The Instigators – Spirtual Renegade

When you look for guidance on happiness, motivation, and spirituality, you have to ask yourself a question: do you want theory, or do you want battle-tested reality?

For 35 years, Nick Smith hasn’t just read about demanding situations—he has lived them. From brutal days as a struggling teenage salesman to navigating high-stakes boardroom showdowns and building multi-million-dollar tech companies, Nick’s life has been a proving ground for the power of the human mind. Today, at 59, he is the founder of four successful companies, the creator of Australia’s largest privately owned garden and wildlife sanctuary, and a guide for those seeking to navigate life’s pressures through self-knowledge, imagination, and meditation.

He didn’t learn these techniques in a quiet retreat. He forged them in the fire of the real world.

The Early Grind: Learning the Ropes

Nick’s career began in the trenches of sales at age 20. His early years were a relentless grind, selling timeshares, real estate. It was a brutal education. He recalls one distinctly soul-crushing day early in his career: after being mocked by customer and an older salesman, he walked outside to his broken-down rental car, collapsed onto the steering wheel, and cried. The early days were a tough start especially when he had set such high expectations.

When he transitioned to selling mobile phones, the struggle continued. Nick was let go by six separate companies for failing to meet quotas. But rather than quit, he studied. He consumed everything he could on the art of selling, refined his approach, and by his next job, he had cracked the code—selling double the volume of his peers and becoming their number-one salesman.

Finding the Edge: Building an Empire

Knowing he needed to work for himself to reach his financial goals, Nick saw an opportunity. Early mobile phones cost upwards of $5,000—out of reach for most. So he began buying traded-in phones and renting them out at $100 a week, plus a 40% markup on calls. Cellular Rentals was born, thriving, until carrier subsidies changed the market and made buying a phone cheaper than renting them.

Nick pivoted, launching Australian Mobile Communications. As the Australian telecommunications market deregulated, he fought for a dealership license with the new telecommunications carrier, Optus. Given an ultimatum to sell 150 phones within the first three months or lose his trial dealership, Nick completely renovated his small store and launched a telemarketing campaign. Using an ingenious strategy—leveraging phone number ranges he knew from his past experience to seamlessly reach new customers—he built a sales army of 35 telemarketers and 40 sales reps. Within a 6 months, his company was signing over 2,500 customers a month, making Nick the largest Optus dealer in Australia.

The Million-Dollar Ultimatum

At just 28 years old, Nick could see the market changing again and sought to sell the business to one of Optus’s first major resellers. He flew to Sydney to negotiate the sale of his business, which now boasted 24,000 customers. Behind the scenes, Nick was in a precarious position—he was cash-poor, heavily in debt for stock, and six weeks away from going broke.

Sitting in a North Sydney office, he was offered $1.2 million. Knowing he needed at least $1.5 million to clear his debts and build his next business, Nick looked the buyer in the eye, stated he would only accept 1.5 million, and when refused, stood up and walked out. Terrified, he took a cab over the Sydney Harbour Bridge and sat on a small park bench by the Opera House. The ground beneath the bench was worn away, and his legs dangled like a child’s. For over an hour, he sat paralyzed by the thought that his refusal to take 1.2 million had cost him everything. Finally, as he stood up in defeat to head to the airport, his phone rang. The buyer agreed to $1.5 million.

The Tech Boom: Infodial and SecurePay

Nick’s next venture, Infodial, provided over-the-phone information products and services. After initial losses and buying out a partner, he turned it into a highly profitable enterprise generating $5 million in revenue a year and highly profitable, eventually selling it for $1.8 million as the internet began making phone services obsolete.

Seeing the digital shift, Nick launched his most ambitious project yet: SecurePay, a pioneer in phone-based and eventually internet-based credit card processing. The transition to high-tech online gateways was phenomenally expensive. After burning through $2 million in venture capital in just 18 months, Nick faced a hostile board of directors, one of who opened the meeting by suggesting they simply shut the company down as a tax loss. In one of the hardest pitches of his life, Nick fought for his company’s survival and walked out of that boardroom an hour and a half later with another $1.5 million in funding.

Over 10 years, SecurePay grew from 3 to 90 staff, became Australia’s largest private credit card processor handling over $5 billion in payments a year, and was ultimately sold to Australia Post for $50 million.

The Sanctuary: Panorama Garden Estate

With the financial freedom he had fought so hard to build, Nick spent the next phase of his life pouring millions into his passion for landscaping and nature. Operating on the Mornington Peninsula in Victoria, Australia, he created Panorama Garden Estate in Boneo. The 55-acre property features 22 distinct gardens, a wildlife sanctuary, and Azure on Panorama, a private, luxury magnesium spa. It has been recognized three times by TripAdvisor as one of the top 10 reviewed attractions in the world.

The Spiritual Renegade

How did Nick achieve all this by 59, often with the odds entirely stacked against him? He didn’t just grind; he went inward. Nick attributes his resilience and ultimate success to rigorous self-study, utilizing techniques such as deep imagination, meditation, and accessing a natural state of being one with the universe.

He is not aligned with any particular religion or ideology. Nick believes that the most important study a person can ever undertake is the study of themselves. However, he also knows that in the modern world of self-help, there is too much confusing noise and untested theory.

That is why he has become The Spiritual Renegade and believes you can too. Nick understands that spirituality shouldn’t be about pulling back from the world in quiet isolation; it should be the tool you use to take the world by storm.

Through his content, Nick passes on his first-hand experiences and battle-tested techniques. He promises his audience one thing: he will never teach something he hasn’t personally utilized in demanding, real-life situations. For topics outside his direct experience, he brings in expert research, weighing the pros and cons so individuals can form their own authentic beliefs.