BiggerPockets Real Estate Podcast - 409: Giving Yourself Permission to Go BIGGER: the "Bluefishing" Mentality with Steve Sims

Episode Date: October 18, 2020

Today's a special episode featuring the author of a book we can't get enough of: Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen by the man, the myth, the legend - Steve Sims. Who is Steve, anyway? Well, he's a former bricklayer and bouncer-turned-entrepreneur who uses a unique mindset and blend of skills to creates once-in-a-lifetime experiences for billionaire clients. Experiences like: getting married by the Pope in the Vatican, having a private dinner at the feet of Michaelangelo's David statue, or going on an underwater tour of the Titanic shipwreck. And here's the thing: as you'll hear in this episode, Steve's not a silver-spoon, high society type. He's just a regular guy who chooses to think and act differently, consistently. And after this episode, you'll be able to "Bluefish" your way into more relationships, more private money, and ultimately more deals! We talk about "leading with value" when approaching mentors... blah blah blah. Today, you'll hear a refreshing new twiston that concept, and learn actual tactics you can put into practice to make more connections and level up your life today.  One final note: Steve uses some colorful language in this episode; please take note of the "Explicit" label, and listen to this one when the kiddos aren't in the backseat :) In This Episode We Cover: How Steve went from bricklayer to bouncer to building a business that makes people's dreams come true What "Bluefishing" is Digging deeper to find your customers' true motivation The one thing Artificial Intelligence can't replace Why it's often better to remove – rather than solve – problems in your business How to chase your own dreams, not someone else's Why social media "influencer culture" often leave you feeling empty and unhappy Stories of working with clients ranging from Elon Musk to The Pope Links from the Show BiggerPockets Podcast Bluefishing SpaceX Click here to check the full notes: http://biggerpockets.com/show409 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

This is the Bigger Pockets podcast show 409. That was the core and you need to get to the core in order to be able to provide the solution. I don't care if you're looking for a house. I don't care if you're buying a car. I don't care if you're buying a pair of shoes. There has to be the reason. You need the reason past the superficial well that are the most expensive. Get to the reason.

Never give a client what they ask for. Try to find out what they. need, desire, and lustful. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio, simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you're here looking to learn about real estate investing, without all the hype, you're in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others

who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com. Your home for real estate investing online. What is going on to everyone? It's Brennan Turner, host of the Bigger Pockets podcast, here for another amazing weekend edition of the Bigger Pockets. podcast with my buddy with my partner in crime, Mr. David Green. David Green, today's show was unreal. I thought like the unreal is like the best so I can explain it. What do you think? Agreed. You know, I never got to say during the show, but I was thinking the entire time I get why

Brandon likes this guy because you excel at everything. Oh, thanks, man. I don't think I, I don't think I do, but thank you. Oh, no, you're one of the best. I was listening like, Brandon bluefished me this entire time. This was so, so good. But for people like me that don't naturally think this way, this is gold. I think for someone like you, Brandon, you probably just kind of get what Steve was talking about. This was very, very eye-opening for me in a lot of ways. For people that maybe don't excel in the social world, but you still want to get better at networking. You want to get better at negotiating directly with sellers. You want to get the best agent or the best contractor in town to prioritize your business over somebody else's. This is something that almost money can't buy. It is so good.

Yeah. So for those who don't know what we're talking about yet, you're going to listen to this show right now. We just got finished recording, which is why we're all hyped up. So our guest today is named Steve Sims. So Steve wrote a book called Blue Fishing. And somebody recommended it to Kevin, our producer. Kevin recommended me. And I've recommended it to like 100 people. Blue Fishing is basically, you're going to hear about today. But it's the idea of like making amazing things happen in your life, not living with the status quo, but doing amazing things. And that sounds super generic. I'll explain it. And you will explain it in the, in the, in the, a story a little more. But here's a real tangible example of what I mean by this. And this is not something I did, but something somebody did for me is, uh, Micah who, Micah is my, you know, basically head of finance. I think he's like director of finance at Open Door Capital. So Micah lives here on Maui and Micah reached out to me, knowing that I was obsessed with this restaurant called the Monkey Pod here on Maui. I love this place. I'd go there all the time. And he like, sends me over like a letter with like a gift card for monkey pod and, uh, some like suggestion for my

business. Basically like, you know, here's what I, you know, where he's what I can do. And he was like, he just stood out. It was a little, it was a subtle way of standing out. And that's really what blue fishing is about in the subtle and not so subtle ways of standing out. So you can attract, whether it's, you're trying to raise money for your real estate deals. You're trying to convince a mentor to help you to take, you know, go to coffee with them or go to dinner. Whether you're trying to convince your spouse about something, no matter what it is. Blue fishing is this technique of just standing out differently. And it will affect every part of your life.

And Steve is an amazing storyteller. He's got so many good stories and lessons. He's amazing business guy, an entrepreneur himself. And this show has everything to do with real estate investing and nothing to do with real estate investing. So you'll say what I mean. So I don't know, did I explain that? Okay, David?

It's really good. The only thing I would add is it. has to do with thinking about how other people would perceive you and how they want to be talked to or what they need and incorporating that into your ask from them. And he made a really good point when he said, you guys got to listen for this. You put yourself first by putting other people first. And I just thought that that right there could sum up exactly what he's been talking about. And he's going to give a ton of really good techniques for how to do that practically speaking. Yeah. So with that said, let's get to today's quick tip. All right, nice and easy quick tip.

today. David Green here, my buddy, David, is actually doing Bigger Pocket's webinars now. I've been been teaching webinars for four or five years now every single week, pretty much. So David is alternating with me now on a regular basis. And so if you are not yet checking out the regular webinars, or if you're just tired of hearing from me, and by the way, webinar is like a, not like a podcast, webinar is like actual teaching. Here's how to do a certain tactic. David is teaching webinars now usually once a week, maybe every other week. And so check out BiggerPockets.com slash webinar to see which ones are coming up and you can learn from the man himself. So that's your quick tip. You like that? Thanks, Brandon. That's really good. And if people want to talk to us, this is probably the best way to

do it because at the end of every webinar, I do a Q&A for as long as I can last and people have to ask direct specific questions about their own problems. Yeah, so definitely show up there. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance. But a quick coverage check can be fast, easy, and one of these smartest ways to protect and even improve, your property's cash flow. As the months get colder, frozen pipes, icy walkways, and seasonal wear and tear can increase the likelihood of claims. And traditional insurance companies aren't always built to handle these claims quickly or smoothly. That's why more real estate investors are turning to steadily. They focus exclusively on landlords, whether it's a single-family rental, a burr-builder's

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as low as 3.75%. They've partnered with BiggerPockets for over a decade, helping thousands invest smarter. If you want to do the same, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement to learn more. Finally, that's, that's all we got. I don't have anything else. I want to get to today's show because it is phenomenal. You guys are going to love it. Steve Sims is amazing. make sure you buy his book, Blue Fishing. He didn't pay me to say that. I literally just think it's an amazing book. And that's why I, like, we bugged to get him on this show because I love finding great books and great people.

And then just introducing them to the entire Bigger Pockets community. So one thing. Quick announcement. Steve uses some colorful language. Oh, yes. You've got some children. You definitely, this isn't one that you would want them to be hearing. Skip over.

Steve isn't a typical Bigger Pockets guest. So he's not familiar with our, our podcast. This was our first time getting a hold of him. So it's a little different. Yeah. So yeah, they're a little colorful language in there. So enjoy. All right, Mr. Steve Sims. Welcome to the show, man.

It is an honor to have you here. Thanks for having me. Yeah, so let's dive into your story a little bit. Before we get into the book and what of impact it made on me, I want to go into a little bit about who you are. How did you become who you are today? I mean, walk us through your background a little bit, if you would. Wow.

Yeah, it's a big question. Start off easy, won't you? Look, I'm the exact same as every other one. entrepreneur in the planet. You know, I swear if you cut us open, you're going to suddenly find that there's like a purple vein or something like neon cell in our blood vessels or something like that. We're all the same, even though we may get to the destination by a different route. I grew up in East London as a construction worker with my father's construction firm, and I was just aggravated. Something didn't fit, didn't feel right, I didn't like it. And so I

went off, you know, giving you a short story, I went off to just try and find somewhere that I could fit. And I discovered along the way that entrepreneurs are disgruntled creative disruptors that don't fit. And we don't fit until we do. And to, to quote the Joe Polish, the man himself, he says, aggravated oysters make pearls. And that aggravation created to where I am now. That's cool, man. So let's, let's. talk about where you are now. So what do you do? What's your, what's your business and what is this whole blue fishing thing about? I get paid to make people more interesting. It's, it's kind of weird. So up until three years ago, my job, and probably give you the context from the

beginning, bouncing around these streets of East London trying to find out where I would fit ended me up on the front door of a nightclub because I was born big and ugly. And from that pedestal, funny enough, I was able to see, you know, people. And I was able to see how they interacted with each other, whether they were flirting, whether they were happy, whether they were celebrating. So I got to see humanity, which was quite interesting. And from there, I realized I wanted to talk to rich people. So I needed to find a reason for them to want to converse with me. And they wouldn't have a conversation if I was parking that car, but they would have a conversation if I was sending them on holiday or getting them to meet a celebrity.

or getting them into a party that they hadn't been invited to. So I basically started throwing these parties, and I never settled. I never went for what I was capable of. I always, as I say, go for stupid. So I went from planning parties at the back room of a, you know, shady nightclub to ending up working with everyone from Kentucky Derby, the Grammys, the New York Fashion Week, Ferrari, and all these other things.

So fast forward, three. years ago, I got approached and they said, look, would you write a book naming all the people you work for? Because bearing in mind, I had 93 clients at the time. All of these people that think they need 10,000 clients, I had 93, but pretty much all by a couple were billionaires. So I always went for the quality rather than the quantity. Trust me, a couple of billionaires can make you happy and make your bank manager happier. So I ended up giving the, these people, amazing experiences like getting married in the Vatican by the Pope, sending them down to the Titanic, getting them a drum lesson by Guns and Moses,

getting them to walk the celebrity party with Surveld and John. I was the Make-A-Wish Foundation for people with really big checkbooks. And I got approached, would I release a book on this? Would I name names? Now, some of the people I deal with, you know, they're not celebrities, but they're famous in their own little world. And if I mentioned certain names, quite simply I'd be dead before I knocked up my old-fashioned tonight.

So I said, no, you know, I like living. But then what they did was they came back and they went, hang on a minute, we've heard a bit more about your backstory. How come a 15-year-old bricklayer went from that to actually working with the Pope and Elon Musk? So then it became a how-to book. And this sparked curiosity in me. And I thought of myself, you're right.

I am the dullest tool in the shed. I just do before I think. A buddy of mine, Jay Abraham, said I have a greater IQ than an I can. Sorry, a greater I can than an IQ. That validates you. I just got the bloody quote wrong. But I just go out and get shit done and then worry about it or screw up and learn from that. And so I thought maybe this book can help people,

but I didn't think anyone would buy it. So we got paid very handsomely at the beginning to do the book. I didn't have a website. I didn't have a podcast. I wasn't on shows. Nobody knew who I was other than quite simply some of the richest people in the world, which was fine for my mortgage. But we just didn't think it would take off.

And it did. And it created this monster. And all of a sudden I got people and some very powerful people going, you just gave me permission to do something stupid, something that I didn't think was possible, and I've just done it, thank you. And I was like, my God, you know, why are people doing what really is just common sense?

And I believe you've read the book. I'm not putting you on the spot, but you've read it. Yeah, very much so. It'll piss you off if you haven't read the book, and I'm not here to push it, but it will aggravate you because it tells you all the stuff that you should be doing, that somewhere on the line

you convince yourself you were so smart to stop doing and you're missing out on all these golden opportunities. So it's the kind of book that will piss you off. Yeah, you know, there's so many good suggestions in the book.

And I want to dive into some of the actual tactics here in a little bit. First, let's take it back a little bit. Bluefish. What does that even mean? Blue fishing? Bluefish. Like, where did that come from?

So I suppose we should give a little plug for the book otherwise my publishers will hazy. There you go. bluefish in the art of making things happen. There you go. We got that out of the way. It's awesome. I'm like,

I legitimately tell people probably at least two or three times a week to pick up that book. Because I think especially in our industry, it's just like, it's so common sense. I'll tell some stories of how I've used it and how others have used it on me and later, but keep going. Perfect. So I had this weird little thing that I was starting to take up these nightclubs and throwing these private parties. and what I would do is I would go through all the society pages to find out who was just celebrating a new job or who had got married or, you know, who bought a new house. You know, you could find all this data. But back in the 80s and 90s, it was in like the social pages of the press.

And then I would contact where they worked and I would send a fax or a letter inviting them to a party. And here was the dumb thing. They had to R.SVP by nine times out of 10 either. and you're going to love this. Faxing the number or just phoning up and just going your name plus one and, you know, who you are kind of thing. But here was the Daff thing. I didn't know if I had to get a place for 50 people or for 500 people. I had no idea. Yeah. So what I did was I thought, well, let's get the RSVPs in and then we get a place that fits them. Okay. So we never had a location. So we used to say, hey, we're not going to release the location until a week before. And everyone would be

like, oh, that shrouded in mystery. Not really. I had no idea where it was going to be. So, you know, I couldn't tell you. And then what I would do was I would say that, you know, we're very selective on who gets in. So, and we didn't want to be handling checklists. We didn't want to be handling because you always had to pay in advance. We didn't want to be handling all the, like the normal boring stuff.

But I noticed something as a dormant. And this is important now. This is, for those people with a pen and paper. this is your first nugget. As a doorman, you've got one golden rule. Control your door. As a business owner, and I'm a coach and a speaker, and it's the exact same thing now.

Control your front door. If you can control who walks through the front door, you've relieved yourselves of 99% of the problems. And that came to me as a dormant. If I saw a couple of guys that were a bit kind of, I'm not sure about these guys, but yeah, you can go in. I know that I was going to be dancing with him in two hours' time because they were getting Larry with someone.

So control your front door and you remove 99% of the problems. I always noticed that people don't get violent when they're smiling. Now, that's a silly little thing to say, but we started coming up with these stupid passwords. And I literally just thought it was funny. I think this was my narcissistic quality. But I used to say to people on the facts, I'll let you know where it is, but when you turn up, you've got to finish this sentence.

One fish, two fish, redfish. One of the other things I would say to them, we had three of them. So I'll give you all three. We had three sayings that we used to rotate to wherever our party was. One of them was named two of the tellytubbies. And the last one, the last one was named, and this got everyone. Now, bear in mind, this was 1994, and I'm now in Hong Kong throwing these high society parties. We didn't have Google.

We didn't have smartphones. We didn't have any of that, okay? And this last one used to get people wound up. Name the lion out of the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe. Ah, there you go. So people used to come up, and that one was funny, because people would come up to you. And there'd be two meat eggs on the door, and they'd walk up to you and I'd go, bluefish. And you'll say, go on in, mate. Have a good night. But because they were doing something

that was so cheeky, they were smiling, they were humble, they were self-confident, because what person walks up to a door and goes, tinky winky, po, you know, that kind of stuff. So it just, we realized that it was good because we would get people walking up to us going, I'm here for the party. And I remember a really good one. We were in Macau at the time, and I had rented this yacht, okay? So I rented this yacht, and it's behind me. It's going nuts. All the women are on it, the lights are going, everyone's happy.

There's a queue at the bottom of the harbour, and people are getting onto the gangplank and going up onto the party. And this guy all of a sudden, and he's like, yeah, I'm here for the party. And I'm like, the party? Yeah, yeah, the party. And it's four feet from behind me in his view. And I look at my mate, and I'm like, I don't think there's a party.

Hey, Colin, do you know about a party tonight? And the guy's looking at him, he's like, I don't think there's a party down the road, I think. Down the road, or I haven't, but I don't think there's one here. Are you sure he's in the right place? And we were talking between ourselves, basically ignoring him and every now and then we'd be like,

hang on a minute, Colin, so where's his party you can go to? And the guy's getting infuriated, but wouldn't give us the password. So we blocked him. We said, sorry, mate, I don't know what you're talking about. You know, there's no party here. If you can please move on. you know, we're just, we're just here.

Of course, there's a line up behind him. There's a party going on. So the next people come on, they were thrilled that you were getting rid of that element from the crowd. Yeah. So they would walk forward and they'd go, uh, blue fish,

and you'd let them on. But the funny thing is that, do you know what the lion's called out of the lion and witch in a wardrobe? Athlan. Bingo. Yeah. The amount of people would come up and they'd be like, I don't know.

Is it, is you a line? I'm like, no, it's not bloody lying, your turn. But come on in. Because they were so humble and having a giggle with it, as long as you tried you were in, okay? Like some people would come up to us on one fish, two fish, redfish, and I'd go, I don't know, purple fish.

We'd be like, yeah, it's close enough, get you in. So we found that was just, and we didn't expect it to be anything. In fact, I've got another element on this. But we found that it changed people's attitude as they walked in. And some of our team used to say that people were walking into the party constantly smiling because they had had that interaction from the front. Yeah. And when you walk into a party and the only people walking into a party are the ones smiling

and giggling because they couldn't guess Aslan and you'd call it, you'd call it Robert or something, you know, it just made for a greater atmosphere. So when we started getting really good at this party promotion and getting these quirky kind of places, We actually decided to set up a company that specialized on this party. And again, key thing, I only invited rich people, okay? From a young age, I wanted to be the combination of the people I was in the room with. So why invite poor people? I knew what that was like, and that couldn't get me whiskeys and it was horrible.

I only invite rich people, okay? And you are the vicinity that you're in. Yep. Remember that. So I would always invite rich people. I didn't know. I had no care about setting up clubs or parties. Never had a care of.

My focus was to get in front of a rich person and literally asked them this, why are you rich and I'm not? That was it. I wanted a fill of roller decks of affluent people and I wanted to understand why. I was a curious little Irish kid and that's all I have wanted. Now, if I've got to get you a breakfast with Oprah Winfrey,

just to get you to talk to me, shit, I can do that, but I just wanted you to talk to me. And I would, the amount of benefit I've got from being on that private jets interacting with them for two hours, go so how did you do that?

Why did you buy that country? You know, these kind of conversations, was just amazing. But when we set up the company to start forming a structure, because we now had people, and people were saying,

people were asking us, do you do product launches? And I'd be like, product launchers. And I've got this jewelry company. And I've got this thing coming out. And I've got this new line of clothing. And, you know, I'm the marketing director for like Puma and Adidas and Reebok and stuff. Do you do product launches?

And we'd be like, are we just a product launch? It's just a party, isn't it? So we'd be like, yeah, we do that. So we literally started marketing and branding product launch parties. So we set up a company called TriAnon. Okay. Now, Tri-Anon, you probably don't know what it is, but it is the court of the Greek gods. So in mythology, when the Greek gods, who bear in mind were the almighty of the entire world at the time,

when they had an argument and they couldn't agree, it went up to the trianon, which was the court of the Greek gods, and you're going to love this for precocious, the final saying, on everything. So we thought, yeah, can't think of anything more precocious than that. We're going to be Tri-Anon. So we launched Tri-Anon,

and do you know, people would phone us up, and they'd be like, hey, I'm looking for Bluefish, and we'd answer the phone and go, no, no, no, this is Tri-Anon. And they'd be like,

oh, sorry, click, and that hang up. And it wasn't until this happened about four times that one of our girls in the office turned around and went, you keep hanging up

on that bluefish. And we were like, yeah, and they went, you do realize that's you. They're talking about the password that you use. They think that's you. And we're like, oh.

And we literally did a name change and had to change the name back to something that they had. So we called it Bluefish. So the word, sorry for the long way around the answer. That's good. But Bluefish never meant anything. It was just a way of getting you into the right thing. And then something weird happened. people started making it an adjective.

People would contact me and go, oh, you know, I threw a little party for my kids the other day, and it was a good party, but I blew fished the crap out of it. You know, I was the king. And all of a sudden, it became a movement. And we're like, how the hell is this happening? And people would say to me, oh, I went to a concert the other day, and I thought to myself, this ain't good enough for me, not a bluefisher.

So I managed to get myself backstage, and here's a picture of me with ACDC or Taylor Swift. And people were using it as a way of not accepting what that always accepted as normal. And it grew. And so it was this weird kind of high end, but an adjective of not settling for this word, which should be struck from the human language, the word impossible. Have you ever noticed how people go, hey, I'm going to go for the impossible or reach for the impossible?

Have you ever heard anyone say that? Sure. Does that make sense? Why would you drive through a dead end? You know, I'm going to drive, I'm going to drive through that brick wall, you know? That identifying that it's, as soon as you say it's impossible, you're right. Yep. So the second you say, hey, I'm going to go for impossible.

It means I'm going to go as far as I can here, and then I'm going to stop at my own parameter. It makes no sense to me whatsoever. So we never allow that word to be in our language. And I think that's what it was. Bluefish actually grew as a mindset, a mentality, and more than anything, permission, just to do something different. You know, that's what I really like got. I mean, the book has a ton of tactics and, like, here, you know, lessons and obviously, like, really good stuff in there. I mean, for example, your idea of, like, when you're at a hotel is taking, like, the stationary from the hotel and just jot in a note and send it to somebody that's in your, you know, roller decks. I love that, right? But what I, and again, we can talk about tactics here today as well, obviously, but like, it was, just permission to think bigger and to like realize that like life is so much like what you make

out of it. And so like all of a sudden when you realize that you can do cooler stuff and you can meet cooler people or or just unique experiences like why not? We just don't think that. We think we have to live in this little like this is how I was raised. This is how my family does things. This is how life is done. How business is done. I have to keep doing it. So it really like opened my eyes to like what's possible out there, which I think is probably my favorite part of that book. I'm pleased. I'm always. stunned because if I tell you or if I ask you, who told you it had to be that way? You know, there was no one that really came up and said, you'll do this this way for the

rest of your life. It was all those little murmurs that add to your baggage that holds you back. And I've always looked, my wife jokes, I've been with my wife for 35 years. So she's seen all my shit. And like all entrepreneurs, she's seen a good time, she's seen you broke. She's seen you broke again. She's seen your broker. And then she's seen your rich again and then broke.

And then rich and rich. So the world of an entrepreneur is none that any intelligent persons to jump on, but we do. So she's been there. She's seen it all come along. And she always says that I'm a 53 year old, four year old. I'm always curious. And when someone comes up to me and says,

oh, yeah, you can't do that. I never listen to what they're saying. I listen to who's saying it. And nine times out of 10, if you look at the source, you notice that they actually don't want you achieve in anything because it will validate the daring adequate to do so. Dude, dude, that is so true. I made a video a while ago, I called it the vegan effect because when people make a choice to like go be vegan, which I'm not vegan, but I was that everyone attacks them because it really, it's a reflection on their own choices of feeling unhealthy all of a sudden. So like, because you made a better choice for your life, I'm now going to feel bad about myself. And I don't want to feel bad about myself.

I'm just going to yell at you and make fun of you for doing that thing. Like, I see that all the time. Yeah, we see that business and they share it with someone. And the replies always, oh, well, I don't really, money's not all that matters to me. That person never said money was all that mattered to them either, right? Like, why is that the first thing that you thought of saying? And it's a, I think what is awesome about what you're telling us, Steve, is you figured out a hack into the minds of other people. How to get in a back door when the front door is guarded.

how to grab someone's attention by being a little bit different, where everybody else is trying to say, how do I do the same thing, right? Just tell me the quick, easy solution, the six steps to get from where I am to where I want to go as fast as possible. But it doesn't work because everybody sees that all the time. You mentioned that you've spent a lot of time with rich people. Do you mind sharing what you've seen that they all have in common, whether it's a way they think or a value system that they hold or maybe just how they approach problems in general? Yeah, I'll be happy to.

And it's the running thread and the running thread that goes through all of us. I'll tell you a beautiful story and I'll do my first name drop of the day, Elon Musk. I did an event for Elon about four years ago at SpaceX in Hawthorne. And have any of you ever seen the movie Iron Man? Sure, yeah. Right, the first movie with Robert down, well, they've all been Robert, but the first one, he actually walks through his rocket factory in the first movie. That's actually SpaceX in Hawthorne,

and they've got Iron Man at the front door of SpaceX because they actually used that factory for it. And one of the people tinkering on one of the fuselage was Elon in that movie. So you can actually see it. So I had this event. We had, I think it was about 40, quite simply. of the richest families in the planet was at this event.

Peter Diamandis, we did something with Richard Branson, Virgin Galactic, and we had Elon Musk that we all visited at his location. And I had gone up. They were all waiting in a room at the other end of SpaceX and I had walked over

down the whole factory to get Elon to come over to greet me interact with these people. And And I had two of my clients there that were, you know, some of my, you know, top-tier clients had spent a lot of money with me. I said to him, do you want to come with me while I go and get Elon?

So I'm like, oh, yeah, yeah, I want to do that. So they came with me. And I grabbed Elon and we started walking down SpaceX. And the guy, I'm next to Elon. So Elon's on my right. To my left is one of my clients who's just happy to be walking through SpaceX with Elon Musk. He's just happy as a little kid in the candy store. to the left of him was an Australian client of ours

that was just had gone into hyper mode, was just overly excited and wanted to engage in a conversation with his new best friend Elon Musk. So he's like, oh, so what do you think of this down now? What about that? And oh, that's kind of go.

Oh, I really like you do. And he is going like nuts. And it was getting to the point that I was going to lean over to him and go, hey, do you want to simmer down there a little bit, you know, and to control him a bit? when he turned around and he uttered this. Now, this was at a time just before NASA was SpaceX's largest client.

Okay. It was at a time when NASA was publicly ridiculing a privateer getting into the space industry. There was no place for someone that had no background in space engineering or journey, any of that. You know, they basically, I don't know if you remember, but NASA were really nasty. Yeah. On Elon. So my client turns around and says, so how do you feel that NASA, because they'd been a report on this in the news, had actually taken on a social team just to ridicule any idea that you had within space travel.

And Elon, this was the only response Elon had to either of my two clients for the entire walk. Elon didn't look at him. He didn't stop. He didn't slow down. He just said, they'll always laugh at you before they applaud. And that was it. Microtrop moment. And I noticed that clients, you know, the big, powerful movers and shakers, okay?

They don't care what you think about because nine times out of ten, you're the one that wants to jeer. Now, do you remember when he released his cyber truck in downtown L.A.? Yeah. he released a electronic bulletproof truck that was totally whether you like it low that i personally hate it but he built something that was completely different to any other truck you had ever seen in your life outside of a mad max movie correct yep and then he had it driven onto the stage with a non-combustion engine there was more powerful than any other combustion engine.

He didn't follow the parameter and the guideline of absolutely anything. But do you remember what the headlines were the following day of that truck release? Do you remember what everyone was talking about? Was it the windshield, through the rocket, the windshield. Yeah. Now, if you walked up to any auto manufacturer this afternoon at any car lot and through a stick, through a stone at the back window, what would you expect to happen? Yeah, I got a shatter.

I didn't even go. Yeah. But because Elon stood up and said, these won't shatter, and it did, they completely forgot that every other part of that truck was unique. Yeah. They tried to humiliate and laugh at him.

Now, the thing was, he went back and went, we learned where this went wrong. It won't happen again. Okay? The only thing that they could try and push him off his pedestal with was the fact that,

Hey, it's not bulletproof. Now, I'm sorry, but if you need bulletproof windows in your neighborhood, you don't need his car. You need a new postcode. You need to move. But that was the only thing that they tried to find a way of laughing at him. So he went back and repaired it. He doesn't care what he does.

And what a lot of the people that are in those kind of positions do was they don't ever look at solving the problem. They look at why the problem is there in the. first place. And that's the difference. Most of us, and you spoke about it and you did, David, you both said it without realizing it. People look for a response or an answer or a solution that they can pay for. If I said to you now, hey, I'm going to show you on a video how you can do XYZ. And over the space of the next six months, you would be able to do this. you'd get, I know, a few people sign up.

Yeah. But if I said to you, for 4999, you can buy this program and the program's going to do this, how many programs do you think I would buy, I would sell? Yeah. Yeah, the answer is quite a lot because people look to pay their way from a problem. Okay. Why look at the solution for the problem when you first got to look at why the problem is there? When I coach people, the first thing I do is to take this information I've gained from all

people look at you and go, I'm listening to what you're saying, but I'm not hearing it. I'm trying to understand why are we focusing on that problem? Let's go back and see why you've installed that problem there first. Nine times out of 10, I have not solved the problem that they came to me. We've eradicated the problem from being there. That's really good. Can you give an example, like maybe like if a business person comes to you and they've got some problem, like what does that look like in the tangible world?

if yeah yeah if they have they have they come with you with a problem maybe it's like hey i don't even know what a problem would be like hey my business is struggling right now yeah well that's always the same isn't it you know i'd run an event called a speak easy and um we never tell people what they're going to do or what they're going to get out of it we sell it for two thousand dollars a person we max out of 40 people we've been sold out every single event we're doing our 10th one in San Diego and the way that we work is you pay and then we contact you and say, what's your problem? And you know, we've done this for 10 times now, 40 people in each one and it's usually the same five problems that people come up with. How do I work on this digital world? How do I get

my message out there? How do I sell more products? How do I make more money? How do I engage in my clients? How do I build up loyalty? It's always a combination of those. So when someone comes I always say, you know, I've never given a client what they wanted. I've given them what they needed and lusted and desired for. I have to take what you're telling me and then listen to what you need. And every single one of my clients has to get uncomfortable first. You have to go for the core. And I got a little story if you want.

Please. If we got time, are you okay? Oh, please. So this will give you an idea and an indicator. on how to not listen to what a person is telling you, but try to hear what they're saying. Okay. So this was last year,

2019 was the end of my eight-year contract with Sir Elton John, and I worked with him at his Oscar party in Hollywood. Okay, so you can imagine that was quite fun. And I had an office at one stage in Palm Beach, and I was in Palm Beach at the time. And this was when I was running the conference. concierge firm. And one of the girls contacted me. For some reason, in Florida, we only had girls of work for us. And one of the girls put a call through to me. She said, I've got a guy on

the phone. He wants to meet Surrel and John. You know, can you go through with it? Because it kind of sounds funny. So I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, putting through. So he came through to me, and I went, hey, how are you doing? I hear you want to meet Surrelin John. He's like, yeah, I do. I said, oh, great. Why? And shut up. You know, why is. Why is. is the most offensive word in the planet. It's also the most constructive because it really gets to the root of the problem quick. So the guy turns around, he's like, oh, well, he's a celebrity,

he's famous, he's an icon, he's on his yellow brick road tour, he's going to die soon, he's wonderful, and I'll photograph with him. Is that it? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I want a photograph with him. Where was the core? Where was the real kind of like nut of that? You know, it was very superficial, wasn't it?

Yeah. And it didn't feel right. So I went, hey, that sounds great. Thank you very much. Let me come back to you. I didn't keep his phone, number, his email, nothing, because I wasn't going to contact him ever again. A month later, now we're a month away from the Oscar party,

which is always held in February or early March. So this is like in late January, I get a phone call from one of my team, and they went, hey, we got a guy on the phone, wants to meet Sarvelle and John. And before I said it, she turns around, she said, it's not the same guy, but I'm wondering if it's one of his mates because you haven't returned a call. And I'm like, okay, she's like, can you take it? I went, yeah, put it through. So I was already, you know, prearmed that this is what it was. So the guy comes to on the phone and he says to me, hey, how are you doing? He's all

up beating Joe Vaugh. And say, hey, how are you? My name Steve Sims. Oh, yeah, great. I've heard of you. And I said, so you want to meet Sir, John. He's like, yeah, I do. I said, why? Well, you know, he's an icon. He's a living legend. He's recognized by just one name, Elton. And he's going on a tour.

There's going to be his last tour. You know, the guy's getting older in his life. He's one of the superheroes. And, well, you know, there's, um, there's things. And it was that last drift off. That last kind of like, there's things. So I went quiet. And I said, what things?

and he went quiet. And there was an uncomfortable pause. And then he turns around and he says to me, in a very low voice, similar to this tone, he said, you know my dad used to drive me to school in the morning and pick me up at the end of school. Every single day of my school life,

he did this all the way into the high school. And then I got a car and that didn't happen anymore. But from being a little kid, all the way growing up, my dad would take me, my dad would pick me up. It was our thing. My mom would wave me out. And the first car that we had had a cassette that we couldn't eject. And we didn't really care. And it was Elton John's greatest hits. And we used to sing our lungs out on the way to school. And then we'd jump in, put it on, and sing our lungs out on the way back. And then he got a new car. And this new car had a CD player. And he went and bought so Elton John's,

at Elton John's greatest hits. And we would sing out all the way to school and all the way back. And then we got into high school. And this could not have been more embarrassing for me. But you know, he would still do it. And he'd pick me up from school. And as I walk into the car, I can hear Elton John just start. And I would get in the car and quickly slam the door,

make sure the window's up. So no one else could. And I would stare out of the window and refuse to sing. And my dad would be singing his guts out to Owen John all the way home. as I'm staring out of the window trying to ignore him. He said, now my dad died about 25 years ago. And every time I'm driving down the road, taking my kids to school, going to a business meeting, I'm out with my wife,

and the radio's on, and Elton John comes on. He said, my dad's alive for the three minutes of that song next to me. And I can hear that guy singing. And I want to say thank you to Elton John for bringing my dad back. for random three minutes of the week. Now, that was about seven years ago and still tears me up every time I tell that story because I can remember it originally.

I was on the phone to Hollywood and I got him introduced to Sorrelton John and we were in a crowded party and they leaned in and security guards always lean forward when someone leans in and you could see them chatting you could see the tear appearing on Elton and then you saw them hug and I knew the story so I was

already crying that was the core and you need to get to the core in order to be able to provide the solution I don't care if you're looking for a house I don't care if you're buying a car I don't care if you're buying a pair of shoes there has to be the reason you need the reason past the superficial well, that are the most expensive. Get to the means, never give a client what they ask for. Try to find out what they need, desire, and lustful. That's so good. Most investors spend more time chasing deals than reviewing their insurance.

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and if you want to learn more, visit BiggerPockets.com slash retirement. All right, rental property investors, listen up. Our friends at Dominion Financial already have some the best DSCR rates in the industry. Now, they're the fastest. too. They just launched 10-day DSCR closing. That's right, 10 days. And they're still the only lender with a DSCR price beat guarantee. That means faster closing. The best terms. Zero guesswork. That's Dominion financial. Check them out at biggerpockets.com slash dominion. Again, that's biggerpockets.com slash dominion. This comes up all the time in my business where I'm a real estate broker and you've got a buyer and they're nervous. They're not moving forward. And you ask them,

hey, what do you think about this house? And they give you nine reasons why they don't like it. And then you notice 20 houses in a row, they've been able to find nine reasons on every single house. And at a certain point, I realized I'm, I tend to take what people say at face value. They say,

I don't like the color of the carpet. Okay, let's go find you another house with a different carpet. And I end up playing this game that I call whack a mole, where they just keep on having objections. And I keep hammering that objection, but the moles, they just keep coming.

And I've had to do exactly what you're saying, Steve, is I have to find out what is the, What is driving that objection? What's behind it? Why are you coming up with reasons why you don't want this house? There's some fear there. There's some belief you don't think you're worth it. And that was a game changer in my business when I stopped assuming that other people actually knew what they wanted. When they're talking, they're typically, it's a cry for help. Help me understand what feelings are going on inside me and why it's important to me to meet Elton John. Not everyone always knows.

Do you mind sharing Steve a little advice for people that are hearing this for the first time and maybe their eyes are being opened, like, oh, I don't ask about the why behind the question. What type of questions they can ask or how they can look at this so that they can help get to the bottom of the people that they're talking to? I can give you a direct, accurate one directly into the real estate brokerage world. I'm very proud to have somehow been embraced in the real estate loan officer in real investment world. And I've spoken to some of the biggest stages in the planet in real estate.

and I actually, I have a client of mine, great girl, and she wanted to become, she was already the top realtor, but she wanted to amplify that. So I started working with her, and she contacted me and she said, I need your help on something. I said, what's you got going on? And this wasn't about her marketing. It wasn't about her web. It wasn't about her voice, a tonality. It wasn't about any of these. It was a direct question on a particular client. I went, walk me through it, what's going on? And she said, well, she contacts me, and she tells me, and she tells me she wants the three bedroom on this street. And I said, okay. And she said, you know, I've taken her to every three bedroom available on this street and she's come up with problems on every

single house. And she said, the street isn't really that big. And we're running out of houses to actually show her. And I said, well, the problem's not her for a start. The problem's you. And the bottom line of it is nine times out of ten, the problem is you. And the client, they always, say the client's always right. The client doesn't know what they don't know. That's your job. Okay. So I said to it. I said, okay, well, you made a mistake. Walk me through the beginning. I'm on about the first call. You know, when she said she wanted a three bedroom house on this street, what were the steps you took? And she said, well, I went straight into the MLS system. And I put, I said, no, you're giving the client what they asked for. I've always said, don't give the client what they

asked for, pull out your Sherlock homes and find out what they need. And those are two different answers. So I said, you want to go back to when you want to go, hey, I've been showing you properties. I've been doing you a disservice. I should have stopped when you asked me about this street and found out why that street. So she went back to her and she did exactly as I told her to do. and she said, I want to get a reset. I've done you a disservice. You said you wanted a three-bedroom place on this street, and I forgot to break it down.

I want to know, first of all, why is that street important? And it turned out that this woman had grown up outside of town, not from a wealthy family by any means, but now she did have money. But her mum, when she used to go driving at the weekend with her in the car, would drive her down this street, because this was the It Street and where all the successful movers and shakers were. So in which case, this daughter now wanted to arrive.

She wanted to conclude what her mum's dream was by living on the street that her mum has signified was where the moves and shakers. But let's be blunt, the each street of 20 years ago is not normally the itch street of today. the address moved. So what she was trying to do was she was trying to arrive at a location that had quite simply moved further on down the street. So once we signified the core reason for identifying that street, we could forget the zip code and look at where the it locations currently were or were going to be.

Hey, don't play the game. Get ahead of the game. This is where we're growing. First property she showed her in an upcoming area she purchased. That's so good. You know, oftentimes a lot of people get into this world of real estate investing, entrepreneurship, business, you know, whatever, because of this idea of financial freedom. Like, everyone wants to be rich or whatever. And I'm always encouraged people to go deeper than that because if your only goal is to be rich, I just want to have money.

Like, I see those people often times are the ones that are jumping from thing to thing to thing for the next 30 years. They never actually become what they want. So I always bug people like, ask like, like the same thing you think, why? Why do you want to be rich? What does that mean to you? And like if I ask why enough time to myself, like it usually ends up with my dad wasn't around very much when I was a kid and I want to make sure I'm around for my kids.

Like that's what matters. And it's like really going to do that. So why are you working so many hours to be able to get there? Like I'm like kill it. Like I'm, I had a reason for doing it. And the reason I'm not happy doing a certain thing is because I'm actually not solving the actual problem that I have.

And so I think just that's a good practice for us all to get into is just asking ourselves that question. Like why do we really want? this. I had a coaching call this morning. It was the second coaching call that I had with the client. And the focus this morning was, are you looking to be rich or wealthy? And it was exactly that style. Are you looking to have money or are you looking to have freedom? Are you looking to be able to making your own choices or are you looking to take on bigger liabilities? Where is the cash versus lifestyle? We need to understand, are you looking for the money or are you

looking for the life. And you're right. People, people get them confused. When I worked in Palm Beach, I met, and I still sadly do. I know some of the richest people in the planet who are depressed. I had a client of mine that literally went on suicide watch, literally went on suicide watch in Palm Beach because he had missed out on getting the latest G plane. Okay. Now, here's the dumb thing. The guy had three aircraft already, and he had missed getting in the list for the deposit to have one of the,

and it was the G5-5, or the G-5, I don't know, a freaking great jet that I can't afford. He missed out on being able to get on the waiting list for this plane and went into a depression and his wife got him on a suicide watch because of that. Wow. So it's crazy. You got to focus on what do you want? Why do you do this?

Because I think today the problem is we chase other people's goals and dreams. And the social world is perpetuating that cancer. You know, we look at someone on Instagram and we go, wow, that person's successful because he's leaning up against a green Lamborghini. He doesn't own it. Now, I have, I have motorcycles. Yep. Okay. I do not own a car.

If anyone Googles me, they'll see me with a. motorcycles. I went to, and I wish I'd have recorded this, I still kicked myself and not doing so, but I went down to a car park and I live here in Los Angeles, California, I had a meeting in Beverly Hills, I was parked at the underground car park, and I had gone down to get on the motorbike. So I'm just getting my helmet ready and everything. And in the corner of this car park, like three levels below the streets, was this green, neon green Lamborghini. And there were these two kids, everyone's a kid when you're 53 years old. But these two kids, they must have been their early 20s, you know, really early.

And another guy's got a camera and a light shaft on it, okay? And these two kids can, like, lean it up against his car going, you want this, you want to be part. And that can like, that's throwing out of the hand signs and that being all cool and slim and suave and telling you about how what they've got to offer can get you this. And is this important to you as they're leaning up against him? And I'm watching these two little Insta gurus filming off that little video

before they sell that $12.99 course. And I'm having a little chuckle. Okay. And I thought of myself at the time, I should get my phone out and record this shit. And I didn't. But what happened next made me regret the decision

until the day I die. There was this big fucker came out of the lift shaft somewhere and all you could suddenly hear was, get the fuck off my car. And he starts legna. And these two guys quickly clamped down the light, the light umbrella, shut out this door and went running as this guy came legging across his car park to get him off of his car.

And the trouble is the social world is there to show you how inadequate you are, you know? And that's the problem. We're looking at it and going, well, I haven't made it unless I am wearing the new Rolex. if I am driving the new Porsche, if I have got my girlfriend in a nice bikini on some Mexican beach or strong through Florence, I haven't made it till then.

And the problem is the till then never comes because you'll walk those streets of Florence and all of a sudden you can't hear the ching of your bank account suddenly exploding and you haven't got paparazzi cameras on you. You're just there and you're experiencing it. but until you videoed it going, hey, I'm in Florence,

and you're stuck in Delaware, and you're not here, but if you buy my 49 course, it'll still make no difference. You'll still be in Delaware. Yeah, it's that kind of world, and we're seeing it.

But again, the successful people, and me, don't give a shit about that. We've always said that if you're going to communicate with me based on the car that I'm leaning on, you've got a problem to overcome before we can ever communicate.

And I went through this whole, it's funny, because I know a lot of these influences, and I sometimes, and I have jokes with them, but quite a few of them, even though I still get on with them, have blocked me from that social feeds, because they're doing shit that perpetuates this cancer.

And I started a whole series, and it was really funny, because I was speaking, I was speaking in Thailand. and I had lived in Thailand for about two and a half years in my earlier years of, you know, doing all these clubs in that in Asia. And I'd never been up to Changmai. My wife had always wanted to go up to Changmai because she loves elephants.

You know, who the hell doesn't love a bloody elephant? Yeah, I agree. And so this time when I got invited back to Thailand to speak, I took her with me because I said, I'm going to get you with some elephants. So we got it with some elephants, stuff like that. And there's a picture of me, and now I'm telling you, my wife loved it. And a little fact for you, elephants look at you. human beings like puppies.

They actually, truthfully, the psychology of an elephant looks at a, as a human being as a puppy and they find them funny to play with. Okay. There's a, there's an attraction like that. Now, that's fine, but when you stood next to something that's about three ton, it scares the shit out of me. Yeah. You know, my wife was playing with its trunk and it was lifting her up and it was quite

scary to see, but she had a great time. me I wanted to be nowhere near this thing so right at the end she was like you haven't got a photograph with the other one I'm like I'm fine I'm fine behind the camera so I go over there and I'm stroking the front of this this elephant you know scared shitless it's kind of like just like tramp me and it was a really cool little picture it looked as I was smiling I thought laughing at me I was nervous so I actually posted that on Instagram and in the in the text I put in there I don't own this elephant like you don't own that jet. And I posted it.

And I had a lot of influences going, Steve, you know, that doesn't help. Like, fuck it helps, you know, you're creating a cancer. Yeah. They're creating goals that not only can't be achieved, they can't be achieved because they don't exist. Yep. And down the road in Burbank, which is like a private airstrip down here in L.A., they actually have stationary jets that they rent out for photo shoots. I was just going to ask if you knew about that.

Yeah, I've seen, I've heard of that. They absolutely do it. You know, you can actually walk out and they can have a couple of cars out fun. They can have a couple of girls out front. They can have a couple of girls inside. They won't start the jet because the jet's physically not allowed to start the engine unless it's going on a trip. So they can't start the jet.

So you have to sit there in like 110 degrees heat, you know, getting a photograph with a couple of like bikini models in the bag doing the old money shot and all that kind of shit. Social world isn't real. And it is basically like a unicorn with three testicles. It doesn't exist. And you shouldn't be paying attention to it. Yeah, that's so good. You know, I love the fact that you pointed out that so many people are chasing somebody else's dream. And I was curious if you have any insight you can share on the difference in the effectiveness and the power of someone that's chasing their dream versus the person who's doing what they think they're supposed to go do. Oh, having a Lamborghini

makes me successful. I need to go chase after that other dream. Well, it goes. back to my university days being on the door of a nightclub, you know, because I left school at the age of 15 and some of my friends said they were going to college. And I was like, hang on, we've just got out of school. Why the hell are you choosing to go back into it? You know, it never made sense to me. And I would say that I openly say, I'm an educated man. Okay, because I've succeeded and I failed and I've tasted a lot. But that education, none of it came from school. So my PhD, my MBA, my, you know, whatever, my doctorate came from the streets and understanding on that. And I, there was this time when I would be on the door. And I used to look at the

world. Now, I actually, for about a month, thought that my life was shit. I'm on the door. I'm the guy you send back in there to get into a fight. You know, how worse could my life get? You know, and I hated my life until I suddenly realized that I had a phenomenal perspective. I had a wonderful little pedestal in which to watch humanity. So when people would turn up in a car, I would ask myself this question. Are they driving the car? Literally, I would ask this question, are they driving the car or is the car driving them? And you would see them get out and would they slowly put their jacket on?

on checking out the lineup outside the club. You know, did you see my new BMWM series? Did you see my new car? Have you checked this out, girls? You know, are they allowing them to be part of the problem?

Or would they just get out, speak to the valet boy and go, you know, keep it somewhere nice, and just cruising, you know? So I always, and that can be down to the watch.

How many people do you see that? We're wearing a suit, but that left arm, that sleeve is slightly higher just so you can check out their watch. Yeah. You know,

are they wearing the watch for them? Or are they wearing it for you? So I noticed very early on the difference and how inadequate people actually felt they were to go that far to do it for you. And I always thought to myself, I'm not going to do that for you. You know, how can I possibly become someone that you will take seriously and give a lot of money to, what does that look like? And I noticed something very, very early on, sadly. So, I video of you guys got wife's girlfriends, whatever? Yeah, I'm married. Right, okay.

So my wife had a headache in the morning. And it's like two o'clock in the morning. She ran in and she got the headache tablet. And I said to her, what, what tablet did you get? She's like, oh, the one that was in there. And the funny thing is, I realized that when you're in pain, do you care about the marketing, branding or packaging of the solution? When was the last time that you had a headache and you went to that little toiletry shelf and went, I don't like the way that box looks? I really don't like that logo. But if you bought your wife or your boyfriend or whatever, a person, a person, piece of jewelry and it was given to you in a Cartier box or B in a scrunched up Starbucks bag. Which one would impress them?

The box, I would assume. It would be the box. Yeah. Because the more aspirational, the higher the price tag, you get into something called aspirational marketing. Have you ever seen a fat, ugly person driving a Ferrari in an advert? No. No.

No, because they want you to believe as ugly as I am that if I buy a Ferrari, I've now got Miss January sitting in my passenger seat. Sure. Okay? They put you into an aspirational area, into an aspirational world. Hey, by you spending that amount of money on this, you will become, again, that falsifying what will actually happen. You said about the difference in mentality, when you chase, and I'm sorry about the

long-winded way of going around it. But you cannot get to somebody else's goalpost. You can get to yours. You know, I wanted, when I lived in Florida and I'd moved over from Geneva, I love motorcycles. Geneva had some of the beautiful roads that I could ride my motorcycle around. When I came over to America, I wanted some area that I could ride my road. I would, I'd never used to ride down the ocean front. But if I live in Florida, I can ride my motorbike down the ocean front. Okay. Only took me 10 minutes after being in Florida and I realized I had to deal with humidity and straight-assed bloody roads. They didn't have things like corners or hills in Florida. So I realized that I'd got it wrong. So I moved over to California because I never reached my

goal. Now I've got beautiful weather for, you know, 80% of the year. I've got hills. I've got, I've got mountains. I can only achieve my goal when it was my goal and I knew what that goal looked like and it wasn't somebody else's. If you are going to be impressed if I'm on a race bike, good for you. If you're going to be impressed because I'm on a Harley, good for you. I'm not living your dream. And as Elon clearly pointed out, I'm going to live mine. I'm going to do what I need to do and I'm not going to worry about the sniggers, the viewpoints and the criticism. I'm going to focus on my life. And you can't, you can't reach somebody else's goalpost. You just can't do it. It's really good, man. Really, really good stuff. So I, I want to, we got to get out of here pretty

soon. Obviously, I don't want to hold you up all day. But I don't want to leave this discussion without going back to kind of where we started with the idea of the blue fish, the blue fishing to use it in that way. You know, if people are listening to this saying, I want to add. more, you know, pizzazz, pizzazz, I don't know how you say it, into my, into my business, into my life. I want to do more creative things. Maybe they want to do it for a tangible reason. Like, I want to build a better relationship with private investors who want to lend me money on future deals. I mean, we, we do a lot of this stuff within our, my real estate company, because, like, we want to take care of our investors. So we try to find little creative,

clever ways to do that. For whatever reason, what are some tactical things? I mean, things either you've done or just suggestions you have like for forgetting this like how do you how do you get to talk to Elon Musk how do you how do you get to go hang out with Elton John and even or even on a smaller thing how do you raise money from that guide on the street where you don't really know yet what are some ideas you have there all right perfect and a great question I'm going to give a shallow plug the benefits me not please we have a completely free Facebook group called an entrepreneur's advantage with Steve Sims and we do a lot of these kind of discussions in there. The key is, if you can raise money by not communicating and building a

relationship with someone, then turn over the clock because you're on a countdown before you're out of business. AI is going to take your business. Amazon's going to take your business. Siri, Alexa, these are all transactional services. If you are in the transactional business, then your shelf lives coming to an end. Well, you've got to. got to do is create and design. AI can't do that, okay? Because you can only create and design once you understand. You can only understand why you take the time to connect. You can only connect when you start focusing on a relationship. You've got to form a relationship with someone that you're doing business with. And you can only form a relationship by the following. And I'll give it to you

in a little example to cement it. Okay. So we've got Brandon and David, and I say, you, hey, I'm having a, I'm having a dinner party this weekend. You guys, why don't you come to the party? What are the first few questions that you two are going to ask? I don't like to admit this, but out of the question of my head is who's going to be there. Okay, that's a common question. So you validated it. Okay, good. Let's break it down. There was a reason I asked this question. You want to validate it's worth it for you by knowing who's going to be there. If I tell you that, you know, a couple of kids from, you know, my local neighborhood, You know, and there's loads of kids there and we're going to paint face and stuff like that.

You're checking the validation for you. Yep. Okay. Give me another question you're going to ask. I would ask, I don't know how I would ask it, but I'd be trying to figure out, will I be the only person there that I know? I don't like meeting new people. I would, if there was someone like Brandon was going to be there, I would be really good.

So maybe I would say, can I bring somebody or is there anyone there that I know? Okay. Again, so you're validating it for you. Okay. Give me another question. The specifics of like where and when, right? I don't know if you've already specified that in this example, but one and where. And I've invited you to my dinner party.

What other question would you have? What are we going to, what are we going to eat? What do I wear? All right. So these are all selfish questions that benefit you. Right. Yep. All right.

Are any of your questions benefiting me? No. So by the time you've got to the sixth question of what you should be wearing, who's going to be there, is it worth it? Will there be any hot people there? Will I be challenged? Will I make money? How pissed off am I with how well it benefits you?

This is the question you should have asked straight off the bat. Thank you, Steve. What can I bring? All right? Whatever relationship that you're getting involved in, what can I bring to the table? That's the question you should always ask. The funny enough, the ladies are usually better at it.

Ask this question to your wife and girlfriend and say, hey, we may be going to a dinner party. What question would you ask? Every time, every time my wife says, well, what did, you know, I say, hey, Josh invited me over, you know, Josh and his family invite us over dinner Friday night. Okay, great. What am I supposed to bring? I'm like, I don't know. So why the fuck did you not ask that? That's the first question.

Yeah, she doesn't understand why I wouldn't ask that. And I'm like, I don't know. It never occurred to me. But we have this discussion twice a week. And I never remember. Every person that I've ever gone up to has not been, and I'm very much like David here. I am the most anti-social fucker in the planet, okay? You will never meet me at a networking party going around and going, hey, I'm Steve Sims.

How are you? Bullshit. I don't do that crap, okay? It's not me. I'm not built warm and fuzzy, you know, like David is. So I don't do that. Okay. So whenever I have a bump into someone moment or a.

oh, sorry about, hey, who are you? Trust me, this is planned with CIA precision. And I get into that conversation with bringing something to the party. And I will literally, in fact, I'll give you how I got involved with Elton John for eight years. I went to a party that I knew the head of the Elton John AIDS Foundation was going to be at. I knew the Elton John Oscar party was the biggest society celebrity celebrity hangout every single year, the night of the Oscars. And I wanted to make sure that I was on the invite list, but not only on the invite list,

I was behind the scenes. So more importantly, to answer David's question, I knew who was going to be there. You know, what business relationships could I nurture? What introductions, what access could I get? This was my work night. This was my biggest work night every single year. And I needed the keys to the kingdom. I didn't want to buy a ticket to get in.

that's easy. I needed to be the freaking gatekeeper. Okay, that's what I needed. So I went to this party where I knew the head of the party, the head of the, uh, on John H founder. And this is actually in my book.

And he actually read it and came up to me and went, was that me? And I actually said to him, having a relationship was so important to me that I was not willing to take it to chance. Is that okay? and it made sense to him and he thanked me. And you know, the funny thing is I've heard him tell stories at other cocktail parties about, yeah, that was me in the book.

Okay. That's funny. So what I did was if you're in a star-studied party and there's a bar, there's a toilet, there's the usual things, there's a stage. Where do you want to be in that room? Let's ask you that question first. Where would you position yourself in that room if you wanted to knock around with celebrities? By the bar, maybe.

That's that my instinct says. Go hang out by the bar. All right. So we got you, Brandon. David? I've never spent much time with celebrities. I would, you know what I would do is I would assume that some of them have to be like me.

And they're going to look for a wall to go put their backs against because they want to be able to see who's out there and not get pinned down. And I try to give them an escape route. Right. So most celebrities in an event, the event wants them to be at the front. So that, you know, like when you're watching an award show, they pan the cameras around. and what's the first few rows always, okay? Yeah. So the celebrities.

But the two places you want to make sure you're at a celebrity party are the two places you can guarantee those celebrities are going to go, the bar and the toilet. Okay? So I went to this event. I saw the guy get up. He was down at the front. He was with Elton John. And he starts to walk to the bar.

So I could take my time because I'm by the bar and I can see him come in, took my time, walked up, turned up. around, oh shit, literally just bumped into him. Oh, I'm sorry about that, mate. I was just heading to the bar. Yes, so am I. Oh, well, there you go. We walk to the bar together. Planned. Planned. We get to the bar. He orders a drink. I can't even remember what it was, but I said to him, what is that? He said, oh, it's a son. So I said, I'll have one as well. So I'm now relating with the guy. Yep. And then I turned around. I go, well, hang on a minute, aren't you so and so? Now, of course, I knew this because I've been studying him for six months.

And he went, yeah, I am. I went, do you know, I really like what you do? But I've always wondered why you didn't do this to make more money at the event. Wow. I gave him a solution by identifying a problem he hadn't thought he had. Without insulting him because you didn't say. Right. Yeah.

I didn't say, oh, he dick shit, you know. I didn't know. Or look how smart I am. Yeah. If I was you, I would have done this. None of that. I'm just curious. Now, I've gone up to people before and I've gone, hey, how are you? Now, here's the funny thing. I always do it. And you can do this. Okay.

I walk up to powerful people and not always celebrities. That are the people that are way more powerful than their celebrities. I walk up to them and I go, hey, how are you doing? My name's Steve Sims. You don't know me. Now, have you ever been in a party where someone's walked up to you and gone, Hey, Brandon, how are you doing? Oh, all the time. And I have to rack my head to go, do I know this person? Where do I know them from? Oh, no. Now, when you're racking your head, does that put you in a place of serenity and happiness? No. Does it put you in a place of distress? Yeah, complete distress and fear that I'm going to like say the stupid thing. I'm like, oh, nice to meet you. Oh, yeah, we met last year. And then I feel stupid again. Bingo. Yeah. Bingo. So if you walk up to someone, you go, hey, my name is Steve Sims. You don't know me. Do you know it settles them down remarkably fast? Oh, that's so good. And then you turn around and you go, I have. I

actually heard you were doing this and I really liked this but I was wondering have you looked into this so you can avoid that and I've done this for people and they've looked at their entourage and then they've looked at me and they went yeah we did and we noticed that and we saw how that was going to trip us up and do you know what that's why we pulled out of the contract three months ago and I'll be like oh great perfect so you recognize it that's good and I wasn't able to solved our problem because they had already seen it and got rid of it. I did that twice for two very powerful people. And do you know, each one of those turned around and went, but I like the way you think,

would you take a look at this other project we're involved in? I'll be sure to. How do I get hold of that? Well, let me give you my idea. Let me swap out. And all of a sudden, bring something to the party. I have friends. And I look at my friends and I look at each one of them and I go, what do you bring to

the party? I've got people that could buy my world 20 times over. And they help me with financial advice. They help me with business advice. I've got friends that couldn't even afford to buy me a drink. But I like the way their head thinks. I like the way they smile. I like the way they keep me grounded.

They bring something different to the party. It hasn't always got to be money. But I am a selfish, self-centered fucker. And when you're on a plane and the steward stands up and goes through the usual kind of, hey, if there's a problem, an oxygen mask is going to fall from the roof. When was the last time you heard him turning around and go, hey, put it on someone else first, make sure they're okay, and then put it on you. It never happens.

No. So look after yourself. But the funny thing is you look after yourself by looking after someone else and not doing like you two jackasses, did ask all the questions of the party that benefit you. Steve, this has been awesome. This has been amazing. Where do people, let's remind people one more time.

Where can they get the book from what's it called? And I guess any final thoughts? Well, the book is, the book is bluefish in the art of making things happen. It's on the Steve D Sims.com website. There's a really funny video there of my version of a book launch party, which is basically me just getting completely pissed.

But you can grab it anywhere on Amazon or stuff like that. I'm on an entrepreneur's advantage Facebook page. It's a free-charged Facebook page. Or you can join my inner circle at Simsdistillery.com or find out more about me on Steve D Sims.com, just one M in Sims. Very cool. I'm joining that Facebook group today. That sounds amazing.

It's fair charging. It's just cool people. Again, I check who comes through the door. Believe me, the amount of people I decline, you know, again, that's my narcissistic joy. But I won't do it to you. Even though you had some bad questions to my party and I know, no. ever to invite you. I'll bring something nice next time.

All right, that was our interview with Steve Sims. Dude, that guy can tell a story like almost no one else I've ever heard. Like, so good. And then they drive back to this point, you're like, oh, it's so good. Like, he's the speaker like, I want to become. That's a great way to put it. I caught myself thinking I wish I could be like this guy because you talked to for an hour and a half and it feels like it's been 10 minutes.

He's going to keep going. Yeah, and I found myself just getting like sucked into these stories. and then at the end being like, oh, that's such a good point. So yeah, super good. Like I said, everyone, go pick up a copy of blue fishing. It's so good. It's going to help your business in a lot of ways. And he's just, the whole book is just stories. Like, he's just a storyteller at heart. But all those things are what affects our business. So my question for you, David, is how are you going to apply this thing to your life? Like, I mean, do you have any ideas off top of your head? Like, how do you stand out? How do you make it about other people? Like, how can we apply this

right now to real estate investors listen to this show? Got any good ideas? The first thing that I was thinking about has to do with getting out of the daily operations of the business so I can focus more on this. I literally ordered the book via email while we were doing the podcast because I thought, oh, I should be reading this and thinking of ideas. I know what I liked was when he said, if you are in the transaction business, you're trying to just make this as transactional as possible, you are getting, you're going to find yourself out of a job. Technology is going to replace you. And it's very similar to what Lewis Howes had told us where he said, your best brand is your. yourself. But if you're in the relationship business, you can never be replaced. So the first thing I'm going to be thinking of is in every conversation, how do I start it off by saying, what are your

goals? What is important to you? What do you really want to see accomplished? And turn every single conversation I have in that direction first and then look to see how my goals can end up aligning with the people's. Yeah, that's really good. Yeah, I'm thinking about like, you know, what can I bring to the party? I like, that was really good. And I love the fact that like we didn't come up with the right answer. Like, I love the fact that, like, he had to call us out on that. Like, you know, the right answer was, what can I bring to the party? He's right, 100%. And it's funny that he brought up how women are better at this because I wasn't joking. My wife literally like we, she like, scolds me for this all the time. Like, why didn't you ask what we can bring? Like, I don't know,

I'm selfish and greedy. I don't, I don't, I don't, it says who I am. So yeah, I'm just, like, I'm, I got to start doing that more often. And, you know, we're doing it with, you know, raising money, you know, we're raising. We have this $30 million fund right now with open our capital. We're raising right now. which is like completely overwhelming in terms of I've never raised even half that much before. So we are, so I'm thinking like, how do I apply more of this to like lenders to my current? Like one thing that we were a big believer and this is business for everybody, right? It's easier to make a current, you know, quote unquote customer, we'll call it for now.

Or it could be a lender, could be a partner, whatever. It's easy to get a current person to work with you again than it is to go find somebody brand new. Right. So I'm thinking like, how can I take better care of my investors? You know, a couple things that we do, like, for example, I use a service called loom. It's something I do already. It's called loom. It allows you to record quick, easy, like video, like videos and then it automatically captures the, like, you know, the URL.

So you can, like, send somebody a video. Basically, it's a way for me to very quickly and easily record a video. So I actually send, like, personalized videos to all my investors in my first two funds. Just, hey, thanks so much for being part of this. And I try to get to know them a little bit over video. I can't get on a phone call with every single one because I've got hundreds of investors. but at least like a little thing like that just makes me hopefully stand out a little bit more. And now I'm telling all my, you know, other syndicators out there, you know, what I do.

But like that's one tactic I'm doing. We're doing some other stuff. We're sending out some like actual personalized stuff to people. Even podcast guests. Like I want to be using this, these blue fishing techniques to get some amazing podcast guests that would normally not want to do a show like ours. In fact, we have somebody lined up here in a few weeks that if it works out, like it's going to be like the most famous guest we've ever had. And so, and actually it's very much using some of these bluefishing techniques and the things talked about today. So anyway, that's kind of how I'm leaning on using this stuff.

But, yeah, mind, uh, mind blogging stuff. I love how unique this information is. Investors aren't going to hear this just about anywhere else that they go, right? There's a million places you can learn about ROI cash flow and spreadsheets. But this is the stuff that like Steve said actually makes either wealthy people or successful people. It helps them become wealthy and successful. Yeah, it's so true. Yeah, you know, somebody mentioned a few years ago, and I admit, like, I knew about this technique and I don't do it, but just gives you one more tangible thing.

It's like, why not after every close than you do? You go buy a duplex or fourplex? Why not go send your real estate agent a nice gift and send a title company person a nice gift? Doesn't that be really nice. It could just be like a thank you card, right? Or a gift card for a drink at the local restaurant that they like or whatever. Like, just like everybody involved in the transaction, oftentimes we are, we do these real estate deals. And at the end of it, we're so consumed with ourselves.

We forget the 10 other people that were involved. involved in the transaction, that would be really good to have their, like, ongoing goodwill and relationship. And so fostering those relationships every time, like, beginning, middle, and end of a transaction is just huge. It's all, I think, stuff that Steve would support. So, there you go. All right, man, we've got to get out of here. So, uh, yeah, cool stuff. I guess I'll let you, uh, take it out. All right. Sounds good to me. This is David Green for Brandon. Can I bring a Buntcake Turner, signing off. You're listening to Bigger Pockets Radio. simplifying real estate for investors large and small.

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