just, it's minus 28 at home. It's really cold.

It's miserable. Am I still in Canada? What's going on?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Um, yeah, so, so moving out here, I started work on rope. And I worked in a few different industries that had kind of rope skills to the best of their ability at the time. And through that, uh, within the first summer or two, I ended up going climbing with people that I worked with and kind of fell in love with it.

So I had about a decade of climbing some of the crags here in western Canada. And Jemia and I met through kind of our, our passion for climbing together and, uh, kind of hit it off that way. So we ended up actually being climbing partners for quite a while before we started dating. And it's a bit of a.

It's a bit ironic 'cause at this point we haven't climbed in probably 10, 15 years. We were,

Kelly Kennedy: yeah.

Tim Zagiel: We like soft things, so I don't know. Snow couches, ocean surfing. If you hit the water, it's not that bad.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. Yes, yes.

Tim Zagiel: So things have changed drastically, but I definitely wasn't a climber, um, super passionate perspective.

It was a, a summer job when I first moved here. I got a, a, a job through a friend of the family and started working on a rope here. But we kinda had this, you know, 20 minute, couple hour training and you're kicked over the edge. And there was a lot of that in different industries that use ropes here.

And it wasn't until the second summer when I started looking online and I realized that there was all these trade associations around the world that trained and certified people to work on rope at heights.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And it's, you know, kind of what you lean into. So integrity in the inspection world, engineering world, it makes a lot of sense.

I just gotta go out, I gotta survey something, I gotta collect some data. Then the, the maintenance, the repairs, the painting, the installation. Like there's so many things around the world that we're using it. And I kind of scratched my head and looked at what we were doing here in Canada. I was like, this can't be right.

There's gotta be a bit of a better way. Right. So I did kind of seek out, uh, training and certification, which, which was exciting because now that I've had, you know, a year or two experience doing this in the field, plus I've been doing it as this newer hobby in a spare time with some friends out in the mountains.

Kelly Kennedy: Yep.

Tim Zagiel: Similar, yet different. It was fairly exciting to connect ads, new skills, and all it was doing was taking everything that was out there and putting it into one. And so the certification that we, that I originally pursued is the same certification that our training division now trains and certifies here for Western Canada, which is exciting.

And so I was able to kind of take that. Moment, that aha moment was, you know, kind of asking the question, do we know what we're doing? And then realizing, you know, I was on a rooftop alone on a 300 foot tall building in downtown Vancouver and asking the question, well, who's gonna get me if I go over the edge?

And, and what are the ramifications of this? Right. So yeah, I wouldn't say that I got into this because I was passionate about climbing. I think the business side of it started because I wanted to keep myself and my friends safe. And most companies that I worked for in a different d few different industries didn't really have the ability to push that forward.

They were so caught up in the day to day. So, you know, if you're a painting company and you're using ropes or whatever techniques you're using to the best of your abilities, you're probably caught up in the day-to-day of just doing that. And so adding something new seems quite challenging. Right? And there was no regulation, there was no training certification here in Western Canada.

So I had to travel. And I met a gentleman who's amazing guy, uh, and great mentor in the industry, but he was running training in Ontario at the time, and I know that was training down in the us I believe outta Reno at the time as well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Um, and so I was able to go out, run through the programs out there and get a bit of a better understanding of, of how to modernize the workforce here in western Canada.

And then kind of take that into the idea of specific ropes. And the idea behind it was, you know, we're gonna create this professional rope access company. And I don't think when I started, I had a big idea of where we would be today.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And the types of services we would be doing, the types of people we'd be working with.

But I've always been a solutions provider. You've got a problem, you gotta, you, you don't know how to fix something in your garage. I'm there with you tomorrow and we'll try to figure it out and we'll. We'll go to the store, we'll talk to a few guys, we'll find the right trade, you know, we'll put the pieces together and make it happen.

And I've kind of stuck that throughout. But, uh, but yeah, when we started it really was, hey, there's the older way of doing it in, in Western Canada here, which we somewhat kind of meets regulatory requirements, but there wasn't really, um, disguise of professionalism in the, in the industry here. And taking that to say, how do we train and certify and educate the workforce so that the guys that I'm climbing with, going to the lake on the weekends, um.

About at Pit Lake out in BC here, which is a story for another day. But I actually like the guys that I work with and I have a lot of great stories and I wanted to keep doing these silly things or just enjoying my weekends with them. Right. So I wanted to keep them safe and, and deep down I knew if I could start and just push for it, I could probably eventually make change.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. And you have, right? Two, two decades. You have made some change, man. I wanna chat with Jemia really quick because you'd mentioned something early on and you mentioned the fear aspect, right? And I know for me, I'm gonna mention this, like I gotta get up on my roof here in a little bit and clean out my gutters and my roof is pretty high.

Yeah. And honestly, I'm a little bit wigged out about that, let alone climbing a 300 foot tower. And I wanna chat about that because obviously it's not the fault that scares us. It's the sudden stop at the end. It's probably, you know, from the standpoint of safety, you guys screw up. It's, it's very serious, right?

Like you're, this isn't, oh, I tripped and fell. Uh, you know, and, and broken arm. This is, I fell 300 feet to my death. I, I have to chat about this.

Jemia Zagiel: Like, you don't keep reminding me, Kelly.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, I mean, first off, you guys might be some of the bravest people. I, I know. Uh, second off, you might also be some of the craziest, talk to me about this, you know, what, what is it that drives you to want to put yourself out there? Like, to me, this is just as dangerous as being like a soldier or a police officer or maybe a fireman, right?

The stakes are high. The stakes are high with rope access.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah. I think, I mean, I personally am not on ropes so, I have to give kudos to our staff who are. Putting on the harnesses and going through and actually working at height every day. And like our training manager says, it's important to have a bit of, of a fear of heights because mm-hmm.

You don't wanna have no fear because then you'll just become reckless. Right? And so, a huge part one of our core values and really at the heart of it, safety is kind of a foundational piece for us. And I know lots of company say safety is first, but for us it is necessary and very crucial. And so before anybody gets up on ropes on the first day, there is like at least two hours of like paperwork, safety discussion, safety meetings, reviewing, hazards, everybody under, making sure everybody understands the control measures.

Like all of that. And I think sometimes a lot of people might look at our team and they're like, why are they sitting around talking for so long? They should start working. But, you know, a welder working on rope for our team isn't the same as a welder working in a shop, right? Like, yeah, they legitimately have a lot more preparation they need to consider.

And everybody on the team, it's not, it's not an individual thing too. Like everybody has to be on the same page of what the plan is and, um, where people are gonna be, what's gonna happen when it's gonna happen. What they're using. Is the equipment, you know, appropriate? Like has it been damaged, you know, overnight for whatever reason?

You know, you're checking things all the time. And the, the method itself, I know without, especially if you're not somebody who. Rock climbs or does anything at height might seem really scary and out there, but done properly and done according to the systems that are laid out. It is actually quite safe.

The only thing that really is bad is when people become complacent or they don't follow the rules. And so, yeah, really like when we look at a lot of the incidents that we review, it is about complacency. It's about not being fit for work. It's about not following what the system. Right. And so it, you know, it is really, really important to us that people do that.

And, you know, these days, um, fit for work is like so important. Like if somebody shows up, they didn't get enough sleep, or there's something at home that's stressful, they're not having a good mental health day, it's. It's like, you're not going on rope today. You know, like it's just non-negotiable.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. So, so what you're saying is that equip, like actual equipment failure is pretty rare.

Most of the challenges you're dealing with are, are are human challenges.

Jemia Zagiel: Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: How obviously, you know, you have to put a lot of trust and faith in your employees. In this scenario, it sounds like you've set up a very, very friendly and open and honest place and encourage that within your employees because like you said, if they're having an off day, they can't be climbing.

Like at the end of the day, you don't wanna have, you know, a preventable injury. Mm-hmm. Or frankly, potential fatality. Like it is very serious what you do. Talk to me a little bit because I know for a fact Jemia, that you guys have fostered an incredible team dynamic. You have, you have very loyal, very.

Very educated and very committed employees. Talk to me a little bit about the culture of Pacific Ropes, because it sounds to me like this is a culture where if you don't foster it correctly, serious accidents happen and you guys have done absolutely incredible to foster such a great a great employee base.

Talk to me a little bit, how do you do that within an organization? How do you encourage them to talk about, because some of that stuff's personal, right? You know, uh mm-hmm. You, you're having a fight with your, with your, with your significant other, you got issues going on at home, you're not getting enough sleep.

These aren't always things that you wanna bring to work, but at a certain, at a certain situation, in a job like this that authenticity and that trust and that safe space to be able to say, you know what? I probably shouldn't be up on the ropes today, is critical.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: How, how do you foster that within an employee base?

Jemia Zagiel: I dunno if it's anything. Tim and I, I don't know if it's anything. Yeah, I don't know if it's anything Tim and I can take credit for really. I think somehow we've created a team that do really like each other, so Yeah. I'm not sure how to explain it, but, you know, like, I can't say that we did anything, not that I can recognize anyways to foster that, but I think you know, like people are attracted to people that are similar to them.

And so

Kelly Kennedy: yes,

Jemia Zagiel: I think our crew has always been, I don't know, like they've just really liked and care for each other. They like, have a really good and I don't know if it's because of the nature of the job that you have to, like, you can't show up to work and not like somebody like, I think,

Intro: yeah,

Jemia Zagiel: I mean, not, not everybody is best friends, but like I understand that, but there's this level of, respect and care for each other. Respect in a way that I think is different from other types of work environments, especially if it's a different industry. If, you know, there's a group of people in an office, like, you know, you can always have like office drama and things like that. But I think there's something about the nature of our work that really, like if you are not part of a team, if you're not a team player, I think you just self-select yourself out because there's no way that you can go to work every day and not have trust in each other.

So and I think it's more of the nature of the job rather than us. Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: I don't know. There's a level of camaraderie because,

Jemia Zagiel: yeah,

Kelly Kennedy: because of the seriousness of the consequences, right.

Jemia Zagiel: It's difficult work, so you really, it's not a one person job. Like it's never. It's very much a team effort. So I think that re those relationships just get built and, you know, our staff really look out for each other, even outside of work.

You know, I hear of people really extending a hand above and beyond outside to help a coworker and you don't really see that in a lot of places. And yeah, to be honest, I don't think it's something that Tim and I created. I think they've just come together on their own and they happen to be under the Pacific growth banner.

So.

Kelly Kennedy: Well, culture is culture and, uh, I, I genuinely think culture is from the top down. So I really believe you did, you did play a role in that and I imagine it has a lot to do with the respect and kindness that you give to your employees that you create and, and foster an open environment. So, you know as much as you don't wanna take any credit for it, I genuinely believe credit is due, you know, at the top.

So, great job with that. You know, we've been talking a lot about rope access. We've been talking about climbing. I think, I think our listeners are maybe starting to get an idea of what it is, but Tim, do you mind introducing all of our listenership to rope access? Because I think a lot of them have likely never come across it before.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, for sure. I wanna go back first, for a split second though, and I, I want Jemia not to discredit herself because I know that we have created a culture of openness and collaboration and that's been one of our key values internally in the company. And that definitely comes from Jemia.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Um, allowing the space for people to kind of be themselves, which can be a good thing and it can be very challenging. You know, just like having kids at home, right? Yeah. There's good days and there's bad days. That's right. You gotta kind of take both with a grain of salt. But that openness amongst the company has definitely trickled down through the, the various team leaders and supervisors that we've had running different crews where we do have the ability to kind of blah.

And if we've had a bad day, we know our life is on the line. Yeah. There's no room for error, right? Yeah. And so, yeah, Jemia, I would not discard it yourself in, in helping build that for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And first off, you know me and you have worked together personally. You are an incredible leader. I know for a fact you had something to do with this.

Jemia Zagiel: Aw shucks guys.

Tim Zagiel: Aw, yeah. So, fast forward a little bit. So the, the rope access side of it. So you know, when you hear the word rope access, I used to have a joke that it was that. Back pain medication. I used to see ads on the CBC and they would pull a little pin outta the guy's back and he would stand up straight.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And I'm pretty sure if you asked my mother to date what I do and she's like, oh, Tim's in pharmaceuticals because he does that medication. Right. I convince. So, yeah. But I mean it's literally using ropes for access. If I tell you, Hey, I'm using scaffold to access something, it's a bit of a no-brainer.

Right?

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Tim Zagiel: Um, but essentially what's happened, I think since, since the inception of time, I guess, but you know, at some point the various rope systems that we've been using throughout history and I know in North America here, you know, you can kind of think back to when they chiseled out Mount Rushmore and know when they built Hoover Dam, there was a lot of suspended rope work in the old bozen chair type system.

They were lowering guys down or they were lowering themselves in these big block and tackle systems.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And that's modernized into this kind of professional access. Solution for industry. And it's just that, and it's, it's an access solution for everybody, right? So you could be an engineer, you could be a painter, you could be a carpenter, you could be a welder, a pipe fitter, you name it.

If there's something at height that that is a fit for, you can probably do it. Now, I need you to take that with a grain of salt, because I've got, we've got friends that are welders, that are rope techs that are amazing, repelling out at height. And I've got a couple friends that are welder fabricators that struggle to get around a fab shop.

Yeah. They probably smoke too much and drink on the week, a lot on the weekends, and they, you know, heavier set and can't climb.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right.

Tim Zagiel: So there is a, there is a physical aspect to it because it is similar to like tower climbers that climb these structures all day, every day. There's a physical aspect to it, so you need to be a bit of a beast that, you know, you hike or you scramble around on the weekends, you go biking, you're, you're physically.

There's an easy ability to climb around, um, and to train you. And then the second thing you need for, for I guess adopting rope access in whatever trade you're doing is just a good head for safety. And so when you asked about the culture earlier, there's part of what we've like the Kool-Aid that we pour in everybody's mouth when they join Pacific Robes.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And then there's the, the oh shit moment. I don't know if you have to edit that out, but I don't really care.

Kelly Kennedy: Nope.

Tim Zagiel: When you're 30, 40, 50, a hundred, 300 feet up in the air, you look over the edge, you know, either you wet yourself or you got this, I have this like, let's go mentality. And I've always like jumped over the edge.

I've only named it recently through some discovery with Jemia and somebody else in our group. But, um, I've always been excited and I've, I've kind of taken that, that responsibility on with a little bit of thrill seeking probably in the back of my head, right? While yet never putting myself in danger.

Um, if you can't get past the safety aspect and you can't trust yourself to do it, you shouldn't be doing it.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And so then when we think about the systems, you know, there's, I could bore you to death with different pieces of equipment and different types of systems that we can set up horizontally and vertically and to get inside, outside, underneath things.

But you're, you're setting up ropes in a way that you've probably already seen on tv, on film, out in the real world. And it's, you know, repelling down a wall. It's repelling across the canyon. There's a lot of different systems to get people on rope, and you've seen it in, you've seen it in the fire world, you've seen it in, I mean, building maintenance around the city.

If you're in Vancouver or Edmonton, Toronto areas. You've seen it in the rescue world out in the, out in the um, country. And so that's been kind of adopted from. Varying different backgrounds into what we have as this rope access Technician certification program. And it's, it kind of shows you that there are probably a hundred different ways to skin a cat, but this is how we do it in the workplace.

Right. Okay. So you can use ropes of any sorts. I'm sure your uncle might have shown you how to use ropes when you were a kid to do something silly somewhere. I know I had a few kind of near, near death experiences in my past prior to even getting into this. So I definitely welcome the professional input to this.

But what they've done is taken access and rescue and, and simplified it into a trainable program, and now we can educate the workforce to be able to use it out, out at height.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah, the rope access system itself was taken. From like climbing caving techniques. And the thing that is different compared to what most people would see recreationally, is that rope access system, the rope access system, is confused with redundancy through and throughout.

So you have, if in order like when somebody's using rope access, there is always two sets of ropes. Like you can see that physically that there's two sets of ropes. But as the, as they move through the system and as they're doing different techniques, everything has a redundant checkpoint so that there is like multiple backups, not just in the ropes themselves, but how the maneuvers occur as well.

So that's something that is different. That is not. That you wouldn't see, like even some of the rescue high angle rescue techniques, uh, they don't always use two ropes because in that scenario it's about getting in there quick, getting somebody out. It's in a rescue emergency scenario. Whereas with rope access, it's more about work positioning and getting yourself in a place properly and you know, you have time to do that.

Right. So I know I just wanted to add that part too.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. No, it makes a lot of sense. When, when things translate over into industry on a certain level, the stakes are quite high because industry isn't really allowed to screw up. Like we have so many rules, especially in Alberta, you know, knowing Alberta, um, with our triffs and things like that.

Like, you know, we really can't afford as businesses to have accidents. And so it makes a lot of sense that when you're translating that from, you know, let's call it an actual rescue, where it's like we just need to save this person to, we're gonna be repeating this. Regularly for industry that there would be redundancy.

It makes a ton of sense. And, you know, I wanna chat about that quickly because I think people are getting an understanding of what rope access is, but Tim, could you speak to maybe some of the applications, like I'm gonna talk to something that I know a lot of people listening, no matter where they are in the world.

I've probably heard of West Edmonton Mall in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. You guys did some work on the roof in the waterpark, which if you've been in the waterpark, look it up. That's pretty damn high.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah. So I think, uh, one of the obvious no-brainers of using ropes in the workplace is inspecting something I need to get up there.

I think there's an issue, but I don't wanna pull in some heavy equipment to build, to be able to get up there. And if there is, you know, structural components you can anchor to and set up your systems, then it's probably good first, first chance to go in now. There is, you know, a new adoption. Our friends, the drones, which help out a lot more.

So if I need to just go up and take a picture,

Kelly Kennedy: yes,

Tim Zagiel: I'm probably even for us at this point, we're gonna pull in a drone and just send it up in a couple minutes and it'll save us the headache and hassle and risk of sending a person there. Right? Yeah. But there's, there's a lot of different, there's your visual, there's your NDT, the inspection stuff that you've been heavily involved with in the past as well.

Then just, you know, condition assessments, engineering assessments and stuff. Then from there you might identify, okay, we need repairs, we need to replace something, we need to fix something. Um, we need to repaint something. There's a lot of different, uh, maintenance and repair scopes that can come out of that.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Tim Zagiel: And that's when you start asking the question of, okay, well, do we have to set up bulk equipment to get painters up there, to get an electrician up there, to get a welder up there, to do a structural repair? And I'd say nine times outta 10, like answer is no. It all depends on the, the location and the structure and, and what's possible.

Right. So there's a lot of projects we work on where we use scissor lift, man lifts or scaffold just because it makes a lot more sense.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Um, we could be standing in a location for an extended period of time and instead of actually dangling on rope or two weeks in the same spot, it would make a lot more sense to just slap a scaffold deck in there.

So, you know, you kind of have to take it as another tool in the shoe belt from an access method planning perspective in your project management. So can we walk up? No. Can I get a scissor lift or boom lift? No. Can I build scaffold? Yes. Or what was possible? Yes. And then I gotta determine what do I actually wanna do with my trades when I'm up there.

Right. Interesting. And if my, if, if my answer is I can walk up and do it well, I don't need the other options.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes.

Tim Zagiel: And then even for most of our projects that the answer is, well, I can just get a scissor lift and, and get up in there quickly and actually stand and do my work. We're probably gonna use the lift.

Right. So it is almost a last line of defense. And I think a lot of people in our industry seem to kind of have this sword fight between, and I love having sword fights, but rope access versus scaffold.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm, mm-hmm.

Tim Zagiel: And you can look at it and say, yes, one's replacing the other, but you know, hundred percent of the work you do with man lifts you could do with scaffold or a hundred percent of the work you do with man lifts you could do with ropes.

Yeah. Does that mean you should use one other to the other all the time? No, absolutely not. You gotta find out what's, what's the most efficient means and the safest means of getting the work done. Right. The client wants quality, client wants a decent price. You need to provide a safe service for your, for your workers when they go out.

Um, so there's a lot of different factors that go in, but, uh, as far as the skillset, that's when you're out there really, the, the world's kind of your oyster and, and. We haven't really pioneered this in Western Canada. When I say, Hey, you know, we had no regulation, uh, we had no training and certification, so we had to put these things in place, otherwise our company couldn't have really got off the ground.

All we did was copy, paste what people were doing around the world. Interesting. So we looked at the uk when we looked at Europe and we looked at Australia, looked at some parts of South America, you know, pretty much every kind of construction, trade, inspection, engineering background was using this already.

And so all we were doing was like taking ideas from much smarter people than us and borrowing them and saying, well, here's our little kind of corner of the world and we needed to start incorporating this. Right? But, um, can you do all pipe fitting scopes, all welding scopes, all electrical scopes or a rope system?

Probably doesn't make a lot of sense. But there's a lot in each discipline, a lot of tasks you could be doing where it would just be quicker, easier, sometimes safer to do it on rope versus to build, you know, a massive scaffold to do a an hour long light bulb change out no side of a bridge or something like that.

Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Okay. That, and that leads me into my next question because, well, first off, I hadn't even heard of rope access for, you know, like I said, it's been probably a decade since I have, but at the same time, like there's a lot of people that haven't even heard of this. They would've just thought, if I have to access something, hi, I'm gonna need scaffolding, or I'm gonna need, like, is that a scissor lift?

Right. Walk me through like, what are the situations and, you know, feel free to use, you know, Alberta oil and gas because we know there's certain situations there that makes a ton of sense. But what are the situations where rope access is a better alternative to scaffolding or a scissor lift?

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, I think, I think most of it comes back into a project planning perspective.

When you look at something there's a lot of major players in Canada now, like clients that use ropes or have, you know, longstanding agreements for rope acts of services. 'cause they understand the benefits of it. The reality is that you probably should be comparing apples to apples. Uh, what's it gonna cost me to do a job via this method and that method?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And then make your decision based off of that. Right. So I think it boils down to kind of cost time efficiency and, and safety obviously.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And then reducing one, two, or all three of those and making your decision based on that. Okay. 'cause if I come to you and say, Hey, I wanna do everything via ropes, but then you look at it and compare me to scaffold and I'm, I cost twice as much, or it, you know, there's more risk or anything like that, it doesn't make a lot of sense to do it right.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. So basically what you're saying is it's like, it's like a third option, right? It's a third thing to check when you're working at Heights. Like don't just look at scaffolding. Don't just look at the scissor lift, take a peek at rope access and see if it makes sense for you, because maybe, maybe people don't know and maybe that is the better option.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, for sure. And I would say at this point, like we're where you're hitting critical mass in, in Canada and the, in the North American market where we are kind of catching up to the global understanding of, of using it out in the workplace. And we're starting to see a lot of larger players, larger construction companies, larger engineering firms adopting it.

And all they're doing at this point is kind of copy pasting what their offices are doing in other parts of the world already. Yeah. Right. So I think everybody has an understanding of it, but there's just a slow adoption to anything that is disruptive in Western Canada. And it's not just rope access, right.

Some of the safety requirements that we put in place. And for the last kind of 10, 15 years, some of the construction methodologies. Continuously hear, whether it's construction, safety, rope access, rescue I'll hear from somebody from Australia, uk, any other part of the globe saying, oh, hey, that's interesting.

We in, we adopted that about 15 years ago.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And it's disheartening. 'cause you know, growing up in the prairies, I thought, we live in Canada, one of the most amazing countries in the world.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: You kind of drink the American cool Kool-Aid where you're like, we've got freedom and Silver liberty and, you know, we're the best, we're the be all.

But the reality is that we're slowly catching up. And, and I don't think that that's a bad thing. I think it's exciting. It's exciting for us anyway, otherwise we probably wouldn't be here.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah. But there's a long way to go I think, for just getting familiar with that because there is a risk of the unknown.

Yes. And it's not that the, you know, there is an inherent risk, I think when you look at this because everybody instantly thinks. Cruise underneath a rock face in the beginning of mission possible. And that's the, that's the vision they've got in their head of this. But when you see the guys tied up and the amount of safety equipment they've got in the workplace, there is this gut sinking feeling of, oh, okay, this is actually a lot safer than I thought.

A lot less chrisy and it's gonna reduce a lot of time and costs lot or the mundane tasks, right? Yes,

Kelly Kennedy: yes.

Jemia Zagiel: There are some scenarios where rope access is, brings a lot of value, and those are the scenarios where nothing else can be an option. So rope access is the only option, and that happens when in scenarios where there are a lot of other factors that come into play where you just can't have big scaffolding set up.

We had a job a couple years ago at a it's in Vancouver. It's called the Bloedel Conservatory. And it is a. An area where there are a lot of, there's a lot of wildlife birds. It's a tourist attraction and they have this glass dome for the ceiling that can be accessed on the outside. So there was no question about being able to get to it, to replace the panels, but they couldn't replace the panels traditionally because all the material will fall down into the wildlife down below.

And so they needed to build a net, but in order to build the net, they couldn't understand how they can get the net across without, again, disrupting the wildlife. So we use rope sets to climb inside of the structure, set up the net so that the, the glazing company could replace the roof from the outside.

And so it's those scenarios where rope access brings a lot of value. When you're dealing with like multiple factors and it's not just not being able to get somewhere, it's, we can't. Get there because it's gonna affect the environment in this way. We can't get there because there's a train passing through and we, and we can't, you know, you know, have obstacles on the train tracks for a long time.

So there, like sometimes there are scenarios out there that people, when they come across it, they're like, this is impossible. We have to, we just have to let not do the repair. And those are the scenarios that we wanna tell people. Like there is an option, you know, there is yeah. In those scenarios, I think rope access is, is sometimes the only option.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah, no, that, that makes a lot of sense. And I, and I wanted to lead into that because you've been talking about so many different types of industry, right? I know there's people listening who are like, but how, how do you do all these different things? How do you, how do you know how to do that? How do you know how to do welding?

How do you know how to do inspection? Like, because first off, you know, you mentioned Tim earlier, there's just certain people that yeah, that's what they know, but. Getting them up on a rope is a whole nother thing. Like if they're like me and, and heights freaks 'em out, I feel like I need to overcome one of my base fears just to be able to execute my job from a rope.

Right. Something as simple for me as like cleaning the gutters on my roof. Talk to me a little bit about that. D does it work better to train somebody who's already a welder how to do rope access? Or is it easier to teach somebody who's not afraid on a rope to, to weld?

Tim Zagiel: I think realistically it's, there's probably benefit between trying both.

Um, the reality is that we take the trades and we pick the people out of the trades groups that have the head for safety and a decent head for heights, and we train them up. Within each different discipline. There's at least, you know, if you take 10 welders, 10 electricians, 10 pipe fitters you could probably pick out one or two that would wanna be on like the SWAT team for their trade.

And they would be okay with that Now. Sometimes it could be 50, 60% of a, of a room would be okay with it. And we've done a lot of try before you buy with different groups where we'll actually do an open house, get people in, and they, the moment they put a harness on, they even just sit on the ground on a rope.

It's either thumbs up, let's go, or thumbs down. This is not what I was thinking. Right. Yeah. Because we've had, we've had groups in the past where they'll sends 8, 10, 20 people in for training and they didn't actually look into it prior to coming. So they'll show up on Monday for this five day course, look up at the rope, say Nope, and then walk away.

We're like, why do we plan all this to do so I don't, I think it's, uh, there's, there's a lot of, uh, able bodied and able minded people in every different discipline Yeah. That have the ability to do this. So I don't think it's that hard. And I kind of go back to mindsets. I think a lot of it is just, just mindset and putting your yourself over your fears because.

There's, there's two sides. Like you have a healthy respect for heights and you don't wanna deal with that, right? Yes. And then there's the other side where you're like, I can absolutely, like white knuckle fearful for whatever purpose.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And if those are the cases, like that's perfectly fine, right? Like there's, there's people out there that don't do a lot of different things and just focus on other abilities.

And there, it doesn't make them any different than the person next to 'em. But some, there's, there's suitability, which I think is, is headspace and ability. And then your physical ability kind of comes into it as well.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. It's so funny. Uh, when I, like you may know, I have planes all around my, my office.

I love airplanes ever since being a kid. And actually I took some flight lessons when I was a teenager. And I had no issue with it. Tim, you get me in a plane or like up, up in a plane or something that I feel like, oh, like this is intrinsically safe. Like, I'm fine. It's good.

Tim Zagiel: Right?

Kelly Kennedy: It would only be like being up on a rope or, or looking over an edge from a high elevator or something like that.

That's like, whoa, that's a long way down. And it triggers like the, oh shit in my head. Right?

Tim Zagiel: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: It's so funny. It's so funny how fears present because like I said, you can get me in a plane. It doesn't scare me at all, but you get me in, you know, in something else and it's like, oh yeah, this is no good.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, I kind of had that, like I've had a few instances at the top of, you know, like a bridge tower somewhere. I'm like five, 600 feet above the river. And when you start thinking about it, you get inside your head. Like, I can even kind of, you know, I puckers up a little bit and like, what am I doing up here?

Why? What goes wrong? Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely.

Tim Zagiel: And I'm like, maybe my mother was right. Maybe I'm crazy. I dunno.

Kelly Kennedy: No, it's definitely one of those things, Tim, that, uh, yeah, it, it's, it's, it's an interesting trade and like, the reason that I'm kind of questioning you on this is because I've always had a question about it because for instance, it's one thing to be a welder, it's one thing to be an electrician.

It's a whole nother thing, like you said, to be the SWAT team to hop up on rope access and be like, I'm gonna do this from rope. But yet I know that you guys actually do provide mechanical services as part of your services. Does this mean that you guys have electricians on staff, welders on staff, things along those lines?

Tim Zagiel: Yeah. And that's where I kind of hinted that you need to take the, the, you know, 10 or 20% out of those different disciplines and find who's suitable to go through the rope training. Because the skillset, when we're out doing construction work, doing mechanical maintenance, you name it, is electrical, it is steel erection.

It is welding. It is, you know, and that's, that's a skill and that's something that's not really trainable from a climber that came through the rope course and now you're trying to teach some electrical work. It's not to say that you can't start your apprenticeship and work under a journeyman.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: But the, the work scope itself needs the trade, it needs the specialist. Right. So when we show up, the teams are those trades and they're supported by their access and rescue systems.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yeah.

Okay. Well, thank you. I think, like I said, I think that this has been like a really informative show for a lot of people who've never come across this.

And really informative for me too, because I've always questioned that, like, how does it work? How, how do you teach somebody, you know, who is a, is a trades person to hop up on a rope because it's not exactly uh, it's not exactly easy. That's, that's for sure. Jemia, I wanna talk to you a little bit about a couple things.

And the reason is we're going into right now, like right now in Canada, I know this show's coming out like a year from now, but right now there's a gigantic tariff here, right? Whether it's going to be long-term for us or not, there's 25% tariffs imposed on Canada from United States, and vice versa, we're having some people freaking out.

I'll tell you right now, in my, in my business development calls for the week, I had a lot of people say, Kelly, you know, I can't have this call right now. We're still trying to figure out, we have like eight meetings today to chat about these tariffs and what we're gonna do about it. So there's a lot of fear within Canada.

And with Pacific Ropes, you guys have actually survived the 2015 oil downturn in Alberta and COVID. So, you know, I mean, you guys have shown resilience and you're able, you know, ability to overcome horrible circumstances, frankly, for our country. Talk to me a little bit about that. I know, like I said, this is a year later, but I think there's a lot of valuable lessons in how do we overcome these fears?

How, how does a company come out the other side in a challenging situation? Talk to me, how did you guys do it with Pacific Ropes through 2015 and through COVID?

Jemia Zagiel: I don't know. I think we're still trying to figure that out. Kind of what we've mentioned before, it is mindset, right? It's there are, I think I've come to realize that there will always be external factors that we can't control.

Uh, when we started this business, we didn't. Anticipate COVID. We're not anticipating trade war with America. We didn't anticipate yeah, economic downturn in industries that we work in, right? So nobody really talks about planning for that. Like when everybody talks about building a business, they talk about all this other internal stuff, and there is no playbook for what happens when external factors come and really throw your business for a loop.

And so I think based on our experience, and we learned this early on going back to that first unicorn project we were talking about on the Portman Bridge, we were very, very new as a business and as business owners and really didn't know. What it meant to build a business. And so, um, our biggest lesson then was putting all our eggs into one basket.

You know, sales was not a thing that we talked about. We weren't, Tim and I weren't talking about, oh, let's go and do sales and meet more people and get more clients. We had one client and then that client left. And then we were, that's when we realized, oh, we need to do sales. You know, but that lesson taught us that we can't put all our eggs in one basket.

And so you can't rely on just one client. You can't rely on just one industry. You can't rely on just one service. You really have to consistently diversify and pivot, right? So you could have a plan A, but have plan B, plan C, plan D in your pocket, and maybe all those plans end up not being relevant. And you have to start a whole new set of plans all over again.

But that can be done if you have the right mindset. And it's, and this is what we're trying to encourage throughout the whole company. And it's not a mindset that only Tim and I can adopt. We need everybody to be able to adopt it. Where when a challenge or something we didn't anticipate shows up. You take a breath, don't freak out, gather all the facts, and together come up with a solution.

Right? And this is how we really want our company to operate. And this is how we get through these awful external factors that we can't control. And right now, specifically with the tariffs, you know what I'm doing? Like we're talking to our clients about it, like we provide a service, right? And so it's our clients, our suppliers, our partners that might have a more direct impact, from these, and then that would trickle down to,

Kelly Kennedy: yeah.

Jemia Zagiel: To us. And so really it is about leveraging our relationships and talking to people and listening and seeing how they're gonna navigate and how we're gonna help people to navigate. And it has to be this collaborative joint. We gotta help each other out type of approach that we need regardless of its tariffs or something else.

Right. And I think this is where the best of humanity can shine if we can band together and do that. And I hope we can do that and not just fall apart and say The world is over because it's not. Yeah. You know, we'll get through this and then in 10 years there's gonna be something else we're gonna have to try to get through together.

Kelly Kennedy: That's right. That's right. Yeah. I always say like, yeah. When things get scary, that's when you have to double down on those relationships. That's when you have to double down on your lead generation and your business development. 'cause you're absolutely right. People can get into this like analysis paralysis where they're like, I don't know what to do, so I'm gonna do nothing.

But if you do nothing, you've already lost. I love the fact that you, you said, I'm al I'm already in touch with my clients. Like it's been like three days. And you're like, I'm already in touch with my clients. I'm already figuring out, you know, what are the pain points for them? How can we help, how can we support your being proactive?

Like, that's absolutely perfect. That's the right, the right thing to be doing. I wanna chat about the husband and wife duo. I don't wanna chat about this because as somebody who, you know, Shelby, Shelby and me work at home. We both work at home, but we, she works high level at NAIT and obviously I run, you know, Capital Business Development and this podcast and coaching and stuff.

And we have plenty of challenges working together and we don't even work together nine times outta 10. Um, it's hard to balance life as two ex executives essentially trying to kind of do different things but accomplish things together as a family as well.

Jemia Zagiel: Mm-hmm.

Kelly Kennedy: You guys have done this, you know, fairly successfully for quite some time, and I know we have a lot of people listening who maybe your husband and wife duos or who would like to be at some point, but who are like, man, I don't know how I would do that.

I don't know how we would balance work life and personal life. And I'd love to chat with you about that. How are you able to essentially manage high level leadership leading a team of people, but then when you get home, still have a relationship?

Tim Zagiel: I think I'd like to take this one. I put it, the fact that we drink a lot of wine.

No. Um, the re the reality is that we, we set, and we realized this quite early on, is we had to set boundaries of, of what do we wanna achieve at work and what do we wanna achieve in our personal life? So one of the annoying things probably for our group is that Jemia and I don't get a lot of time to talk about our day-to-day at work together.

I a hundred percent trust her and her abilities. That's why she's here along this journey. And I know that she reciprocates that. So we don't really need to spend our entire evening catching up on work stuff. And that commitment on our side has allowed us to be successful in the workplace and then still maintain a fully functioning family and a personal life, right?

Because community, family and personal passion are three things that are both important to both Jemia and I. So while she's discovering her joys golfing trying I guess different classes, doing silks now, silk performance climbing around and doing fun stuff, um, you know, we're, we're able to step outside and still be ourselves outside of the work world.

Yeah. And I think we learned that from, well I learned that anyway from kind of the senior men in my family. As soon as I had the kids, as soon as we started the business, anytime I would go to a family reunion, a family get together, I would have an uncle somewhere pull me aside and they would say, don't do what I did.

Be around while the kids are growing up. 'cause you're gonna blink, they're gonna be teenagers, then they're gonna be off. Right. And I actually really do like my kids and I wanna be around and I wanna father them. Right. So I'm, I'm enjoying this family journey outside of everything we do on a day-to-day basis.

I'm kind of committing to that to say, well, I have to turn off, I have to be at home, I have to be present. Otherwise, what am I doing this for?

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Because I don't wanna get to my deathbed and look back and say, I really wish I had another meeting, or I really, really, really wish I sent another 10 emails.

Right. There's none of that. At the end of the day, everything that we're doing doesn't matter that much, and we're all gonna die soon. So as soon as you have that realization, I think you can, you can step back and kind of choose what your priorities are.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: And work. The business, the people that we're on this incredible journey with and the people that we serve are really deeply, very important to us.

But we do have to be selfish because if we don't care, take care of ourselves, if we don't take care of our family, if we don't have good, good community connections, I don't believe that we'd be able to go back into the workplace and be as influential or as successful as we could be if we don't take care of ourselves a little bit first.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah. And I think, you know, almost every entrepreneur, including myself. I've spoken with has really struggled with that balance. Right. Like, I think, I think when you run your own business on, you know, as great as it is, it also typically comes with the 100% of the responsibility of that business is on your shoulders.

And, and especially in my case where I can work from home. Literally, I can work at any time. Like if there is that thing where it's like, oh, I need to send 10 more emails, like, oh, I just run downstairs and send 10 more emails. Right, right. And I, I have regularly struggled. I am not afraid to say that I am, like I am a recovering workaholic.

I, I probably still am, like, at the end of the day, there's always something more. And, and my, my expectations for myself have always been so high that I'll put in that time. But yeah, it's been, it's been a struggle. And I think maybe one of the interesting struggles that I saw that has happened since I became an entrepreneur that I didn't see coming was that I would love to do it.

Like I, I didn't see that as like, I saw it. When I was an employee, I was just an employee. I went to work, I did my thing, I got home. Like I lived for the weekend. Right. And when I was an entrepreneur, suddenly it was like, oh my gosh. Like I really love this. I love what I'm doing. I love the impact I'm having on the world.

And work was no longer a chore. Mm-hmm. It was something I enjoyed. Mm-hmm. And unfortunately, I think that's what ends up happening to so many entrepreneurs, fortunately, or for, I, I don't know if it's even possible if you don't enjoy it that much.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: Like, I genuinely think like the obligations are so high that if you don't love it, you're probably not gonna succeed.

Mm-hmm. But now the problem that I have is that I, I can find so much passion and so much love in my work that I, I've somewhat lost touch with the things I used to love outside of work. And so now I have to actively ask myself, Hey, do I still like doing that? I don't know. Maybe I should go try it. Like, I, I struggle with the personal side.

Like, Shelby will look at me sometimes on a Saturday and be. You don't know what to do when you're not working. And I'm like, oh shit. Yeah. Like, I, I actually get that, that actually makes sense. Mm-hmm. I need to relearn to, to love things outside of work.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: I think that's a problem for a lot of people.

Right. And, and I wouldn't say like, Jemia can attest to this, but it's not like we're, we're amazing at this. Um, but I think just, just being, having the ability to buy back your personal time, like taking ownership of it is, is crucial whether you're doing it with your partner or not. Right. And so our, our dynamic works because we do compliment each other quite well.

I think we learned that early on where I'm the big ideas shotgun approach, I'm just gonna go do the things right. And then Jemia iss picking up the pieces after and, and saying, well, you know, are we doing it correctly? And let's make sure we get Tim to the end, versus him scattering off and doing a bunch of other things.

So.

Jemia Zagiel: Yeah, I, I just wanna. Also make it clear that we haven't, like, fully succeeded. Like this is a work in progress. And when people say, oh, I can't believe you and Tim can work together, how do you do it? It's, my answer is like, we're still trying to figure it out. Like we're still on this journey.

There isn't a formula for success. Like we're, we're constantly realizing some things don't work and then we're trying to figure out what to do to keep going. I think one of the biggest things that we've discovered in the last few years is how different we are. So Tim and I, we work very differently.

Our perspectives are very different. He is the ideas guy. He's a huge risk taker, and I am not a risk taker. And so back in the day, a lot of our arguments were centered around I Tim saying, let's go do this. And me saying, no, that's too risky. You know? And I think for me. Like realizing that stalled a lot of business growth, but at the same time, we didn't go over the edge and like lost the business.

Right. So we recognize that there's value in both sides. Yep. And it's a lot of communication, a lot of compromise and a lot of like really, really collaborating on a level where we recognize like, you have value, I have value together, we can do this. Yeah. And that is a constant work in progress. It's not easy.

And then when it comes to the family side, it is a 50 50 thing. Like I know a lot of women struggle with having really successful careers and then feeling like they're taking the brunt of the household. And that in itself also requires a lot of communication. Right. And you know, Kelly, I think you'll like this because you're a process guy.

Like we have processes at home, you know?

Tim Zagiel: Yeah.

Jemia Zagiel: Like we have, this is how you, this is when we do the dishes, this is when we do the laundry.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm.

Jemia Zagiel: You know, kit's pickup is this day drop off is this day you do that while I make a grocery list. You go do this while I, you know, do whatever. Right. And it's, it's having to talk about that, which I think is hard.

Like you, a lot of people assume sometimes that it should be a certain way because of the relationship, but you have like, talk about everything and then the times where we don't talk about things is when it really doesn't work, you know? And

Kelly Kennedy: yeah.

Jemia Zagiel: So yeah, it's a work in progress. It's, it's not easy. It's not perfect.

And. Another thing I found has really helped is just getting outside help. You know, we can't do this alone, so, you know, we have, I have business coach, we have therapists, we have other people outside of just us that can support us, and I think that's also important.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. Yes. And I think especially as entrepreneurs, entrepreneurship can feel really lonely.

Uh, one of the other surprising things I didn't see coming, but it, it really is like entrepreneurs really need that extra support. You know, like I have, I have, I have a support group of entrepreneurs that I essentially can call it any time and say, I'm having an absolute horrible day. Here's what happened.

Can we talk about it? And they'll give me that time of day and vice versa. I do that for them too, and I never saw that as being a need. But the funny thing is, as an entrepreneur, you really need to speak to other entrepreneurs. As opposed to just your typical friend group. Like, I can't talk to the friends that I had before I was an entrepreneur about this in a way that they would understand 'cause they just haven't experienced it.

You really need to speak with somebody who understands you.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, I think that's where, so Jemia had joined a, a business kind of a peer mentorship group a couple years ago and then I, I joined it about probably nine months after. And being at the table with like-minded individuals, no matter what service products their businesses is in they have HR issues, they have economic issues.

They're worried about the tariffs, they're worried about the pandemic. Like these things affect everybody and you can't expect, you know, same if, if, if with you and the kids at home you can't take your problems and then ask the kids for help.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Tim Zagiel: Right. Because your role is a little bit different. But to go out and talk to other parents and talk to.

People that have experience with that, you'll probably get a lot of good feedback. Yes. And you'll be able to provide a lot of good feedback based on your experience, but in that moment, you might feel like, I, I, I feel stuck. Yes. Whatever it happens to be. Right. And so, yeah, I, I definitely believe in having the peer mentorship groups around.

I haven't been part of mine in a while, but I live vicariously through Jemia with her group, and I know that it's a huge support because there's, there's some inspiration and a lot of good insights. And then there's also the backhand of like, you're doing it right. Just get back to it. And you're like, oh, yeah.

Okay. So it's good to have that support for sure.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes. And, and you know, Jemia, you're not afraid to go and find help. I think a lot of entrepreneurs we're, we're waiting until the ship is burning before we're looking for help. Right. Something I know about you, you know, we've actually had a chance to work together.

It was an incredible experience. You're not afraid, like you reached out to me, you're not afraid to go and look for support in areas that, that you might need some help with. Talk to me about that, because there's a lot of entrepreneurs who, like I said, they're not gonna ask for help until they're on fire.

Jemia Zagiel: I don't know. I think I've always just been somebody that likes to learn, so, and I know that I don't know everything. And especially in this role, like I never went to business school. It was never something I thought I would be doing. So I am really in a place of, I don't know what I'm doing, but I have to do something.

'cause I have this opportunity. I have this huge responsibility of this business and all the people in it. You know, I can't screw it up because I'm afraid to ask for help. Like what's. There's no shame in that.

Kelly Kennedy: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Jemia Zagiel: You know, I'm not an expert in things, and that's something I think I've also realized about myself too.

I'm kind of like a generalist, you know, I know a little bit about everything, but I'm not a specialist in something. So when I see something in our business where I'm like, okay, we don't know. Nobody here knows what we're doing about this. Like, let's go find somebody who knows all about it and learn from them, and so that we can move ahead and make the right decisions.

Yeah. Yeah. I, I think you have to be okay with admitting to yourself that you don't know everything. And maybe sometimes people feel like they should know everything because of the position that they're in. Like if, whether they're a CEO or they own the company, they feel like they have to prove to people that they know everything.

And I think that is very detrimental because nobody knows everything. Like really, at the end of the day, nobody knows everything.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Jemia Zagiel: So,

Kelly Kennedy: yeah, and I think, you know, I mean, I think that that's, that's a sign of somebody who is in tune with themselves and, and frankly, true leadership is being able to say, I don't have all the answers.

Like, you know, the funny thing is people look to me for, for all the business development answers, and I can only give them answers from my knowledge up till yesterday, right? Tomorrow something completely could be thrown into the mix that makes everything I know obsolete. That's just the truth. It can happen, right?

Um, and you have to be open to that idea, and you have to be willing to learn. You have to be willing to say, you know what? I think there's a better way to do this. And the funny thing is, is that even in my time of doing business development, right at this point, we're going on 15 years of doing direct business development.

I do business development today completely differently than I did. You know, when I got onto this industry at 2012. It's a completely different industry. The ways and techniques and tools we use are completely different. And I had to learn a whole new skill set and 10 years from today. It'll be a whole new skillset once again.

So you have to be willing to say, I know what I know up till today, but is there a better way? And I find myself as an entrepreneur and a business developer always asking myself, could I be doing this better? Could I be doing this more efficiently? What am I doing today that isn't serving me? And you have to be willing to let go of those things.

And I think for a lot of people, being able to let go of what's no longer serving them can be really, really hard. Alright, well, you know, we're getting to the end of our interview. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on. I do have, you know, a final question that I would like to ask you. And you've both been in business at this point, you know, at the point of the release of this show that people are listening to it, we're going on nearly 20 years of Pacific Ropes.

So let me just start out by saying congratulations. What an incredible, incredible journey. And I just do wanna ask you, you know, for the entrepreneurs listening, maybe the ones that are gonna take the leap, or maybe for the ones who are just in it for a couple of years, and they're wondering, how in the world do I get my business to a 20-year-old business?

You know, what, what advice would you give those new entrepreneurs who are looking to emulate your success?

Tim Zagiel: I would definitely say build a good team. When I look back at what we've done, what we've accomplished, or any other business that I know, it's not one person that's brought it somewhere, somebody had an idea, somebody helped with the process.

You know, it's a collection, a collection of minds that come together to really make something happen. And in our instance, we've been quite lucky to have a lot of great people along the journey, either internal in the company or external supporting. And without them we wouldn't be here. So it's not really, there's no inspiration behind, you know, somebody being an overnight success or appearing to be successful in any doing of their own.

Like as an entrepreneur and business owner, you're orchestrator, you put things together and you're gonna need subject matter experts in a lot of different fields. Your marketing, your business development, your safety, your hr, you know, process planning, people, management, that sort of stuff. A lot of different aspects to doing what you do that you probably didn't think about when you got into it.

You know, you started your business thinking, well, I'm gonna start business, doing business development, and I'm gonna coach people, train people, help people. And then if you get to a point where all of a sudden you've got 20, 30 people working underneath you and you're managing them, it's a completely different beast than when you started out.

Yeah. And that's the same if you're, you're a carpenter that starts a carpentry company. You get it to a point where now you are. Managing other people and systems in a much bigger scale. You need the support. And without having good external, um, influence, I, I don't think that you'll succeed that well. So build a good network, build a lot of support, and rely on the community around you because I think that your community in your personal life and in your business life is what helps pick you up.

Kelly Kennedy: Yes, yes. No, it's, it is, it's about the community for sure. And like you said, it's about being able to accept that your initial vision is probably not what it's gonna end up being. I can tell you right now, you know, you know, you talked about the initial vision for capital. Yeah. I just thought I was gonna do like retainer business development services and that was that.

Right? This podcast wasn't on the table. Coaching wasn't on the table. Training definitely wasn't on the table.

Tim Zagiel: Right.

Kelly Kennedy: Now, you know, that's, that's the prime business. So sometimes you can't really see it. For what it is. Like you can't see what's gonna happen. You just have to be willing to say yes when that incredible thing does happen.

Tim Zagiel: Yes. Yeah. And you have to be ready to pivot, I think in times, not even just in times of need. You kind of talked about the tariffs and, and the pandemic and stuff like that before. You have to have the ability to be able to pivot in those times, but also from, from day one to year 10 or year 20, something is gonna change.

And you've already discovered that. We've discovered that constantly. And to be able to pivot is quite, quite important.

Kelly Kennedy: Absolutely. No, being able to, being able to just say yes, you know, to the opportunities that come is absolutely critical. I, I've learned in my entrepreneurial journey, I, I can't see the best things coming.

Right. Like as much as I wanna make all the plans in the world, the odds of those plans going the way that I planned them are like pretty much nil.

Tim Zagiel: Right? Right.

Kelly Kennedy: It's the best opportunities have been the ones that I didn't see coming, but I was ready to say yes.

Tim Zagiel: Right. Yeah.

Kelly Kennedy: You know, Jemia, I'm gonna put it through to you while, while you are here you've been in business, you know, nearly 20 years as of the release of this episode.

And I just wanna ask, you know, like if you were speaking to a young Jemia, someone maybe getting into business, you know, for the very first time, having to start a new company, taking that leap, leap, you know, looking back 20 years, what advice would you give to yourself now?

Jemia Zagiel: Don't give up. I think, uh, I think the biggest lesson that I am always constantly learning is just resilience.

Right. 'Cause you never know what's on the other side.

Kelly Kennedy: Yeah.

Jemia Zagiel: And I still don't, and I think this is what drives me is just what is gonna be on the other side. Like, how is this story gonna end? I don't really know how it's gonna end for me or for us. I'm curious and. And this is something that I really, truly believe, is that every challenge is an opportunity, right?

And this, it's, you can choose to look at it both ways. You can say, it's not meant for me, I'm giving up. This is too hard. Or you can say, what if, you know, maybe. And I think having that mindset is really important no matter what you do, whether it's a business or any sort of venture that you wanna embark on.

Kelly Kennedy: No, I, uh, I agree completely, right? You're absolutely right. Like, you know, I mean, business isn't easy. If it was, everyone would do it. It would all be successful and life would be great. At the end of the day, it's really, it's really about belief. Belief that it can be something better. And it's the belief in yourself, in your business, in the future you want, that will get you through those really hard times.

But absolutely, you do gotta stick in it. I, I love that. I love that. As a final analogy. I have to say before I wrap up today's show, you know, Pacific Ropes, both of you made a choice to, to give us a sponsorship of this show. And I have to just thank you both personally and on behalf of every single one of our listeners.

Thank you so much for getting behind the Business Development Podcast. As you know, you know, we're based in Edmonton, we're Alberta, Canada, not exactly the biggest place on planet earth. And, and all that support means a lot. And I just wanna say, you know, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Thank you so much for believing in me believing in this show and getting behind this show.

I can't tell you how much it means to me.

Jemia Zagiel: You're welcome. Our whole company's using your method now, so

Kelly Kennedy: amazing.

Tim Zagiel: Yeah, and I was gonna say thanks for doing this for the industry because I think that, uh, every aspect of business does need somebody. And, and you can have a coach of different sort, but what you're doing essentially is, is acting as a, as a business coach for future business development specialists and then providing a lot of inspiration for them as well.

So keep up the good work on your end.

Kelly Kennedy: I, I will, I will. Thank you so much for your support, guys. I can't tell you how much, and working with you guys has been a pleasure as well. So thank you. Well, that does take us to the end. This has been episode 318 of the Business Development Podcast. We've been chatting with Jemia and Tim Zagiel of Pacific Ropes.

Until next time, catch you on. The flip side.

Outro: This has been the Business Development Podcast with Kelly Kennedy. Kelly has 15 years in sales and business development experience within the Alberta oil and gas industry, and founded his own business development firm in 2020. His passion and his specialization is in customer relationship generation and business development.

The show is brought to you by Capital Business Development, your Business Development specialists. For more, we invite you to the website @ www.capitalbd.ca. See you next time on the Business Development Podcast.