The Iced Coffee Hour - “How To Un-F*** Your Life” - The #1 Secret To Becoming RICH In 2025 | Simon Squibb

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Starting point is 00:00:30 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 that 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 I understand how money works. It didn't teach me how business works. One day I'm going to build something that does that.

Starting point is 00:01:03 If you think you're not a salesperson, 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?

Starting point is 00:01:25 They're drugged up on pointless teeth. overload of content, wars, being broke, most people are in fight or flight. This is another interesting thing. I think in this day and age I probably get cancelled for this. So I say it cautiously. I, um... Simon, thank you so much for coming on The Iced Coffee Hour. It's great beer 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.

Starting point is 00:01:59 You've 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. If you're a truck driver, stacking shelves, those jobs will be gone in the next five to eight years.

Starting point is 00:02:25 If you're a lawyer or even a doctor in the 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.

Starting point is 00:02:42 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,

Starting point is 00:03:05 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 p.m. and just show up, do a task, and leave. No more responsibility. There seems to be something nice about that. I understand. You use 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. And the honest truth is 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.

Starting point is 00:03:39 I think that the problem with this hypothesis that not everyone could be an entrepreneur is that a lot of people are missing out an opportunity to understand what entrepreneurship is for them. So, for example, if you're an artist and you like painting, then make a living out of it. Now, yes, of course, frankly, working for someone else is stressful. Anybody listen to this 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.

Starting point is 00:04:06 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 an entrepreneur 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 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 stress. 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 have stress. We need to have stress. We need to have. evolve our skill set. And I think being an entrepreneur is about you're owning your time, which is the most valuable thing. Money buys you and it's the most valuable thing that you can

Starting point is 00:04:57 give yourself as a gift. Own your time. So I mostly err on the side of not every single person should or could be a successful entrepreneur. Maybe we're just defining entrepreneurship differently. How would you define an entrepreneur? Owning your time. It 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

Starting point is 00:05:35 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've got a supercomputer on our head, right? We're incredible. Literally in Las Vegas, I saw a guy holding a sign saying, McDonald's that way. A breezeblock can do that job. Why have a supercomputer if you've got a breezeblock holding a sign?

Starting point is 00:05:58 The human is the breezeblock. It's insane. So everyone's scared about it. 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,

Starting point is 00:06:10 which I think is understanding how money works, understanding what is your purpose, which is a very deep question, but answerable if you start asking it, and give people a sense of being, a sense of enjoying what their 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 drugged up. They're drugged up. They're drugged up on pointless TV, overload of content, wars, being broke, that most people are in fight or flight.

Starting point is 00:06:42 I would say 90% of the population are in fire or flight. They literally, when your brain is in fight or flight, you're in this mode which is, 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 kicked out.

Starting point is 00:07:00 I don't have any money for food. What shall I do? 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 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 profit for the banks,

Starting point is 00:07:17 right? 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 they 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 have a skill that you can apply to make money

Starting point is 00:07:47 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.

Starting point is 00:08:04 Finally, she says she's an entrepreneur. But I think that 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've 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

Starting point is 00:08:18 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

Starting point is 00:08:33 because 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 hand, and 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 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, you know, mini test. You give people, you know, in England, I don't know what happened in America,

Starting point is 00:09:06 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 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.

Starting point is 00:09:23 It's still huge amounts of spiking mental health, especially for young people. So I think we had that on a mass scale if we don't find purpose for the human race. So I really believe we have to fight right now and educate people on what they could be doing. doing with AI takes your job. See, I tend to think it's going to go in the direction of AI is going to give you all the

Starting point is 00:09:41 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 world, 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 where I think. I think of the bad people get hold of it, that will happen.

Starting point is 00:10:08 Okay. Because 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 you want to live that way? Would you? You know what? No. Imagine, but imagine if it's indistinguishable. I'm taking it indistinguishable

Starting point is 00:10:24 and 10 times better. Let's just say it gives you the right amount of stresses, the right amount of challenges, the right amount of everything. And you can't tell it apart. If you can't distinguish it, I'm curious. No. Because 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 simulation theory that if imagine 500 years from now, right, I mean, I was just wearing one of

Starting point is 00:10:53 the recent headsets that Apple were produced. It is so crazy. My brain thinks it's real. So imagine where we're going to be in 500 years time, 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

Starting point is 00:11:11 because 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?

Starting point is 00:11:22 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 it would be a really, really catastrophic, existential issue for me.

Starting point is 00:11:33 The thing 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 fucking day long. And I'm part of this, by the way. I want to use social media for social good. But 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. go, we walk past each other. That wouldn't happen today. I literally walked past people in the street here in Las Vegas. Didn't even look at me, looking down at the 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 seen it dramatically changed, but it has changed. People are already drugged up. See, the problem is if you get people a choice, most of them, I feel like you're 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,

Starting point is 00:12:30 to not like scroll 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 hear you say that

Starting point is 00:12:41 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 in America

Starting point is 00:12:51 every 10 minutes. So yeah, eventually, when I'm hungry, I'm like, fuck it, I have a McDonald's. Even though I hate that stuff. I hate it. but like convenience, timing, hunger, brain.

Starting point is 00:13:03 So I think we've got to get the message out. That's why I'm fighting online. If we've 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 create instead of consume?

Starting point is 00:13:16 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 a subconscious. They're just doing it by default, what their friends are doing, what they see the media tell them to do.

Starting point is 00:13:33 It's not what they want to do. It's what their algorithm has taught them to think. What are your thoughts in the entrepreneurial grind set, that hustle culture? Because it's someone who's 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 mean, there's a time and a place for hustle. I think when I was younger, I hustled like crazy.

Starting point is 00:13:56 But as I got more experienced in business, I realized there was a big lie that we were told. 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 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

Starting point is 00:14:19 their social media teams and so on and so forth. But I promise you, Elon Musk has never put a car together himself. he's never sat up all night building a space rocket. Right? These people who are really successful, they work very efficiently. I mean, Elon Musk is famous for working hard. Very efficient is very different.

Starting point is 00:14:36 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, 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. A restaurant has to have good food. That's like a default.

Starting point is 00:14:52 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 extremely important in becoming lucky, how do you know which risks to take? I've studied risk 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 it's probably worth quickly explaining what I learned. It was a very long deep dive, but luck is actually hackable.

Starting point is 00:15:17 So 2% of your life, approximately 2% of your life is unhackable. It doesn't matter how hard you work, where you're born will make a difference. in your life. It will definitely make a difference. Have you born into certain situations where you get access to basic education and 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

Starting point is 00:15:47 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. you, something that will get you up every day, something you know needs fixing. Whatever it is for you, it doesn't have to be a big problem. It can 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 nuance of 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 spent 15 years building my first company. And then I got lucky because the big four accountancy companies in the world, the massive big conglombalm,

Starting point is 00:16:24 decided they were going to get into the creative space. And I just happened 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 spent 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 then he wasn't joking. He died. And then three weeks later, I was 15 years old. Hormones called it what you like. I had an argue with my

Starting point is 00:17:06 mum. And she said, get out of my house. And I did and I never went back. And I basically slept on the street for eight weeks. I slept in friends' houses, slept on couches. I didn't like to tell them. My mama kicked me out. I was embarrassed. And anyway, I ended up sleeping on the street. I tried begging. First time I ever begged, someone spat at me in the face. It's like, So I'm not very good at it, clearly. And then I tried to get a job. So I 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.

Starting point is 00:17:33 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 was no chance. So out of sheer desperation, I call this the moment when the entrepreneurial muscle woke up in my head. I was walking past a big house and it had a really messy garden.

Starting point is 00:17:52 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 pay me? And they said, sure.

Starting point is 00:18:07 And they said, how much? I said, £200 a month, just picked a number. And they said, sure. And I said, I don't have any equipment. They said, use the stuff in the garage. It's fine. And that's it. I started a gardening company.

Starting point is 00:18:17 Okay. When I sell my business, I want the best tax and investment advice. I want to help my kids, and I want to give back to the community. Ooh, then it's the vacation of a lifetime. I wonder if my head of office has a forever setting. An IG Private Wealth Advisor creates the clarity you need with plans that harmonize your business, your family, and your dreams.

Starting point is 00:18:40 Get financial advice that puts you at the center. Find your advisor at IG Private Wealth.com. It was 200 a lot or a little. At the time, it's a huge amount to me. that was like I could get a hostel for three and four nights for that money and food and live pretty pretty comfortably for three or four or five days maybe maybe longer so it's huge but I soon realized that one garden wasn't going to be enough and that doing it on my own was not possible so I had to go knock on more doors no one never taught me sales no one never taught

Starting point is 00:19:11 me how to get a contract done no one to taught me to collect money deposits and other stuff I just did it and no choice I'm curious being homeless at 15 just sounds horrific Where would you sleep when you were homeless at 15? So I slept in lots of different places. I slept in a park 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 a roundabout is. Yeah, for Paris.

Starting point is 00:19:38 I forget what you call them. Probably roundabouts. But I slept on one of those for majority because it was off the ground, harder for animals to get into where you're sleeping. Believe it or not, I slept alongside other homeless people. people because actually there's some warmth in it and some comfort and some community. So, so I slept with a lot of homeless folks in puddles. Like, it's really interesting. And the other really interesting thing about that time, I haven't talked about it much, but I found

Starting point is 00:20:04 how kind people were that were also homeless. Because people instantly think, when you see homeless, they think drug addict, you know, bad, whatever, some really kind people that literally have nothing, but they give it to me. Like, I remember someone shoving their baked beans with me, very cliche, but like that, that, that, that, the poorest of people are sometimes the kindest because they've been there. You 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's probably the image they have of a homeless person is a drug addict. But you sleep in the streets for four weeks.

Starting point is 00:20:39 No one loves you. No one cares about you. You'll turn to drugs. Did you ever feel like you were in danger? Because 15 is young. I thought I was an adult. You know, I look back now and realize I wasn't, but I was a strong, you know, I was, I was captain my rugby team. Like, I was a strong, you know, I was a big 15 year old, you know, like I looked like an adult. 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,

Starting point is 00:21:20 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 I am today. I see that bad luck as good luck now. Because I saw the, when you have nothing as well, you have nothing to lose. So a lot of middle class people get trapped by their house and by their car. Because I had nothing. A knock on that door and that person says no to me. Or they say yes, to 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

Starting point is 00:21:57 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 work. Yeah, I think I think about that a lot and without, um, my mum is still alive, so I want to be respectful, but she is a narcissist from being blunt about it. And when I, and by the way, narcissism follows it in, in my genes too potentially. So I'm, I feel like I'm fighting that gene, uh, to not be a narcissist myself. But the, um, I realized once I was free,

Starting point is 00:22:39 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 mum would make it about her pain. And I just needed to express my pain, having lost my father.

Starting point is 00:23:02 So there's a part of me he didn't want to go back. It wasn't about the accommodation and the shower. I didn't think about that stuff. I just thought, right, I'm free. I've got to make this work. The Vikings call this, by the way, and this is a business strategy I now implement in all of things that I do. It's called, the Vikings used to call it burning the boats.

Starting point is 00:23:17 Right. So you get England, they used 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,

Starting point is 00:23:35 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 isn't 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,

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Starting point is 00:26:03 What was your next business after doing the 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

Starting point is 00:26:15 in my life in a hotel. When I was working in the hotel, basically the entrepreneur muscle in my brain are now being turned on. Everywhere I looked, you probably all got friends

Starting point is 00:26:25 that are annoying like this, anyone listening, they've got friends that are annoying like this. Every time they see something they see an idea in it, that's what happened to me. My brain came alive.

Starting point is 00:26:32 There wasn't an idea I didn't say. So I was walking around the hotel one day doing the front of house. I was employed to do front of house and marketing there.

Starting point is 00:26:39 And I, 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, we spent so much money getting that phone call. You look very happy that you could just tell them to sod off, right?

Starting point is 00:26:54 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 Explore.

Starting point is 00:27:09 doing just that. So people listening, this is for 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 it takes to like develop the website, to create the business, all of 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're like, I'm just going to sink so much time an effort into learning these new skills. How am I going to find the right people to

Starting point is 00:27:42 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. I work with GoDaddy, but insert any web posting 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 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

Starting point is 00:28:22 you need to do to start a company. Building a website, it's not complicated. Now, if you're going to build the next LinkedIn, 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 home cleaning business, starting a podcast editing business. It's so fucking. easy. Like it's so obviously easy. And the best way to learn anything is start. It's like, hmm, 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.

Starting point is 00:28:56 So how successful was Accommodation Express? When did it really start like ramping up? So again, that business failed eventually. I say it failed. I 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 I sold it for a little bit of money at the time for 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 maybe get another

Starting point is 00:29:30 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. A 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 called going to Hong Kong my second awakening.

Starting point is 00:29:44 The first awakening was when I was 15 and that entrepreneur muscle worked up into my brain. The second time was 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 sat in the Hong Kong Harbour,

Starting point is 00:29:59 looked out at that city. I don't know if you've ever been, have you been? It blew my mind. Literally I felt my mind explode. This is a city that has no natural resources that is incredible. Skisgraper's left and right mountains behind, all built from human brainpower. It's not like Dubai that has oil money. It's a complete brainpower, that city.

Starting point is 00:30:19 And I thought, if you can think something, you can make it real. That city taught me that. And then I lived there for 20 years and built my next business. And the $50,000 sale price, how did you arrive to that? How much money was the business making and revenue and profit for it to reasonably sell for $50,000? Interesting. So it wasn't making much profit. 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. 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 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. It was a hobby. I wasn't particularly interested in hotel rooms and hotel bookings and stuff like that. I like marketing.

Starting point is 00:31:10 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 the interesting, the turnover, I think, of the whole business was like £100,000. So I halved it and that's how we got to the price. But the profit was near zero because I was spending money.

Starting point is 00:31:31 Remember your client list and you had all the infrastructure set up. So that was where a lot of the potential was coming from. I remember when I sold it. The person who actually bought it from here, I remember the conversation so clearly because 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?

Starting point is 00:31:47 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 it. Oh, the garden still needs work or 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?

Starting point is 00:32:04 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, make it our own.

Starting point is 00:32:14 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,

Starting point is 00:32:27 you're taking away all the potential. They're just going to buy turnover then and they're just going to buy a profit percentage of profit. So then you moved to Hong Kong with your friend. Tell us about this next business that you started. This is the business that sold to PWC for the undisclosed amount. How did that come about? So this is another interesting thing.

Starting point is 00:32:45 I think in this day and age I probably get cancelled for this. So I say it cautiously. I moved to Hong Kong. I was looking at what to do. I actually started initially a logistics business, just shipping, because stuff going back from Hong Kong to England. And I just started a little logistics company, just to get my business.

Starting point is 00:33:02 feet wet in Hong Kong. And then I met someone called Helen Griffiths. And she was a really talented graphic designer. And I remember asking her, how much you're charging for what you do? She said some ridiculously small amount, like 500 US dollars. I was like, you should be charging 10,000 US dollars 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 to her earlier. So I basically said to her, look, I'll be your business manager. Let me negotiate this for you because 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. She's now my wife.

Starting point is 00:33:37 We have a baby together. But at the time, 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 these days, I think you can only mention one of those things. She's not allowed to mention the fancy. Where'd you meet her? In Hong Kong. Just like, how? Yeah, when I moved there, I stayed. This is a bad story. When I moved there, 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 travelling a lot.

Starting point is 00:34:07 If you want to stay in my apartment for a few months until I'm back to get your feet on the ground in Hong Kong. And so I moved into this apartment. His two friends there, I got to know them. On the first night, Tom, the guy who was living there, if he's listening now, he might hate me for saying this. 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

Starting point is 00:34:28 How would you like to come with me And I was like, sure And he took me to dinner with him And the friend that he fancied was Helen So how did that play out? Well, interesting I said because I was You don't shit where you eat, right?

Starting point is 00:34:44 So I said after the dinner 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 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 go for it, right?

Starting point is 00:35:04 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 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. Because everyone else was an accidental sales thing. Yeah. I wasn't that good at. I wasn't that. I wasn't that. I wasn't that good at. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't. I wasn't sales with women back then. They were playing hard to get. Yeah, I've never played hard to get, except that one time, because I'm normally quite honest when it comes to... Very smooth. Jack, you should try that.

Starting point is 00:35:35 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 see if they're interested in you. How'd you do that? Now it's going to be a dating podcast. I'm just curious because it's just, you know, it's interesting. I would honestly say, I'm only good at one thing business.

Starting point is 00:35:54 Okay. Anything business? Relationship, I've had a marriage for 23 years and I'm very happy. How to get a girl? Probably you need to get advice from someone else. But I only talk to my personal experience with sales in general is be yourself, be up front. And 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 even showed

Starting point is 00:36:25 to my bank balance by the way I just everything What? You show to your How does that come up? Well it's more Because I didn't

Starting point is 00:36:30 I didn't get the bank statement Now is that a flex 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

Starting point is 00:36:37 Right so it was the opposite of a flex Yeah I mean If I was in England Maybe having 50,000 pounds in your bank account Is a flex In Hong Kong

Starting point is 00:36:44 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

Starting point is 00:36:50 I'm not one of these rich bankers in this city that's here money because I was living in quite a nice apartment because my friend, it was my friend's apartment. So I just wanted her to know who I really was. I'm an entrepreneur. I want to build things. I like building businesses. That was my thing, you know? So actually it was the opposite to a flex. I wanted her to know that I'm not any of, she had a load of rich guys that was

Starting point is 00:37:10 after her as well. So I just wanted to know that I'm not one of those guys yet. I didn't say yet, I don't think of the time. But yeah. That's a funny story, huh? Showing a bank statement on the first date. 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.

Starting point is 00:37:31 So we homeschool our son. So we started homeschooling him so he could travel with me around the world doing what I'm doing now. But he, my son is enjoying doing this thing called battling, which you guys probably have no idea what that is. But kids do reenactments of historical battles. And during this last two weeks, my son is doing that. So they didn't come out, which I'm really sad about because I really missed them. Is that like LARPing? Live action role play?

Starting point is 00:37:59 Isn't that kind of what they do? Like they set up some sort of like medieval battle. Exactly. Everyone dresses in their garb and then like goes and interesting. Yeah. Okay. Let's talk about your business. What led you to starting fluid?

Starting point is 00:38:10 I alluded to earlier. I fancied the designer and then I thought I could help her. And she was really talented. 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 image in her head that she just wanted to do the work and money was a bit annoying. So 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.

Starting point is 00:38:44 Because in Asia, like being a doctor is valued, being a lawyer is valued, a professional. 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 end up working. My company worked for CNN, S.A. Lord of 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 creators that undervalued themselves and the brands that try to undervalue

Starting point is 00:39:22 them and I would fight for these brands. So I became like a mini agent for hundreds of designers. So 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, you 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 what we did, and this was pure accident, I'm not a genius. this just happened by accident is PWC, who are the largest accounts company in the world, wanted to offer services to their clients to add value beyond accounts, right?

Starting point is 00:39:54 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 it's not their natural culture.

Starting point is 00:40:14 Right? So it's not, they're accounts firm. So they're incredibly organized, incredibly smart, but they're not creative by their own admission back then. So we partner with them as a client partnerships. We would go 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. There would be a much smarter move for them to buy us. Now, that's my side of the table. If they were listening, they'd probably got their own version. They probably had a whole strategy I didn't know about. But that I think, They just, and this is the strategy I teach people that they were listening about this. It's 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 it 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?

Starting point is 00:41:07 I did have a strategic investor who was operational. So what I did, which I think it was another important reason it sold, is 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

Starting point is 00:41:25 because I wasn't as excited about it. So 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, mixed stories of what happened. But basically they bought a piece of the company and then they had equity if the business did well,

Starting point is 00:41:43 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 management in who had invested in the business.

Starting point is 00:41:59 So when the business sold, they made a load of money as well. And then they're still there today. Guy Parsing 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.

Starting point is 00:42:13 So I brought about 12 years in, 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 refresh the page and all the money's there? Yeah, yeah. Is 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.

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Starting point is 00:43:18 switch to ShipStation today. So go to Shipstation.com slash ICH to sign up for a free 60-day trial. Again, that's Shipstation.com slash ICH, shipstation.com slash ICH with the link down below in the description. Although before we go into that, for those that don't know, I have a coffee company. It's called Bankroll Coffee, and our entire goal is to bring people the best quality coffee at the most affordable price. Of course, there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes that I don't often talk about,

Starting point is 00:43:43 but part of the process of doing all of this was to find the best e-commerce platform to be able to sell from, and that, of course, is where I found our sponsor, Shopify. For those unaware, Shopify is home to the number one checkout on the planet, with less carts going abandoned, and more sales going... For example, Shopify is a service called ShopPay that lets customers save their email address, credit card, shipping, and billing information that, I kid you not, boost conversions up to 50%. And if you're into growing your business, your commerce platform better be ready to sell wherever your customers are, whether they're on the web, in your store, in their feed, and everywhere in between. All in all, nobody is selling better than Shopify.

Starting point is 00:44:20 So if you're ready to upgrade your business and use the same checkout as bankroll coffee, get started today with your $1.com trial period at Shopify.com slash ICH, all lowercase. Again, that's Shopify.com slash ICH, all lowercase to upgrade your business today. Shopify.com slash ICH with the link down below in the description. Thank you so much Shopify for sponsoring this episode, and now let's get back to the podcast. I was think that this answer was like a clip on TikTok, right? 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. People wouldn't believe it, right? That's exactly what happened to me, though. It's so unbelievably cliche that, you know, you make all the money you ever need

Starting point is 00:45:00 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 then, I didn't really 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 for the business. I, I got

Starting point is 00:45:36 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'd gone from making money to having to manage money. And so 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, a hamster is where I lived in North London. And then I sitting in a coffee shop, and then someone sitting next to me and says, I'm the only one there, all women with their babies. I'm the only guy there with his baby.

Starting point is 00:46:07 And this woman asked me, what do you do? How come you're here with the baby sort of thing? And I was like, I don't, 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 be retired.

Starting point is 00:46:24 How old are 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,

Starting point is 00:46:33 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 just didn't know what I was doing with my life. And I lost it. Did you buy anything? Yeah, I did. I bought a fancy car. What do you buy? Well, Porsche K.N. And I also bought a mini. Is that Porsche? No. And I bought a big house in North London, probably one nicest areas of London. I ate the most amazing organic food. I got a personal trainer five days a week. You know, I, but I, 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

Starting point is 00:47:11 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 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. Because 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

Starting point is 00:47:40 triggered all of that so I went and got a lot of therapy spent a lot of money on that and glad I did but that's it after that I just do 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, which I use for my business.

Starting point is 00:48:02 So we use it as a content house. It's called Entrepreneur House. I've even branded it. I own the trademark entrepreneur house. And I have 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 MOTS. Tesla. Why?

Starting point is 00:48:18 I'm not flashy. My wife owns an electric mini. I don't know why because Tesla's better. that's up to her. And I've got some nice paintings, but mainly they're more sentimental. So I got married in Bali, and when we were there, we bought some Bali in these paintings that are quite valuable. But I don't look at them and think they're valuable. That's why I've got them.

Starting point is 00:48:36 I look at them because they remind me of memories I've had of spending time in places like Bali. I've got a lot of nice artwork, but again, it's all in places I've 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. The most important thing to me, and I took some inspirational. from Steve Jobs. Steve Jobs said the day his company IPOed, he had 60 million cash in the bank.

Starting point is 00:49:00 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 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 this trip to America. All my teams come.

Starting point is 00:49:21 So I've got 18 people on my team. I pay for my team to come. If they want to come, they can all come. So flights, accommodation. 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...

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Starting point is 00:49:51 I don't think I've ever asked someone that. 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? This is the thing people don't understand

Starting point is 00:50:04 about net worth. Okay, so first of all, just for the record, it's bullshit. Okay, I think 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,

Starting point is 00:50:21 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 assets. And those assets fluctuate hugely. So I think that 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. But 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 dollars? Who knows? Right? Until you sell it, you don't know the value or something. So net worth is tied up in that bullshit. So I am not worth that money.

Starting point is 00:50:57 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, noticed I was trending in algorithms. Simon Scrib was trending on social media. And they want that traffic. So they put up a story, right? They didn't ring me and asked 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 Squib worth 600 million TikTok 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 I get it. I don't mind you guys using it in a thumbnail.

Starting point is 00:51:39 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 think it's the only downside to it is it's pretty dangerous. So when the run that story. I had people knocking on my door, like literally. I'm not living in a gated community like you've got here. My house is vulnerable. 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 deliberately locked up my money so I can't get access to it. So you won't get much, but the headlines are dangerous and it can cause a lot of

Starting point is 00:52:17 pain if people aren't careful as well. Why not fact check him or why not have an attorney draft a letter saying this is... Can't ring me? Inaccurate. You know, like... Yeah, but if they run the story and you say, and you approve that like people are showing up into your house now

Starting point is 00:52:29 and you ran this inaccurate article, why not... We can't sue them. It's not so easy to sue, by the way, in the UK. US, I'd sue them. Yeah, but some people won't sue, but they'll say, hey, this is inaccurate. Please change this. Here is why.

Starting point is 00:52:42 Yes. Signed attorney. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the thing is, I think that that's already happened, by the way, the repercussions of it. Like, it's in hindsight. I'm newly, I use this word loosely.

Starting point is 00:52:56 I'm newly famous, right? When people are you not famous, not famous. More people know me than I know them. That's the definition of famous for me, right? So I'm newly famous. I'm discovering what a fucking nightmare it is to be famous. It is not a good thing. No one should pursue being famous.

Starting point is 00:53:10 It actually restricts your life. It restricts. 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 else but I think a lot of the time I hate lawyers 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

Starting point is 00:53:26 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 fucking listen 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 gone both ways too

Starting point is 00:53:41 that a legal letterhead goes a long way to getting a response versus if Jack and I just send an email goes nowhere, gets ignored. Those things go in the bin, by the way. Most of the time they go in the bin. It depends at 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's no lawsuit structure. So unless it gets very, very serious. And then the problem is, do I want to piss off these media outlets, like go that hardcore? Because then they can come after me and slander me. They only want

Starting point is 00:54:13 fake story, Simon's seen shouting at his kid, Charles. old abuse, I never shy I don't make it my kid, but conceptually I don't want to make these people

Starting point is 00:54:20 my enemy. They're not, like, I don't want to make them my enemy. I'm not, it's not much. 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. Yeah. I'm sure the article is very kind. I'm sure it's like, you know, mostly good. It also says I have a very fancy car that I don't have. Where do they get this information? Are they literally just like, you know, I think they go through pictures and information and sometimes even they take what other people have written. So it's like a false. Oh, that's a lot of this stuff. So it's like someone else is written about it and then they reference that as if that's their excuse for. So I mean, I know, 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,

Starting point is 00:55:24 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 never think about net worth. I think about, like, cash in bank. And I think about, like, what I'm applying in my business, or what my business is making. I don't really think about, like, how much I'm worth have I sold everything. Because I'm not going to sell all my company assets, right?

Starting point is 00:55:45 I'm not going to sell helpbank.com. I mean, 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? I'm trying to do some backwards. I'm trying to, yeah, I'm trying to do some math. And you tell a what multiplier? Yeah.

Starting point is 00:56:01 People might be wondering why. A lot of people can't tell, 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 sort of mean?

Starting point is 00:56:19 Like there's some, there's accidental brand damage done by talking, I want to talk about it, right? If it was up to me, because I love sharing how business works and how businesses are built. I bought that company from nothing. I'm proud of it.

Starting point is 00:56:32 But legally, 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 nuance, especially if you haven't sold a company before. Anyone that's setting a company, you're going to come up against this. I'm always shocked when people can talk about how much they sold their company

Starting point is 00:56:44 for most people who bought it don't want to talk about it. Yeah. 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 Billiou 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 TikToks 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 was taking my son to nursery, just kind of wandering down the street.

Starting point is 00:57:23 And I did a TikTok, 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 comments 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. Being broke is not necessarily, and I say it's very carefully having been 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

Starting point is 00:57:52 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 in the person that never sees their kid. So 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've got time with their kids. They're probably already rich than most people that aren't able to do that because they're making money, right? So I had a bit of an epiphany in that moment

Starting point is 00:58:15 I was like 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 Success is a very odd word I think they need to be more carefully defined So when that TikTok blew up Because a lot of people have been quite negative about me

Starting point is 00:58:34 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 about to pick my kids up Because I've got no one can help me blah blah blah So I think that being, I guess being, 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.

Starting point is 00:58:55 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 life in some aspects, once again, kind of walking on egg shells right here, could be very simple. 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. They have to, right?

Starting point is 00:59:19 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 flip your negative situation to a positive. 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, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I had no purpose, other than looking after my son and being a good father, but I had no life purpose, so I felt a little bit depressed. But I had time to go pick up my son and take him to school.

Starting point is 00:59:53 So I was looking to be grateful. I was trying to find a 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. Because you can't get that time back either. Like my kid is seven this week. He won't be seven again.

Starting point is 01:00:11 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 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?

Starting point is 01:00:28 Like, I think people should engineer their life around that as opposed to like, I want to be a millionaire at a time I'm 30. Okay. Now, 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.

Starting point is 01:00:50 I don't know what it was like in America at this time, but maybe in the 90s, 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,

Starting point is 01:01:01 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 bullshit, right? But when I was younger, 15, 16, 17, 17, 18,

Starting point is 01:01:14 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 dyslexic. So at school they told me I was an idiot, right? Because they didn't know what dyslexia was back then.

Starting point is 01:01:26 So they literally teachers telling me I'm an idiot. So I had a lot to prove. And I think an example would be, I remember 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 and we did nothing until the day they came back. You know, I think that's not correct.

Starting point is 01:01:43 That's not a 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 contract.

Starting point is 01:02:06 It's so important. When I met Helen, I remember, we had 2003 was SARS in Hong Kong, financial crisis. So we've been in business a while together at that point. And we'd built our business had a big payroll. And then SARS come, 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 shut down.

Starting point is 01:02:29 And our business froze. And one of our biggest clients almost went bankrupt. And they owed us a million pounds, right? which is almost a million dollars now. Back then it was more. It was like 1.2 million dollars. But I said to Helen, I was like,

Starting point is 01:02:43 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, Cole looked to me in the eye and said, no, Simon, we're paying our people first.

Starting point is 01:02:54 We'll find a way around it for ourselves. We're obligated. And I wasn't, 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

Starting point is 01:03:05 because 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 our personal rents. Right. But if I followed my own advice, I would have pissed off everybody that trusted us.

Starting point is 01:03:20 I never missed payroll ever. In the 35 years I've been in business, every single month. And 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 was only Helen that pulled me back and said, no, that's not right, Simon. We got to. You know what I mean?

Starting point is 01:03:35 And 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 probably make 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 the world is really fucked up in this way, actually. I think that you should not define whether someone's successful by how much money they have.

Starting point is 01:03:59 I think that my personal definition of success is a combination of time and kindness. I think if someone, like, for example, 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 it in her eyes that she's alive and she loves her work. She's underpaid, but she loves her work.

Starting point is 01:04:23 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. What we do in tribes is we used to help each other. You have a problem, Jack, you come to me, I help you. Here's the problem. There's a solution to your problem. I'm not even the person to help you help you help you. I'm not even the person to help you're like, okay, well, let me give and take mindset. Right. So my opinion is that the way to be happy and the way to be successful is to help someone without any expectation of living in return.

Starting point is 01:04:59 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. What is a step or something that they could do to give without the expectation of something in return? Yeah, yeah. I say give about takes. It's shorter and it fits on a T-shirt. Give about anything expectation of anything in 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 anything.

Starting point is 01:05:24 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. It won't cost you anything. You know, you can hold the door open for someone in the street. If you're really generous,

Starting point is 01:05:41 you're feeling a bit flush 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 the day. Just one kind thing without any expectation of living in 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 change of this commercialization we suddenly got trapped into where every single deal was a transaction

Starting point is 01:06:07 that's not actually how we naturally are that's not our natural state so I think if you've 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 you guys probably felt this and Christmas is a big thing in English

Starting point is 01:06:22 it's a big thing in America right I am 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 it 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

Starting point is 01:06:38 I was so excited and then 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 and 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 but the hardest thing for a human actually is to ask for help that we feel really embarrassed about it.

Starting point is 01:07:01 Oh, I don't need help. My business is fine. I don't need investment. And I'm okay. And we actually feel embarrassed to us 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.

Starting point is 01:07:12 And I helped 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 them to do us a favor in return. You owe us something now. I helped you, remember? That's the mistake.

Starting point is 01:07:29 And I learned that being with a good woman. Helen taught me that. What qualities do you think makes someone successful? What do you look for? When I was younger, I just wanted people that could afford to pay the bill. But now I look in entrepreneurs anyway and people that 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.

Starting point is 01:07:53 So I'm looking for like a reason that person is doing the thing they're doing. So my case, 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.

Starting point is 01:08:14 So I kind of logged it. It's 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, I 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. 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 of 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 I were people. I think when I was younger, I invested in a 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. Oh, okay, cool, and I invest in that business. And you know what?

Starting point is 01:08:56 They didn't follow through. Why? Because I didn't give a shit 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 Zuckerberg, and you can love him or hate him. It's up to people.

Starting point is 01:09:08 He was socially awkward. And he wanted to build something that made him connect to people and socially not awkward. And digital was his answer. That's why he never sold the company. This was his way of living how he wanted to live. He wanted to solve a problem of being socially awkward. Right, so he never stops. He will never stop until he dies, right?

Starting point is 01:09:29 Because he felt that pain when he was younger and he basically built a company that fixed that pain for him. So I'm looking for that in people. And on the opposite side of things, what flags do you look for that would be a deterrent for you? 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?

Starting point is 01:09:48 It's like people's partners. When I invest in someone's business, 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. And 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,

Starting point is 01:10:07 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 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.

Starting point is 01:10:28 And I decided not to invest 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, 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 traveling 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, it's poor entrepreneur, it's going to have this person on their back for years. The business will not instantly make money. It's got a purpose.

Starting point is 01:10:54 The entrepreneur's brilliant. 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 are billion other companies that are flying economy. You know, like I fly economy.

Starting point is 01:11:12 So I just don't like wasting money on business class unless I'm doing a long haul and I need to sleep with that side. Welcome aboard via rail. Please sit and enjoy. Please sit and sit. Play, post, taste, view, and enjoy, via rail, love the way. The 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 worry.

Starting point is 01:11:39 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 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 money. She doesn't spend, she doesn't need it. She isn't, she's not 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've changed. It's eight o'clock and you're not hooked.

Starting point is 01:12:10 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. That's going to let you be you. And the partner is such an underrated part of that equation. That's fascinating. Yeah. You have mentioned before, on podcasts that you think sales is like the most important thing that people must 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 W-2 job? Why should the average person that's not working sales learn sales? What is sales? Sales is the way that you can make anything real. If you think you're not a salesperson, then you don't know how the world works. You either

Starting point is 01:12:53 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. 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

Starting point is 01:13:32 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 to buy this car, it breaks don't work, but I'm not going to tell you, no. True sales is 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 storytelling is how you sell. So all you need to do is learn how to story tell.

Starting point is 01:14:03 Now, I know people, I just interviewed in my podcast, Russell Brunson, and he did click funnels. And he basically sells through, he's an introvert. People don't realize, he's a big introvert. He sells through email. So he literally sends an email saying, hey, how are you doing? Do you have a good day today? I'm going to send you an email tomorrow about how to change the world. See you tomorrow.

Starting point is 01:14:20 I told you something to say. 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. Oh, here it is. This is the secret I was telling you 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?

Starting point is 01:14:48 You can do that through research before you even send one single email. You don't need to go and sell them something they don't need. Because 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?

Starting point is 01:15:05 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 nine 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 is the first step is, here's what I do, here's the price, here's the contract, are you

Starting point is 01:15:35 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, Simon, you've underpriced it. That's what happens if you get sales right. Right? It's like, you made a relationship.

Starting point is 01:16:04 They need you. 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.

Starting point is 01:16:19 And don't sell to people that don't need it. Right, no salesperson can easily sell without some sort of NLP bullshit trick. No one can actually sell to someone who doesn't need something. Identify the need. You know, let's say old, what's I forgot any of his name? Sell me the pen. Do you know, I ask people what that means? They misunderstand it.

Starting point is 01:16:36 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? 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 will get the pen is beautiful Silver you want to love this pen it's the best pen I've ever seen in the world No I ask you you you're gonna sign this contract now and I'm gonna invest in your company

Starting point is 01:16:57 You got a pen to sign it? No Okay, you want to buy this pen it's ten dollars But we're gonna sign a contract worth a million so Is it a good pen? I don't know Does it matter? It's gonna help you get this contract Okay, well if it makes me ten million dollars I suppose I would pay ten like a yeah Okay, thank you. It's very simple It's you know it's just understanding the demand side

Starting point is 01:17:15 But people jump straight to the third step because they they misunderstood what sales is. And sales is marketing as well. People tried to distinguish it too. I mean, a lot of gurus do this. Marketing is different to sales. Everybody I ever meet is in marketing and I break down what they're doing. I'm like, you're not in marketing. Sales sits on top of marketing. Marketing is like PR. There's those different elements of marketing. PR, social meetings is a form of marketing. Brand, individual brand 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

Starting point is 01:17:52 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 introvated sales techniques. If 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 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. Do you want their life? Because if you follow their advice, you'll have their life, assuming they're not lying, right? Because a lot of people out there bullshiting with, you know,

Starting point is 01:18:26 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. I only listen to people whose lives you want. And 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 will 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, and 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

Starting point is 01:18:58 met anybody that doesn't actually admit it. I think the school system was openly discussed by the people that created it, Carnegie and Henry Ford. They openly discussed it. It's on line. You can read what they said. They didn't want people thinking. They wanted people memorizing they wanted people, Henry Ford in particular, wanted people to be able to afford a car, go on two holidays a year, but come back to the fucking factory. Right? Sit down, shut up. Don't collaborate.

Starting point is 01:19:28 When you're doing an exam, don't collaborate. You've got to learn it all on your own, mate. Now, in the real world, it's completely the fucking opposite. You want to be successful, stand up, be different, stand out. Collaborate. Like, I wouldn't be here today if people hadn't help me. There's no such thing as a self-made millionaire. I didn't sit down and do an exam on my own.

Starting point is 01:19:43 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 fucking insane. It's insane.

Starting point is 01:19:59 They ask you, what will you do when you grow up? 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.

Starting point is 01:20:21 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 are you going to solve, mate? What are probably going to solve, right? He laughs at first, it giggles. Now he watches David Attenborough. You know what he says?

Starting point is 01:20:39 The sixth extinction is coming. I want to try and help avoid that from happening. And he says it with calm, power. 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. Because he cares about the problem, not the pigeonhole that the fucking education system tries to pin people into. Do you send your kid to public school, private school, homeschool? And again, I say homeschool. What do you think? 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. is kind of strange. Our experience of extracurricular activities and there's a homeschool kid there

Starting point is 01:21:16 who is usually by themselves afraid to talk to people. Maybe they were homeschooled because they were already like that. Could be. But now it's different. Like homeschool is the revolution coming out of way. I fucking hope so. Because my son, okay,

Starting point is 01:21:29 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 o'clock in the morning to 4 o'clock in the afternoon. And on average, classroom size is about 28 kids, yeah,

Starting point is 01:21:46 and they sit in that room all day together. Now, I like you guys, we just met, I like you guys, but let's say every single day for the next three years, we're in the same room, five days a week, from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., and we're, no, 28 of us in this room. We're going to go fucking nuts, aren't we? Do you want to put up your hand to be different in that environment? Plus, the other problem with the school system is all the same age.

Starting point is 01:22:07 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 7-year-old and a 3-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 the 7-year-old, the 7-year-old looks after the 3-year-old. The 3-year-old looks up to the 7-year-old,

Starting point is 01:22:24 seven-year-old looks up to the 14-year-old, right? You know, it's meant to do it by age, the way they do it now. So, homeschooling is the beautiful solution to it. Now, I'll caveat this with saying, right now, because homeschooling is not mainstream, 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 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.

Starting point is 01:22:55 He draws a little bit, and then one of his friends come over and plays for a few hours and they do Lego. If it's not raining, they go out for lunch in a park. In the afternoon, they go to a forest together with another friend and who happens to also be a friend of my wife's and the mother happens to be a friend of my and they spend the afternoon picking daisies and talking about plants and realizing that nettles

Starting point is 01:23:13 are one of the most amazing products in nearly every single pharmaceutical product that makes people better has nettles in it right so they learn 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

Starting point is 01:23:31 and and and and and now the here's the real reason why this is actually presently unattainable for people 30 years ago having one income was was enough having a sicking 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 fucking 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

Starting point is 01:24:13 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 homeopathy in herbal medicine. So she'll do a little herbal medicine class. So they share the responsibility of the education, just like we used to in tribes. But there are certain things that are undeniably traps. Like you said, like 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.

Starting point is 01:24:43 What would you say are some traps that people should watch out for to make sure that they're not just always shackled by this brainwashing, you know, always attention going in certain areas and lacking the belief that they have the freedom that they have to live the life they want. Addiction. Addiction is the biggest weakness in humans. 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. I thought England had roads and we were safe and

Starting point is 01:25:27 it wasn't why I left England. I realised it's not the best place in the world. So I thought like like, healthy skepticism about things, I think is good. I also like to think positively, but I think having that thing where you always just double check. Double check. It's what I've just been told or what I've just heard is it true. 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 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 addicted 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

Starting point is 01:26:13 them, I won't be able to stop. The only addiction I think I've got, and people listening in audio might think I'm obese now, but it's 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.

Starting point is 01:26:30 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.

Starting point is 01:26:48 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 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 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.

Starting point is 01:27:21 I think you should also be positive, somehow mix it in there with positive. I say a lot of people spouting conspiracy theories with no solutions. You know, I thought we need to be 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, like, I actually think that the 15-year-old me, I was lucky to have that life.

Starting point is 01:27:46 that experience is giving 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 I noticed this really successful people in their businesses fail they're like they say well I learn all these lessons I wouldn't I wouldn't be I've had a few businesses fail I wouldn't be successful today if they hadn't failed like I've learned more for my successes than my I'm learned more for 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

Starting point is 01:28:24 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 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

Starting point is 01:28:53 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 do 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.

Starting point is 01:29:09 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 my 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 silly, get a real job. You know, don't be a YouTuber.

Starting point is 01:29:29 Get a real job. You know, like, it's been suppressed down in people. 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 seen people literally physically change in the 90 seconds I've done the video with someone. 90 seconds.

Starting point is 01:29:49 I've seen them change. They go from downbeat, the world's got them broken, their dream's not possible, they're giving 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

Starting point is 01:29:59 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 here. He was really depressed, putting stuff in the bin,

Starting point is 01:30:09 and I went up to him and say, 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 his wheel?

Starting point is 01:30:20 The cameras, he thinks the joke. You just see people literally, 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, you know, it's blown my mind seeing it.

Starting point is 01:30:34 Like, I'm addicted to it. I'm not just doing this for other people. I'm doing it for myself to it. I'm addicted to seeing people come alive, you know? It's like, I'm plugging a machine. What stops people from then taking that and running with it? Because I bet if you ask 100 people, what's your dream? They get really excited.

Starting point is 01:30:48 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. They're like, nah, I can't do it. That's why I don't really like motivational speaking. I do motivational. I don't really like motivational talks or posts because they're very short-term doses of adrenaline for people. Well, I go back to purpose. and it's a very fluffy word, but I think it should be asked at school.

Starting point is 01:31:12 If people have a purpose, they don't stop. See 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 they don't go to work, someone will be in pain. They're motivated by the purpose and they will go.

Starting point is 01:31:32 Even though they're badly paid and badly treated, they'll go. Right. And I think that's the trick. It's not about motivation. it's about purpose. It's a word that people hear that's so fluffy. It's so important.

Starting point is 01:31:44 If you get that instilled in someone, I don't need to... I've got a team of people I've never once managed any of them in the present company I've got because I hired them all around the purpose that we have, right, to free humanity.

Starting point is 01:31:57 I don't tell them what to do every day. They get up before I get up. They go to bed before me. I have to be. The point is they're motivated, right? They're so motivated. And I think don't manage people

Starting point is 01:32:08 manage purpose, 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. And I'm not there to motivate people. I'm there to help them find their purpose. This episode is brought to you by FedEx. These days, the power move isn't having a big metallic credit card to drop on the check at a corporate launch. The real power move is leveling up your business with FedEx intelligence and accessing one of biggest data networks powered by one of the biggest delivery networks. Level up your business with FedEx, the new power move. What would you say is the biggest success story from the videos going

Starting point is 01:32:55 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 put them in a group of mentors. We have a platform called HelpBank.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, the people watching the video. So on Instagram last month, I just looked at the analytics before we came in with our 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.

Starting point is 01:33:33 Or I heard Mark say he wanted to do this business, he's not going to do it. I'm going to do it. I've done it. Or people have started businesses because they watched a video and realize that I've called bullshit on their own bullshit. 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 know, I just named them more. And they feel bad. If I miss anybody out on that list, I'll feel bad. But there's people I really do respect who have shared their really painful back stories 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.

Starting point is 01:34:03 You also have another somewhat controversial take that houses our liabilities. I can't believe we've got this point to the podcast before this game up. Yeah. Yeah. Saving the best part to the end. Could you walk us through this, the train of thought? Okay. So, better frame it out better for the audience because they go, no wonder what you mean. 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. It just as I have this theory

Starting point is 01:34:37 doesn't mean I'm right. 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,

Starting point is 01:34:49 she had a monopoly with the land is owned by no one and people move around the board and live in the properties and everyone has a harmonious life. Or you have one where people buy the land. What happens in the end? Only one winner, right?

Starting point is 01:35:02 And it would probably be some big corporate. like Black Rock. That's my prediction. But one company ends up owning everything because it's all a question of price, right? So taking that kind of example in mind, unfortunately for her, the capitalistic monopoly caught on and then a 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 class as an asset, right? This is rich.

Starting point is 01:35:33 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 you mortgage is a whole

Starting point is 01:35:46 different thing. Mortgage is actually blown 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 length of the mortgage or interest rates go up or you miss a couple of payments or whatever, you know, hopefully, if all

Starting point is 01:36:00 goes well, you'll own it, hopefully in 30 years time. It's not, so that's fundamentally point one, 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.

Starting point is 01:36:13 Do you think I'm right? About that bit? No. I do. I think you can be right and I think you could also be incorrect. Yes. I think it's a very nuanced thing.

Starting point is 01:36:21 I would say for a lot of people, a house is a liability, in the sense that if they over-extend themselves to buy the nicest house they can, if they don't keep it long enough, if they buy a house, living it five years, sell it, they break even maybe, and 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, do they either save money on rent, live in very long term because they have to live somewhere,

Starting point is 01:36:50 fix it up, which most people aren't doing, or they do the house hacking method of, you know, renting out bedrooms 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 your primary residence like the number one wealth building? It is. By all data. It is, but because people are so bad at saving and investing.

Starting point is 01:37:11 So it's like 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 SP 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, it's saving money.

Starting point is 01:37:27 Since the 1970s, if you invest in gold, you'd make more money owning gold than you weren't owning a property based on present property prices versus property prices in the 70s. But gold has no other than storage, no maintenance that cost. What about 1980s or 2012?

Starting point is 01:37:41 But 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 you look at it at any other date, it starts to skew. But overall, at least in the US, property values have increased basically 1% beyond inflation

Starting point is 01:37:59 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 take 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 observing those things is probably the best thing that you could be doing.

Starting point is 01:38:26 Here's what I see right now is that a lot of people are, and I'll use the term brainwashed, believe that buying a house is always a good investment or that buying a house is a right choice or that you achieve some sort of social status or a milestone by buying a house without doing the math and determining if buying a house is actually the financially sound method. Because right now renting is way cheaper, at least over the next 10 years than buying a houses. And if you buy a house and you don't do that math, you're like, oh, buying house is better because I'm paying down the mortgage. It might not be. So that's what I see. And I think people don't move where the opportunity is.

Starting point is 01:39:01 you know, they live where their house is. So I'm being general here, right? Yeah, because there's always exceptions. Yeah. But I think, of course, there are examples where people break the rules, but most people buy a 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

Starting point is 01:39:23 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 business. bigger house, you know, like, it's kind of like, especially when you're young, I'm really generally, then property stuff. I mean, 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, so 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

Starting point is 01:39:55 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 house. 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 people. I remember the house. I look at it sometimes that I almost bought. Right. But let's just say you bought that house and the property values went up and then you're like, okay, maybe I can pull some money out and then you buy another house. Maybe. 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 then they started a

Starting point is 01:40:25 brokerage. So that's different, right? I absolutely think property can be a business. This might lead quite well into the podcast we're going to do with you in a bit. We can talk about this in a minute, 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 that equity, and they buy a house. My parents did this, by the way.

Starting point is 01:40:46 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 look like a family home, and sold it. For more money, we moved to another home. 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.

Starting point is 01:41:06 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

Starting point is 01:41:21 is the moral code side of it. Okay? Because again, I can talk about England better than I can America. But in England, there are nurses, doctors and police who literally are on, on food stamps because they can't afford their rent. Okay, so what's happened is buy to rent businesses boomed.

Starting point is 01:41:39 People have come and bought property, rented out for huge amounts of yield, 8%, 6%, where people are trying to get. And then the people renting can't afford to buy because the price has gone up. And now they're literally, like the person who's tonight in England, a rich person landlord, is going to go to an emergency ward,

Starting point is 01:41:57 and the nurse who's going to try to save their life is eating food going to have to go food stamps to eat can't pay their mortgage rent can't get a mortgage impossible to buy can't afford their rent like tired stressed out can't look after their family properly but don't mind that landlord got 8% yield out of it

Starting point is 01:42:13 so my issue is more like it's definitely a business but it's got out of control 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've been once to London and I've seen how packed it is there's just not enough

Starting point is 01:42:29 land to build more units without tearing them down and reconstructing the whole thing. So my understanding is that zoning regulation prohibits bigger units or taller. High density housing. Right. 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'm just showing a little, I'm flaring a little bit of a warning sign because every young person I meet when I say what you want to do I want to buy property and rent it out 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 because

Starting point is 01:43:09 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 you've got a small property portfolio and you're managing three o'clock in the morning the washing machine's broken it ain't an easy thing to do so just be careful and people see it's passive income I'm like no it's not you have to go we've got enough. So I attack 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 Greenbelt land. Probably. Yeah. And for that we're talking like front yards or backyards. Like partly, but also parts of land that's being 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 two and 150,000 homeless people, right? Registered.

Starting point is 01:43:59 That's just a registered. So this is also personally goes back to my homeless period, right? That is humans on the street nowhere to sleep. That is madness. Right, that's the highest amount in history in England, 250,000 people. And a lot of that is mental health issues. So, you know, you need to build hospitals where mental health is taken seriously.

Starting point is 01:44:17 So there's that element, drug addiction. But that comes from living on the street a lot of the time, right? 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 just think there needs to be a little bit of a different strategy. And yes, I'm a capitalist. I mean, all my money being a capitalist. But I think there comes a point where you get judged by,

Starting point is 01:44:34 a country judged 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. It's 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,

Starting point is 01:44:52 then we should give them accommodation. Now build it near the hospital. build it on the hospital. I don't give a fuck, but we can't have both ways, can we? We can't pay them nothing, expect them to save our lives,

Starting point is 01:45:02 and give them really expensive rent in a very capitalistic structure. 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.

Starting point is 01:45:18 Different human survey needed there for me to give you an actual factual answer, but my instinct would be the hospitals in London, example, are in dense populated areas. So to get there, suddenly you've 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 cost of the train was the same as rent. So, you know,

Starting point is 01:45:44 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. I meant switching jobs. outside of London. Okay, switching jobs, that's happening. Yeah. You've got a serious teacher deficit in England right now. People don't want to be a teacher.

Starting point is 01:46:01 It's low-paid, people can't afford to live. So literally, I don't be careful how to 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 going where they would naturally go. But couldn't you also say, based on your other arguments,

Starting point is 01:46:21 that teachers are becoming a thing of the past in the sense that... Yeah, they're not. They will. But in the sense of the classroom setting. Yeah, they should be, but they're not.

Starting point is 01:46:29 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

Starting point is 01:46:45 or where they could solve problems. Yes. Again, sometimes when I think about my own thesis, I split it into now today and five, ten years from now. Sure. Right? Five, ten years from now,

Starting point is 01:46:54 I hope that's the case, right? I hope teachers, weirdly, I saw something saying today that Chipotle, they're replacing 75% of their workforce with automated 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 fucking clever, right? So, but I think that you have to split it into two timelines.

Starting point is 01:47:16 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 the teachers should be in the classroom,

Starting point is 01:47:31 but they can't afford to be in the classroom. So there we've got a gap already. Now, hopefully technology will fill it, but I don't see the school system moving towards that. Literally, like, laptops, 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, even in the classroom for most kids.

Starting point is 01:47:47 So, and then I see five years from now, 10 years from now, maybe with AI, those teachers 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.

Starting point is 01:48:07 So, you know, if it's so expensive to live with your family and you have to uproot, you need everyone to uproot, 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 dependent on cities. And so perhaps dense 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.

Starting point is 01:48:34 Yeah, that's happening. Most of the U.S. 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 accommodation because a lot of the high streets have died as well.

Starting point is 01:48:58 Amazon's killed high streets. 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

Starting point is 01:49:10 need to at least have the ability to live somewhere. Basic human rights is accommodation, right? We can't. I would love to see higher stories like higher density and underground. Right. I think it would be so cool to like be able to go five stories underground. And you would have no idea like restaurants down there.

Starting point is 01:49:29 That's happening in cities where the value. Like my house that I had in London, they dug a basement, two basements down is incredible. Yeah. I think tiny homes too. Like if you look at any new development, they're all like 1900 plus square feet, 2,200, 2,500 square feet here in Las Vegas. But if they only made starter homes, which are like, 1,000 square feet or 1,100, 1,200, 2,000 square feet.

Starting point is 01:49:51 That would be so much more reasonable. I think it's just a little bit more profitable for the developers. Elon must did this, didn't he built that? He was living in it. I don't know if it was true, but there's a box house. Personally, I can live in one of those. Oh, me too. Give me a bed, a computer, Wi-Fi.

Starting point is 01:50:03 I loved it. Yeah, they're like 50 grand. One of my dreams, like this was like 10 years ago, I really wanted to develop micro units that you could rent because I remember me throughout my 20s. Like, all I needed was a bed, a kitchen, and a desk. that was it. And 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,

Starting point is 01:50:25 but they were like really seedy parts of town. But like imagine in the prime district of like Los Angeles, in the best location you had micro units of just 300 square feet, just like a two car garage, but it's got everything you need. I would love that. They do it in Japan. They have like, I think in English they're called coffins. It's not exactly that. But you live in, it's like a coffin. I've seen it, maybe not to that extent. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's kind of interesting, you know,

Starting point is 01:50:52 like you just need someone safe to sleep at night. Yeah, that kind of idea. But the issue, though, with at least California, because I haven't looked into other districts, is purely that they don't, they require a certain amount of parking for every unit. And if you can't do that, that won't be zoned. It is, yeah.

Starting point is 01:51:09 It's a 99% invisible. Do you ever listen to those guys? No. So a really good podcast I listened to. And he talked about how they came in, of this parking policy so that when they built the Google circle, they've got so much parking to justify that 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

Starting point is 01:51:32 getting old now as well. Like we were interviewing some kids who on scooters and they don't want cars. And Uber, people don't want a car. They just want to Uber, share an Uber, you know, go on a scooter. So I kind of think like this was car parking regulation. Everything's 10 years behind in government's truck or decisions. I feel like it's cool to walk places now. 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.

Starting point is 01:52:01 I loved it. It's so easy. And I really, I mean, I've been trying to walk around Las Vegas, but it's a bit hot. Here in Las Vegas is impossible. Even though it's brand new, all the paths are blocked. Anyway, Las Vegas is great. Come here. Simon, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Starting point is 01:52:14 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

Starting point is 01:52:36 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. It 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?

Starting point is 01:52:53 Don't about that. Don't worry about that. No? Yeah, we can. You can. You can, but it's coming out, right? It's coming out. Yeah, 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. Linked down below in the description, everybody. Sounds good. Thank you, Simon, for coming on the show. Thanks for having me, guys. Until next time. Thank you so much.

The Iced Coffee Hour - “How To Un-F*** Your Life” - The #1 Secret To Becoming RICH In 2025 | Simon Squibb

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