Jim Penman: Valuing Faith & Family is Ultimate Success

Australian businessman Jim Penman is better known for his swath of franchises than the faith foundation he’s built his life on, but in No Other Success, Jim reframes our ideas of success and suggests family has to be a huge part of it.

Key points:

When Jim started writing No Other Success, he wanted to encourage others to know that, like him, “they can achieve even if they’re not extraordinarily capable”, and that success needs to be viewed through the lens of family life.

“I’ve made a lot of very bad mistakes and done a lot of stupid things, and I got a lot of weaknesses,” Jim told Hope 103.2’s UNDISTRACTED podcast.

“And yet still I can [end up] doing all right.”

Born with a love for gardening, Jim started mowing lawns at eight years old and continued through university while attempting to get a PhD.

“I’ve made a lot of very bad mistakes and done a lot of stupid things, and I got a lot of weaknesses,” Jim told Hope 103.2’s UNDISTRACTED podcast.

“I just enjoy gardening, always have,” Jim said.

“When I left university in 1971, I started a small gardening business [and] it’s a good job because it pays pretty well by student standards and it’s outdoors and it’s good exercise and it’s around green and growing things.

“I just loved it as a job.”

While his academic research was unconventional and initially rejected, Jim found a way to support it through his work in home services, turning a simple lawn-mowing job into a national franchise network with over 5,500 franchisees.

“I decided to turn my one-man lawn mowing business into something that could support [my research], which eventually it has,” Jim said.

Born with a love for gardening, Jim started mowing lawns at eight years old and continued through university while attempting to get a PhD.

More than being able to pursue his research – a project looking at resolving issues like loneliness, addiction and worry through medicine – Jim’s proudest achievement is his family.

“No other success can compensate for failure in the home,” Jim said.

Married for more than 24 years, Jim describes his wife as “the most wonderful woman in the world” with whom he’s raised 10 kids and, so far, has 6 grandkids.

“I absolutely crazily love her [and] I’ve got wonderful children,” Jim said.

Jim’s proudest achievement is his family.

“I see them and I see my grandchildren [and] that is a wonderful source of joy.”

One of the concerns Jim has of modern society, is that it doesn’t place enough value on family life and it’s affecting our wellbeing.

“We are not built to be selfish, lonely individuals,” Jim said.

“We are built to live in community. That’s the way God made us [and] that’s the science.”

Jim credits traditional values, regular church attendance and prioritising family with happiness and resilience.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above.

“Being married [is a] very high happiness indicator, regular attendant of church [and] being involved in the community – that really makes a difference,” Jim said.

“It’s all about having a purpose in life.”

Even if you don’t get married or have children, the point is to contribute to a purpose beyond ourselves.

“Mother Teresa never had children, was never married, and lived an amazing, wonderful life helping people in poverty,” Jim said.

“[Mother Teresa said] of the amount of need in the world that ‘God didn’t call me to be successful, only faithful’.”

Jim Penman’s book ‘No Other Success’ is out now.

Whether through family, faith, or his research into societal wellbeing, Jim believes the principles of love, service, and community can shape society for the better.

“You’ve just got to look at what’s important,” Jim said.

“And to me, purpose, family, children – your life has meaning from those.”

Jim Penman’s book ‘No Other Success’ is out now.

Listen to the full conversation in the player above.

Feature image: Supplied (Jim Penman)