30 Years Of Business Knowledge In 2 Hours | Simon Squibb

you sell your company you've made millions and millions you're never going to have to worry about money ever again and then you feel incredible depression I think purpose keeps you alive not money and people I invest in I'm looking for purpose I'm building a platform to help people free learn business because at 15 years old I couldn't afford a consultant and I tried and they wouldn't help me unless I paid them so I kind of logged it as like one day I'm going to build a platform that helps people what school didn't do for me didn't give me how understand how money works it didn't teach me how business works one day I'm going to build something that does that if you think you're not a salesp person then you don't know how the world works you either control your narrative or someone else controls it for you when you go for an interview you're selling when you meet your partner you're selling sales is the top of it all and it's not a dirty word it's the word that will make you rich if you learn to embrace it what would you say are some traps that people should watch out for they're drugged up on pointless TV overload of content Wars being broke that most people in fight or flight this is another interesting thing I think in this day and age i' probably get canceled for this so I I say it cautiously I I [Music] am Simon thank you so much for coming on the iced coffee hour it's great be here thanks for having me so to provide a little bit of an introduction your story is extremely impressive you were homeless at 15 years old you then sold a company to PWC for an undisclosed amount you founded 18 companies and invested in over 80 more Google estimates your net worth to be $640 million but before we go into that can anyone be an entrepreneur I believe everyone can be I'll go further and say everyone has to be going forward why do you say that combination of AI is going to take away a lot of the traditional jobs um if you're a truck driver um stacking shelves you know those jobs will be gone in the next 5 to eight years um if you're a lawyer or even a doctor in next five years those jobs are gone so what are people going to do Universal basic income will not give you the life you want it's kind of a mini covid right sitting around just covering your bills and surviving humans need purpose I think you can find purpose leveraging the entrepreneurial method and I think everyone can be taught it school just deliberately didn't give people the tools to do it so should people be though because I've noticed and Jack and I were actually talking about this before you got here that we don't think everyone can or should be an entrepreneur and there are some people out there that are just wired to want safety security at least to a certain degree where they don't want the responsibility and as someone who's been self-employed since I was 18 like there's almost I could almost look at the opposite side and romanticize just how nice it would be to have days where I could just check out mentally at 5:00 p.m and just show up do a task and leave no more responsibility there seems to be something nice about that I understand um you used the word wired I'll use the word programmed I think people are programmed to think that they can't do it or they shouldn't do it um and and the honest truth is I I've accidentally had jobs and I have been a boss I choose being a boss every single day I choose to be rich every single day you know like I think that um the the the problem with this hypothesis that not everyone could be an entrepreneur is that a lot of people are missing out on an opportunity to understand what entrepreneurship is for them so for example if you're an artist and you like painting then make that make a living out of it now yes of course frankly working for someone else is stressful anybody listen to podcast who works for someone else has never had a single day of stress of course not your boss comes in and they're angry New Management come in maybe you're going to get fired you need a pay rise because you can't make your new mortgage payments but they won't give it to you you think working for someone else isn't stressful maybe you just haven't felt it for a long time working for other people is hard I think it's harder than working for yourself is anything good easy no is being entrepreneur yet hard yes but should people learn the skills so they've got the option of course school does not teach people how money works it does not teach people the Basic Essentials of like things like sales which anyone can learn now of course if you don't want stress in your life sure never leave your house that in itself will make you stressed you know there's no way people live longer if they have stress that's why when people retire a few years later they die we need stress we need to evolve our skill set and I think being an entrepreneur is about your owning your time which is the most valuable thing money buys you and is the most valuable thing that you can give yourself as a gift own your time so I mostly air on the side of not every single person should or could be a successful entrepreneur maybe we're just defining entrepreneurship differently like how would you define an entrepreneur owning your time doesn't have to be about being Elon Musk and making lots of money although cool you can do that too I think it's just about you get up every day and you decide what you're going to do of your day I think success is enjoying what you do every day and so people aren't engineering their lives that way around they're engineering their lives around the house they want the car they want then they have monthly payments then they have to get a job to make those monthly payments they're not thinking about what do they enjoy to do every day and that can make money or not as much money but you enjoy your day like I just don't understand humans are amazing we got super computer on our head right we're incredible literally in Las Vegas today I saw a guy holding a sign saying McDonald's that way a breeze block can do that job right why why have a supercomputer if you got a breeze block holding holding a holding that sign the human is a breeze block it's insane so everyone's scared about I'm excited I think it's going to free the human race but we have to get everybody ready because they're going to literally have no job and if we don't prepare people with the new skills which I think is understanding how money Works understanding what is your purpose which is very deep question but answerable if you start asking it and give people a sense of being a sense of enjoying what they day and that's not happening right now so why are so many people complacent without doing any of that without ever finding a purpose without ever finding a meeting without ever pushing themselves they're happy they're drugged up they're drugged up on pointless TV overload of content Wars um being broke that most people are in fight or flight right N I would say 90% of the population are in fight or flight they literally don't when your brain is in fight or flight you're in this mode she I need to survive I can't listen to anything around me I can't educate myself I can't learn anything that part of my brain switched off because I have to survive I have to pay the rent today and if I don't my family gets h kicked out I don't have any money for food what should I do they're they're just desperately trying to survive they're in out there hunting mode they're not in learn how to hunt mode so I think that's the problem and and I and I personally believe that's been kind of part of a the systems the system likes it if you're not in debt there's no there's no profit for the banks right the this the system needs you to be in that position and what about for careers like doctors lawyers Engineers where they're not entrepreneurs but they could be really passionate about a career that don't necessarily own their own time they are entrepreneurs they're just trained in a particular thing and I think it's interesting my wife who I met 22 years ago we started a business together she was a graphic designer and when I met her I said you're an entrepreneur she said no I'm a graphic designer I said no you're an entrepreneur you you have a skill that you can apply to make money and you can own your own time all you need to know is how to charge properly for that time and how to do a contract or how to register a company all of this stuff is easy so I partnered up with her to prove this point and we built one of the most successful creative agencies in Asia ever together and I consider her an entrepreneur today finally she says she's an entrepreneur but I think that's doctors are entrepreneurs and I would go so far as to say I believe so much in Ai and what's about to happen that if you're learning to be a doctor today and you got eight years to go when you come out you're not going to be a doctor you're going to be working for an AI company that are doctors you might be a consultant at best you're going to be working for the AI companies so what's your prediction with AI what do you think is going to happen if we educate people and prepare it's going to be the best thing for Humanity ever if the right people are in control of it cuz it's definitely going to be controlled by someone human race is going to be set free finally but if it's not in the right hands of the right people and we don't prepare people it's going to I think cause like a zombie life people just wandering around pointlessly wondering what the point of their life is which side are you leaning towards I'm I'm on I'm fighting I'm not leaning on either side I'm fighting for the positive outcome what would lead people to becoming zombies well covid is a good a mini test you give people you know in England I don't know what happened in America but people got 80% of their income given to them and then but certainly people got no money at all but a large proportion of the of the the demographic got 80% of their salary and they were told to stay in their house right because it was dangerous outside and mental health went through the roof 70% increase in mental health and it hasn't dropped by the way still huge amounts of spiking mental health especially for young people so I think we have that on a mass scale if we don't purpose for the human race so um I I really believe we have to fight right now and educate people on what they could be doing with AI takes your joke see I tend to think it's going to go in the direction of AI is going to give you all the dopamine you need it's going to give you all the experiences you need and as long as you could maintain $1,500 a month for enough food and a room there's nothing that says you can't plug into a system Live Your Dream Life mentally sure it might not be in the physical but mentally it might be indistinguishable from the real thing and you could have the same dopamine hits as you would in the real world but just manufactured by AI That's that's where I think I think the bad people get hold of it that will happen okay cuz that's what Mark Zuckerberg wants you to do to plug into the metaverse plug into his head device right I don't want humans to live that way do do you want to live that way would you you know what it imagine but imagine if it's in indistinguishable I'm taking it indistinguishable and 10 times better let's just say in every it you the right amount of stresses the right amount of challenges the right amount of everything and you can't tell it apart if if you can't distinguish it I'm curious no cuz I like I I would know in the back of my mind that it's all fake and for me that would make it impossible to enjoy it by the way they do say in uh simulation theory that imagine 500 years from now right you I mean I was just wearing one of the recent headsets that Apple produced it is so crazy my brain thinks it's real so imagine where we're going to be in 500 years time M right so whoever's listening to this podcast now whatever they're sitting on however they're listening to this on it's all a simulation the theory is it's already 500 years from now so you don't know that's the thing you don't know this isn't real although that's why people have God and religion because they back of their mind like there must be more there must be more so they pick religion for example right so you do have that billions of people have that splinter in their brain is this it is this really it is this all there is really what's the purpose of life really if it's just a splinter I can take it but if it's any more than a splinter if I have any shred of evidence then I think I it would be a really really catastrophic like existential issue for me the thing I I find really important in this debate that we're now suddenly having is I like humans to have a choice so I don't mind it if you give people a choice that's fine what I think's going to happen if we're not careful is people are going to like now social media companies have tricked you into scrolling all [ __ ] day long and I'm part of this by the way I want to use social media for social good but I'm I'm you have to have good people on the internet and bad people in the internet and then they're going to have a fight right I feel like you need both good and bad in there to fight but I see people already drugged up like literally like if I met my wife 23 years ago we walk past each other that wouldn't happen today I literally walk past people in the street here in Las Vegas like didn't even look at me looking down at their phone the whole time they're already drugged up right it's just somehow we've accepted it it's built up slowly it's immersion we haven't we haven't seen it dramatically change but it has changed people are already drugged up see the problem is if you give people a choice most of them I feel like are going to choose the wrong option like you give people the choice already to eat healthy to go to the gym to stay off your phone to not like scroll uh social media endlessly and most people are doing that so I feel like giving the choice it's automatically going to be heavily skewed but I think if you look at it's a very good point but when I when I hear you say that what I think is it's heavily skewed because of the heavily marketed evil side of the equation so marketing on McDonald's just never stops I think I've seen the McDonald's sign since I've been America every 10 minutes so yeah eventually when I'm hungry I'm like [ __ ] it I'll have a McDonald's even though I hate that stuff I hate it but like convenience timing hunger brain so I think we've got to get the message out that's why I'm fighting online I we got to get the message out in a positive way that there is another option there is another option you don't have to be scrolling all day on your phone you can build a life you want why don't you could create instead of consume why don't you eat better you know I think that's why we need more content giving the other side of the equation the option to at least get people to choose it right now people don't even most of people's choices are are subconscious they're they're just doing it by default what their friends are doing what they see the media tell them to do it's not what they want to do it's what their algorithm has taught them to think what are your thoughts on the entrepreneurial grind set that hustle culture because as someone who's who worked with so many different companies do you feel like that could be detrimental or do you feel like that is a necessity I think there's a time and a place for grind I think there's a time and a place for hustle I think when I was younger I hustled like crazy but as I got more experienced in business I realized there was a big lie that we were told we we've been told the harder we work the luckier we get we really believe it that is a lie and I discovered it by accidentally hiring someone really smart to run one of my companies and I worked less hard and made more money than I'd ever made before so suddenly I'm like hold on a minute and then I realized billionaires you asked them they might look like they work hard with their social media teams and so on and so forth but I promise you Elon Musk has never put a car together himself he has never sat up all night building a space rocket right these people who were really successful they work very efficiently I Elon Musk is famous for working hard very efficient is very different a lot of risk is what you need to take the truer saying is the more risk you take the luckier you get the harder you work the more chance of burning out more chance you don't make it to the finish line but there is a time and a place and I don't think you know it's like a kitchen or a restaurant like with a restaurant has to have good food that's like a default probably working hard to be successful has a default but I don't think it actually guarantees success that's for sure so if taking risks is Extreme important in becoming lucky how do you know which risks to take I've studied risk uh and and luck quite intensely when I sold my company I kind of retired for two years and I went deep on what is luck and how does luck work and there's it's probably worth quickly explaining what I learned it was a very long deep dive but luck is actually hackable so 2% of your life approximately 2% of your life is unhackable doesn't matter how hard you work where you're born will make a difference in your life it will definitely make a difference if you're born into certain situations where you get access to basic education and S sanitary environment where you can live until you're at least 10 you know wherever you were born will make a big difference to your life but another Factor 98% of your life you can hack your luck so one part is take more risk the more risk you take the luckier you get second element key element is know your destination where are you going people get in a car and they run out of fuel before they've got somewhere because they didn't know where they were going right and then have a purpose like a mission something that really drives you something that will get you up every day something you know needs fixing whatever it is for you doesn't have to be a big problem it could be a problem that matters to you right and I think that that ensures more luck those three steps ensure more luck you can hack it the the Nuance of like being successful or not successful in luck is that if you don't prepare for luck right it's that whole saying if you don't prepare for luck you won't get lucky so I I spent 15 years building my first company and then I got lucky because the big four accountancy companies in the world the massive big conglomerates decided they were going to get into the creative space and I just happen to have the largest independent creative agency in China when they were looking right so I was I stayed alive long enough and we almost went bankrupt quite a few times I stayed long enough to have that massive piece of luck right but I only stayed alive that long because I enjoyed what I did can we go back and talk about your first business like where you got started and what sparked this interest when I first started I was 15 years old when I started a company my father died suddenly of a heart attack right in front of me and I thought he was joking and um and then he wasn't joking he died um and then uh 3 weeks later I was 15 years old hormones called it what you like I had an argum with my mom and she said get out of my house and I did and I never went back and I basically slept on the street for8 weeks I slept in friend's hous slept on couches I didn't like to tell them my mama kicked me out I was embarrassed and anyway I end up sleeping on the street I tried begging first time I ever begged someone spat me in the face it's like so I'm not very good at it clearly and then uh I tried to get a job so went into a bar and I went into a wine shop and tried to get a job first of all I smelt at this point I didn't look employable and I didn't have an address and in England you need a national insurance card a document that allows you to get a job they need this number before they can give you a job so I just couldn't get a job there's no chance so uh out sheer desperation I call this the moment when the entrepreneurial muscle woke up in my head I was walking P past a big house and it had a really messy garden and I remember thinking that's a really nice house with a really messy Garden they must have money to tidy up that Garden so just through sheer desperation I walked up the drive and knocked on the door and I said if I clean up your garden and take care of it will you will you pay me and they said sure and they said how much I said £200 a month just picked a number and they said sure and then I said I don't have any equipment I said use the stuff in the garage it's fine and that's it I started a gardening company was 200 a lot or a little at the time it a huge amount for me I that was like I could get a hostel for three four nights for that money you know and food and live pretty pretty comfortably for three or four five days maybe maybe longer so it's huge um but I soon realized that one Garden wasn't going to be enough and that doing on my own was not possible so I had to go knock on more doors no one had ever taught me sales no one had ever taught me how to get a contract done no one had taught me to collect money deposits and of this stuff I just did it and no choice I'm curious being homeless at 15 just sounds horrifying um where would you sleep when you were homeless at 15 so I slept in lots of different places I slept in a a part on a roundabout one night because if you sleep on the floor animals get into where you are so I discovered that sleeping on a roundabout I don't even know what roundabout is you know I forget America what you call them probably roundabouts uh but I I slept on one of those for for majority because it was off the ground harder for animals to get into where you're you're sleeping believe it or not I slept alongside other homeless people because actually there's some warmth in it and some comfort and some community so uh so I slept with a lot of homeless folks in puddles like it's really interesting and you the other really interesting thing about that time I haven't talked about it much but I found how kind people were that were also homeless CU people instantly think when you see homeless they think drug addict you know bad whatever some really kind people that literally they have nothing but they're give it to me like I remember someone sharing their baked beans with me very cliche but like that that that the poorest of people are sometimes the kindest cuz they've been there you know they know they know what it's like to suddenly be out in the cold on your own and they were showing me the ropes of course I also saw bad stuff like people taking drugs people glue sniffing and if anyone listening there probably the image they have of a homeless person is is a drug addict but you sleep in the streets for 4 weeks no one loves you no one cares about you you turn to drugs did you ever feel like you were in danger cuz 15 is Young yeah it is I thought I was an adult you know we I look back now and realize I wasn't but I was I was a strong you know I was I was Captain my rubby team like I was a strong you know I was a big 15-year-old you know I look like an and so I I never felt scared in a really weird way I felt kind of hopeful I know that sounds really strange describing it now but like I had no I wasn't going to school anymore I had none of that kind of click stuff going on I didn't have anyone telling me what I was going to be and I literally I think that's when I figured out who I actually was and I also saw stuff that I never really want to see again so I'd love to be a part of eradicating homelessness it shouldn't exist in this modern world what the hell are human beings being forced to sleep on the street for that's crazy but the point is that I think if I hadn't had that experience I wouldn't be where where I am today I see that bad luck as good luck now cuz I saw the when you have nothing as well you have nothing to lose so like a lot of middle class people get trapped by their house and by their car because I had nothing I knock on that door and that person says no to me or they say yes and I do the garden I win I can't get any lower and I think that's a really powerful place to start for anyone it makes sense that you're hopeful because like you kind of mentioned the only way is up from there the part that's crazy to me is that you were able to I don't even know if I would call it swallowing your pride but you had a home that was available with a bed in it with a shower and you said you went to this first interview and they wouldn't hire you because you smelled bad you probably looked pretty ragged you still never went back to just where you knew a shower and a bed and food were yeah I think I think about that a lot and without um my mom is still alive so I want to be respectful but she is a narcissist from being blunt about it and when I and way narcissism follows a in in my genes too potentially so I feel like I'm fighting that Gene uh to not be a narcissist myself but the um I realized once I was free that she also controlled me in a very strange way and I didn't want that control in my life anymore so I I was what she wanted me to be and it was all about her especially after my father died it was all about her now she lost her husband but I lost my father so I didn't feel like I could express that every time I expressed my pain my mom would make it about her pain and I just needed to express my pain having lost my father so there's a partment he didn't want to go back it wasn't it wasn't about the accommodation and the sh I didn't think about that stuff I just thought right I'm free I've got to make this work the Vikings called this by the way this is a business strategy I now Implement in all all the things that I do it's called the Vikings used to call it burning the boats right so you get England they us to go to England all the boats that got the Vikings to England they burn them all There's No Going Back you make this work or you die on this island and I didn't realize that's the strategy I was basically employing there was no going back there was no going back to a life where I was told not to feel pain told how I should act told who I was going to be right this is the life I'm going to make for myself even though it's painful even though there is an easier option by the way again in metaphor in business I say this all the time people that have a job they hate they have to give it up have some pain to start a business of their own you have pain at the beginning when you start a business of your own and over time it gets easier although before we go into that you might be asking yourself what does the future hold for businesses because if you ask nine different experts you're going to get 10 different answers from a bare Market bull market interest rates are going to be going up interest rates are going to be going down be really helpful if we had a crystal ball here but until that happens over 40,000 businesses have already future proofed their business with our sponsor netset by Oracle the number one Cloud Erp bringing accounting financial management inventory and HR into one fluid platform basically with one unified business management Suite you have just one source of Truth giving you all of the visibility and control you need to make quick decisions plus with real-time insights and forecasting you're peering into the future with actionable data when you're closing the book in days and not weeks you're spending less time looking backwards and more time on what's next so whether your company is earning millions or even hundreds of millions netw Suite helps you respond to immediate challenges and Seize Your Biggest opportunities and speaking of opportunity right now you can download the CFOs guide to Ai and machine learning at nets.com the guide is free to you at netsuite.com netsuite.com IED with the link Down Below in the description although at this point you might be asking yourself what makes a leader stand out it's not just about taking charge but about setting new standards and embracing bold moves if you lead by example and live with passion then our sponsor the Range Rover Sport is made for you every model of the Range Rover Sport offers a unique blend of dynamic sophistication and sporting luxury it's where refined Elegance meets visceral power with focused on-road performance and world-renowned off Offroad capability this vehicle Rises to every occasion experience the Adaptive off-road cruise control that adjusts your terrain and dynamic air suspension for Superior agility and Control Plus adaptive Dynamics ensures smooth composed handling by minimizing unwanted body movements for those who Elevate their desire and lead by example the Range Rover Sport is more than a luxury vehicle it's a statement Discover it today at Land Rover usa.com again that's landroverusa.com with the link Down Below in the description thank you so much to the Range Rover Sport for sponsoring today's episode and now let's get back to the podcast what was your next business after doing the uh Gardens so the Garden business eventually failed because I didn't know in England you have a winter so no one told me so the winter came the Garden business completely died and I got a job for first time in my life in a hotel when I was working in the hotel um basically the entrepreneurial muscle in my brain and now been turned on everywhere I looked you probably all got friends that are annoying like this anyone listening they got friends that are annoying like this every time they see something to see an idea in it that's what happened to me my brain came alive there was wasn't an idea I didn't see so I was walking around the hotel one day um doing the front of house I was employed to do front of house and marketing there and I heard the receptionist pick up the phone and the receptionist said we're full sorry boom put the phone down so happy that the hotel was full and I said to her well that we spent so much money getting that phone call you look very happy that you could just tell them to sod off right she's like well we're full what can we do I'm like well how about we take their name and number and we help them find another hotel room we find them somewhere else nearby similar and book it for them and then we can get Commission in that other hotel booking so that's what we started doing so I started a second business called accommodation Express doing just that so people listening this is before the internet so this is literally the telephones would ring at hotels and when the hotel was full which is quite often in London hotels get fill up for various reasons the hotel would then refer the booking to me and then I would find a place for that person to stay and we'd all make money how long did it take to like develop the website to create the business all the logistical stuff because I know for a lot of people that have an idea and they want to start a business that is the main obstacle for them it's not the fact they don't think it will work out but they they're like I'm just going to SN so much time and effort into learning these new skills how am I going to find the right people to logistically make that work how did you do it so it's so easy today like you know before I start plugging Brands by accident but like you know insert any web hosting company today um I work with GoDaddy but in so any web hosting company in it today and you can I can build a website in one minute and it'll cost me nothing for a month and they're all templates so accounting services they're all are all apps you download it they literally will give you three months free nearly every single one of them you can set up your bank account online it's never been easier to start a business it's just so bloody easy and yes you can argue well it's easy for me because I know it there's YouTube videos I personally made dedicated to showing you the five things you need to do to start a company building a website is not complicated now if you're going to build the next LinkedIn okay yeah that that's different right but if you're starting a gardening company a flower business you're starting a home cleaning business you're starting a window cleaning business starting a podcast editing business so [ __ ] easy like it's so obviously easy and and the best way to learn anything is start it's like how do you play basketball it looks complicated to go watch a tutorial just start playing you'll find out where you're good within the team too you better being back as defense you better being attack you know just start playing and you'll learn to play the game so how successful was accommodation EXP press when did it really start like ramping up so again that business failed eventually I I sold I say it failed it didn't fail under my watch I sold it to someone and I made a little bit of money and then it did go on to fail because it didn't innovate and you then had hotels.com and all these big players come in and completely Wipe Out the telephone ringing option for people but um I sold it for a little bit of money at the time about 50,000 which is a huge amount of money for me and I then had the option to stay in England and build another company or you know maybe get another job I was really kind of open-ended and then a friend of mine told me about Hong Kong and he said to me come and visit me in Hong Kong friend of mine was living there and I had the chance to go to Hong Kong at 23 years old and I never looked back I call going to Hong Kong my second Awakening that the first Awakening was when I was 15 and that entrepreneu muscle woke up into my brain the second time is when I went to Hong Kong and I realized how big the world was because sometimes where we live we think is the world until you go out of where you live and you see what's really going on and I that in the Hong Kong Harbor looked out at that City I don't know if you've ever been have you been I it blew my mind literally I felt my mind explode this is a city that has no natural resources that is incredible skyscrapers left and right mountains behind all built from human brain power it's not like Dubai that has oil money complete brain power that City and I thought if you can think something you can make it real that City taught me that and that's then I lived there for 20 years and built my next business and the $50,000 price how did you arrive to that how much money was the business making in revenue and profit to for it to reasonably sell for 50,000 interesting um so it wasn't making much profit and I I remember thinking this at the time like how does a business sell for any money if it doesn't make profit it's the first time I experienced this concept of potential right the business had potential so the person that bought the business had an idea of how they could scale it but I didn't really want to scale it I I had other ideas of my own at that time this was almost like a hobby to me believe it or not I didn't see it as a long-term business it was a hobby I wasn't particularly interested in hotel rooms and hotel bookings and stuff like that I I like marketing I wanted to learn more about marketing so to sell it and have some free time to figure out my marketing genes and what I really wanted to do but I sold it on potential and at the time it wasn't making much money turnover wasn't bad I think I think the interesting the turnover I think of the whole business was like £100,000 so I hared it and that's how we got to the price but the profit was near zero because I was spending money a Client List and you had all the infrastructure set up so that that was where a lot of the potential was coming from I remember when I sold it the person who actually bought it for me I remember the conversation so clearly because they they they actually sold to me what they were going to do with it next I've had that experience Since By the way a lot of people think you have to sell it on turnover or profit right what was really interesting it's like maybe the best way to explain it would be I don't know if this is true in property but if someone looks around a house and it's finished in every way people are slightly less interested in oh the garden still needs work this needs I can put my own mark on it they can do something to it to make it their own so don't completely finish a house right like I bought a house in London they deliberately left the garden untouched the rest of the house was beautifully done the garden wasn't done so I could go in there I remember walking around my wife we can make the garden nice you know make it our own and I think the business had that same thing like my last company is saying when PWC bought it they're like you know what we're going to do with it Simon we're going to do this like you want people to come in and feel like they can add value to the thing that they bought if there's no value to be added you taking away all the potential why would they they just going to buy turn then and they're just going to buy profit percentage ofit so then you mve to Hong Kong with your friend tell us about this next business that you started this is this the business that sold to PWC for the undisclosed amount how did that come about so this is another interesting thing I think in this day and age I'd probably get cancelled for this so I I say it cautiously I I um I moved to Hong Kong I was looking what to do I actually started initially a logistics business just shipping CU stuff going back from Hong Kong to England and I just started a little logistics company just to get my feet wet in Hong Kong and then I I met someone called Helen Griffith and she was a really talented graphic designer and I remember asking her um how much are you charging for what you do she said some ridiculously small amount like $500 I like you should be charging $10,000 for that and she's like well I don't like to talk about money and I just like doing the work I think I mentioned her earlier right so I I basically said to her look I'll be your business manager let me negotiate this for you cuz you're undercharging and I'll share the profit with you the difference so that's what I started doing but I actually fancied her so there's a big motivation there she was beautiful and she's now my wife we have a baby together but I at the time I I was motivated by two things I was 23 years old she was beautiful I wanted to date her and also she was talented and she was undercharging for her skills so um these days I think you can only mention one of those things you're not allowed to mention her fancy where'd you meet her in Hong Kong just like how yeah when I moved there I stayed um this is a bad story I I um when I moved there I a friend of M I said A friend of mine was living there and he was in a flat with two other friends of his so he said Simon I'm traveling a lot if you want to stay in my apartment for a few months until I'm back um to get your feet on the ground in Hong Kong and so I I moved into this apartment his two friends uh there I got to know them on the first night Tom the guy was living there if he's listening now he might might hate me for saying this uh but he just said to me I'm going for dinner tonight with a group of friends there's one girl there I really fancy would you like to come with me and I was like sure uh and he took me to dinner with him and the F the friend that he fancied um was Helen so um how how did that play out well uh interesting I I said because I was you don't [ __ ] where you eat right so I said um after the dinner I I deliberately ignored Helen at that dinner by the way and then after dinner I said Tom I said look you fancy her I fancy her she's beautiful um and and he said I said to him look I'll give you one month to make a move and if you don't I'm going to ask her out so my main motivation was to get him to like go for it right um plenty of fish in the sea and all that so you know it's fine I'll let him go for it but he didn't do it a month went by he didn't do it in fact he did worse than that he kissed a load of girls in front of her and and then I found out later she didn't fancy him anyway but you know but I gave him a chance and that meant for the whole month I didn't talk to Helen and I think that's why she liked me every accidental sales technique yeah I wasn't that good at sales with with women back then I was playing hard to get yeah I never I've never played hard to get except that one time um because I I'm normally quite honest when it comes very smooth Jack you should try that okay so I'm curious how did you break through that that barrier of like being acquaintances to actually being a romantic interest I know for a lot of people that's like the most difficult and challenging thing to to to see if they're interested in you how' you do that now it's going to be a dating podcast I'm just curious because it's just you know it's I would honestly say I'm I'm only good at one thing business anything business relationship I've had a marriage for 23 years how to get a girl prob you need to get advice from someone else but I I only talk my personal experience with sales in general is be yourself be up front and if if you really like someone then you just have to show interest in them now of course you can end up in a friend zone in today's world I guess but probably being honest the first time I went on a date with Helen I told her everything I was so I even showed her my bank balance by the way I I just everything you showed her your how how does that come up well it's more because I I didn't I didn't get the bank statement out F no no it wasn't at the time it wasn't a flex it was the opposite of flex because in Hong Kong everyone's Super Rich right right so it was the opposite of a flex yeah I mean if I was in England maybe having £50,000 in your bank account is a flex in Hong Kong it's a joke that's a weekend party in Hong Kong right it's nothing partly I wanted to know that you know I wanted to know that I'm not one of these rich Bankers in this city that's here to just flash money cuz I was living in quite a nice apartment because my friend it was my friend's apartment so I just wanted to know who I really was I'm I'm an entrepreneur I want to build things I like building businesses that was my thing you know so actually was the opposite to a flex I wanted her to know that I'm I'm not any of she had load of Rich guys ask after her as well so I just wanted to know that I'm not one of those guys yet um I didn't say yet I don't think at the time but yeah that's a funny story huh showing a bank statement on the first dat that's definitely a Next Level move I verbally told her by the way I don't think I flipped it out how is it working with her well now yeah well she's in England while I'm in the US on a tour around the US so um we homeschooled our son so I was we started homeschooling him so he could travel with me around the world doing what I'm doing now um but he my son is enjoying um doing this thing called battling which you guys probably have no idea what that is but um kids do reenactments of historical battles and during this last two weeks my son is doing that so they didn't come out um which I'm really sad about because I really missed them is nothing LARPing live action role playay isn't that kind of what they do like they set up some sort of like medieval battle everyone dresses in their guard and then like goes and interesting yeah um okay let's talk about your business um what led you to starting fluid I alluded to earlier I fancied the designer um and then I thought I could help her um and and and she was really talented and and what I've always had a kind of knack for is noticing someone who has talent who's not fully fulfilling their potential so she certainly wasn't charging enough for her skills and she had an IM image in her head that she just wanted to do the work and money was a bit annoying so I I helped her and I think what I realized when I helped Helen is there's thousands of designers in Asia in particular who don't value their craft because in Asia like like being a doctor is valued being a lawyer is valued a profession that sort of profession has a lot of value but creative value is very low people almost see creative people as a bit nuts and a bit broke so I realized there was a gap in the market to actually be the person who fought for creatives so we ended up working my company worked for CNN Este Lord big Brands helping them get into China come up with big campaigns to launch their brands all the creative people just didn't think they had any value but without them none of those businesses would have a creative campaign that would make them successful so I became kind of the middleman between the creativ that undervalued themselves and the brands that tried to undervalue them and I would fight for these Brands so I became like a mini agent for hundreds of design um so that's that's kind of how it happened and how do you eventually get to the point of selling it and why would you want to sell it so I didn't want to sell it I think it's a lesson for people if you want to sell your company don't want to sell it if you really want to sell it just tell everyone you don't want to sell it and so we what we did and this is pure accident I'm not a genius this just happened by accident is um PWC who are the largest accounts company in the world wanted to offer services to their clients to add value Beyond accounts right so creative and strategy services so they could see on the accounts of a brand whether it was going downhill or not and then they knew if no Kia sales are dropping they could go in there with a creative idea to try and turn that around before it became too dire for those Brands so they wanted to get into the consultancy and strategy business of marketing but they that there not their natural culture right so it's not they're accounts firm so they're they're incredibly organized incredibly smart but they're not creative by their own admission back then so uh we partnered with them as a client Partnerships we would to clients together and Pitch our services to clients and then I think one day they just realized they were going to make us so much money by partnering up with us they it would be a much smarter move for them to buy us now I I that's my side of the table if they were listening they probably got their own version they probably had a whole strategy I didn't know about but that that that I think they they just they they this is the strategy i' teach people if they were listening about this is like partner up with the people you want to buy your company one day it's pretty interesting and if you can partner up with a company that isn't directly your competition so doesn't know what you know it can be incredibly powerful and then they'll probably try to buy you if there's lots of money in it did you have any investors in the company at the time or was it just you and your wife I did have a strategic investor who was operational so what what I did which I think was another important reason it sold is I I brought in people to run the company so I'd been running it about 12 years and I was starting to get a bit tired of it and so I started investing in startups and I was starting to enjoy that a lot more so the agency business started to drop off a bit CU I wasn't as excited about it so I I brought someone else in to run it and instead of just bringing someone else in to run it as a CEO I asked them to invest in the business so I actually brought two people in in the end um mixed stories of what happened but basically they bought a piece of the company and then they had Equity if the business did well more equity and part of the profit so they weren't just an employee and that was actually a key reason why I sold the company I was able to sell the company because when PWC bought the business if I'm running it then they need me locked in forever but luckily I bought senior manager agement in who had invested in the business so when the business sold they made a load of money as well and then they're still there today guy par who ran business for me is still at PWC today he loves it he's happy to be inside a corporation I wouldn't have been because I'm an entrepreneur naturally so I brought uh about 12 years in uh other people in to invest and run it and it's the best thing I ever did what was the feeling like to sell your company and get a check or get a deposit into the bank account and like refresh the page and like all the money's there yeah yeah isn't it incredible that devices around us are also getting smarter as well from smart watches that track our health to Wi-Fi enabled LED bulbs that light up our home technology is Transforming Our Lives and guess what your e-commerce platform also deserves to get smart too our sponsorship station integrates with over 180 popular e-commerce platforms carriers and marketplaces helping you achieve exceptional shipping efficiency with features like automated shipping tasks you can manage orders from one easy dashboard and enjoy discounts of up to 89% off UPS DHL Express and USPS rates saving you money while delivering faster over 130,000 companies have grown their e-commerce business with ship station and 98% of those customers who stick with ship station 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unbelievably cliche that you know you make all the money you ever need and you think that's going to bring happiness it brought me the opposite there was a moment when the money dropped in the bank that was amazing and I remember looking at my bank I think Mark Cuban talks about this he refreshes a million times I also did that just like my God this is really this is real now because on paper I was already quite wealthy I had a very profitable successful company but now I had cash in the bank but at that point there's two things that happened to me one I didn't realize how money really worked even even then I didn't understand how money worked even though I built companies once you've got a load of money what do you do with it you know like before I had a business I put my expenses through the business I I got clients I made Revenue I took money out when I needed it I didn't actually know what to do with a large chunk of money and so that was a bit of a weird experience I gone from making money to having to manage money and so I I didn't like that the second thing is I would meet people I moved out of Hong Kong back to London I bought a really nice house bought a really nice car and I remember I was pushing the baby around Hamstead is where I I lived in North London and and then I sitting in a coffee shop and then someone sitting next to me and says I'm the only there one there all women with their babies I'm the only guy there with his baby and then and this woman asked me what do you do how come you you're here with the baby sort of thing and I was like I don't I'm I'm a father I don't know what I am I felt completely lost to be honest I really didn't know who I was or what I was doing why I'm on this planet I was too young as well I think to to be retired how old were you I was 40 okay yeah so I was like okay no this is what this isn't this doesn't feel right so yeah so to answer your question in a simple way when when the when the money dropped in I was like wow this is incredible and slowly but surely that good luck became bad luck and I lost my mojo I I just didn't know what I was doing with my life and kind of lost it did you buy anything yeah I did um I bought a fancy car what youy well Porsche kayenne and I also bought a mini is that Posh no um and and I I bought a big house in in North London probably the nicest areas of London um I ate the most amazing organic food I got a personal trainer 5 days a week you know I I I by again that was the first time I'd really I was spending money not on a business normally when I made money I put it back into the business I think that's another thing people should do this is the first time I was spending money on me and it didn't really feel didn't feel right the other thing as well I had a baby so my whole life turned upside down and I you know sleep deprived not knowing you know how to be a good father all my personal Demons of my my father dying when I was young came up again when I was no longer working maybe like a shark I had to swim as soon as I stopped I had to go get therapy like why I was scared I was going to die and my son wasn't going to see I wasn't going to see my son grow up when he was born it triggered all of that so I went and got a lot of therapy spent a lot of money on that I'm glad I did um but that's it after that I just you know what I sold it all I've got rid of all that stuff now I don't I got rid of my cars I've got a Tesla but just and I got solar panels on my house so it charges a Tesla but I still I just basically don't think I've got any money that's how I act now so what do you what do you own today I own a house a big house um which I use for my business so we use it as a Content house um it's called entrepreneur house I've even branded it I own the trademark entrepreneur house um and I have a a Tesla which just to get around you need a nice car and I just I love that car and I don't have to pay for fuel or take it for Tesla y okay I'm not flashy uh my wife owns a an electric mini I don't know why cuz Tesla's better but that's up to her um and I've got some nice painting but mainly they're more sentimental so I got married in barley and when we were there we bought some barley e paintings that are quite valuable but I don't I don't look at them and think they're valuable that's why I've got them I look at them because they remind me of memories I've had of spending time in places like barley I've got a lot of nice artwork but again it's all in places I visited so I've gone to beautiful places around the world and bought art but that's just personal enjoyment I don't even know the value anymore of these things um the most important thing to me and I I took some um inspiration from Steve Jobs Steve Jobs said the day his company IP he had 60 million cash in the bank and he talked about his other co-founders who also made a lot of money at the time they all kind of got drugged up and kind of lost it and died young and he pretended he never had that money and went back to work the next day exactly at the same time did exactly the same thing I now actually operate the same way I think purpose keeps you alive not money but I will invest money in like this trip to America all my teams come so I've got 18 people on my team and I pay for my team to come if they want to come they can all come so flights accom I will invest in those sorts of things experiences and building what we're building now I invest heavily in that I've always wanted to ask this I don't think I've ever asked someone this but you have a net worth listed on Google Google says it's $650 million is that accurate are they literally just grabbing a certain number that they're doing like some napkin math and just throwing it to your name yeah this is the thing people don't understand about net worth okay so first of all just for the record it's [ __ ] okay I I I think the the problem is a couple of things net worth is what all of your accumulated assets could be worth this is why like Elon Musk jumps from being number one wealthiest man to number five to number three suddenly he's number two because it's about his net worth is tied up in his stocks and shares and the value of his his assets and those assets fluctuate hugely so I think that um when people are working out net worth that it's like Donald Trump loves to exaggerate it right he wants everyone to think he's worth 10 billion depending on how you add up his asset how much is his brand worth well it's on a building in Las Vegas so you think it's worth something but what is it really worth is it worth a dollar is it worth $10 billion do who knows right until you sell it you don't know the value of something so Networth is tied up in that [ __ ] so I I am not worth that money the other side of it is the media want these headlines to get clicks so the reason that's on Google is because the sun in the UK a scummy newspaper want noticed I was trending in algorithms Simon scrip was trending on social media and they want that traffic so they put up a story right they didn't ring me and ask me they put up a story saying I'm worth that and then they listed how I made my money and all the rest of it to get people to click Simon squid worth 600 million Tik Tok star this is the backstory they just that's they need that you know the thumbnails we do it in thumbnails I guess we do it in taglines right to get people's attention you need that okay and and and I get it I don't mind you guys using it in the F now if it gets people listening and learning that they need to fix their brains and learn business right I don't mind it but I I think it's the only downside to it is it's pretty dangerous so when the sun ran that story I had people knocking on my door like literally like I don't I'm not living in a gated community like you've got I my house is vulnerable I'm I'm you can break through my gate and that's what people did knocking on my door when I'm not there and of course you put yourself subject to like your kid getting kidnapped and all that right I do not have 600 million if you took my kid I could give you I don't in fact the opposite I've dally locked up my money so I can't get access to it so you won't get much but the headline lines are dangerous and it and it can cause a lot of pain if people aren't careful as well got to be very careful why not fact check him or why not have an attorney draft a letter saying [ __ ] ring me me you know like yeah but if they run the story and you say and you approve that like people are showing up at your house now and you ran this inaccurate article why not we can't it's not so easy to sue by the way in the UK US I'd sue them but but some people won't Sue but they'll say hey this is inaccurate please change this here is why yes signed attorney yeah yeah I mean the thing is I I think that that's already happened by the way the repercussions of it like it's it's in hindsight I'm I'm newly I use this word Loosely I'm newly famous right when people you're not famous you're not famous more people know me than I know them that's the definition of famous for me right so so I'm newly famous I'm discovering what a [ __ ] nightmare it is to be famous it is not a good thing no one should pursue being famous it actually restricts your life it restricts I when I was when I was rich and wasn't famous I had more freedom than I do now right so being famous is a pain in the ass but I think a lot of the time I hate lawyers I've I've had one legal battle my whole life I just don't want to deal with these people and so when those people run bad stories I've told them to take it down I've told them it's wrong you can't even get through to these people half the time it's an algorithm and someone in a computer room they don't [ __ ] listen but some of some of that is because they don't have a legal letterhead on it yeah like we've dealt with a few things like random things where you know it's it's gone both ways too um that a legal letter head goes a long way to getting a response versus if Jack and I just send an email goes nowhere gets ignored those the by the way most of the time they go in the bin it depends how serious the legal letter is but you know like in England most people just put it in the bin okay unless it's because there there's no lawsuit structure so unless it gets very very serious um and then and then the problem is do I want to piss off these media Outlets like go that hardcore cuz they could then they can come after me and slander me they only one fake story Simon seen shouting at his kid child abuse I've never shout at my kid but like conceptually like I don't want to make these people my enemy they're not media is not my enemy you know like I I I don't want to make them my enemy either so part of me like just hopes it goes away things slow down and go back to normal I'll tell you the problem is that people continue to Google your name and that's like the first thing that comes up I think when you type in your name the the first suggestion is net worth yeah so it then just perpetuates that that gets recommended even more okay I'll get a lawyer on itous for being but I'm not famous for being rich I think hopefully I'm not no you're not no but if you look up your name and that's like the first thing you know I'm sure the article is very kind I'm sure it's like you know most It also says I have um a very fancy car that I don't have where do they get this information are they literally just like you know they I think they go through pictures and information and sometimes even they they take what other people have written so it's like a a FAL oh that's that's a lot of this stuff so it's like they someone else has written about it and then they reference that as if that's their excuse so I don't know where it all comes from but I mean again though you know net worth just to be clear if you you know if you take the assets of some of the companies I own at the peak and you you know you sold them at the peak for the exact cash amount then maybe there's some way of getting to these numbers you know that's the thing like I I never think about net worth I think about like cash in bank and I think about like what I'm applying in my business what my business is making I don't really think about like how much I'm worth if I sold everything because I'm not going to sell all my company assets right I'm not going to sell help bank.com I mean that that alone could be generate hundreds of millions maybe but I'm not selling it so what does it matter can you say what the revenue of fluid was trying to do some backwards I'm trying to yeah I'm trying to do some math you what multiplier yeah people might be wondering why a lot of people can't tell uh can't talk about the value of their company because when you sell a company you sign ndas so those companies don't want you to publicly talk about it there's a couple of reasons and it might be interesting for people but like if the clients of that company found out what we'd sold their contracts for you see what I mean like there's some some there's accidental brand Damage Done by talking I want to talk about it right if it was up to me because I'm I love sharing how business works and how businesses are built I built that company from nothing I'm proud of it but legally you you have to see it from the people that are buying the company's point of view they want to protect it a lot of people don't understand that that Nuance especially if you haven't sold a company before anyone that's selling a company you're going to come up against this it's I'm always shocked when people can talk about how much they sold their company for most people who bought it don't want to talk about it yeah um you mentioned briefly how you were feeling pretty depressed after the sale of the company this is something that's documented pretty well we were talking to Tom Bilu about this actually after selling Quest Nutrition and he said that he kind of had like a little bit of an existential crisis after that how were your thoughts changed on life money happiness fulfillment all of that was there a certain key takeaway from that experience well one of my first Tik toks that actually blew up was around this so I'd sold my company I'd never have to worry about money again in my life and I am I was taking my son to Nursery just kind of wandering down the street and I did a Tik Tok which was basically like I'm so lucky you know I'm taking my son to school and I'll be there to pick him up I just feel so lucky and then in the comment someone wrote well I'm broke and I have to do that and that's when I kind of realized that being broke or being rich there's a lot of similarities actually you know like freedom of time so being broke is not is not necessarily and I say this very carefully having being broke myself it's not a bad thing sometimes because you've got so many options and actually if you are spending time with your kid if you're able to do that because you don't have a big job that's taking you traveling you around the world that's paying you hundreds of millions you kind of are more successful than the person that never sees their kid so I I had to get to a point where I had all this money to then realize time with my kid was the most valuable thing but a lot of people don't realize that they got time with their kids they're probably already rich the most people aren't able to do that because they're making money right so I I had a bit of an epiphany in that moment I was like I I was lucky when I had time with my wife I was lucky I was rich when I had time with my friends I was rich when I got to spend time with my kids my brother's kids you know like rich is a very odd word you know success is a very odd word I think they need to be more carefully defined so when that Tik Tok blew up because a lot of people have been quite negative about me it's all right for you you're rich you can do what you like but then some people are saying well I'm broke and I have to do that I've got no choice but to pick my kids up because I I've got no one can help me blah blah blah so I think that being I guess being that that that moment when that video went viral I was like I pissed people off accidentally by saying here I am rich walking around picking my kid up but also I got a little insight into what the world is really like and a lot of people are richer than they realize a lot of people are more successful than they realize so then I started making content about how to make money and have the life you want that's how my social media started to that's really interesting that you say the the life in some aspects once again kind of walking on eggshells right here could be very similar between a rich and a poor person because a rich person gets to go pick up their child from school school but maybe a poor person that's their only option have to right but it's just like a difference of choice you have the ability to choose to do that whereas someone else is forced sometimes that's in your own mind though let's be clear like if you flipped your negative situation into a POS why I say bad luck and good luck are both still luck like Buddha always said we're going to have 10,000 hours of good luck and 10,000 hours of bad luck I say it's just a matter of perspective right so I I I had no purpose when other than looking after my son and you know being a good father but I had no like life purpose so I felt a little bit depressed but I had time to go pick up my son and take him to school so I was looking to be grateful I was trying to find my way of being grateful for what I had and in that moment I realized that other people could be a lot more grateful for what they've got even if it's not a load of money in the bank like if you get time with your kids I think you're lucky cuz that's you can't get that time back either like my kid is seven this week he won't be seven again you know this week you see what I mean like I can't get that time back so people have that time that I think I think career should be like in stages there's stages when you work really hard and I think when you're young you should travel the world and you should do all these crazy things and maybe when you have a family you just have a different life for a while and then when your kids are grown up you have another type of life you know like I think people should engineer their life around that as opposed to like I want to be a millionaire at time I'm 30 okay yeah now in terms of your business success have you ever had to compromise your values for the sake of the business yes I think when I was younger I didn't really understand what I don't know what it was like in America um at this time but maybe in the '90s you know greed was good you know that whole Gordon gecko greed is good and there was very much a Vibe of like you know to be in business you have to step on people to get ahead and it's all about making money you know business is tough and don't take it personally I think that's still kind of here today like don't take it personally in business I think it's complete [ __ ] right but when I was younger 15 16 17 18 I just had to survive I was very selfish I just had to pay the bills and I wanted to have Prestige and prove that I wasn't an idiot I'm dislexic so at school they told me I was an idiot right because they didn't know what dyslexia was back then so the literally teachers telling me I'm an idiot so I had a lot to prove and I think an example would be I remember um one client in the gardening business they went away for the hold of August on holiday and we told them we were taking care of the garden we did nothing till the day they came back you know I I think that's in that's not correct that's not good thing to do but at the time I'm like they're not going to notice anyway and then they'll be back and we'll have it right but we told them we were looking after everything throughout you know like and I've made decisions right up until weirdly I think I was slightly unethical until I met my wife when I met Helen she made me a better person so I tell people your partner in life is probably the most important deal you'll ever do without a contract it's so important like when I met Helen I remember we um we had 2003 was SARS in Hong Kong financial crisis so we in business a while together at that point and um we built a business had a big payroll and then sasan which was basically covid 1.0 in Hong Kong they had it covid long before covid 2003 and the whole Market collapsed this disease hit Hong Kong and things got shut down and our business froze and U one of our biggest clients almost went bankrupt and they owed us a million pounds right which is almost a million now back then it was more like $1.2 million um but I uh I said to Helen I was like we can't make payroll this month we have to pay ourselves first because if we don't pay our own bills we're stuffed Helen said to me like cold looked me in the eye and said no Simon we're paying our people first we'll find a way around it for ourselves we we we're obligated and I I I wasn't I was I was self preservation that 15-year-old me just was there I'm like no we have to look after ourselves I did what she said CU she was right we paid people and then we eventually figured it out the company made money we collected some money and we had money come in and we only a month or so behind an personal rents right but if I had followed my own advice I would have pissed off everybody that trusted us I never missed payroll ever in the 35 years I've been in business every single month from the first of the month everyone's been paid no matter what and I'm proud of that but I almost broke it in that moment and it it was only Helen that pulled me back and said no that's not right Simon we got to you know what I mean she made me a better person and I think that's a really important thing to have someone in your life that makes you a better person so yeah I don't know if I I probably made her a worse person now a lot of people also define success in terms of financial numbers do you feel like there's a detriment to that and how do you define success I totally think that's is the world is really [ __ ] up in this way actually uh I think that you should not define whether someone's Successful by how much money they have I I think that my my personal again definition of success is a combination of time and kindness I think if someone like for example um I interviewed someone on the street who's a nurse and she goes to work every day to make someone's life less painful she's not paid a lot she works long hours she cares about human beings and I can see in her eyes that she's alive and she loves her work she's underpaid but she loves her work she's successful in my mind right because she's discovered something that took me a long time to figure out that what actually makes us happy is helping other people the purpose of human existence is we used to live in tribes of 5,000 people it wasn't transactional it wasn't give and take I'll help you if you help me which is what it's like now it was give without take which is why I wear this to remind myself right what we do in tribes is we used to help each other you have a problem Jack you come to me I help you like here's the problem this's a solution to your problem I'm not even the person to help you in return but we've got this give and take mindset right so my my opinion is that the way to be happy and the way to be successful is to help someone without any expectation of anything in return for someone that has very little or no money and they hear that and they're like okay well let me give this a shot let me see this actually improves my life how how what is a step or something that they could do to give without without the expectation of something in return yeah yeah I I say give that takes it short it fits on a t-shirt anything expectation of anything return is the right way to put it I think so I say to people take four minutes a day to help someone with no expectation of anything in return anyone can do it I don't care if you're broke you can do it so how could you do it you could share someone's small business on your story it won't cost you anything and that person might get one new customer you could like someone's post or comment congratulations well done won't cost you anything you know you can hold the door open for someone in the street if you're really generous you're feeling a bit flushed by the person behind you a coffee you know I say that the 10 million people that follow me online imagine if every single person did one kind thing for someone today just one kind thing without any expectation of return like the love and the passion the purpose and the feeling of happiness that would give the world those 10 million people would wake up because you were kind to them they'd want to be kind to someone else kind of break the chains of this commercialization we' suddenly got trapped into where every single deal was a transaction that's not actually how we naturally are that's not our natural state so I think if you if you got nothing you want to be successful help someone else be successful in any way you can you want to be happy help someone else the you guys probably felt this and Christmas is a big thing in England it's a big thing in America right I amum whenever I plan a present for someone like I made my wife a Christmas card this last Christmas I designed it myself and I'm a really bad designer I wrote out it took me about a week to make it and then I just couldn't wait to give it to her on Christmas day I was like so excited and I gave it to her just seeing her joy in the fact that I was happy that I gave her something I got so much happiness out of her getting something then she gave me a present a really nice present I would add but I felt more excited about giving a present because humans naturally were happier when we're helping someone else like the hardest thing for a human actually is to ask for help that we feel really embarrassed about it I don't need help as my business my business is fine I don't need investment and I'm okay we actually feel embarrassed to ask for help it's helping that really is our Natural Instinct but it's being suppressed by things like you know no good deed goes unpunished and I help them and they didn't pay me back or they avoid me now because I lent them some money and you know we've been trained that somehow being kind is a bad thing but the truth is the way we approach the kind gesture is the bad thing if we expect something back we expect to do us a favor in return you owe us something now I helped you remember that's the mistake and I learned that being with a good woman Helen taught me that what qualities do you think make someone successful what do you look for when I was younger I just wanted people that could afford to pay the bill um but now I look in entrepreneurs anyway and people I invest in I'm looking for purpose you know you can be average at something with a purpose you will never give up until you're good at that thing and it's working so I'm looking for like a reason that person's doing the thing they're doing so so my my case right I'm I'm building a platform to help people free learn business because at 15 years old I couldn't afford help I couldn't afford a consultant and I tried they would like if you don't pay you don't pay attention I'm like I pay attention I desperately need the help I don't know what I'm doing and they wouldn't help me unless I paid them so I kind of logged it as like one day I'm going to build a platform that helps people what school didn't do for me didn't give me how understand how money works it didn't teach me how business works one day I'm going to build something that does that it's a purpose you can't stop me I'm broke I'm poor I'm five years ago I was so bad at social media now I'm pretty good I'm still not brilliant but I'm pretty good I will not stop until I'm the best at it because I know if I'm good at it I can get the knowledge to people I won't stop and that's what I'm looking for when other people I think when I was younger I invested in a lot lot of businesses in the early years I made a couple of classic mistakes so someone would say someone really smart would say to me I'm starting a business and filling a market Gap I'm like oh that's cool what's the market Gap it's a billion dollar market size okay cool and I invest in that business and you know what they didn't follow free why because I didn't give a [ __ ] about that problem they cared about making money so what I've seen the people that are really successful are people that really care about the problem you know Mark zerber and you can love him or hate him it's up to people he was socially awkward and he wanted to build something that made him connect to people and socially um not awkward and digital was his answer that's why he never sold the company this was his way of like living what he how he wanted to live he wanted to solve a problem of being socially awkward right so he never stops he never stop he'll never stop till he dies right because he felt that pain when he was younger and he basically built a company that fixed that pain for him so I think I'm looking for that in people and on the opposite side of things what flags do you look for that would be uh a a deterrent for you in interestingly and this is going to sound really judgmental but what popped in my mind when you ask that question and people are going to maybe judge me for this is like people's Partners when I invest in someone's business um I now go on a long walk with them and get to know them and I do something called 50-minute download I don't talk for 50 minutes and they tell me everything about their life the big pit I'm really interested in is their relationship Dynamics and then the next stage once I've done that 50-minute download but I don't talk by the way I've had 50-minute talks with people well I've learned more about that person than their own partner knows because we we find we interrupt each other when we talk right having someone talk for 50 minutes is fascinating anyway the Second Step that I always do is I meet the person's partner so I was going to make a big investment in quite a well-known company and I was having dinner with the person I was going to invest in and their partner and I decided not to invest him in over that dinner because basically the way the partner was talking she was clicking her fingers for the waiter and then when the waiter was there she was like um I have this really expensive food like picking all the really expensive stuff and then during the meal she was talking about well we're not going to be having business class anymore are we that's a bit annoying I'll do it for a while but it can't last long and I was just sitting there thinking this poor entrepreneur is going to have this person on their back for years the business will not instantly make money it's got a purpose the entrepreneurs put in but this person on their back is going to grind them down man you know that person wants something different to them that person is very materialistic that person's going to be complaining oh we're going economy again you know it might be a billion dollar company I know people billion dollar companies that are flying economy you know I fly economy so I I just just don't like wasting money on business class unless I'm doing a long haul and I need to sleep with know that as side point I'm trying to make is when I see someone who's going to be grinding against and not in a good way with that person I I I worry and and I know that that person's going to have a very stressful business existence and I don't want to be a part of a journey of someone that's being ground down so I look ironically to answer your question in a simple way for someone with purpose and for someone that U isn't with someone that's going to grind them down like my wife always lifts me up she always she doesn't spend any money even now we've got got money she doesn't spend she doesn't need it she doesn't she's always having a go at me for what I'm doing if I come back late and she's made dinner she never complains she doesn't say I made you dinner what happened to you you know you changed it's 8:00 and you're not she's never done that you know and you don't want that in your life you need someone that's with you that's going to understand you it's going to let you be you and the partner is such an underrated part of that equation that's fascinating you have mentioned before on podcast that you think sales is like the most important thing that people must to learn now people they kind of use the term marketing but you say sales and marketing is usually kind of the same thing how would someone use sales that's working maybe like a W2 job why should the average person that's not working sales learn sales and like what would you what is sales sales is the way that you can make anything real if you think you're not a sales person then you don't know how the world works you either control your narrative or someone else controls it for you when you go for an interview you're selling when you meet your partner your potential partner you're selling when you're walking down the street picking your nose thinking no one's looking you're selling right people don't realize personal brand is not a choice anymore it's either something you explain what you are or someone else explains what you are ideally what you explain and what they explain should be the same sales is just a formula now you can be an introvert or an extrovert and still sell you just use different tools okay so I'm an extrovert salesperson I can knock on a door and I can get someone to let me take care of their Garden okay but I didn't I was never taught sales I was just authentic in that moment and I think that person probably took pity on me right so I think sales is the opposite to what we think it is people think sales is a car salesman you want buy this car it breakes don't work but I'm not going to tell you no true sales is just you being you and telling a story and everyone can tell a story right now some people might tell it through music because they're shy some people might tell it through a drawing because they're embarrassed to talk but story telling is how you sell so all you need to do is learn how to storytelling my podcast Russell Brunson and he did clickfunnels and he basically sells through he's an introvert people don't realize he's a big introvert he selles through email so he literally sends an email saying hey how you doing did you have a good day today I'm going to send you an email tomorrow about how to change the world see you tomorrow see I told you I was going to today but I fell asleep early and I haven't written it yet but have you having a good day I hope you are see you tomorrow said oh here it is here's the secret I was telling about I just finally got it written you know his storytelling in email that's sales right it's not a car salesman it's not Steve Jobs people have slightly got a misunderstanding of what sales is anyone can sell selling is just three steps this is how you sell anything to anyone and people get it the wrong way around the first step is does the person you're selling to actually need what you're selling you can do that through research before you even send one single email you don't need to go and uh sell them something they don't need cuz selling something you don't need is really hard that's a different type of sales technique right and that's a scammy type of technique where you sell something people don't need I don't like that sort of sales do your research find out does that person actually need you the second thing you do in sales is build a relationship it took me nine years to get apple as a client in my last business right and I never actually sold to them I got to know the people in the organization I got to understand their frustrations their needs their problems and then 9 years into that relationship I sold something to them so sales is a process and does that person like you and do you like them the first step that everyone knows and everyone thinks it's the first step is here's what I do here's the price here's the contract are you interested that third step is the easiest step in the world if you get the first two right they need you and you need them and they like you and you like them I've not had a single deal that hasn't happened if I got the first two right in fact to an extreme I did a deal with the Wall Street Journal to use my company in Asia and I said to them this is my contract this is my price this is my service and the guy who was running it said double your price arm and you've underpriced it that's what happens if you get sales right right it's like you made a relationship they need you they don't he doesn't want me to go bankrupt he wants me to do well he knows what the market rate is most people go in there with what should I charge the client okay no relationship understand them get them to know what you do so they truly need it and don't sell to people that don't need it right no sales person can easily sell without some sort of NLP [ __ ] trick no one can actually sell to someone who doesn't need something thing right identify the need you know it's say old um what's I forgot his name sell me the pen people do you know I ask people what that means they misunderstand it right what that sell me the pen story is All About a lot of people even know they watch the movie they don't understand it right people that selling that pen is about understanding whether or not the person who you've asked to buy the pen from needs a pen so if I say to you want to buy a pen most people the pen is beautiful silver you're going to love this pen it's the best pen I've ever seen in the world no I ask you you're going to sign this contract now and I'm going to I'm going to invest in your company you got a pen to sign it no okay you want to buy this pen it's it's $10 but we're going to sign a contract worth a million so is it a good pen I don't know does it matter it's going to okay well if it makes me $10 million I suppose I would pay 10 yeah okay thank you it's very simple it's you know it's just understanding demand side but people jump straight to the third step because they they they misunderstood what sales is and and sales is marketing as well people Tred to distinguish the two I mean a lot of gurus do this like marketing is different to sales everybody I have me is in marketing and I break down what they're doing I'm like you're not in marketing you're in sales sales sits on top of marketing marketing is like PR there's those are different elements of marketing PR social meetings is a form of marketing brand individual brand uh identity is Marketing sales is the top of it all and it's not a dirty word it's the word that will make you rich if you learn to embrace it and understand if you learn to sell you'll get the perfect partner you'll get the job you wanted and I don't want people to get a job but still learn sales and it will help you right and if you're an introvert learn introverted sales techniques if you're an extrovert learn extroverted sales techniques but there will always be the same three steps I just said what are the best resources for people to to figure this stuff out for themselves YouTube YouTube yeah and only listen to people whose lives you want there's a lot of people out there will tell you how to do this and how to do that just check on their lives is do you want their life because if you follow their advice you'll have their life assuming they're not lying right because there a lot of people out there bullshitting with you know Lamborghinis behind them and they actually broke right they rented it for the day so do your research so like I try to be very clear with people like only listen to people whose lives you want that includes your parents if you're taking advice from your parents look very carefully at your parents life are they living their dream are they living how you want to live because if you listen to them that's what you'll get their life so how does school and Society brainwash you because I've noticed you you say this quite a bit that Society really trains you to be a certain way yeah I'm very careful of this because I don't want to lean towards conspiracy theories okay but I think we all know the school system doesn't work I haven't met anybody that doesn't actually admit it I think the the school system was openly discussed by the people that created it carnegi and Henry Ford they openly discussed it it's it's it's online you can read what they said they didn't want people thinking they wanted people memorizing they wanted people Hy Ford in particular wanted people to be able to afford a car go on two holidays a year but come back to the [ __ ] Factory right sit down shut up don't collap collaborate when you're doing an exam don't collaborate you got to learn it all on your own mate now in the real world it's completely the [ __ ] opposite you want to be successful stand up be different Stand Out collaborate like I wouldn't be here today if people hadn't helped me there's no such thing as a self-made millionaire I didn't sit down and do an exam on my own I had people help me everything School teaches you is exactly the opposite to how the real world works so it's not a conspiracy theory that's just that's fact by the way right now the other thing that school does is it frames success up it says to you every single School in the whole world is the same it's [ __ ] insane it's insane they ask you what would you do when you grow up that that is a trap question in sales we call it a trap question right it basically makes you instantly default to the Natural Instinct of oh I'll be a doctor I'll be a lawyer it traps your brain into a particular frame of mind around a particular thing you're going to do like a robot that's how you get a you program a robot to do a certain thing the question that should be asked and this is all I would change initially in the education system is the question you ask is what problem are you going to solve this is the question I asked my seven-year-old since he was three since he could talk what problem you going to solve mate what problem you going to solve right he laughs at first he Giggles now he watches David aten BR you know what he says the sixth Extinction is coming I want to try and help avoid that from happening and he says it with calm passion maybe he'll be a doctor for a while maybe he'll be a lawyer for a while maybe he'll Master AI maybe he'll be a social media influencer maybe he'll do all of those things CU he cares about the problem not the pigeon hole that the [ __ ] education system tries to pin people into do you send your kid to public school private school home school and again I say home school what do you think uh well I feel like I grew up during a time where if you think of homeschool kids they're usually a little awkward socially inept kind of strange our experience of extracurricular activities and there's a homeschool kid there who is usually by themselves afraid to maybe they were homeschool because they were already like that could be but now it's different like homeschool is the Revolution coming out way I [ __ ] hope so because my son okay this just frame this is funny how Society gets so used to these frames right we have to reframe it but this is a society frame we presently believe to be real we send kids into a classroom from around I don't know what it's like in America but in England it's 9:00 in the morning till 4:00 in the afternoon and on average classroom size is about 28 kids yeah and they sit in that room all day together now I like you guys we just met I like you guys but they say every single day for the next three years we're in the same room 5 days a week from 9:00 a.m. till 400 p.m. and we're no 28 of us in this room we're going to go [ __ ] nuts aren't we do you want to put up your hand or be different in that environment right plus the other problem with the school system is they're all the same age okay because again this isn't natural in tribalism which I really believe is how we should be living you have a 14-year-old a seven-year-old and a three-year-old right each of them have a sense of responsibility through the you don't have bullying in this situation by the way the 14-year-old regulates a seven-year-old the seven- yearold looks after the three-year-old the three-year-old looks after to the seven-year-old seven-year-old looks after to the 14-year-old right you're not it's meant to do it by age the way they do it now so homeschooling is a the beautiful solution to it now I'll caveat this with saying right now because homeschooling is not mainstream it's it's expensive one partner has to stay at home to look after the child but by the way my wife is the main primary look looking after person for my son but every single day she's out and about in some shape or form my son lives like we live in the morning he wakes up he has breakfast he draws a little bit and then one of his friends comes over and plays for a few hours and they do Lego and if it's not raining they go out for lunch in the park in the afternoon they go to a forest together with another friend uh who happens to also be a friend of my wife's my the mother that happens to be a friend of and they spend the afternoon Picking Daisies and talking about plants and realizing that Nettles are one of the most amazing products in nearly every single pharmaceutical product that makes people better has nettles in it right so they learned all that in a day like literally a beautiful day out that is homeschooling he's not sitting on his own with my wife learning maths all day people have got it completely wrong and and and and now here's the real reason why this is actually presently unobtainable for people 30 years ago having one income was was enough having a second income was either a privilege or slightly weird right you're not at home looking after your kids yeah now the things have got so expensive property's got so expensive life's got so expensive now there's no [ __ ] choice but to have two parents at work so that means that that kid can't have what I'm talking about right now which is why again I'm fighting against this because I think homeschool should be an option and communities coming together can make homeschools possible so my wife does drop off my son at a forest school on a Wednesday and he's with a load of other parents that happen to be running the forest school and then sometimes a load of parents drop people at my house kids at my house and my wife looks often she does uh Homeopathy and herbal medicine so she'll do a little herbal medicine class so they share the responsibility of the education just like we used between tribes H but there are certain things that are undeniably traps like you said like if if your son was in a public school system that would definitely work counterproductively for him if let's say he got into playing video games all of the time that would be another trap that worked counterproductively for him what would you say are some traps that people should watch out for to make sure that they're not just always like Shackled by this like brainwashing you know always attention going in certain areas and lacking the belief that they have the freedom that they have to to live the life they want addiction addiction is the biggest weakness in humans and so but we can get addicted to normality we don't question things I think people should question everything all the time what I'm saying on this podcast question it right do your research on me question everything and if you have a questioning mind it's quite freeing so I didn't when I was younger I believed the media the media made me think England was the best place on the planet like I thought England had roads and we were safe and it was until I left England I realized it's not the best place in the world so I thought like like question healthy skepticism about things I think is good um I also like to think positively but I I think having that that that thing where you always just double check double check it's what you have what I've just been told or what I've just heard is is it true and and I think if people apply an element of skepticism in a positive way to their lives they can figure out what's right for them and I think people should check if they're addicted to things and and just if you think you might be addicted to your phone put it away for a week just get rid of these things for a while right so I've got an addictive personality so I've never drunk alcohol and I've never done drugs because I think those things are so powerful that if I start them I won't be able to stop the only addiction I think I've got and people listening audio might think I'm obese now but is food I'm not obese just in case you're listening on audio but I love food and you know what I realized I do eat chocolate I don't drink alcohol but I do eat chocolate I do like sweet things and I've realized that food is the only addiction I've got no choice but to indulge slightly because we have to eat right we actually have to eat so I can't avoid it I can't cut it out completely but it is really interesting when you try to take something if you think you're not addicted to social media put it down for a week right at least start to bring yourself off it that's interesting what you say about addiction that's how you're supposed to that's the thing you're supposed to avoid and it's not only being being skeptical of yourself but it's always challenging yourself because if you never go or if you're always unchallenged I feel like you're never you're never going to be met with resistance you're never going to have have to improve so I think the skepticism is a a key thing yeah because a lot of people also won't challenge you like external sources and you can't rely on that because maybe they will maybe they won't so you have to rely on yourself to always be challenging yourself being skeptical of yourself questioning things I think you should also be positive somehow mix it in there with positive like I see a lot of people spouting conspiracy theories with no Solutions you know I feel like we we need to be like optimistic about the world to make the world a good place in the future if we're not optimistic it probably won't happen I think optimism is one of the things I've noticed in successful people even to the point where like you know I I actually think that the 15-year-old me I was lucky to have that life that that that experience is giv me I love my life today I'm doing a job I love I've got a purpose a mission I love it and I wouldn't have had any of that if I hadn't had bad luck you need bad luck to have good luck so even when and I noticed this really successful people in their businesses fail they're like they say well I learned all these lessons I wouldn't I wouldn't be I I've had a few businesses fail I wouldn't be successful today if they hadn't failed like I've learned more from my successes than my learn more from my failures than my successes and I think that's the thing that you know people need to be more positive about even the worst things that are happening to them it's like it's cheesy but it's all happening for a reason speaking of that you're really known for walking up to strangers and saying what's your dream is there anything that really stands out to you I think I've been doing the biggest human survey in history it's been fascinating the thing that stands out is how people have lost confidence in themselves and I don't know where it gets lost in their up upbringing but like nearly everybody doesn't really believe in themselves very rarely people don't believe a dream is possible even in a country like America where it's built in the American dream people don't believe it's possible for them or that it's not the right time for them it's shocking to me and so sometimes I feel like I'm doing an intervention in their life in that moment and and you know what I see I see sometimes people have dead eyes and then when they just for a moment describe their dream their eyes light up again so I think some people have literally turned off the actual thing that makes us human the ability to see the future the ability to make something real from our head into the real world some people have just suppressed it so much and I don't just blame the school system I think it is generally like probably you know parents don't be get a real job you know don't be a YouTuber get a real job you know like it people it's been suppressed down in people and I and I but I noticed that you just give people the chance to tell their dream and you give them a few ways to make it happen how different people can be I've I've seen people literally physically change in the 90 seconds I've done the video of someone 90 I've seen them change they go from downbeat the world's got them broken they're not going their dream's not possible they given up on their dream even they don't have a dream to like literally a bin man the other day I walked up to a guy who was fitting up the bins people we've all walked past this guy and not even noticed him and I walked up to him and he was really depressed I haven't released this video yet he was really depressed putting stuff in the bin and I went up to him like what's your dream and he went I want to be a game programmer I'm like okay I'm going to fund it what do you need it's like what what's this wheel the camera there you think it's a joke like you just see people literally just his posture changed his eyes changed color almost like light came on it's like this is possible it came out of fight and flight for a second and and and you know it's blown my mind seeing it like I'm addicted to it I'm not just doing this for other people I'm doing it for myself to I'm addicted to seeing people come alive you know like it's like unplugging a machine what stops people from then taking that and running with it because I bet if you ask a hundred people what's your dream they get really excited they have that response there's going to be a section of people that just get excited in the moment and then reality sets in again like I can't do that's why I don't really like motivational speaking I do motivation I don't really like motivational talks or posts because they're very um shortterm doses of adrenaline for people what that I go back to purpose and it's very fluffy word but I think it should be asked at school if people have a purpose they don't stop so what the real trick is not motivating people in that moment the real trick is figuring out their purpose and motivating them around that purpose that's what makes people follow through like why do nurses go to work when they're so badly paid because they don't someone might die if if they don't go to work someone will be in pain they're motivated by the purpose and they will go even though they're badly paid and badly treated they'll go right and I think that's that's the trick it's not about motivation it's about purpose it's a word that people hear are so fluffy it's so important if you get that instilled in someone I don't need to I I've got a team of people um I have never once managed any of them in the present company I've got because they I I hired them all around the purpose that we have right to free Humanity I don't tell them what to do every day they get up before I get up they go to bed before me after me you know what I mean point is they're motivated right they're so motivated and I think don't manage people manage purpose because a lot of people get frustrated in their businesses I'm managing people and it's so tiring I'm like well you don't have a purpose then do you so I think that's the difference um and I'm not there to motivate people I'm there to help them find their purpose what would you say is the biggest success story from the videos going up to someone and asking them what their dream is the individuals in the video we are helping them no doubt about it and we have a whole system for helping them we we we put them in a group of mentors we have a platform gobank.com with 160,000 people on there to help them we promote their businesses online and get hundreds of millions of views each month hopefully for their dreams but the really interesting thing is not the people in the video the people we are actually helping the most are the people watching the video so on Instagram last month I just looked at the analytics before we came in we had 101 just over 101 million views on our Instagram content last month when I look at the DMS it's people saying I just saw Sarah not singing It's Made Me decide I'm going to sing I'm going to go for my dream or I heard Mark say he wanted to do this business he's not going to I'm going to do it I've done it or people have started businesses because they watched the video and realize that I've called [ __ ] on their own [ __ ] so it's people watching the video that were helping more than the people in the actual videos but that being said there's some people I'm really proud of that have started businesses and I you know I just name them more they feel bad if I miss anybody out on that list I feel bad but there's people I really do respect who have shared their really painful backstory and then gone out and used that pain to do something good and I think to me there's a whole list of people that I'm quite proud of around that you also have another somewhat controversial take that houses are like can't we got this to the podcast before this came up yeah saving the best part to the end could you walk us through this the the train of thought okay so better frame it up better for the audience because they no wonder what you mean I I have an issue with the property business generally speaking and not with the people in property business with the property business so I always kind of maybe when I'm trying to explain this just say first of all I'm not mad this is just a theory and just I have this Theory doesn't mean I'm right okay but Monopoly was invented by a woman you know this right Monopoly was invented by a woman to highlight the problem when you put property and capitalism together too closely so what she originally wanted to do she had a monopoly with the the the and land is owned by no one and people move around The Bard and live in the properties and everyone has a Harmon his life or you have one where people buy the land what happens in the end some only one winner right and it'll probably be some big corporation like Black Rock that's my prediction but one one company ends up owning everything because it's all a question of price right so taking that kind of like example in in mind unfortunately for her the capitalistic Monopoly caught on and then the games company bought it and made it Monopoly right but she originally designed it to show the problem of property and capitalism together so my main principle around property is that if you live in a house that you own people mistakenly think it's classed as an asset right this is Rich Dad Poor Dad education it's not an asset it's a liability and people really don't understand this so I'm like that's probably basic number one understand how money works if you own the house you live in even if you own it forget if mortgage that's a whole different thing mortgage is actually still owned by the bank right the bank's borrowing money against your property so you don't own it the bank does maybe one day you'll pay it off if you don't have lifestyle inflation and increase the L for the mortgage or rates go up or you miss a couple of payments or whatever you know hopefully if all goes well you'll own it hopefully in 30 years time but it's not so that's fundamentally 0.1 right people make a huge mistake they don't understand how money Works they think that the house is theirs and they think that the house is an asset it's not it's a liability you think I'm right about that bit no I do I I think you you can be right and I think you could also be incorrect yes I think it it's a very nuancing I would say for a lot of people a houses a liability in in the sense that if they overextend themselves to buy the nicest house they can if they don't keep it long enough if they if they buy a house Liv in it five years sell it they break even maybe and they they buy an even more expensive house and they stay on the treadmill yes I think it can be an asset if they buy it strategically to either save money on rent live in very longterm because they have to live somewhere fix it up which most people aren't doing or they do the house hacking method of of you know renting out bedrooms or or buying multiple units and renting out the other units living in one most people don't do that so I'd say for a lot of people it's a liability but it can be an asset isn't isn't your primary residents like the number one wealth building by all data it is it is but because people are so bad at saving and investing so it's like the the one thing they're forced to do ends up helping them in the long run and property values have trended higher but if you invest in the S&P 500 long term you actually outperform by many multiples so it's like yes it is it's like better to save something than nothing but only because people are so bad at saving money since the 1970s if you invested in Gold you'd make more money owning gold than you would owning a property based on present property prices versus property prices in ' 70s but gold has no other than storage no maintenance cost what about 1980s or 2012 but it does it does skew when you look at like after the because the 70s you ran up in gold prices when they went off the gold standard if if you look at it at any other date it starts to skew um but overall at least in the US property values have increased basically 1% Beyond inflation historically and so it's not that good of an investment but it can be but just about anything else could be a better investment I would say like the one piece of advice that I would lend to people is just to be very conscious of your finances so like a house could be an investment in the same way it could be a liability credit card could be an asset in the same way it could be a liability all of these things could either serve you or not serve you and so to be very conscious and uh observing those things is probably the best thing that you could be here's what I what I see right now is that a lot of people are and I'll use the term brainwashed to believe that buying a house is always a good investment or that buying a house is the right choice or that you achieve some sort of social status um or Milestone by buying a house without doing the math and and determining if buying a house is actually the financially sound uh method because right now renting is way cheaper at least over the next 10 years than buying a house is and if you buy a house and you don't do that math you're like oh buying a house is better because I'm paying down the mortgage it might not be that's and I think people don't move where the opportunity is you know they they they live where their house is so not I'm being General here any there's always but I think I think of course there are examples where people break the rules but most people buy house I remember when I made that first bit of money that £50,000 everybody said to me buy a house okay and I think what I've managed to do with that £50,000 building businesses and what I've managed to see the world and experience things that if I bought a house I'd be probably in that house now like wishing I had a bigger house you know like it's kind of like especially when you're young I'm really genuine than property stuff I'm really like traveling is so underrated for people experiencing different places move somewhere where the opportunity is don't get a house and get stuck right and that's what happens to a lot of people but I definitely I think my problem my personal my personal take is when you get to 40 if you haven't made it probably buy a house you know you got get a mortgage deal and maybe then when you're retired you can have it paid off and then you can sell it to live in an old people's home I don't know but like it's not it's not my favorite way of building a life but we also don't know necessarily what would have happened had you bought a house so for example we've spoke to so many I remember the house I still I look at it sometimes I almost bought I know exactly what happened but let's just say you bought that house and the property values went up and then you're like okay well maybe I can pull some money out and then you buy another house and then you build because we've seen we've had so many people that are like real estate Moguls on the show and that was exactly how they got started in real estate and then they became an agent and they talking about property as a business so that's different right I I absolutely think property can be a business this might lead us quite well into the podcast we're going to do rev you in a minute we can talk about this in a minute in more depth right from a financial point of view I absolutely think property can be a business so now what you're talking about is property is a business so people are educated enough to realize that maybe they sell that house they take their equity and they they buy a house my parents did this by the way they bought a house they did it up we all lived in it made it look like a nice family home and then they sold it and we moved into another house and then they did it up made it like a family home and sold it for more money we moved to another and then eventually they bought five properties and then 10 properties and then 30 properties and the 90s came and the mortgage rate went up and they had to give all the keys back to the bank and they lost everything so I've got my own personal experience with This brilliant property business but I do think times have changed and certainly in the last 10 15 years properties have just kept going up interest rates were kept low and there's certainly been like a magical time for property my real issue with property is the moral code side of it okay cuz again I talk about England better than I can America but in England there are nurses doctors and police who literally are on food stamps because they can't afford their rent okay so what's happened is BU to rent business has boomed people have come and bought property rented out for huge amounts of yield 8% 6% whatever people are trying to get and then the people renting can't afford to buy because the p prices have gone up and now they're literally like the person who who's tonight in England a rich person landlord is going to go to an emergency award Ward and the nurse who's going to try and save their life is eating food going to go food stamps to eat can't pay their mortgage rent can't get mortgage impossible to buy can't afford their rent like tired stressed out can't look after their family properly but don't worry that landlord got 8% yield out of it so my my issue is more like it's it's definitely a business but it's got out of control now what's the alternative to that because then it would be government housing and I see this as a real estate person and for me I I've been once to London and I've seen how packed it is there's just not enough land to build more units without tearing them down and and reconstructing the whole thing so my understanding is that zoning regulation prohibits bigger units or taller high density housing right that and that's a core problem that would need to be addressed or you're going to have that issue so England has a lot of green belt restrictions again look I'm not a policy maker of property I'm not really in the property business I I'm just showing a little flaring a little bit of a warning sign cuz every young person I meet when I say what do you want to do I want to buy property and rent it out I I'm going to borrow someone else's money and buy property and it's just got a bit out of control and I'm just like are you sure you want to be in this business cuz you know there is a limited amount of property and like being a landlord isn't as easy as it sounds either you know like again I think a lot of the time people think it's some easy thing to do if if you got a small property portfolio and you're managing 3:00 in the morning the washing machine's broken it ain't an easy thing to do so just be careful and people see it as passive income I'm like no it's not you have to go we have to go enough so I I I I tack it a little bit more from a business point of view and it's got so out of control in England in particular that I'm just throwing up a little bit of a warning when it comes to how to fix it I'll be honest I haven't got the exact solution but I think a combination of like releasing Green Belt L probably yeah and for that we're talking like front yards or backyards like or part but also parts of land that's been classified as you know Woodlands that need to be protected which yes and no but if humans aren't don't have somewhere to sleep you know in England there's 50,000 homeless people right registered that's just a registered so this S A person who goes back to my homeless period right that is humans on the street nowhere to sleep that is madness but that that's it's the highest amount in history in England 250,000 people that and a lot of that is mental health issues so you know you need to build hospitals where mental health is taken seriously so there's that element drug addiction but that comes from living on the street a lot of the time right not they're not on the street because they're drug addicts they take drugs to numb the pain of living on the street right but I I just think there needs to be a little bit of a different strategy like and and yes I'm a capitalist I made all my money being a capitalist but I think there comes a point where you get judged by a country judge by how you treat the poorest person and if we can't give if we can't pay a nurse or a policeman more money which is fair enough there's not more money there's no money tree is what you say in England there's no money tree then how can they afford the rent then so if we want them to take a low salary and do that job and protect us and Keep Us Alive then we should give them accommodation now build it near the hospital build it on the hospital I don't give a [ __ ] but we can't have both ways can we we can't pay them nothing and expect them to save our lives and give them really expensive rent in a very capitalistic structure now you also mentioned that you can pick your location so in that nurse example what's stopping them from going to a different location where rent is cheaper they earn a similar or the same amount but they're able to save way more because rent is less different human survey needed there for me to give you a you know an actual factual answer but my instinct would be the hospitals in London for example are in populated areas so to get there suddenly you got and people do by the way they move out of London and then they've got huge train costs I mean again England's a bit broken cost of getting from say you know from one Village it's cheaper to the hospital now you know now the the cost of the train was the same as rent so you know it's it's you're not saving by moving out you're now causing yourself a commute which is tiring and now you're costing yourself train and public transport which is ridiculously expensive crazy I meant switching jobs outside of London okay switching jobs that's happening yeah you got a serious teacher deficit in England right now people don't want to be a teacher it's low paid people can't afford to live so literally there I be careful how I say this but a lot of brilliant teachers aren't becoming teachers they can't afford it so they want to get into banking you know or they want to get into property right and they're not they're not going where they where they would naturally go but couldn't you also say based in your other arguments that teachers are becoming a thing of the past in the sense that not yet they're not they will but but in the sense of the classroom setting yeah they should that sort of environment so in the future it could be that people are learning at their own pace from something that's designed by AI based on the strengths of the student that tailors everything to exactly what they want to learn or where they could solve problems Yes again sometimes when I think about my own thesis I I split it into now today and 5 10 years from now right 5 10 years from now I hope that's the case right I hope teachers I'm weirdly I saw uh something saying today that chipotle they're replacing 75% of their Workforce with automated uh machines that are making the food right when I saw it I was actually happy because these are jobs humans shouldn't be doing anyway they're too [ __ ] clever right so but I think that uh you have to split it into two timelines right now today there is a teacher shortage in England right that's a problem now because AI is not in the classroom yeah and people aren't being taught and most of the kids are restricted to get online anyway right so unfortunately we still need teachers and I mean that with love because I love teachers but there the teachers should be in the classroom but they can't afford to be in the classroom so there we got a gap already now hopefully technology will fill it but I don't see the school system moving towards that you know literally like laptops is you know lately laptops most kids can't afford a laptop you know so it's not even the basic technology it's been around 20 years isn't even in the classroom for most kids so and then I see five years from now 10 years from now maybe with AI those teach don't need the teachers great we need to find a job for those people and then maybe they can move where the opportunity is but the other thing is that humans are tribal you know a lot of people like my brother still lives in the town I grew up in because his family's there so he doesn't want to leave so you know if it's so expensive to live with your family and you have to uproot you need everyone to UPR it's not so easy to leave and go where the opportunity is although they should yeah I do think though long-term people are going to be less uh dependent on cities and so perhaps DSE cities what we're saying right now is the worst of it and over time as people can get more done with AI or online they don't need to be in the middle of the city anymore I think people can spread out as they should that's happen most in the most of the US is like completely undeveloped and when you look at like the there's like a chart that shows like the population of the United States based on where people live and it's like everyone's crammed in like five different locations and the rest of the country is empty I don't think it needs to be like that necessarily I'm working on a project in England at the moment where we're trying to redevelop a High Street into com cuz a lot of the high streets have died as well Amazon's killed High streets I'm I'm sure it's the same here and so there's an opportunity there I mean if you're intellectual about it there's loads of ways to solve it but I just start with the basics that the people that are serving us and not being well paid for it need to at least have the ability to live somewhere yeah you know basic human right is accommodation right we can't I would love to see higher stories like like higher density and underground I think that would be so cool to like be able to go five stories Underground and you would have no idea like restaurants down there like that's happening in C cities where the value like my house that I had in London they dug a basement two basement down is incredible the house tiny homes too like if you look at any new development they're all like 1900 plus Square F feet 2200 2500 ft here in Las Vegas but if they only made starter homes which are like 1,000 feet or 1100 1200 ft that would be so much more reasonable I think it's just a little bit more profitable for the developers must this didn't built like he was living in it I don't know if it was true but there's little box house person I could live in one of those give me a bed a computer Wii fine you know yeah they're like 50 Grand one of my uh dreams like this was like 10 years ago I really wanted to develop micro units that you could rent because I remember me uh throughout my 20s like all I needed was a bed a kitchen and a desk that was it and I I thought that paying any money for any more than that was a huge waste but there's nothing that exists like that I mean you could find little small Studios but they were like really seedy parts of town but like imagine in in the prime District of like Los Angeles in the best location you had micro units of just 300 Square ft just like a two-car garage it's got everything you need I would love that they do it in Japan they have like I I think in English they called um coffins it's not exactly but you live it it's like a coffin you know I've seen it maybe not to that ex yeah yeah yeah but it's kind of it's kind of interesting you know like you just need someone safe to sleep at night you know that kind of idea but the issue though with at least California cuz I haven't looked into other uh other districts is purely that they don't they they require a certain amount of parking for every unit and if you can't do that that won't be zoned 99% invisible do you ever listen to those guys it's a really good uh podcast I listen to and he he talked about how they came in with this parking policy so that when they built the Google Circle they've got so much parking to justify that like it's it's like five million cars or something need to be able to park there or something ridiculous like that you know like because they made that rule but this is kind of getting old now as well like we were interviewing some kids who on scooters and they they don't want cars they and Uber people don't want a car yeah they just want to Uber share an Uber you know go on a scooter they so I kind of think like there's all car parking regulations everything's 10 years behind in government's truck decisions I feel like it's cool to walk places now like we just came back from Japan and we stayed in areas where we could walk Within like a three mile radius it was so nice I have to say not selling London one thing I love about London is you can walk everywhere I loved it it's so easy and I and I really I mean I've been trying to walk around Las Vegas but it bit hot here in lasas isible broken even though it's brand new all the paths are blocked I'm like okay anyway Las Vegas is great come here Simon thank you so much for coming on the show we have one final question to ask you before we end this which is what is one thing you think you can say that will make the strongest and best impact on the viewer right now the purpose of life is a life with purpose thank you Simon you forgot one thing though to like And subscribe if you haven't done this already we're going to link to all of your information Down Below in the description but seriously if you've listened to this whole thing over two hours and you've not already subscribed please do it it's totally free takes you a split second we're going to do our best by the way to respond to as many comments as we can please subscribe it really helps with the channel tremendously anything you want to shout out please subscribe oh your book don't wor about that don't worry about that yeah we can can but Jan you can pre-order it now if you really want to help me and all the profits are going to fund people's dreams so if you want to help link Down Below in the description everybody sounds good thank you Simon for coming on the show apprciate thank you so much