0:00:05 In order to be successful, you need to know that people have a small number of slots in their brain for who they remember.
0:00:07 So you’ve got to get into people’s head.
0:00:09 And in order to do that, you need to know two things.
0:00:12 The first one is 7-Eleven-4, which we’ll talk about.
0:00:15 And the second thing is that your brain is extremely good at deleting messages.
0:00:18 But there’s five things that will not be deleted by the brain.
0:00:20 And the last two are the ones that are most useful.
0:00:21 So, the first one is 16.
0:00:23 I wish I knew this type of stuff in my career.
0:00:26 Daniel Priestley is the money-making expert and serial entrepreneur
0:00:29 who’s built several multi-million-dollar businesses from nothing.
0:00:35 And has mentored over 3,500 businesses with the same frameworks for career success that you’re about to learn.
0:00:37 The problem that we have now is that we live in a digital world,
0:00:40 but all of society is built for the Industrial Revolution system,
0:00:42 which means that we’re playing by an old set of rules,
0:00:46 but going through a schooling system that is preparing them for a world that no longer exists.
0:00:49 So people feel like that there are no opportunities, there are no safe jobs anymore,
0:00:51 feeling like you’re in competition with AI,
0:00:56 and that leaves a whole generation of people feeling absolutely wiped out before they’ve even started.
0:00:59 So what are the new set of skills people need to know to set them up in this digital world?
0:01:01 Well, there’s actually a step-by-step approach for doing that,
0:01:03 including building a personal brand.
0:01:05 Okay, let’s pause there. Why does that matter?
0:01:08 Because that’s the key to capital, talent, customers.
0:01:10 And it’s not about becoming an influencer with millions of followers.
0:01:14 But if you’re seen as a key person of influence, that’s enough to make seven figures.
0:01:16 And is that where your five P’s come in?
0:01:17 Yeah, and I’ll take you through all of those.
0:01:19 And then there’s the entrepreneurial pyramid,
0:01:23 which opens you up to this whole other world of opportunities as well as side hustles
0:01:27 and the two types of opportunities that everyone needs to know about.
0:01:28 I want to go through all of that.
0:01:29 Let’s do it.
0:01:37 I find it incredibly fascinating that when we look at the back end of Spotify and Apple and our audio channels,
0:01:42 the majority of people that watch this podcast haven’t yet hit the follow button
0:01:44 or the subscribe button wherever you’re listening to this.
0:01:45 I would like to make a deal with you.
0:01:48 If you could do me a huge favor and hit that subscribe button,
0:01:53 I will work tirelessly from now until forever to make the show better and better and better and better.
0:01:56 I can’t tell you how much it helps when you hit that subscribe button.
0:01:58 The show gets bigger, which means we can expand the production,
0:02:02 bring in all the guests you want to see and continue to do in this thing we love.
0:02:04 If you could do me that small favor and hit the follow button,
0:02:06 wherever you’re listening to this, that would mean the world to me.
0:02:09 That is the only favor I will ever ask you.
0:02:21 Daniel Priestley, how do you define and describe what it is that you do with your content, with your work
0:02:22 and through all of these books that you’ve published?
0:02:27 What is the summary of what you do and who you do it for?
0:02:29 So I have a massive passion for entrepreneurship.
0:02:34 About 20 years ago, I started seeing a massive trend about entrepreneurs
0:02:38 who could stand out, scale up and make a positive impact in the world through business.
0:02:41 I have built multiple businesses over the last 20 years,
0:02:46 and I’m just fascinated by the predictable stages that people go through
0:02:48 in order to build successful businesses.
0:02:52 As I’ve been growing my businesses, I’ve been writing about it in my books,
0:02:55 mostly to document what I’m learning myself.
0:03:01 And I also built a community of entrepreneurs who wanted to essentially make the most of the times that were in.
0:03:04 So what’s happening at the moment is we’re going through massive amounts of change.
0:03:09 It’s very similar to the agricultural age when it was replaced by the industrial age.
0:03:14 And there were new economic rules that didn’t apply to the agricultural age,
0:03:15 but did apply to the industrial age.
0:03:20 So the agricultural age was the feudal system and the industrial age was the capitalist system.
0:03:24 What’s happening is the industrial age is fast being replaced by the digital age.
0:03:30 And as we go through this massive change, we’re seeing new rules and new economic rules that apply.
0:03:31 So give you an example.
0:03:36 In the industrial age, people had to become successful.
0:03:43 People had to gain skills and then get a job and find an employer who would employ them for those skills.
0:03:48 As we go into the digital age, what works is to build a personal brand based on your unique intellectual property
0:03:54 and then to position that brand next to a scalable, digital, elegant business model.
0:03:59 And those who are doing that and those who have figured that out are doing incredibly well and succeeding at speed.
0:04:02 And there’s actually a step-by-step approach for doing that.
0:04:03 I want to go through all of that.
0:04:05 I was running in Cape Town.
0:04:08 Look at me plugging my running brand that’s lasted for five days.
0:04:12 I was running in Cape Town and a young couple came up to me at the end of my run
0:04:14 when I had stopped running it underneath this tree.
0:04:17 And they came to me, it was about the second or third of January.
0:04:19 They said, “Steve, we love your content.
0:04:21 We’ve been listening to Diary of a Seer a while.”
0:04:24 And they looked at each other and you could see that they were really stressed.
0:04:28 And they said, “We’re just trying to figure out how to start a business and what we should be doing.”
0:04:31 And I could see in their face that they’d been mulling it for a long, long time.
0:04:33 There was this like, they’re very, very young.
0:04:37 I’d say they were like 21 years old and they were saying like, “What do we do?”
0:04:41 And actually at that time I said, “Do you need to listen to an episode I did with Daniel Priestly?”
0:04:42 But I also knew you were coming on.
0:04:45 So I said, “I’m recording with him shortly, so make sure you listen to that.”
0:04:46 So through the lens of that 21-year-old,
0:04:49 you’ve detailed that their world has now changed.
0:04:51 They’re living in this digital world.
0:04:55 Where would you advise those two to start
0:04:58 if they wanted to capitalise on the opportunity that’s presented itself?
0:05:00 Okay, so I’ll slow down for a minute.
0:05:03 What’s happening at the moment is people in that situation,
0:05:07 they’re feeling incredibly invisible, that they don’t matter.
0:05:10 They feel stuck, that there are no opportunities.
0:05:13 You can’t buy a house, you can’t get a career.
0:05:15 There are no safe jobs anymore.
0:05:19 AIs disrupting everything and they feel detached from meaning and purpose.
0:05:24 And that leaves a whole generation of young people feeling absolutely wiped out
0:05:25 before they’ve even started.
0:05:29 It doesn’t actually exclusively apply just to people in their 20s.
0:05:31 I know people in their 40s, 50s, 60s.
0:05:34 I know entrepreneurs who have traditional businesses who feel that way.
0:05:38 So it’s worth acknowledging that it’s a widespread phenomenon
0:05:40 everywhere in the world, people feeling invisible,
0:05:44 feeling the pain of like not being able to connect with the right people
0:05:46 and feeling stuck and feeling detached from meaning.
0:05:49 So what we need to do is address that
0:05:52 because what’s happening is you’re playing by an old set of rules
0:05:55 and that’s normal because the school system told you an old set of rules
0:05:57 because it was based in the industrial age
0:06:00 and we have to start by learning the new set of rules.
0:06:03 So if I was advising 21-year-olds in particular,
0:06:07 the first thing that you want to do is called an entrepreneur apprenticeship.
0:06:10 An entrepreneur apprenticeship is where you go and work
0:06:12 in a small team of less than 12 people,
0:06:15 where you have direct contact with an entrepreneur.
0:06:17 And in particular, you’re looking for an entrepreneur
0:06:19 who has somewhat of a personal brand.
0:06:24 So they have, let’s say, 5,000 to 50,000 followers on social media
0:06:27 and they’ve got an elegant business model that inspires you.
0:06:30 It doesn’t necessarily have to be exactly what you want to do in the future,
0:06:32 but you need to learn the new rules.
0:06:35 So you need to learn how is that person building their personal brand
0:06:38 and how are they building their business so that it can scale?
0:06:41 How do they communicate with people anywhere in the world?
0:06:43 How do they sell to people anywhere in the world?
0:06:45 So those are some of the key things that you have to do.
0:06:47 You do not want to become an entrepreneur straight away.
0:06:48 It’s too big a shift.
0:06:50 You need to be a number two.
0:06:51 I was a number two. I had a mentor.
0:06:54 I worked for an amazing guy for two years.
0:06:56 We went from zero to six million in a year
0:06:59 and from zero people to 60 people in one year.
0:07:02 So I got the entrepreneur apprenticeship first
0:07:03 and that’s where you want to start.
0:07:06 And then once you do that, you can do side hustles
0:07:09 and then begin the entrepreneurial journey on your own.
0:07:10 But how do you know if it’s for you?
0:07:12 How do you know if you cut out for it?
0:07:14 So at the moment, what’s happening
0:07:16 is that the rules are changing so fast
0:07:19 that it’s not like anyone’s cut out for it.
0:07:22 So there is no sure feeling where you go,
0:07:23 “Oh, I’m really cut out for this
0:07:25 because it’s giving me clear signals.”
0:07:28 During times of disruption, the signals get jammed.
0:07:33 So what’s happening is people are going through a schooling system
0:07:35 that is preparing them for a world that no longer exists.
0:07:38 So we go through 12 years of school and it’s saying,
0:07:40 “Oh, here’s how you get ready for an employer.”
0:07:41 Well, there are no employers
0:07:42 and here’s how you get ready for a career.
0:07:44 There’s no such thing as careers anymore.
0:07:46 And here’s how you get ready for a job.
0:07:49 Oh, by the way, that job can easily be done by AI already.
0:07:51 So all of this is happening
0:07:53 and that means that people are feeling this void
0:07:55 and they’re saying, “Well, I don’t feel ready for anything.”
0:07:57 That’s because you had 12 years of training
0:07:59 for a world that doesn’t exist anymore.
0:08:01 So what we have to do is say,
0:08:05 “All right, let’s look at the world that is emerging
0:08:06 and let’s position ourselves for that world
0:08:10 and reskill ourselves and reposition ourselves for that world.”
0:08:12 – When you were talking about that entrepreneurial apprenticeship,
0:08:15 it sounded like a new form of education,
0:08:17 a new form of university.
0:08:18 Are there any other ways,
0:08:20 if we’re talking about that preparation phase
0:08:21 where you’re getting ready,
0:08:24 are there any other ways you would advise someone
0:08:27 to rapidly excel their knowledge and skills
0:08:30 in preparation to become an entrepreneur?
0:08:31 Is it books?
0:08:32 Is it, do I sit on chat GPT?
0:08:33 What worked for you?
0:08:35 – Books are great, YouTube channels are great.
0:08:37 I didn’t have any of that.
0:08:38 Believe it or not,
0:08:41 even books were hard to come by when I was a teenager.
0:08:43 You had to kind of order business books in
0:08:45 or you had to go to a big bookstore
0:08:47 that had a business book section.
0:08:49 We didn’t have Amazon and we certainly,
0:08:50 anything like a podcast,
0:08:52 you actually paid for cassette tapes and CDs
0:08:54 and they were $1,000.
0:08:55 They were really expensive
0:08:57 just to listen to some business content.
0:08:59 Believe it or not, that was a thing.
0:09:02 And all of it’s for free now online.
0:09:07 However, you can’t learn to ride a bike
0:09:09 through books and videos, you have to get on the bike.
0:09:12 So the best thing to do is to work for someone
0:09:13 who’s building a business.
0:09:14 And if you can’t do that,
0:09:15 become a co-founder with someone
0:09:17 who’s got more experience than you.
0:09:18 And if you can’t do that,
0:09:20 then you need to do some small side hustles.
0:09:23 A side hustle is an open and shut business case.
0:09:26 So within 90 days, you’re gonna start something
0:09:28 and finish something all within 90 days.
0:09:30 You’re not gonna get yourself into a long-term thing.
0:09:32 You’re just gonna start something,
0:09:34 see how it goes and it ends in 90 days.
0:09:37 When I was a teenager, I did nightclub parties.
0:09:40 So the nightclub party had a time where we would agree
0:09:44 with the club that we were gonna have the venue.
0:09:45 Then we had a promotion phase.
0:09:47 Then we ran the party and then that was it.
0:09:49 At the end of the night, we split the money
0:09:51 and that was the finish.
0:09:53 And it all happened very quickly.
0:09:55 And you get the learning experience
0:09:58 but you don’t have the ongoing connection to the business.
0:10:01 I also sold roses door to door.
0:10:04 So on Valentine’s Day, I bought a few hundred roses.
0:10:06 We dressed up in tuxedos
0:10:09 and we went door to door selling Valentine’s Day roses.
0:10:11 And that probably lasted three weeks.
0:10:13 From the time we came up with the idea
0:10:15 to the time we found the supplier, bought the roses,
0:10:17 went door to door and made our sales.
0:10:20 And then it was all finished at the end of Valentine’s Day.
0:10:21 So these are called side hustles.
0:10:25 And the important point is that they’re not ongoing ventures.
0:10:27 They’re just open and shut and then you can reflect.
0:10:30 You can then sort of see what worked, what didn’t work
0:10:32 and then see if you want to continue after that.
0:10:35 – Something else that I don’t think I’ve ever heard
0:10:37 many entrepreneurs or founders talk about
0:10:39 when they’re giving advice on that preparation,
0:10:42 learning phase, is the importance of writing.
0:10:44 – Yeah.
0:10:46 – Has that had a profound impact on me?
0:10:51 The rate in which I learned was having a practice.
0:10:53 – At what stage in your journey did you write?
0:10:57 – So I made a commitment to myself when I was 24
0:10:59 to write a tweet every day.
0:11:00 – Okay.
0:11:02 – And I would screenshot it, then post it on Instagram.
0:11:06 Now this was maybe the single biggest hack in my life
0:11:07 that I’ve never really talked about
0:11:11 because of all of the downstream consequences that occurred.
0:11:12 Downstream consequence number one,
0:11:14 got to a million followers on Instagram
0:11:16 by posting these quotes of ideas that I had every day.
0:11:19 So every day at 7 p.m., my girlfriend knew at the time,
0:11:20 she goes, he’s going to go off for an hour
0:11:22 and think of something to say.
0:11:25 Downstream consequence number two is it taught me
0:11:28 how to communicate ideas in a concise, high impact way
0:11:30 and kind of what people respond to.
0:11:31 And I’d say number three,
0:11:34 is it generally meant that if I went through my day
0:11:36 and something had happened,
0:11:39 it gave me a moment to condense that down into wisdom.
0:11:41 – Into a little piece of wisdom.
0:11:42 – A piece of truth.
0:11:45 So that day, I learned something.
0:11:47 And without that practice,
0:11:50 those learnings kind of would have passed you by.
0:11:51 – So what you’re describing is actually
0:11:53 beyond just writing, it’s publishing.
0:11:56 And publishing means to make public,
0:11:57 to put something into the public domain.
0:12:00 So yeah, there’s journaling, which you keep private,
0:12:02 but then there’s making something public.
0:12:04 And when you do this,
0:12:07 you have to think about how would this be a value to others?
0:12:10 So you’re thinking, entrepreneurs have to be thinking
0:12:12 about how would this be a value to others?
0:12:13 You’re putting it into the public domain.
0:12:16 So you’re getting feedback as to whether this is a good idea
0:12:18 or a bad idea or okay idea.
0:12:22 So yeah, publishing doesn’t have to be tweeting.
0:12:24 It doesn’t have to be writing a book.
0:12:27 Publishing is video, audio.
0:12:29 It can be long form content.
0:12:30 It can be short content.
0:12:33 You could do shorts, you could do tweets, right?
0:12:34 All of that is publishing.
0:12:37 The essence of publishing is that you’re taking your ideas
0:12:40 and sharing it publicly, putting it in the public domain.
0:12:42 That is a very rapid way to get started.
0:12:46 Interesting fact on this,
0:12:49 that out of the billion people who use LinkedIn,
0:12:52 only 3% are publishing regularly
0:12:54 and less than 1% publish weekly.
0:12:56 So you think that you’re in competition
0:12:59 with a billion people on LinkedIn,
0:13:01 99% of people are just there to kind of lurk
0:13:02 and watch what other people are doing.
0:13:04 Only 1% of people are competing.
0:13:07 1% of people are creating the content on that platform.
0:13:10 When it comes to YouTube,
0:13:12 there’s 2.7 billion users of YouTube,
0:13:15 but only 4% of people have an account
0:13:18 and only a fraction of those accounts are active.
0:13:20 So it’s a tiny percentage of the world’s population
0:13:21 that are creating something.
0:13:23 Most people are consuming.
0:13:25 So one thing that you’re describing is the move
0:13:28 from being a consumer to a creator.
0:13:30 And entrepreneurs have to make that move.
0:13:33 How have you accelerated your learning?
0:13:36 Because you’re someone that is able to give out
0:13:37 lots of different ideas
0:13:38 from lots of different reference points.
0:13:40 And there must be some kind of underlying framework
0:13:43 you’re using to like learn, process and publish,
0:13:45 which now presents you,
0:13:46 which is part of the reason you get invited
0:13:47 onto all these podcasts now
0:13:50 and people are paying you to speak at their events, et cetera.
0:13:52 What was that framework for you?
0:13:55 – So my background was I used to have an agency
0:13:57 and we used to run all these different events
0:14:01 and we used to have to put stuff onto people’s seats
0:14:02 when we were running events.
0:14:04 And I had to kind of write stuff all the time,
0:14:05 like quick reports and all of that.
0:14:06 So I got in the habit of writing.
0:14:08 I saw the power of writing.
0:14:12 In 2009, the entire world tipped on its head
0:14:14 after the global financial crisis.
0:14:16 And I was completely disrupted.
0:14:19 I went from millions of revenue down
0:14:20 to a few hundred thousand of revenue.
0:14:23 I lost 90% of my revenue in one year.
0:14:24 It was massive.
0:14:27 I remember one Christmas party, 17, 18 people
0:14:29 at a Christmas party, the following year was three.
0:14:31 It was morbid.
0:14:34 So during that time where the global financial crisis
0:14:36 had such a deep impact,
0:14:40 I began writing about what is it that I know to be true?
0:14:42 What is it that like, I don’t know much
0:14:44 because I’ve just had the rug pulled out from under me.
0:14:45 What is it I do know to be true?
0:14:49 What are the most strong truths that I could share?
0:14:50 And I ended up writing the book called
0:14:52 Key Person of Influence in 2009,
0:14:55 and it came out in 2010.
0:14:57 And what I felt very confident about was this idea
0:15:01 that the future was going to see a shift
0:15:03 from business and institutional brands to personal brands,
0:15:08 that we would see the decline of big faceless companies
0:15:11 and the rise of individuals whose personal brands
0:15:13 were bigger than the institutions.
0:15:15 And it was pretty radical idea at the time,
0:15:17 but I felt pretty confident about it.
0:15:18 And the more I wrote about it,
0:15:21 the more I felt this was where the world was heading.
0:15:23 If we look today, we can see Brian Cox,
0:15:26 Professor Brian Cox has more followers than CERN.
0:15:30 We can see Richard Branson has orders of magnitude
0:15:31 more followers than Virgin.
0:15:34 We can see Elon’s got more followers than NASA.
0:15:37 We can see Trump is way more powerful
0:15:39 than the Republican party.
0:15:44 So essentially the personal brand has just gone whoosh ahead.
0:15:48 But I started that process very murky
0:15:50 that I didn’t quite know what it was.
0:15:51 It was a feeling or a sense.
0:15:52 And by the time I’d gone through
0:15:57 the publishing process of writing, I was clear.
0:15:59 – And the macro factors that brought that about,
0:16:01 what are those underlying shifts that happened
0:16:05 that meant we went from the logo to the person?
0:16:08 – Let’s zoom out 300 years.
0:16:12 So the agricultural age was essentially,
0:16:13 the economic system was called feudalism,
0:16:15 and there was lords and kings and queens,
0:16:18 and then there were serfs and people who surfed the land,
0:16:20 and then technology changed things.
0:16:22 You can imagine what it must have been like
0:16:24 when 300 people were on a farm,
0:16:27 and then they saw three people on a tractor,
0:16:29 and then that tractor went and went
0:16:32 and did the job of hundreds of people with three people on it.
0:16:36 And it’s like, oh my goodness, what are we all gonna do?
0:16:38 How are we all gonna live our lives anymore, right?
0:16:39 And then they would have said,
0:16:40 well, what are gonna be the jobs?
0:16:42 Like everyone works in farming.
0:16:44 And it’s like, well, there’s gonna be this whole new system.
0:16:46 There will be a completely new economic system
0:16:48 called the industrial system,
0:16:51 and it’s gonna replace everything.
0:16:53 So back in the agricultural age,
0:16:56 if you were a lord and if you were rich,
0:16:57 if you were successful,
0:16:59 you had vast tracts of agricultural land.
0:17:01 But as soon as the industrial age kicked in,
0:17:03 you didn’t even need land.
0:17:05 You only needed a tiny amount of land to put a factory on.
0:17:07 What mattered is that you had the ability
0:17:09 to organize labor and machinery.
0:17:11 And if you could organize a factory,
0:17:13 that was way more economically productive
0:17:15 than hundreds of acres.
0:17:18 So the whole economic system got tipped on its head.
0:17:20 And suddenly it didn’t matter if you were a duke,
0:17:21 it mattered if you were an industrialist,
0:17:23 if you’re a capitalist.
0:17:24 So this whole new system took over,
0:17:26 we had 200 years of innovation
0:17:28 and it went through multiple waves.
0:17:29 But the important thing to know
0:17:32 is that it’s technology that changed things, right?
0:17:33 It’s always a technology shift, right?
0:17:36 The fundamentals of the economy
0:17:38 are dictated by the technology
0:17:39 that we have available to us.
0:17:44 So what happened around the 2000s to 2020
0:17:47 is we had these general purpose technologies
0:17:49 that just got introduced as though they were nothing.
0:17:53 You know, suddenly everyone can publish a video online.
0:17:55 Suddenly everyone can write a blog.
0:17:56 Suddenly everyone can tweet.
0:17:59 Everyone can form a community on Facebook.
0:18:01 There’s this device that you put in your pocket
0:18:05 that is better than a traditional camera studio
0:18:06 that the BBC would have had.
0:18:09 So the power was just rapidly swinging
0:18:11 from institutions to individuals.
0:18:12 I’m sitting there going,
0:18:15 wait a second, an individual has got all the things
0:18:18 that a multinational corporation has access to,
0:18:20 but they don’t have the bureaucracy, right?
0:18:22 They don’t have the weight on their shoulders.
0:18:23 They don’t make slow decisions.
0:18:24 They can make fast decisions.
0:18:27 So as I witnessed this technology being introduced,
0:18:29 I said, the way this is going
0:18:30 is it’s gonna take all the power
0:18:32 of big businesses and institutions
0:18:34 and just give that to individuals.
0:18:36 – That’s exactly what happened.
0:18:37 And I mean, if there was every year
0:18:40 where that’s been more in focus with this election cycle
0:18:43 and what we’ve seen with Trump and going on Rogan
0:18:47 and Kamala going on Alex Cooper in the media lens.
0:18:48 – That’s what cost the election.
0:18:50 So that’s a big trend.
0:18:55 US presidential elections have always predicted major trends.
0:18:57 So Franklin Roosevelt in the 30s,
0:19:00 he did the national radio campaign.
0:19:04 JFK in the 60s did the televised campaign.
0:19:07 Obama in 2008 did the social media campaign.
0:19:10 Each of those campaigns changed the game.
0:19:13 Trump in 2016 did a hyper-personalized
0:19:15 digital data-driven campaign,
0:19:17 famously with Cambridge Analytica.
0:19:19 And that actually gave birth to data analytics
0:19:21 and hyper-personalization.
0:19:25 And then something big happened in 2024.
0:19:28 And what happened is that Trump broke the mold on campaigning
0:19:31 and he started going on all these major podcasts.
0:19:34 And if we actually crunch the numbers,
0:19:39 Trump did something like 40 hours worth of watch time
0:19:42 and it got 124 million views.
0:19:46 And Kamala did, I think it was seven hours.
0:19:47 – Just in the long form.
0:19:49 – Yeah, just on the long form.
0:19:51 She did seven hours total
0:19:53 and it only got a few million views.
0:19:56 And one of her podcasts only last seven minutes.
0:19:58 Now, what she did is she approached it
0:20:00 like a McKinsey consultant,
0:20:01 which is she turned up and she said,
0:20:04 “Here’s the script, here’s the questions.
0:20:06 Ask me these questions and then I’m out of here.”
0:20:09 And it was very much the kind of professional corporate
0:20:10 approach.
0:20:13 Trump rocks up onto comedians podcast and says,
0:20:14 “Yeah, ask me anything.”
0:20:16 And then he just goes on a big rant
0:20:18 and it goes for three hours.
0:20:21 Now, what’s actually happening is quite predictable.
0:20:24 In a world of short videos and in a world of AI
0:20:27 and in a world of confusion and disruption
0:20:31 and where everyone’s throwing punches at each other
0:20:33 saying, “You’re misinformation, you’re misinformation.”
0:20:34 You’ve seen some of this, right?
0:20:37 Going on, misinformation, misinformation.
0:20:39 What’s actually going on is that people say,
0:20:40 “Hey, enough’s enough.
0:20:42 I want to see a long form piece of content
0:20:44 and make my own mind up.
0:20:46 I don’t want anyone to tell me what’s misinformation.
0:20:47 I’m smart enough.
0:20:50 I want to see if this Trump guy is a crazy guy.
0:20:53 I want to be able to see him for two or three hours
0:20:55 and I’ll make my own mind up on that
0:20:57 because everyone’s saying so many different things
0:20:59 and I know that there’s all this confusion.
0:21:01 I want the long form piece of content.”
0:21:06 So, 2024 began the long form unscripted era, right?
0:21:07 So now where we are with marketing
0:21:09 is you’ve got to drop the script
0:21:11 and you’ve got to do long form content.
0:21:13 And here’s my prediction.
0:21:14 The prediction is as we’re going to see
0:21:17 the biggest CEOs in the world clamoring
0:21:20 to get onto this podcast and other podcasts like it,
0:21:22 they’re all going to be wanting desperately
0:21:23 to build their personal brand
0:21:26 because they know that the long form unscripted podcast
0:21:29 is the only way to hire talented people,
0:21:31 the only way to get loyal customers,
0:21:33 the only way to keep investors happy,
0:21:36 it’s going to be the key to the entire shooting match
0:21:39 is that the CEO of a big company has to become human
0:21:41 and they have to be unscripted.
0:21:43 – And what advice would you give them?
0:21:44 ‘Cause you consult for a lot of people,
0:21:45 they come to you for advice
0:21:47 whether it’s the biggest influencers of the world
0:21:50 or CEOs, if you were giving them advice
0:21:53 on how to achieve that goal, what would you say?
0:21:55 – Well, I mostly talk to entrepreneurs
0:21:57 and I mostly care about entrepreneurs.
0:21:59 And the advice I give to entrepreneurs
0:22:01 is work your way up the podcast pyramid.
0:22:05 So there’s literally thousands and thousands of podcasts
0:22:08 that get a few thousand views, just go on those,
0:22:09 go on lots of them.
0:22:10 If you do a good job,
0:22:12 you’ll eventually be invited onto a slightly bigger one
0:22:14 and you’ll eventually be invited onto a slightly bigger one
0:22:17 again and there’s this pyramid of,
0:22:19 there’s a few podcasts as big as yours,
0:22:21 but there’s thousands of podcasts
0:22:23 in every single niche and vertical
0:22:25 where anyone can go on and, you know,
0:22:28 talk about who they are and what they do.
0:22:30 So for any entrepreneur, my challenge to them,
0:22:33 the ones that I’m working with is an absolute minimum.
0:22:36 I want them to create 10 to 20 hours of watch time
0:22:37 in the year ahead.
0:22:40 So I want people to go on 10 podcasts
0:22:43 that last for two hours or one to two hours.
0:22:46 And I want them talking through their business story,
0:22:48 their origin, their mission, their vision,
0:22:49 you know, how they got started,
0:22:50 the types of people they employ,
0:22:52 the types of customer problems they solve,
0:22:54 the outcomes they deliver, all of that,
0:22:58 put it all into a podcast, get good at that format.
0:23:00 – You publish in lots of ways, right?
0:23:03 You publish written form, you publish in video.
0:23:05 Is there anything at all that’s,
0:23:07 if there was one single thing
0:23:09 that’s helped you become better at speaking
0:23:12 or communicating ideas and you can’t say,
0:23:14 no, I’ll take away the restraints,
0:23:15 what would you say it is?
0:23:16 – Frameworks.
0:23:18 – Frameworks, what does that mean?
0:23:20 – So you need communication frameworks.
0:23:24 So if I’m introducing myself to someone,
0:23:28 I use something called name, same, fame, aim and a game.
0:23:30 So we can break that down.
0:23:32 What is my name and my business name?
0:23:36 What is it that I’m the same as
0:23:38 that you already understand?
0:23:39 – Okay, let’s pause there.
0:23:40 Why does that matter?
0:23:42 – When people are storing information,
0:23:43 they need to open a folder
0:23:46 and they want to open a folder that’s very easy to label.
0:23:48 So they don’t want to open a folder
0:23:50 that says I’m an energetic healer
0:23:53 that works with transmutational objects
0:23:56 that could transcend time, space and blah, blah, blah.
0:23:59 They want to go, oh, you’re a life coach.
0:24:00 Okay, great, I understand that.
0:24:01 Or you’re a vet.
0:24:01 Okay, cool.
0:24:05 You’re a consultant, you’re a software company.
0:24:06 Got it.
0:24:07 So it’s like just the most basic thing
0:24:09 that I can then hang everything on that
0:24:11 ’cause I already understand it.
0:24:13 So name, same, fame.
0:24:15 So fame is like, what makes you interesting?
0:24:17 What makes you fascinating?
0:24:18 What big brands have you worked with?
0:24:20 What interesting projects have you landed?
0:24:22 So anything that would make you stand out,
0:24:26 any big numbers, any awards, any big names,
0:24:28 any of that would be your fame.
0:24:31 So name, same, fame, aim,
0:24:34 what are you working on in the next 90 days?
0:24:37 And then game, what is your bigger vision?
0:24:39 What do you want to achieve in the next three to six years?
0:24:41 – I think a lot of people aren’t even clear on that.
0:24:42 – A lot of people aren’t.
0:24:44 And that’s why the framework’s powerful
0:24:46 ’cause it forces you to get clear on it.
0:24:47 If you then get clear on it,
0:24:50 you can introduce yourself with power and authority.
0:24:52 You can do the beginning of a podcast,
0:24:53 you can be on a stage,
0:24:56 just introducing yourself at a networking function.
0:24:57 Believe it or not,
0:24:59 you can cram all of that into 30 seconds.
0:25:03 – And so going back to this point of preparation, right?
0:25:05 So one of the big things that is gonna give me
0:25:07 a significant competitive advantage
0:25:10 if I’m building a business is personal branding.
0:25:13 What else do you think someone like me
0:25:15 at the start of my career needs to understand
0:25:17 about the game of personal branding?
0:25:18 Is there, are there any particular platforms
0:25:19 I should be aiming at?
0:25:22 A particular upload cadence?
0:25:24 A particular type of content?
0:25:25 – Here’s what you need to know.
0:25:29 You need to know that humans have a limited ability
0:25:31 to remember names and faces.
0:25:33 They only have a small number of slots in their brain
0:25:35 for who they remember.
0:25:38 And the number is about 1,500 in total.
0:25:42 And it’s about 150 that you can kind of remember well.
0:25:44 And these are called Dunbar’s numbers.
0:25:46 And Dunbar’s numbers basically said,
0:25:47 you’ve got a few slots for your family
0:25:49 and then some more slots for friends,
0:25:52 then you’ve got your acquaintances right out to 1500 people
0:25:55 that you can easily put a name and a face to.
0:25:57 In order for you to be successful,
0:25:58 you’ve got to get into people’s head.
0:26:01 They have to kind of know who you are.
0:26:04 In order to do that, they have to spend time with you.
0:26:06 They have to have repetition with you
0:26:09 and they have to see you in multiple contexts.
0:26:11 So the research says 7-11-4.
0:26:14 Seven hours, 11 interactions on four platforms.
0:26:16 – Per.
0:26:17 – In order for you to remember me.
0:26:18 – Okay, total.
0:26:21 – So for example, you and I,
0:26:23 we’ve now connected a few times.
0:26:26 So we have probably clocked up maybe seven hours together.
0:26:30 Now what that means is that if I bumped into you
0:26:32 at a conference, even if I was on one side of the room
0:26:33 and you’re on the other side of the room,
0:26:34 you’d say, oh, there’s Daniel.
0:26:35 Your brain would immediately go,
0:26:36 oh, there’s Daniel.
0:26:37 I’ll walk over, I’ll say hello
0:26:39 because we’ve spent enough time together.
0:26:44 Now there’s this phenomenon called parasocial relationships.
0:26:46 Parasocial relationships are basically
0:26:48 one-sided relationships.
0:26:50 It’s how we feel towards famous people.
0:26:53 So we think that we know George Clooney.
0:26:56 We think that we know Angelina Jolly.
0:26:58 We don’t, it’s a parasocial relationship.
0:27:00 That person, we’ve spent time with them
0:27:03 through their movies, through their media appearances.
0:27:07 And therefore, because they’ve clocked up 7-11-4 with us,
0:27:09 we then feel that we know them.
0:27:10 Does this make any sense?
0:27:11 – Makes perfect sense.
0:27:12 – Yeah, so what we have to do
0:27:15 is build parasocial relationships at scale.
0:27:17 So what we have to do is put out enough stuff
0:27:20 where anyone can spend 7-11-11 interactions
0:27:22 for on four platforms.
0:27:25 So when I work with entrepreneurs,
0:27:27 here’s one of the questions I always ask.
0:27:29 I say, if I was to block out tomorrow
0:27:33 and I’m gonna take all day to watch, read or listen to
0:27:35 everything that you’ve got available online
0:27:37 and I’m looking for things that are on message
0:27:39 that tell me about who you are, who you serve,
0:27:41 what it is that you do.
0:27:45 Can I spend all day going through your online environment
0:27:46 and just fill the entire day?
0:27:48 And most people say no.
0:27:50 And then occasionally, some people say yes.
0:27:52 And they say, yeah, actually you can.
0:27:53 I’ve been on a few podcasts.
0:27:55 I’ve got an audio book that I released.
0:27:57 I’ve got some videos on YouTube.
0:27:58 I’ve got some posts on LinkedIn.
0:28:00 You could go through all of that.
0:28:02 Those are the ones that are scaling really fast
0:28:05 because they’ve put in the work to be scalable.
0:28:09 They can build a parasocial relationship like that.
0:28:11 And if we drill down into the art of building
0:28:14 a parasocial relationship, because it’s funny,
0:28:15 at the start of the conversation, you said that
0:28:18 these are the new rules in business in the world
0:28:20 because of these macro changes.
0:28:23 But at some point, the new rules become the old rules again
0:28:25 when everyone listens to this podcast.
0:28:27 And you kind of see it at the moment on LinkedIn.
0:28:31 LinkedIn is a long stream
0:28:33 of professional, personal brand builders.
0:28:36 Whereas five years ago, it wasn’t the case.
0:28:39 But the numbers are still, only 1% of people are doing it.
0:28:41 99% of people aren’t posting weekly.
0:28:42 – So we’re still early.
0:28:43 – We’re still way early.
0:28:48 – But is there a framework for creating
0:28:53 some kind of differentiation amongst a noisy crowd?
0:28:55 – Yes, so the differentiation.
0:28:57 So a lot of people ask me about differentiation.
0:28:59 So let’s talk about what makes you different.
0:29:02 And to talk about this, let’s go through a scenario.
0:29:05 And the scenario is that you’re walking down the street
0:29:06 and you’re walking down Oxford Street
0:29:09 and it’s thousands of people, really busy street.
0:29:11 And as you’re walking down,
0:29:14 your brain has this limbic system
0:29:15 that just deletes people.
0:29:18 So you just kind of see people as blobs, not to hit.
0:29:19 And you just kind of walk.
0:29:21 And if I stop you at the end of the street
0:29:24 and I say, how many people do you remember seeing?
0:29:24 You’ll go, none.
0:29:27 I don’t remember seeing anyone in particular.
0:29:28 If I said describe some of the people
0:29:31 what they were wearing, I can’t remember anything.
0:29:34 So your brain is extremely good at deleting messages.
0:29:36 And this is what’s happening in our marketplaces.
0:29:38 People just delete everything.
0:29:39 Here’s what doesn’t get deleted.
0:29:41 So there’s five things
0:29:43 that will not be deleted by the brain.
0:29:44 The first one is scary.
0:29:48 So if something is scary, we pay attention to it.
0:29:50 This is why the news has been so successful
0:29:51 for many, many years.
0:29:53 Because they say, if it bleeds, it leads.
0:29:56 If it’s scary, if it’s horrible, people will watch it.
0:29:59 Let’s find the worst possible things that happen today.
0:30:01 Let’s blow them up and put them in everyone’s house
0:30:05 so that they spend time watching the news.
0:30:06 So be a scary person.
0:30:08 So be scary, right?
0:30:09 The next one is be strange.
0:30:12 So if you saw someone walking down the street
0:30:14 dressed as a giant hot dog,
0:30:15 you’d say, oh, I remember the guy
0:30:16 who was dressed as a giant hot dog
0:30:17 ’cause it’s so strange.
0:30:18 Peacocking.
0:30:20 Yep, well, peacocking, yeah.
0:30:21 You could try, yeah, exactly.
0:30:23 You could wear that big kind of hat
0:30:24 that you’ve got in the cupboard
0:30:25 that you don’t talk about.
0:30:29 And then the next one’s sexy.
0:30:30 So we’ve got strange.
0:30:33 We’ve got scary, we’ve got sexy.
0:30:34 Now, these are three things
0:30:36 that most businesses don’t wanna be.
0:30:38 So most businesses can’t stand out.
0:30:40 And sexy, even if they wanted to be that,
0:30:42 most people can’t pull that one off anyway.
0:30:45 So only a few lucky people get to do that one.
0:30:49 But actually the last two are the ones that are most useful.
0:30:50 And that is providing free value.
0:30:52 So free things.
0:30:55 Anyone who gives free value away is immediately stand out.
0:30:58 Okay, we’ve gotta make sure that it is value.
0:30:59 It’s gotta be value.
0:31:01 Because everyone thinks what they’re doing is value.
0:31:02 Totally.
0:31:03 It’s gotta be something
0:31:04 that people would have otherwise paid for.
0:31:06 And it has to be beautifully packaged.
0:31:10 So if I hand you a piece of jewelry in a plastic bag,
0:31:12 you’re gonna think, oh, it’s fake or it’s stolen
0:31:14 or it’s not real or something like that.
0:31:15 It’s cheap.
0:31:17 If I hand it to you in a beautiful box
0:31:18 and it’s beautifully wrapped,
0:31:20 you’re gonna say, oh, that’s a very thoughtful gift.
0:31:21 So it’s the way that it’s packaged.
0:31:24 And it’s also that it’s actually something
0:31:25 that people would otherwise pay for.
0:31:27 So providing free value.
0:31:32 And also being familiar, which is clocking up the 7-Eleven-4.
0:31:35 So free and familiar are the two things
0:31:37 that anyone can apply.
0:31:39 So let’s look at you, for example,
0:31:41 you spend tens of thousands of pounds
0:31:43 producing episodes of this show
0:31:46 and you just make it freely available on YouTube.
0:31:49 – I wish that’s how much I spent.
0:31:50 – Well, each show, right?
0:31:55 So you’re putting all this energy and effort in
0:31:56 and you’re putting high production value.
0:31:59 You’re going to the expense of getting all these great guests.
0:32:00 All of this stuff’s going on.
0:32:03 And then you’re making it free for so many people.
0:32:05 You’re including people in conversations
0:32:07 that they normally wouldn’t have access to.
0:32:09 So you have clocked up enormous amounts
0:32:11 of standout value for people
0:32:14 because you’ve been consistent.
0:32:16 So 7-Eleven-4, people have spent seven hours,
0:32:19 11 interactions, four locations with you.
0:32:21 And also you’ve done free value.
0:32:23 So you’ve given a lot for free.
0:32:27 So essentially those are the two, and you’re also strange.
0:32:30 So with those three things,
0:32:33 you’ve been able to succeed massive.
0:32:34 – We do have scary conversations as well.
0:32:35 I have to be honest.
0:32:36 We did the nuclear bomb conversation.
0:32:38 – And happy sexy millionaire.
0:32:39 So you’ve got that as well.
0:32:40 – Yeah, sexy as well.
0:32:41 Thank you so much for that, Daniel.
0:32:43 – You’ve got all five going on.
0:32:44 – But when you were saying this,
0:32:45 I was actually thinking of this
0:32:48 as a marketing framework for brands as well.
0:32:49 I was thinking of that kid that I met
0:32:52 in the promenade in Cape Town with the couple.
0:32:53 And I was thinking if they were starting out
0:32:56 with an idea today in a very saturated environment
0:32:58 like Oxford Street in London,
0:33:00 pulling in on some of these actually gives you
0:33:03 such an unfair advantage to get going.
0:33:06 And I know this myself because when I was 18,
0:33:08 one of the things that I realized
0:33:10 and hindsight was working for me was I looked a bit strange.
0:33:13 I had this big, which some people will find photos
0:33:15 of this big hat that I used to wear.
0:33:16 And I would wear it everywhere.
0:33:17 I wore it because my hair was shit.
0:33:18 – Interesting.
0:33:20 – But it became this distinctive thing
0:33:23 that at conferences, at events, on LinkedIn,
0:33:25 it became part of my brand.
0:33:27 That’s why I interjected with the word peacocking
0:33:29 because looking slightly different in some way
0:33:30 does actually-
0:33:31 – It does work.
0:33:33 Yeah, it cuts through the noise.
0:33:36 The other thing too, let’s go to your friends,
0:33:38 the 21 year olds in Cape Town.
0:33:41 One of the first things we can do for free
0:33:46 is we can productise what’s called the demo
0:33:48 and the customer needs analysis.
0:33:50 So let’s get really tactical here.
0:33:55 When it comes to what most people do to launch a business,
0:34:00 they make a real focus on the supply of what they do.
0:34:02 So if they, let’s say they wanna do a drinks business,
0:34:04 they’re going to talk to bottling companies
0:34:07 and they’re gonna talk to how much do I have to spend
0:34:09 buying the fruit to put in the tea
0:34:10 and do all that sort of stuff.
0:34:13 They’re thinking about the supply of what they do.
0:34:15 If they’re gonna launch a consulting company,
0:34:15 they’re thinking about,
0:34:17 “Oh, do I have the right MBA qualifications?”
0:34:20 And all of this stuff is the supply side of what they do.
0:34:22 What we wanna do when we launch anything
0:34:24 is we wanna test the demand of what we do.
0:34:28 So testing demand, the best way to do this is,
0:34:30 or one of the best ways to do this
0:34:33 is to productise the demo and a customer needs analysis.
0:34:37 So that is where we go around and we sell
0:34:40 a presentation that might be 15 minutes to an hour
0:34:42 where we present what it is that we can do
0:34:44 and how it works and the principles of how it works.
0:34:47 And then we collect enough data to identify
0:34:49 whether you’ve got the need for that product.
0:34:52 So it’s called a customer needs analysis.
0:34:53 So the demo and the customer needs analysis,
0:34:57 you can package that up so it feels like a product.
0:34:59 It feels like something free of value.
0:35:00 – So give me an example then using,
0:35:03 I’m gonna launch a new coffee.
0:35:04 And the point of difference with my coffee
0:35:07 is it is gonna be good for your libido.
0:35:09 – Fantastic.
0:35:13 So let’s imagine that we’re gonna sell that through retailers.
0:35:15 And the real customer is not the end user,
0:35:17 it’s the retailer who’s gonna stock it.
0:35:19 So what I would do is I would say,
0:35:21 we’ve got a new coffee brand coming
0:35:24 and it’s all about coffee for libido boosting.
0:35:27 And what we wanna do is we wanna present to you
0:35:29 the data, the research as to how this coffee works
0:35:31 and why it works and all of that sort of stuff.
0:35:33 We wanna show you the branding,
0:35:35 we wanna show you like what this is gonna look like.
0:35:37 And then also what we wanna do is set up
0:35:40 a customer needs analysis where we collect the data
0:35:43 from several of your locations to find out in advance
0:35:44 whether people would sample this product,
0:35:47 whether they’d buy this product, how much they’d spend.
0:35:50 So we will at our expense do the clip boarding
0:35:53 or we’ll do the wait list campaign
0:35:58 or we will collect the data through a coming soon promotion.
0:36:00 So essentially what we’re gonna do
0:36:02 is we’re gonna present the data
0:36:04 and we’re gonna do the customer needs analysis
0:36:07 or present the demo, the customer needs analysis.
0:36:09 And that’s all gonna be packaged up as our first thing.
0:36:11 And mind you, we may have no coffee at this point.
0:36:14 We may actually have no physical product,
0:36:16 but big retailers, they move slow anyway.
0:36:18 Even if you had product, they wouldn’t buy it today.
0:36:20 So they’re gonna say, oh, that’s fantastic.
0:36:21 That’s what we’d like to do.
0:36:22 We wanna collect the data
0:36:24 and we wanna see the demo and see the research.
0:36:28 So by packaging that up as a first step,
0:36:30 you’re actually providing initial value.
0:36:31 – Do you know one of the things
0:36:32 that I don’t think I’ve ever talked about
0:36:34 that I think entrepreneurs and people
0:36:37 that are founding companies should really consider
0:36:40 is if you’re thinking about, let’s say, writing a book,
0:36:44 instead of writing the book and then hoping it does well,
0:36:48 what you should do is you should take the book idea you have
0:36:51 and then run it as a Facebook ad,
0:36:53 run a hundred different titles.
0:36:55 And when people click on that Facebook ad,
0:36:57 they hit a waiting list.
0:36:59 Now in that whole process, what you’ve just done there
0:37:01 is you’ve figured out the exact percentage of people
0:37:04 that will click on a hundred different ideas.
0:37:06 So for my upcoming book, one of the things that I did,
0:37:08 and some people listening to this,
0:37:12 and I would have seen the ads, is I ran 70 book titles.
0:37:13 – Beautiful.
0:37:15 – So 70 books like this would have popped up in your feed
0:37:16 and people have clicked on them
0:37:17 and they’ve said I would like that book,
0:37:20 they put their email address in or something like that.
0:37:22 And now I have this data and I can type the top of my head.
0:37:23 – Which is the most successful.
0:37:25 – 15% of people clicked a certain one
0:37:27 and the worst performing one was clicked
0:37:32 by 0.3% of people and I could have written a book
0:37:35 about that 0.3 and my maths isn’t exceptional,
0:37:38 but the variance between a 0.3% conversion
0:37:40 and a 15% conversion is like, what is that?
0:37:43 1,500% or something crazy?
0:37:47 And it was cost me 200 quid to run the test.
0:37:50 – Yeah, that’s the beauty of Facebook ads.
0:37:52 You can do a, I mean, at any given time,
0:37:54 we’ve got hundreds of different variations of ads running
0:37:57 and it’s like, it’s basically the hunger games
0:37:59 for which ad performs better.
0:38:01 And people don’t do this sort of stuff.
0:38:05 And this is how professionals like yourself launch businesses.
0:38:07 So with anything that I’m launching,
0:38:10 whether it’s a book or a product or a new business,
0:38:12 we’re going to run a set of Facebook ads,
0:38:14 probably 10, 20, 30 different variations.
0:38:16 When you click on the link, it says,
0:38:18 this product’s no longer available in your area
0:38:21 or this product is not yet available in your area,
0:38:23 but you can join the waiting list.
0:38:24 Click here to join the waiting list.
0:38:26 Now, once people click to join the waiting list,
0:38:31 that’s where we ask about five or six key questions.
0:38:33 So there’s this thing inside people’s head
0:38:35 called the situational model.
0:38:37 And the situational model is, where am I now?
0:38:38 Where do I want to be?
0:38:39 What’s in my way?
0:38:42 And what do I perceive as the path of least resistance?
0:38:45 So all the questions that we ask,
0:38:47 tell me about who you are today.
0:38:49 Which best describes your current situation?
0:38:51 Tell me about where you want to be.
0:38:53 Which best describes the outcome that you’re looking for
0:38:54 from this product or service?
0:38:57 What’s in the way?
0:38:59 Which best describes the reason
0:39:02 you’ve not been able to get that outcome in the past?
0:39:05 And what are you currently considering
0:39:07 as an option for getting that outcome?
0:39:09 So those are the four key questions.
0:39:11 Then we might ask some price questions.
0:39:16 What price do you feel would be a fair price to pay?
0:39:18 What price do you think would be so cheap
0:39:20 that it would make you question the quality?
0:39:22 What price would be so expensive
0:39:25 that you would no longer be able to afford this?
0:39:27 So we’ll ask a few pricing questions.
0:39:30 So we don’t just get people to join a waiting list.
0:39:33 We’re saying we want to understand this situational model
0:39:35 because here’s the interesting thing,
0:39:38 especially with other products, not necessarily books,
0:39:39 but with other products,
0:39:40 sometimes you get a lower click-through rate.
0:39:45 Sometimes you get what appears to be cheaper marketing,
0:39:47 but attracts the wrong person.
0:39:49 And then sometimes you get a poorer performing marketing
0:39:50 campaign.
0:39:53 So this one might produce leads at 10 pounds a lead.
0:39:55 This one might produce leads at 20 pounds a lead,
0:39:58 but this one might be attracting students who are broke
0:40:01 and this one might be attracting chief executive officers
0:40:03 who are on 500 grand a year.
0:40:05 I’d rather pay 20 pounds for that client
0:40:07 than 10 pounds for that client.
0:40:10 So by getting the situational model,
0:40:11 we can actually then understand
0:40:13 which is the best campaign.
0:40:15 – Is there anything else that’s really sort of pertinent
0:40:17 to testing if my idea has legs?
0:40:19 And I want to just add an element to this,
0:40:22 which is we’re not just talking here about the first idea.
0:40:24 We’re talking about every product you then release
0:40:26 in the future. – Every product, every business.
0:40:29 Even your marketing campaigns and everything you do.
0:40:30 – The world is moving so fast
0:40:32 that if you’re an existing business listening to this,
0:40:33 let’s say you’re a big business,
0:40:35 you do tens of millions of profit,
0:40:37 you’re going to be pivoting into new products,
0:40:39 new markets, new territories.
0:40:42 You’re going to be trying to attract different age demographics.
0:40:45 You’re going to be, you know, all of that sort of stuff.
0:40:47 This is one of the rules of the current economy
0:40:49 is about data and testing.
0:40:52 You’ve got to be really fast with how fast you can prototype
0:40:55 and test and get the data.
0:40:57 So we love intro events
0:41:00 where you just simply do an introduction event on Zoom
0:41:02 to talk to customers.
0:41:05 So we’re introducing you to this new coffee.
0:41:06 What do you think?
0:41:08 Come and join the introduction event.
0:41:09 We’re going to share it with you some research.
0:41:11 We’re going to have a guest speaker
0:41:13 who you’ve already heard of, right?
0:41:15 So that would be an introduction event.
0:41:16 I’m a big fan of discussion groups.
0:41:19 Discussion groups are awesome for testing an idea.
0:41:24 So let’s say it’s a discussion group.
0:41:26 You know, let’s say you’re doing a new brand of coffee
0:41:29 and it’s for sex coffee, right?
0:41:32 Sexy coffee.
0:41:34 So yeah, we’re going to do the sexy coffee discussion group, right?
0:41:37 And it’s basically we’re launching a new product.
0:41:40 And it’s all about bringing sexy back to coffee.
0:41:42 And if you love having coffee
0:41:46 and you want to be part of this new brand that we’re launching,
0:41:47 join the discussion group.
0:41:49 Discussion groups are pretty wild.
0:41:51 So I’ll give you two examples of discussion groups.
0:41:56 One of our clients, Gabriella Rosa, she ran a clinic
0:41:57 and it was a fertility clinic.
0:41:59 And it was about natural fertility breakthroughs.
0:42:01 And what she did is she had a physical clinic
0:42:03 that was run in a traditional way.
0:42:05 She wanted to go and be more digital.
0:42:07 So she launched an online discussion group
0:42:09 where she said this is a discussion group
0:42:11 for people who want fertility breakthroughs.
0:42:14 23,000 people doing the discussion group, all right?
0:42:16 And it was super active.
0:42:18 And she never had to worry about customers ever again.
0:42:20 And she built her business then globally from there.
0:42:22 She wrote a book and she changed her business.
0:42:25 She went from a physical location to a digital business.
0:42:28 But it started with a discussion group.
0:42:32 Another guy, one of our clients, Max, he sold the business,
0:42:35 not for a crazy amount of some money, but a decent sale.
0:42:38 And he decided he wanted to spend time with people
0:42:41 who had family offices.
0:42:43 And family offices have hundreds of millions of dollars
0:42:45 to invest in there, like basically the family office
0:42:47 of multi-billionaires and things.
0:42:50 He reached out on LinkedIn and he said,
0:42:51 “I’m launching a WhatsApp group
0:42:53 “for people who run a multi-family office
0:42:54 “or a family office.
0:42:57 “If you’d like to join, it’s limited to 400 people.
0:43:00 “If you’d like to join, fill in the application form
0:43:02 “to be part of our WhatsApp group for family office.”
0:43:04 So he ended up with 400 people
0:43:06 who have collectively over 10 billion to invest.
0:43:09 And he built himself a group of people
0:43:11 who are some of the most successful investors in the world
0:43:13 and some of the biggest checkbooks in the world.
0:43:15 So it just started with a WhatsApp group.
0:43:18 So a discussion group is just a super easy way
0:43:19 to launch anything.
0:43:22 And it costs nothing to set up a discussion group
0:43:25 on WhatsApp, on Facebook, on LinkedIn.
0:43:27 So those are some of the best ways.
0:43:31 And then the final one that I love is called an assessment.
0:43:32 So a quiz or an assessment.
0:43:35 And this is basically where essentially you turn
0:43:38 the customer needs analysis into an assessment
0:43:41 and people fill in questions to find out
0:43:43 if they would like the thing.
0:43:46 So for example, I noticed on one of your…
0:43:47 Which one?
0:43:48 “Hule.”
0:43:51 Sorry, I noticed on “Hule” that you have a quiz.
0:43:55 And the quiz is which “Hule” is right for you.
0:43:57 And if you click that button,
0:43:58 you answer a series of questions
0:44:01 and it tells you which product would be the best product
0:44:02 for you to take.
0:44:05 I noticed that “Woop” didn’t have it, right?
0:44:06 So I actually created one for you.
0:44:09 But anyway, I’ll give it to you later.
0:44:14 But basically, if you wanted to launch a product like “Woop”,
0:44:15 you might do an assessment,
0:44:18 which is how well do you know your health and fitness?
0:44:20 Are you tracking your sleep?
0:44:21 Are you doing this?
0:44:21 Are you doing that?
0:44:23 So by launching the assessment first,
0:44:25 while you’ve got the product in development,
0:44:29 you could get 10,000 people who’ve filled in the assessment.
0:44:31 Now, if they’ve come up with a score that is like,
0:44:34 “Oh, I only know my health and fitness 22%,
0:44:36 “I need to get that up to over 80%,
0:44:38 “I need a product that helps me to do that.”
0:44:41 So that assessment is essentially diagnosing a need.
0:44:44 You’re helping the customer diagnose a need.
0:44:45 That maybe they won’t clear on.
0:44:48 Yeah, so this is customer needs analysis.
0:44:51 Smart businesses often sell the needs analysis
0:44:52 before they sell the product,
0:44:57 especially with anything that is complex.
0:44:59 But it goes beyond that
0:45:01 because most customers now feel a sense of clutter
0:45:02 in their lives.
0:45:04 We’ve gone from feeling,
0:45:06 100 years ago, we felt that we had lots and lots of things
0:45:10 that we wanted or needed and we had unmet needs.
0:45:11 Most people feel the opposite today.
0:45:13 We feel that we have too many books
0:45:14 and we haven’t read them.
0:45:15 We have too much entertainment.
0:45:17 We haven’t watched it.
0:45:18 We have too many clothes
0:45:19 and they’re cluttering up our wardrobes.
0:45:22 Our houses are full of stuff.
0:45:23 So people feel such clutter
0:45:26 that they only want things that are hyper-personalized
0:45:28 to the thing they actually need
0:45:32 because otherwise they feel that it’s gonna be another thing
0:45:34 that they’re not using.
0:45:36 So by selling a customer needs analysis,
0:45:38 when people see that it’s a perfect fit,
0:45:39 then they wanna buy.
0:45:41 – In my last book, “The Diary of the Sea of 33 Laws”,
0:45:45 I talk about the idea that friction can create value.
0:45:48 And I give examples of where someone has added friction
0:45:49 to the customer process
0:45:52 and it’s resulted in more people buying.
0:45:53 And one of the studies I talk about
0:45:55 is where they took two groups of people,
0:45:57 they exposed one of them to a survey
0:46:00 in order to enter a discussion group.
0:46:02 So they had to go through the survey process to get in
0:46:03 and they let the second group
0:46:05 straight into the discussion group.
0:46:09 And then they asked both groups to rate how valuable
0:46:12 and enjoyable they found the discussion group to be.
0:46:14 Now the group that had had to go through a survey to get in
0:46:17 reported that the discussion group was like really interesting,
0:46:18 et cetera, et cetera.
0:46:21 And the group that had been let straight in
0:46:22 reported that it was boring.
0:46:24 And it was an intentionally boring group.
0:46:26 So they made an intentionally boring group.
0:46:28 But just because you made someone go through a process
0:46:31 to get in, people reported that it was more valuable
0:46:33 than otherwise, which says something about our psychology.
0:46:35 Friction does create value.
0:46:38 Demand and supply tension is the ultimate test of value.
0:46:41 You know, it’s horrible to say,
0:46:43 and I hate this being true,
0:46:45 but there is no such thing as objective value.
0:46:47 Nothing is objectively valuable.
0:46:49 Everything is subjective.
0:46:51 Why is a Bitcoin worth what a Bitcoin is?
0:46:52 Because there’s more buyers than sellers.
0:46:54 There’s demand and supply tension.
0:46:55 Why is water free?
0:46:58 Because it’s freely available, there’s no friction.
0:47:01 Why do we never stop and think about how incredible it is
0:47:03 that we have Google Maps?
0:47:05 And like we go, like, oh my goodness,
0:47:09 someone spent a billion dollars sending satellites up
0:47:11 so that I can have maps on my phone for free.
0:47:14 Like no one’s weeping tears of joy for Google Maps.
0:47:16 And we should be, because, you know,
0:47:17 someone spent a billion dollars on our behalf.
0:47:19 So we’ve got free maps on our phone,
0:47:21 but there’s no friction around it.
0:47:23 Now, if they suddenly said we’re taking it away,
0:47:24 we’d hit the roof.
0:47:26 And if they said it’s 10 bucks a month,
0:47:28 we’d pay 10 bucks a month.
0:47:31 So friction creates value.
0:47:34 Demand and supply tension creates value.
0:47:36 Now, the very difficult thing that we have
0:47:39 in the world right now is that in a digital environment,
0:47:41 there’s no natural tension, right?
0:47:45 So a hundred million people can watch a video in a week
0:47:47 and, you know, it transcends time, space,
0:47:49 wear and tear, there’s no barriers,
0:47:51 there’s nothing that stops it.
0:47:54 The money accumulates around those tension points.
0:47:56 So the successful businesses,
0:47:58 they know how to use the digital environment
0:48:00 to drive up demand and manufacture desire
0:48:01 and manufacture demand.
0:48:03 And then they have choke points in their business
0:48:05 or tension points in their business
0:48:08 where demand and supply tension is rife.
0:48:11 And those are the places where they monetize.
0:48:13 Something that’s really interesting about monetization
0:48:15 that’s happening at the moment
0:48:17 is that all the money is moving up to the top 10%, right?
0:48:21 So as we go through this big transition,
0:48:23 the affluence is all up in the top 10%.
0:48:26 So we did some research into this.
0:48:28 The top 1% of people in your audience,
0:48:29 in everyone’s audience,
0:48:32 whether you’re a LinkedIn account
0:48:34 or whether you’ve got millions of followers,
0:48:38 top 1% have got a total of 15% of the budget
0:48:39 available to spend.
0:48:44 The next 9% have got 45% of the budget available to spend.
0:48:48 So in the top 10%, there is 60% of the available budget.
0:48:53 And then the bottom 90% collectively have 40%.
0:48:57 So what happens is that the new business model
0:48:59 that’s emerging is that you give free value
0:49:02 to the bottom 90% and you don’t ask anything in return,
0:49:04 but you monetize the top 10%
0:49:07 and you find things that are very special, very rare,
0:49:10 special experiences, special products, limited editions,
0:49:14 communities, special access.
0:49:15 The top 10% have got all the money.
0:49:18 So you just give free value to 90% of people
0:49:20 and you only create products and services for the top 10%.
0:49:22 That’s very much a new business model at the moment.
0:49:25 – And the 90% are driving your content,
0:49:29 your business, your product to the top 10%
0:49:31 through their engagement, their sharing, et cetera.
0:49:32 – Well, it’s a fractal.
0:49:33 It doesn’t matter what you do.
0:49:36 The top 1%, well, even if you only did something
0:49:38 for billionaires, the top 1% of billionaires
0:49:41 have got 15% of the total budget
0:49:44 and the bottom 90% of billionaires
0:49:45 have actually only got 40% of the budget.
0:49:47 If you take the Forbes list,
0:49:49 it’s still, those numbers still apply.
0:49:52 The key is that you,
0:49:54 well, actually what you wanna do is the opposite.
0:49:57 You don’t wanna get dragged down into the 90%.
0:50:00 Because the 90% of the noisiest, they’re the loudest.
0:50:05 So if you ask everyone how much should I charge,
0:50:08 the average answer is gonna be $500.
0:50:10 But if you ask the top 1%, how much should I charge?
0:50:13 The average answer is gonna be $15 to $20,000.
0:50:15 So you have to be very, very careful
0:50:17 not to create a product that gets dragged down
0:50:21 towards the 90% ’cause the 90% don’t have the budget
0:50:22 to pay the top money.
0:50:25 You’re far better off having a way of,
0:50:30 a way of segmenting that top 10%
0:50:33 so that you can actually pick up the signal from them
0:50:35 and not the noise from everybody else.
0:50:37 – Are there any other frameworks that you would use
0:50:39 in that early stage where you’re trying to figure out
0:50:42 if your idea has traction
0:50:47 or even from a sort of motivation psychology perspective,
0:50:50 if it’s worth pursuing this thing
0:50:52 for the next 10 years of your life?
0:50:53 – Because we talk a lot about, okay,
0:50:54 if someone’s clicked on it,
0:50:55 someone, there’s demand and interest,
0:50:58 but the journey of an entrepreneur is an emotional one.
0:50:59 And as you often say, there’s,
0:51:01 you go through hell and high water,
0:51:02 ups and downs as an entrepreneur.
0:51:04 So there’s an element of this,
0:51:05 which is like figuring out
0:51:07 what you wanna commit your life to.
0:51:09 – Well, we call this the entrepreneur sweet spot.
0:51:12 And the entrepreneur sweet spot is a Venn diagram.
0:51:15 And you’re trying to balance between your passion,
0:51:18 the problem and the value of the problem that you solve
0:51:19 and how much people are willing to pay for that.
0:51:21 So passion, problem, payment.
0:51:27 So ultimately, things that we’re highly passionate about,
0:51:29 that’s great, but that only ticks one box.
0:51:31 And if you’re passionate about something,
0:51:32 but you’re not solving a problem for others
0:51:34 and they’re not willing to pay you for it,
0:51:35 you’re gonna feel very unrewarded,
0:51:37 you’re gonna feel disconnected.
0:51:40 Maybe you feel even unethical about that.
0:51:43 A lot of people in corporate jobs,
0:51:45 they solve a problem and they get paid well,
0:51:46 but they’re not passionate about it.
0:51:48 And what they tend to do is throw the baby out
0:51:50 with the bathwater and they go and pursue
0:51:53 being a yoga instructor from being a corporate lawyer.
0:51:55 And then they wonder why they got no money
0:51:57 ’cause they just kind of threw away the thing
0:51:58 that they’re very good at
0:52:00 and the thing that they get paid for and just exchange it.
0:52:04 So what we have to do is actually try and capture all three
0:52:06 by making some compromises.
0:52:07 And the compromises are,
0:52:10 I’m not gonna go to the thing that is the extreme of passion
0:52:11 and I’m not gonna go to the thing
0:52:14 that it’s the extreme of financial rewards,
0:52:17 not gonna go to the extreme of my intellectual property
0:52:19 and my problem-solving abilities.
0:52:21 I’m gonna find something that is in the middle
0:52:22 that ticks all of those boxes.
0:52:24 So I’m getting a good blend.
0:52:26 – While understanding that there’s gonna be a trade-off,
0:52:28 there’s gonna be- – There’s gotta be some trade-offs.
0:52:30 Yeah, you can’t have it all at the extremes.
0:52:34 You can have it all, but not all at the extremes.
0:52:36 – You talked about something at the start of this conversation.
0:52:39 You mentioned the word geography,
0:52:41 as we were talking about the macro factors
0:52:43 that are at play in the transitions we’ve seen.
0:52:46 My question to you is, does geography matter
0:52:49 for success as an entrepreneur?
0:52:51 So those kids in Cape Town,
0:52:52 do they need to be thinking,
0:52:54 listen, we need to move to one of the major cities
0:52:55 if we’re gonna have a standard chance
0:52:59 in most of these new digital opportunities?
0:53:00 – It used to matter a lot.
0:53:02 When we used to think about entrepreneurs,
0:53:04 we thought about two men,
0:53:06 typically in their 20s,
0:53:09 who came from a prestigious US university.
0:53:11 They got into a garage.
0:53:13 They dropped out of Harvard,
0:53:15 they dropped out of Stanford,
0:53:18 and then they started something that was VC-backed.
0:53:21 That was the old model of what we think of as an entrepreneur,
0:53:24 and it was very much dependent upon those parameters.
0:53:25 Entrepreneurships transcended that.
0:53:29 It’s transcended geography, gender, race,
0:53:32 and also the size and scale
0:53:33 of what we consider to be successful.
0:53:36 So what we’re now seeing is people all over the world
0:53:39 who are able to connect with markets anywhere in the world,
0:53:43 launch a product that can be sold anywhere in the world.
0:53:44 We’re seeing people who bootstrap
0:53:46 rather than get VC capital.
0:53:48 We’re seeing people who,
0:53:49 rather than trying to create something mass market,
0:53:51 they create something niche market,
0:53:54 rather than trying to scale to be a unicorn,
0:53:55 they actually ask the question,
0:53:57 at what size would I be fulfilled?
0:54:00 So there are plenty of people who,
0:54:02 well, one of the most fulfilling businesses
0:54:05 that you’ll ever have has between six and 12 people
0:54:07 and does three or four million of revenue.
0:54:09 And if you’ve got that,
0:54:10 probably you’re gonna be the most fulfilled person
0:54:11 in the world.
0:54:12 – That’s profitable.
0:54:14 – Yeah, well, ’cause a lot of these businesses
0:54:15 have 60% margins.
0:54:16 If they’re digital businesses,
0:54:18 if they’re intellectual property,
0:54:22 if they’re running on the new economy assets,
0:54:23 then they’ll be wildly profitable.
0:54:25 So you might have six to 12 people
0:54:26 do two or three million a year.
0:54:29 You might make a million of clear profit.
0:54:31 And then you’re totally building business
0:54:34 on fund freedom and fulfillment.
0:54:35 Are you the next Google?
0:54:36 Absolutely not.
0:54:37 Do you have VCs breathing down your neck?
0:54:38 No.
0:54:40 Are you able to pick and choose the types
0:54:43 of people and opportunities you wanna work with?
0:54:43 Yes.
0:54:45 So incredibly fulfilling.
0:54:46 So that’s a new type of business.
0:54:49 I would call that a lifestyle boutique.
0:54:50 There’s another type of business
0:54:53 called a performance business.
0:54:56 And this is a business that typically has 30 people
0:54:58 normally working with some sort of technology.
0:55:01 And they build a business that can be sold
0:55:03 for between 10 and 100 million.
0:55:05 And that’s my game.
0:55:07 I like businesses that achieve 10 to 100 million
0:55:10 of valuation with about 30 people on a team.
0:55:13 And we can sell to either a public listed company,
0:55:15 a private equity backed company.
0:55:17 We can exit to any of those kind of companies,
0:55:20 but we don’t have to be the next Google.
0:55:23 And we also don’t have to split the exit with a VC.
0:55:25 Why do you say that when you also just said
0:55:27 that the most fun and fulfilling businesses
0:55:28 are actually those small ones
0:55:30 with a small group of people?
0:55:31 In order to go to that next level,
0:55:33 you have to be a business geek.
0:55:36 So anyone can build a six to 12 person business.
0:55:39 And at that point, all you have to geek out on
0:55:41 is the topic of interest to the customer.
0:55:44 So if your customer loves yoga,
0:55:45 you’re just talking about yoga all the time.
0:55:47 Or if your customer loves photography,
0:55:48 you’re talking about photography.
0:55:50 And you don’t have to be a business geek at that point.
0:55:54 When you’ve got a team of about 30 to 100,
0:55:58 you have to be totally into the product,
0:56:00 the intellectual property of what you do,
0:56:02 but you also have to geek out on technology
0:56:05 and you also have to geek out on business.
0:56:07 So not everyone is built for that.
0:56:09 You have to really love your acronyms.
0:56:11 You need to like, oh, go to market strategy
0:56:13 or lifetime value of a client.
0:56:15 Okay, what’s the LTV?
0:56:17 What’s the GTM?
0:56:20 So you kind of got to be into all of those things
0:56:20 quite naturally.
0:56:23 You naturally want to read business books.
0:56:25 So you’re not going to enjoy that
0:56:27 if you hate business or if you hate technology
0:56:28 because those businesses tend to be
0:56:31 about business strategy and tech.
0:56:32 These ones are about intellectual property,
0:56:34 media and data.
0:56:35 – Got you.
0:56:38 Do you think you’d be happier
0:56:40 if you were less ambitious?
0:56:43 – My happiness levels are really high.
0:56:47 I walk around feeling like I’m super lucky to do what I do
0:56:50 and it’s total privilege and I love living in these times.
0:56:52 I can’t believe I’m lucky enough to be born
0:56:55 at the perfect time to see this change
0:56:58 and to have access to all these resources.
0:57:00 – And how do you think about work-life balance these days
0:57:03 and how should, especially sort of young founders,
0:57:04 when I say young founders, I don’t mean age.
0:57:06 I don’t mean stage.
0:57:07 Should be thinking about work-life balance in your view.
0:57:09 – So I had no balance for many years,
0:57:11 probably a decade or more.
0:57:16 All I did was essentially just get out of bed, work,
0:57:17 everything related to work.
0:57:18 And the reason I did that
0:57:20 is that it ticked all of my human needs.
0:57:22 I was getting significance and variety
0:57:26 and I was getting certainty
0:57:29 and I was getting all of those things that we want from life
0:57:31 and I was feeling a sense of growth and development
0:57:32 and learning.
0:57:35 So everything plugged into those human needs
0:57:37 and my business was giving me all of that.
0:57:40 When I had kids and I got married,
0:57:41 there was this whole other side to me
0:57:42 that needed to be balanced.
0:57:47 And I think that there’s more to do with some seasons,
0:57:48 like that we go through sprints
0:57:51 and I tell friends, family,
0:57:52 hey, I’m going through a bit of a sprint right now.
0:57:54 We’re launching something new.
0:57:57 And then there are times where I switch off a lot.
0:57:59 – Do you goal set at all?
0:58:00 Do you set goals?
0:58:02 – No, I used to set goals
0:58:04 and I used to love setting goals.
0:58:09 I don’t anymore because my key person of influence brand
0:58:12 brings in opportunities that I can’t predict.
0:58:15 So this “Diary of a CEO” thing was an example of that.
0:58:17 I had all these goals for 2024
0:58:20 and then you messaged me while I’m skiing
0:58:22 and say, “Would you like to come on the show?”
0:58:24 And I go, “Of course, that would be amazing.”
0:58:25 So I come on the show
0:58:27 and then that totally transformed my year.
0:58:29 So as you build a brand,
0:58:32 it’s harder to goal set because you’ve got too many things.
0:58:36 So goal setting is about direct power, direct influence
0:58:39 and having a brand is about indirect power
0:58:40 or indirect influence.
0:58:41 It’s what you attract.
0:58:44 So ultimately at the early stages,
0:58:45 goal setting is really important
0:58:48 because it’s how do I direct my energy?
0:58:50 Once you get a little bit bigger,
0:58:52 you have to slow down to speed up.
0:58:55 You have to create space to see what’s happening around you.
0:58:57 One of the biggest mistakes I’ve ever made
0:59:01 was filling my diary so full
0:59:04 that I didn’t see some of the biggest opportunities
0:59:04 that were going on around me.
0:59:07 And I think this has cost me tens of millions.
0:59:10 And I really think at a certain level, strategically,
0:59:12 you have to slow down to speed up.
0:59:15 You have to create gaps where things can hit you.
0:59:18 Things can get onto your radar
0:59:20 or else you miss all the benefits of having a great brand.
0:59:21 – So I have a few questions here.
0:59:25 One of them is about how you measure
0:59:28 or quantify the value of an opportunity looking forward
0:59:29 when you have very little information
0:59:31 about the opportunities.
0:59:34 – So what we’re trying to move towards is leverage.
0:59:35 So we live in a world of leverage.
0:59:37 And there are types,
0:59:38 so it’s important to understand
0:59:40 there are two types of opportunities.
0:59:42 There’s bell curve opportunities
0:59:43 and power law opportunities.
0:59:45 So bell curve opportunities
0:59:47 means that everything fits within a bell curve.
0:59:48 And it’s very unlikely
0:59:50 that anything will be outside of that bell curve.
0:59:52 Power law opportunities means that
0:59:55 because of leverage, the sky’s the limit.
0:59:57 What we have to do is have the courage to move
0:59:59 out of bell curves and into power laws.
1:00:02 So for example, a doctor in the NHS, who I know,
1:00:05 recognize that all doctors
1:00:07 earn roughly the same amount of money.
1:00:08 There’s no outliers.
1:00:10 Everyone who works in the NHS,
1:00:11 if you’re a new doctor, you earn about this.
1:00:14 If you’ve been around for 20 years, you earn about this.
1:00:17 And most people fit within that bell curve.
1:00:19 There’s no doctors who are making a million a month
1:00:20 type thing.
1:00:22 Then there’s the power law.
1:00:24 This particular guy dropped out of being an NHS doctor
1:00:26 to become a YouTuber and recognize
1:00:28 that there are some YouTubers
1:00:30 who are actually earning a million a month.
1:00:32 And boom, there is this power law that goes up.
1:00:34 So what we’re trying to find out…
1:00:35 – Alie Abdaal.
1:00:37 – Yes, of course, Alie Abdaal.
1:00:39 So what we’re trying to figure out
1:00:40 is we’re trying to figure out
1:00:45 is this a bell curve or a power law?
1:00:50 So being a speaker on a stage, absolutely a power law move.
1:00:52 Being friends with a billionaire in Italy
1:00:54 and having access to that capital,
1:00:57 access to whatever networks they’ve got,
1:00:57 all of that sort of stuff.
1:00:59 If they’re the right sort of person,
1:01:00 there’s definitely two types of billionaires.
1:01:05 But that’s probably an exponential opportunity, right?
1:01:10 It puts you further up the power law.
1:01:12 It’s not a bell curve opportunity.
1:01:14 However, if someone says,
1:01:17 can we meet to talk about some incremental thing?
1:01:19 No, that’s a bell curve, right?
1:01:22 That’s not gonna break me out of what I’m doing.
1:01:23 So for most people listening to this,
1:01:26 most people are trapped inside a bell curve.
1:01:28 You’re never gonna get out of that bell curve.
1:01:31 Every opportunity fits within that bell curve.
1:01:32 You’re only gonna incrementally move
1:01:34 from one side of the bell curve
1:01:36 to the other side of the bell curve.
1:01:36 And that’s about it.
1:01:38 There is no massive upside.
1:01:41 If that’s you, what you need to be doing
1:01:43 is spending a little bit of time
1:01:46 talking to people about exponential opportunities, right?
1:01:49 And exponential opportunities always involve leverage.
1:01:51 That’s what creates the exponential shift.
1:01:52 Leverage could be fame.
1:01:54 Leverage could be capital.
1:01:56 Leverage could be large databases.
1:01:59 Leverage could be huge distribution networks
1:02:00 that already exist.
1:02:01 Leverage could be a partnership
1:02:04 with someone who’s way further along than you are.
1:02:06 Leverage could be being in business first,
1:02:07 being in a job.
1:02:09 So all of those things are things
1:02:10 that move you onto the power law.
1:02:13 And it’s almost the skies at the limit at the moment
1:02:18 because in 2010, 28% of the world had fast internet.
1:02:22 And in 2025, 70% of the world has fast internet.
1:02:26 So 70% of eight billion people have got fast internet.
1:02:28 So the world, the actual,
1:02:31 the number of people available to talk to
1:02:34 has gone into the billions and billions and billions.
1:02:37 The amount of capital is flooding into the internet.
1:02:39 Everything is in that space.
1:02:41 And ultimately, unfortunately,
1:02:43 one of the things that’s happening at the moment
1:02:45 is that you’re either in competition
1:02:47 with everyone in the world
1:02:50 or everyone in the world is a potential customer.
1:02:53 And if you feel that you’re in competition
1:02:56 with everyone in the world, which a lot of people do,
1:02:57 it’s terrifying.
1:02:58 It feels horrible.
1:03:02 It’s absolutely scary to think that,
1:03:03 for a lot of businesses and a lot of individuals
1:03:07 with a career, it’s like, wow, I’m in competition with AI.
1:03:10 I’m in competition with an agency in India
1:03:13 or a remote worker in the Philippines
1:03:15 who’s happy for $5 an hour.
1:03:17 I’m in competition with someone
1:03:19 who’s phenomenally well-funded in LA.
1:03:23 I’m in competition with this incredible tech team
1:03:24 in Silicon Valley.
1:03:26 YouTubers.
1:03:27 YouTubers.
1:03:29 I’m competing on the opportunity.
1:03:30 I’m competing for attention.
1:03:32 Like, how am I gonna survive?
1:03:33 And then the flip side of that
1:03:35 is that once you make this transition
1:03:38 to this new rules, new way of doing things,
1:03:39 then it flips.
1:03:41 It’s like, oh, everyone’s a potential customer.
1:03:43 So how do you think about defense?
1:03:46 You know, in many of your businesses that you run,
1:03:48 you’re in competition with lots of people.
1:03:51 Where do you find areas to defend against that competition?
1:03:54 They’re sort of proverbial blue oceans.
1:03:58 – So what I’m looking for when I set up my businesses to scale
1:04:02 is we ask the question, how many people this year
1:04:06 could we either take on and leave them feeling
1:04:07 completely delighted?
1:04:10 How many people this year would represent
1:04:12 a phenomenally good year, right?
1:04:14 So in one of the businesses, the number is 600.
1:04:17 We say, okay, 600 people.
1:04:19 If we have 600 people, 600 clients
1:04:21 in this particular business for this year,
1:04:22 that’s a really good year.
1:04:24 We’re happy with that year.
1:04:26 So we call that the official capacity of the business.
1:04:29 We give it a name, official capacity is 600.
1:04:31 Then we ask the question,
1:04:34 what percentage of our leads buy that product?
1:04:37 And in that business, it’s one in 66.
1:04:39 So for every 66 leads we generate,
1:04:41 we get one client who’s the perfect client.
1:04:44 So it’s a very particular focus business.
1:04:48 So then we know that we need to engage 49,000 people.
1:04:51 And if those 49,000 people engage with us,
1:04:54 then we will be able to select the 600 clients we work with
1:04:57 and that we will absolutely do everything we can
1:04:59 to leave those 600 people feeling delighted
1:05:02 that they wanna recommend it and refer it and they love it.
1:05:06 And for us, just simply knowing those numbers,
1:05:09 that allows us to say, oh, okay, we engage 49,000 people.
1:05:10 We make our 600 sales.
1:05:12 It’s a super successful year.
1:05:13 We can celebrate that.
1:05:15 So by setting the rules to our game,
1:05:18 we’re not dragged into anybody else’s rules.
1:05:21 And that means that we’re playing a really defensive game.
1:05:24 We’re defending against all the things that we could focus on
1:05:27 by being really specific about what we wanna focus on.
1:05:29 – And for those kids on the promenade in Cape Town
1:05:31 that I keep referring back to,
1:05:32 if they’d asked you if they said,
1:05:37 Daniel, what industry would you start a business in today
1:05:42 if you were us and you had limited funds?
1:05:44 – Well, let’s do some big trends.
1:05:47 So the biggest opportunity at the moment
1:05:52 is 50% of the economy is owned by baby boomers,
1:05:54 people aged 61 to 79.
1:05:57 So that’s 50% of the US economy,
1:06:00 50% of the Australian, the New Zealand, the Canadian,
1:06:01 the UK, right?
1:06:03 So all the sort of major Western economies
1:06:05 that had a baby boom,
1:06:08 50% of the economy is owned by people aged 61 to 79.
1:06:12 So those people are going through a big life change.
1:06:15 They’re transforming the way they live and work.
1:06:17 They wanna get rid of their businesses.
1:06:18 They wanna move into advisory roles.
1:06:19 They wanna travel.
1:06:21 They wanna have different relationships.
1:06:24 They wanna have different priorities.
1:06:26 So I would definitely be thinking about
1:06:28 how do I work with that group of people?
1:06:31 I’m either gonna buy their business and take it over,
1:06:32 which would be an opportunity.
1:06:34 I’m gonna build a business that disrupts the current way
1:06:36 that they’re doing business.
1:06:38 Or I’m gonna sell to that market ’cause they’re cashed up.
1:06:40 They got loads of time, loads of money.
1:06:42 And every business could think about
1:06:45 how it’s going to sell to a baby boomer market
1:06:46 ’cause that’s 50%.
1:06:53 – So a good example might be of a baby boomer business.
1:06:55 What’s a good baby boomer business?
1:06:56 – Everything.
1:06:57 The whole economy is made up of,
1:07:00 like if we went out on the street here,
1:07:02 the person down the road who’s fixing,
1:07:04 who’s doing the MOT on the cars
1:07:05 is a baby boomer business.
1:07:07 The guy who services the elevators
1:07:09 that come up and down here, that’s a baby boomer.
1:07:12 The air conditioning unit business is a baby boomer business.
1:07:15 The courier company that kinda dropped everything off
1:07:17 is a baby boomer business.
1:07:22 The whole damn shooting match is like half the businesses
1:07:24 and especially by revenue and valuation.
1:07:27 It’s all baby boomers, or half baby boomers at least.
1:07:30 – And there may be sort of a digital arbitrage
1:07:32 or opportunity that there’s been created
1:07:36 with the transfer of, with the rise of digital
1:07:38 that they might have missed that you could seize upon.
1:07:41 – It massively, well, one of the things is
1:07:43 that every single business in the world
1:07:45 is gonna be disrupted by AI.
1:07:50 And you’ve gotta be the company that uses AI when they’re not.
1:07:54 And using AI, like being disrupted by AI,
1:07:56 just means that every employee is way more effective
1:07:57 because they’re using AI.
1:08:00 So one of the simple things to disrupt a business with AI
1:08:03 is to run a training workshop with all the people
1:08:06 in the company about how they could use AI in their role.
1:08:08 And you could watch some videos online
1:08:11 and you could play with chat GBT.
1:08:16 Recently, we introduced an AI system to one of our businesses.
1:08:19 We have 250 video case studies of clients
1:08:22 who are happy customers and they’ve recorded a video for us.
1:08:24 And they’re amazing video case studies,
1:08:24 but there’s too many of them.
1:08:26 There’s so many video case studies.
1:08:30 So we created an AI bot that reads and understands
1:08:32 all of those video case studies.
1:08:34 And then for my sales team,
1:08:36 when they’re talking to a customer,
1:08:41 they’re just typing in the type of scenario
1:08:43 that that person’s going through.
1:08:45 And the bot is then suggesting,
1:08:47 oh, this is the video case study, this is the customer,
1:08:50 this is what they said, same industry as you,
1:08:51 same problem, same challenge.
1:08:54 And then here’s the link to the video case study.
1:08:57 So our sales team can be super effective
1:08:59 at sending you through the exact video case study
1:09:02 that’s relevant to you because the AI bot has read
1:09:05 and understood everything in one of our video case studies.
1:09:07 So that’s an example.
1:09:10 – There’s been so many of these technological revolutions
1:09:14 over the last 50 odd years that I looked back on
1:09:16 and thought, oh gosh, I wish I was there at the dot-com boom.
1:09:18 I would have become a billionaire.
1:09:20 I would have had a variety of different ideas.
1:09:22 Do you think the AI is that now?
1:09:23 Do you think we’re living through that?
1:09:25 – We’re early, it’s so early, right?
1:09:27 It’s the moment.
1:09:31 I remember when Steve Jobs launched the App Store
1:09:35 and that was 2007, 2007, 2008.
1:09:37 It was two years later that Instagram was launched.
1:09:40 It was two years later that Uber was launched.
1:09:42 And then there was a march of hundreds
1:09:47 of different businesses and now applications are everywhere.
1:09:50 The bigger example would be electricity.
1:09:55 So it was the 1830s where we generated electricity,
1:09:58 but it wasn’t till the 1930s that we filled our houses
1:09:59 full of things that ran on electricity.
1:10:01 So it was a hundred-year transition.
1:10:07 Now with AI, we’re at the early stage of generating AI,
1:10:09 but we’re not yet into the stage
1:10:12 of creating everything that runs on AI.
1:10:16 So think about a power station versus a toaster.
1:10:18 So the power station’s been invented,
1:10:21 but there’s thousands and thousands and thousands
1:10:22 of toasters that can be invented.
1:10:24 Toasters, kettles, vacuum cleaners,
1:10:26 things that run on electricity.
1:10:28 So AI is like electricity,
1:10:29 but we haven’t built all the businesses
1:10:32 that are gonna plug in and are gonna be great opportunities.
1:10:35 And that’s gonna be over the next 10 to 15 years.
1:10:38 Every single industry, you can’t name an industry
1:10:39 that’s not gonna be impacted by this.
1:10:41 Every industry is gonna have applications
1:10:44 that run on AI, there’s gonna be new teams.
1:10:47 Do you know what happened just a couple of weeks ago?
1:10:51 NVIDIA launched a supercomputer for $3,000.
1:10:55 Now this is gonna be the fundamental basis
1:10:59 for 10 people, companies that do a billion of revenue.
1:11:02 This is gonna be entrepreneurs who crunch some data,
1:11:04 figure out a little application.
1:11:06 Because of that kind of compute power,
1:11:07 they’re gonna come up with something
1:11:08 and it’s gonna be a billion dollar business
1:11:10 with 10 people working on the team.
1:11:12 There’s gonna be a little healthcare unit
1:11:13 that figures out how to crunch data
1:11:16 and solve a really complex health problem
1:11:18 and they’ll figure out how to do it.
1:11:21 That supercomputer, the three grand supersedes
1:11:23 what people used to be spending
1:11:26 three to six to nine grand a month on.
1:11:28 So previously you would have had to subscribe
1:11:30 to that level of compute
1:11:33 and you would have been spending $50,000 a year
1:11:35 just for the cloud subscription to that sort of thing.
1:11:39 Now one payment of $3,000, you can be anywhere in the world
1:11:42 crunching any amounts of phenomenal data.
1:11:45 So just that one thing, that one innovation
1:11:49 is gonna totally transform industries.
1:11:54 – I would imagine that I’m gonna guess 95% of people
1:11:57 that are listening right now don’t know a lot about AI.
1:12:00 They also don’t really know a lot about technology
1:12:03 to the extent that many other people do the 5% do.
1:12:05 For those people who are, you know,
1:12:08 it could be the taxi driver, it could be the janitor,
1:12:11 it could be a student in university studying philosophy
1:12:14 or something, what advice would you give them?
1:12:16 If you were the puppet master of their life now
1:12:19 and you had to get them close to this opportunity,
1:12:22 what are the sort of steps you take towards
1:12:23 being able to capitalise on something
1:12:24 like Nvidia’s supercomputer?
1:12:27 – Yes, so of course it’s a pyramid.
1:12:29 So the schooling system taught you
1:12:30 that the way to be successful
1:12:32 was to turn labour into skilled labour.
1:12:34 So become skilled labour.
1:12:36 Your time and your skills are what’s valuable.
1:12:39 And that was the industrial revolution model for everybody.
1:12:40 We all went through that system
1:12:42 and we said that’s where the journey ends.
1:12:43 In fact, if you want, you can go to university
1:12:45 and become really skilled labour.
1:12:47 You get a Masters and become really skilled labour.
1:12:49 PhD becomes super skilled labour.
1:12:52 And the whole goal is sell your time for more money.
1:12:54 And then sitting on top of that is this new universe.
1:12:56 And the new universe is this digital economy.
1:13:00 And the first step above it is called intellectual property.
1:13:04 Intellectual property is where rather than learning more stuff,
1:13:06 you reflect and create some stuff.
1:13:08 So you say, oh, over the last five years,
1:13:11 I did something special with that client
1:13:12 and we got a great result.
1:13:14 And I can explain it step by step.
1:13:15 I’m going to document that.
1:13:17 I’m going to turn that into a story
1:13:18 and I’m going to record a video about it.
1:13:20 And I’m going to have a little poster with a wheel
1:13:22 that explains how we did that.
1:13:24 And then I’m just going to let people know about that.
1:13:27 So now we’re in the business of intellectual property.
1:13:29 Intellectual property is anything written,
1:13:31 anything on video, anything audio, right?
1:13:34 So intellectual property couples up with media.
1:13:37 So IP and media are the next level above skilled labour.
1:13:41 So the first step, get out of skilled labour model
1:13:43 and get into intellectual property and media.
1:13:45 And just making that step opens you up
1:13:48 to this whole other world of opportunities.
1:13:50 If you must know the book Seven Habits
1:13:52 of Highly Effective People, Steven Covey.
1:13:55 He passed away 10 years ago.
1:13:57 He was not some special guy.
1:14:00 He was a church leader in Utah.
1:14:02 He did some consulting with small businesses
1:14:05 and he did some consulting with churches.
1:14:07 But he just reflected on what he’d seen
1:14:10 and he reflected on a few studies that he’d come across
1:14:12 and he wrote this book Seven Habits
1:14:13 of Highly Effective People.
1:14:16 So he went from skilled labour, consulting,
1:14:18 to intellectual property and media,
1:14:21 which was his written word plus his book publishing.
1:14:22 So that’s step one.
1:14:24 And mind you, he sold 20 million copies
1:14:27 and he built a $400 million consulting company,
1:14:30 but it was based on IP not his labour.
1:14:31 So that’s step one.
1:14:35 Sitting above that is data and intellectual property,
1:14:38 media and data and software.
1:14:40 So once we have IP and media,
1:14:43 now we want data and software.
1:14:46 So data is where we build a database.
1:14:47 We get email addresses.
1:14:49 We get information about customers.
1:14:51 We know more about markets.
1:14:52 We get people filling in forms.
1:14:54 We get people filling in scorecards.
1:14:56 We start conducting surveys.
1:14:59 So we’re capturing data that’s unique to us.
1:15:01 And then software is the ability
1:15:03 to turn our intellectual property into an engine
1:15:07 that just automatically delivers a result.
1:15:08 And in that software bucket
1:15:11 is the ability to create AI applications.
1:15:15 So you’re gonna have to move your way up that pyramid.
1:15:17 And then the final little top of the pyramid
1:15:20 is the ability to create financial assets.
1:15:22 Financial assets is where you sell your business
1:15:23 for an amount of money.
1:15:25 So you actually package all of that
1:15:27 into a business that can be sold
1:15:29 and that business becomes a financial asset.
1:15:30 The shares become a financial asset
1:15:33 and then you make a lot of money by selling a company.
1:15:35 So you can’t jump straight from
1:15:37 being labor or skilled labor,
1:15:40 straight up to software and data and those sorts of things
1:15:43 which is the AI, advanced AI stuff.
1:15:46 So you got to go through intellectual property,
1:15:49 media, data, software.
1:15:50 – And what do you do with your money?
1:15:51 So everyone has a difference
1:15:53 with a finance strategy or an investment strategy.
1:15:55 What’s your investment strategy?
1:15:59 – I’ve said to you before that I,
1:16:01 like I really trust the advice
1:16:04 that you can’t outperform markets.
1:16:06 Everything’s already priced into markets.
1:16:10 So for me personally, like I put money into S&P 500,
1:16:12 I put it, you know,
1:16:15 basically things that you’d call a store of wealth.
1:16:18 I don’t think that’s particularly exciting.
1:16:22 I’m not, you know, sometimes I see people talking about,
1:16:24 like, oh, what should someone do
1:16:26 if they’re owning 50 grand a year to invest?
1:16:28 Honestly, it’s not going to do anything.
1:16:31 Like you’re just like, obviously do it,
1:16:35 but I believe it’s far better to take that money
1:16:37 and invest it into your key relationships.
1:16:39 I think it’s better to take that money
1:16:41 and put it into a startup.
1:16:43 Like actually, you know, buy yourself some time
1:16:44 so you can, you know, move in.
1:16:46 What would move into this new economy?
1:16:50 The thing that excites me most
1:16:53 is just creating really valuable businesses.
1:16:55 I have a group of companies now
1:17:01 and let me explain,
1:17:02 here’s an idea.
1:17:04 The economy doesn’t want you to become rich, right?
1:17:06 Doesn’t want you to accumulate money, right?
1:17:09 The whole economy is set up so that you can’t get money
1:17:10 or you can’t keep it.
1:17:14 And what people think you do to make money
1:17:16 is that they think that you take a little piece
1:17:19 out of the economy and squirrel it away and store it up.
1:17:22 And that’s not actually how people become rich.
1:17:25 What they do is they create something from their mind
1:17:27 and they formalize it into a company
1:17:29 and then they get people to invest in that company
1:17:31 and that creates new wealth in the economy
1:17:33 that didn’t exist, never existed.
1:17:35 It was a figment of their imagination
1:17:37 and that new wealth we call that innovation
1:17:39 and entrepreneurship.
1:17:42 And what happens, and I’ll give you a real life example.
1:17:46 So book magic is one of my software startups.
1:17:49 We raised 400,000 pounds for 10%,
1:17:52 which means 3.6 million pounds worth of value
1:17:54 is new value that never existed.
1:17:55 It’s just added to the economy.
1:17:58 It’s this new economic asset called shares in this company.
1:18:00 10% of the shares were 400,000.
1:18:04 3.6 million is the other 90% that doesn’t actually exist.
1:18:06 It was just a figment of the imagination.
1:18:09 So it’s called innovation and entrepreneurship.
1:18:12 Very slowly, that becomes more and more real
1:18:15 and then bigger companies come in and acquire that
1:18:16 or people acquire those shares
1:18:18 and then it becomes a liquidity event.
1:18:20 You get capital and then you reinvest that capital
1:18:23 into creating new things in the economy.
1:18:25 So the way rich people become rich
1:18:27 is not by squirreling little bits
1:18:29 out of the existing economy.
1:18:31 It’s by creating something new that never existed
1:18:34 and slowly introducing that into the economy.
1:18:37 So it’s building things that didn’t exist.
1:18:41 So when I hear people trying to get this tiny little bit
1:18:44 out of the economy and then they’ve got to pay taxes on it
1:18:47 and then the UK government wants half of everything
1:18:49 and it’s horrific, you never,
1:18:50 like you will just be on this treadmill,
1:18:52 you’ll never get out of it.
1:18:54 But if you can create something
1:18:56 and you can have innovation and entrepreneurship,
1:18:58 you can build something that’s worth five million,
1:19:03 10 million, 20 million from your mind, from your brain.
1:19:05 And then you introduce it and formalize it
1:19:06 and it goes into the economy
1:19:08 and it’s actually a new asset in the economy.
1:19:10 – And what is the horror that we need to warn people about
1:19:13 if they decide to do what you just said?
1:19:14 ‘Cause everything in life has a cost.
1:19:18 So starting a $20 million company comes,
1:19:19 I meet so many founders.
1:19:21 I had one in the office yesterday,
1:19:23 great founder from the UK, young lady,
1:19:25 she’s done exceptionally, exceptionally well,
1:19:28 got a company that I think is gonna make 35 million
1:19:30 and she’s going through a fucking horrific time.
1:19:34 And it came out of her brain.
1:19:35 – Yeah, the biggest horror
1:19:37 is that we were never trained for this, right?
1:19:40 So all of society is built for the industrial revolution
1:19:45 system and it’s not built for the digital revolution system.
1:19:50 So, you know, we were told don’t be disruptive
1:19:52 and yet the disruptors are making all the money.
1:19:57 We were told you can’t ask someone to do your homework
1:19:58 for you, yet the people who make all the money
1:20:00 get someone else to do all their homework for them.
1:20:05 We were told, you know, don’t be an attention seeker,
1:20:09 but attention seekers make all the money.
1:20:11 So there’s all of this stuff that we were taught
1:20:14 about becoming standardized component labor
1:20:17 and that mindset is always fighting you
1:20:18 when you’re running a business
1:20:21 because over here running a new business,
1:20:24 it’s exciting, it’s exhilarating, it’s creative,
1:20:25 but it feels wrong.
1:20:27 Feels like you’re doing something like weird
1:20:28 because you’re outside of the system.
1:20:31 – Yeah, there’s no blueprint.
1:20:33 There’s no clear blueprint that anybody trained you for.
1:20:35 – Yeah, you certainly didn’t know schooling.
1:20:37 In fact, the schooling system taught you everything wrong.
1:20:39 It’s the opposite.
1:20:42 They wanted you to become standardized component labor
1:20:44 and over here you have to be unique intellectual property.
1:20:48 – So you’re also dealing with platforms that are brand new
1:20:51 and also just like a social environment that is brand new.
1:20:53 And I say that because obviously post-pandemic,
1:20:54 the rules of work changed.
1:20:55 – Completely.
1:20:56 – And the Zoom and technology.
1:20:59 – We went from geography to ideal customer personas
1:21:00 and communities.
1:21:03 So all of our entire economy, in fact,
1:21:04 if you think about our governments,
1:21:05 our governments are struggling
1:21:07 because they define themselves by geography,
1:21:10 but the digital world’s not defined by geography.
1:21:12 So when the government of the UK says,
1:21:13 “We’re putting up the taxes,”
1:21:15 all the millionaires go, “Okay, we’ll leave.”
1:21:18 And then they’re like, “Oh, no.”
1:21:19 I mean, Norway did this as well, right?
1:21:22 All these multi-billionaires just packed up and left.
1:21:23 Oh, we’re introducing a wealth tax.
1:21:24 Okay, bye.
1:21:25 – You’ve commented a lot on this
1:21:27 over the last couple of months.
1:21:28 What is your position on this?
1:21:31 ‘Cause there’s lots going on geopolitically.
1:21:33 The UK changed the tax system.
1:21:36 US got Trump coming in and he’ll be in
1:21:38 by the time this podcast is out probably.
1:21:39 – Well, my position is that we should collect
1:21:41 the most amount of taxes that we can,
1:21:44 but the way to do that is with low taxes, not high taxes.
1:21:47 Because in a world where people can freely move around,
1:21:49 you need to be an attractive place
1:21:50 for people to come to.
1:21:54 People say, “Oh, we don’t like rich people.”
1:21:56 Well, actually rich people pay a lot of taxes.
1:21:58 1% pay 30%.
1:22:01 So you need, if you wanted to double the tax base,
1:22:04 get a few more of this 1% people to come here.
1:22:08 The UK was thriving when we used to have
1:22:10 a $10 million SEIS, or sorry,
1:22:14 a 10 million pound entrepreneurs relief,
1:22:18 made the UK one of the best places to do business.
1:22:20 – So just for people that have never experienced
1:22:21 entrepreneurs relief,
1:22:24 can you explain exactly who that impacts and when?
1:22:26 – Yeah, so essentially entrepreneurs relief
1:22:29 acknowledged that entrepreneurs are taking
1:22:31 a huge gamble in what they do.
1:22:33 They’re pouring time, effort and energy and resources
1:22:36 into their business in an unpaid capacity.
1:22:38 And that when they finally get a success,
1:22:40 if they get a success,
1:22:42 then one of the ways of acknowledging that risk
1:22:44 and making that a good decision
1:22:48 is that you only pay 10% tax on the first,
1:22:52 well, it used to be 10 million of exit value.
1:22:57 And now it’s on the first 1 million of exit value.
1:23:01 So essentially, if you’re paying roughly the same
1:23:04 as income tax on starting a company,
1:23:06 then for a lot of people,
1:23:08 they’re just not gonna start a company, right?
1:23:10 They’re not gonna take the risk, they’re not gonna innovate.
1:23:12 And then the investment also slows down.
1:23:14 If people can earn more money
1:23:15 by just sitting on their capital
1:23:17 and sticking it into a property,
1:23:19 they’re not gonna invest in startups.
1:23:21 So you have to have, if you want an economy
1:23:23 that’s based on actual innovation and change
1:23:26 and transformation and AI and software and data
1:23:27 and the new economy,
1:23:31 you have to incentivize investors to do that.
1:23:33 It’s also a globally competitive landscape.
1:23:37 So as soon as you’ve got Dubai saying,
1:23:39 hey, we don’t even do income tax, right?
1:23:41 And also when you go to Dubai,
1:23:43 tax feels like such a scam
1:23:45 because you go, wait a second, they’re police force,
1:23:47 they’re hospital’s work, everything’s clean.
1:23:49 They’ve got no potholes, their buildings are amazing.
1:23:50 – They’re crime.
1:23:53 – No crime, the transport’s working,
1:23:55 like the whole place is working like clockwork.
1:23:57 You go, but how are they doing this
1:23:59 without collecting 45% of the economy’s tax?
1:24:04 In the UK, 45% of the entire economy is government spending.
1:24:05 – Are people leaving the UK?
1:24:07 – 10,000 millionaires left last year.
1:24:09 – So when I think about all the really exceptional people
1:24:11 that I hired over the last 10, 15 years,
1:24:14 every single one of the truly exceptional ones that I go,
1:24:17 I bet a lot on that person, they all live in Dubai.
1:24:18 They’ve all gone.
1:24:19 Some of them have moved to America,
1:24:20 some of them are working in SF.
1:24:22 – Even America, which is high tax,
1:24:25 but you start paying the highest rate of tax
1:24:27 at eight times the average wage.
1:24:29 Here you pay the highest rate of tax
1:24:31 at three times the average wage.
1:24:34 So they’re not letting anyone get ahead.
1:24:37 Now, the other day, Keir Starmer says,
1:24:40 we wanna be leaders in AI.
1:24:42 Well, unfortunately, we have the most expensive electricity,
1:24:44 so you can’t run data centers here,
1:24:46 and we also have the highest tax rates,
1:24:48 so highly skilled, highly talented people
1:24:49 do not wanna be here.
1:24:51 And I hate to say it, everyone’s like,
1:24:53 oh, you know, we need to tax the rich.
1:24:55 Sorry, they can leave, they really can.
1:24:56 And in this digital economy,
1:24:58 with the personal brand, with data, with software,
1:25:02 with media assets, those assets pick up on a phone.
1:25:05 Like you literally leave with your phone and you’re fine.
1:25:07 – I saw this narrative playing out over the last year,
1:25:09 and I’m a skeptic.
1:25:10 I’m also like politically apolitical.
1:25:12 – Yeah, same, I’m right in the middle of it.
1:25:13 – I don’t have a team.
1:25:15 – I look at these narratives playing out,
1:25:17 and I try and figure out if it’s a certain person
1:25:19 has an agenda, they’re trying to push the narrative
1:25:21 because they’re rich and they want the tax lower,
1:25:23 or if another person on the other side has an agenda
1:25:25 because they wanna tax the rich more.
1:25:27 And where I ended up landing,
1:25:28 purely based on what I saw in my life,
1:25:31 with rich people around me,
1:25:33 and the decisions they started to make,
1:25:35 is a lot of the most successful people
1:25:36 that if I was Keir Starmer,
1:25:38 I’d wanna keep in this country,
1:25:40 especially the ones that don’t have the mortgage yet
1:25:42 and the family, they are off.
1:25:43 – They’re off, yeah.
1:25:44 – They are going.
1:25:45 And then the stats came out,
1:25:47 which I think recently said that about 10,000.
1:25:49 We’ve had like an exodus of these people.
1:25:51 And I know it’s triggering for some people
1:25:53 because they fucking hate rich people,
1:25:56 and they just think that rich people should just,
1:25:59 but if you are truly, I think, in the middle,
1:26:01 you do come to understand to some degree
1:26:03 that the backbone of our economy
1:26:06 is entrepreneurship, small businesses,
1:26:08 with AI and technology becoming
1:26:10 an even greater part of our economy.
1:26:11 There’s a certain type of entrepreneur
1:26:12 that’s likely to build and succeed in AI
1:26:14 that we really need to keep.
1:26:16 And we are competing geographically
1:26:19 with San Francisco, Dubai, Abu Dhabi.
1:26:20 – We absolutely are.
1:26:22 The other reason, the other thing people think
1:26:24 that rich people are taking money out of the economy,
1:26:25 and the opposite is happening.
1:26:28 They’re creating wealth that pumps into the economy,
1:26:30 and they’re creating it from figments of their imagination.
1:26:32 They’re building things that didn’t exist
1:26:35 that come into the economy as new wealth.
1:26:37 If we were living, now, mind you, that’s not all millionaires.
1:26:40 Some millionaires are horrible landlords
1:26:42 who make their money by bullying people.
1:26:44 If you live in certain locations,
1:26:45 the only millionaires you’ve met
1:26:49 are probably slum landlords or something like that.
1:26:50 That’s not who we’re talking about.
1:26:52 We’re not talking about people who are rent seekers
1:26:55 or people who kind of bully people around
1:26:56 or any of that sort of stuff.
1:26:58 We’re talking about wealth creators,
1:27:00 people who are coming up with new intellectual property
1:27:02 and bringing it into the economy
1:27:04 to create jobs and wealth and investments,
1:27:06 and they make the world go round.
1:27:08 One of the reasons we have wealth inequality
1:27:10 is not what’s being talked about.
1:27:13 Wealth inequality is because of technology
1:27:14 and technology adoption.
1:27:16 So I want you to imagine that we’ve got two people
1:27:18 who are racing each other in a marathon.
1:27:21 One person is running and one person’s on a bicycle,
1:27:23 so they’ve got technology that they’re leveraging.
1:27:26 The person on the bicycle is going to be
1:27:28 powering ahead effortlessly,
1:27:30 and it’s going to look like a very unfair thing,
1:27:32 and you say, well, this person works
1:27:33 just as hard as this person.
1:27:35 Why are they getting ahead a lot faster?
1:27:38 ‘Cause this one on the cycle is leveraging technology
1:27:40 and this person’s not leveraging technology.
1:27:43 When we go through these great shifts,
1:27:45 we actually get people who are stuck in the old system
1:27:47 and people who are in the new system.
1:27:48 Charles Dickens wrote about this
1:27:50 in the early Industrial Revolution.
1:27:53 There were all of these kids that were on the street, right?
1:27:54 All of a twist.
1:27:57 And there was this huge wealth inequality
1:27:59 as some people were industrialists
1:28:01 and some people were still in the feudal system
1:28:02 and the agricultural age.
1:28:05 Some people’s income was linked to capitalism.
1:28:09 Some people’s income was linked to feudalism.
1:28:12 So in the same way that that was happening then,
1:28:14 we’re going to see a very similar Dickens.
1:28:15 I mean, he had that famous book called
1:28:17 “The Tale of Two Cities.”
1:28:17 It was the best of times.
1:28:20 It was the worst of times was the opening line.
1:28:21 We’re going to have the same thing now.
1:28:22 It was the best of times.
1:28:25 It was the worst of times because
1:28:28 we’re going to have some people who are leveraging technology
1:28:31 and they live a life of fun, freedom, fulfillment,
1:28:32 financial success.
1:28:34 And we, some people who are stuck in the industrial age
1:28:35 who sit there and say,
1:28:37 “I work as hard as I possibly can
1:28:38 “and I cannot get ahead.
1:28:41 “I’m falling behind year after year after year.”
1:28:42 And it’s because we have two systems
1:28:44 operating in parallel.
1:28:46 – Okay, so the people that would counter you now
1:28:49 when you talk about the idea that these individuals
1:28:51 that are leaving are wealth creators,
1:28:54 what is the counterpoint?
1:28:58 That is, you know, does make sense.
1:28:59 There are some rich people, I know,
1:29:02 that are hoarding a lot of stuff.
1:29:06 I mean, they do create opportunities for the economy,
1:29:09 but they’re in a hoarding season of life,
1:29:10 just kind of stacking it up.
1:29:13 They’re not really giving it to many people
1:29:15 and they’re playing certain money games just to build wealth.
1:29:17 They’re not necessarily creating huge economic value.
1:29:21 – So what we need is nuance.
1:29:22 And we need the nuance to understand
1:29:26 that there are poor people who are rent seekers,
1:29:30 who are not productive, who are takers from the economy.
1:29:32 There are rich people who are takers from the economy.
1:29:36 And there are rich people who are phenomenal wealth creators
1:29:37 who create opportunities around them.
1:29:38 There are poor people
1:29:40 who are phenomenally valuable to the economy.
1:29:44 So if we were to just simply make no distinction
1:29:46 by just simply the level of wealth or income,
1:29:48 it doesn’t distinguish between,
1:29:50 let’s say a nurse who’s on 30,000
1:29:52 and someone who’s a drug dealer on 30,000.
1:29:55 They’re not, there might be economically the same.
1:29:58 They’re not the same types of people in the economy.
1:30:02 So what we need to do is have some nuance and understand
1:30:04 what is the behaviors that we want to incentivize?
1:30:06 What is the behaviors that we want to avoid?
1:30:10 We want to make it hard to simply stick all of your money
1:30:13 in expensive assets and then rent them out.
1:30:15 We want to tax that.
1:30:17 And we want to make it easy to invest in new economy.
1:30:20 We want to make it easy to bring down the prices of things.
1:30:23 We want to make it easy for wealthy people
1:30:25 to invest into startups.
1:30:29 We want to make it easy for people to relocate here.
1:30:31 And it’s an attractive opportunity
1:30:34 to build a business here and create jobs here.
1:30:37 We’ve just stuck a 15% tax on top of employing people.
1:30:39 So a lot of entrepreneurs have responded
1:30:42 by outsourcing to remote workers.
1:30:44 I know plenty of companies
1:30:45 that are now hiring people in the Philippines
1:30:48 and South Africa because it’s 15,
1:30:50 but straight off the back, all things being equal,
1:30:54 it’s 15% cheaper to hire someone overseas than here.
1:30:55 So the government is making the wrong moves.
1:30:57 They’re just doing the wrong thing.
1:31:00 They’re making it expensive to hire people here.
1:31:02 They’re making it expensive for talented people
1:31:04 to live here and be here.
1:31:05 So the economy is going to suffer
1:31:07 until they get the head around the fact
1:31:10 that we’re a globally competitive economy.
1:31:11 We have to be globally competitive.
1:31:13 That we live in a digital world.
1:31:15 It’s just going to get worse and worse.
1:31:16 – Is this in part because the way
1:31:17 that the political system is set up
1:31:20 is that the prime minister or the president has four years.
1:31:22 So actually they’re quite short term.
1:31:23 ‘Cause I’m thinking of Keir Starmer,
1:31:26 he’s saying that he walked into this deficit
1:31:30 and now it looks like he’s scrambling around for the money.
1:31:32 And the long-term play here would be,
1:31:33 we need to change the schooling system.
1:31:35 So that in 15 years time,
1:31:39 we’ve got a lot of AI knowledge based in our economy.
1:31:40 – It’s not that.
1:31:42 It’s just that in the industrial age,
1:31:44 we created institutions that were appropriate
1:31:47 for the industrial age and now they’ve run to the end.
1:31:49 And now they’re just outdated.
1:31:52 Look at the name, the UK government.
1:31:54 That means it’s a geographical border.
1:31:58 The London City Council means it’s at M25, right?
1:31:59 Is the geography.
1:32:03 The British, the UK economy.
1:32:06 So anything that is defined by geography
1:32:07 already misses the point.
1:32:09 Straight off the bat, it misses the point.
1:32:11 And the point is that we live in a world
1:32:14 where you can sell to anyone in the world,
1:32:16 you can hire anyone in the world,
1:32:18 you can pay anyone in the world.
1:32:21 You can build a brand effortlessly from your phone.
1:32:23 You can live and work from anywhere.
1:32:26 You can create companies super easily.
1:32:28 Like all of those things,
1:32:31 like the fundamental technology has shifted.
1:32:33 So it’s like saying,
1:32:36 oh, how do we change the Duke and Lord system
1:32:38 and the serfdom system?
1:32:40 It’s like, well, that was for the agricultural age,
1:32:42 that was the system that evolved.
1:32:44 We’re gonna need a completely different system
1:32:47 because we now have an industrialized economy.
1:32:52 So unfortunately, we’re going into a digital world,
1:32:53 or we’re in a digital world
1:32:55 and the entire government is set up
1:32:57 for the industrial economy.
1:32:59 National identity was a massive thing in the industrial age.
1:33:02 National currency was a very big thing
1:33:03 for the industrial age.
1:33:07 – Do you think Trump’s gonna make good decisions?
1:33:08 – He’s certainly gonna be a disruptor.
1:33:09 He’s gonna be an accelerant.
1:33:11 Whatever’s happening,
1:33:13 I think he’s gonna break things that we’re going to break.
1:33:15 And I think he’s probably gonna bring in some things
1:33:18 that, you know, emerge as good things.
1:33:22 I think we were definitely going in the wrong direction.
1:33:24 You know, we were becoming, you know,
1:33:25 governments of the world
1:33:28 were becoming very authoritarian for a while there.
1:33:31 You know, they’re really policing different, you know,
1:33:33 elements of our lives and speech and those sorts of things.
1:33:38 And all of that’s gonna definitely swing back the other way.
1:33:39 The pendulum has already swung back the other way
1:33:43 if you saw the Mark Zuckerberg announcement the other day.
1:33:45 – Are you bullish on America?
1:33:47 – Oh, America is definitely the most bullish place.
1:33:48 Yeah.
1:33:49 – So this goes back to something I said earlier
1:33:51 in terms of if I’m an entrepreneur
1:33:53 and I want to position myself where the opportunity is,
1:33:55 where the capital is, where the mentality is.
1:33:58 – Yeah, where is actually online.
1:34:01 So the where is digital.
1:34:02 You know, you can go to Silicon Valley
1:34:03 and you’ll see some of the poorest people
1:34:05 living next to some of the richest people.
1:34:07 So it’s not a geographical thing.
1:34:08 It’s a mindset.
1:34:10 And the mindset is digital versus analog
1:34:13 or digital versus geographical.
1:34:15 So, but the biggest economy,
1:34:17 the winner take all is the US, right?
1:34:20 Because the US is in a very unique position.
1:34:22 They’re energy independent, they’re food independent.
1:34:26 They’ve got massive natural geographical borders
1:34:28 so they don’t have to police their neighbors.
1:34:29 They don’t have,
1:34:32 they have one friendly neighbor at the North called Canada
1:34:35 and one neighbor they can work with called Mexico
1:34:37 below contrast China.
1:34:40 I think they’ve got 17 neighbors to manage.
1:34:44 So the US has got clear runways,
1:34:47 biggest economy in the world, most technology,
1:34:50 most universities, all of that sort of stuff.
1:34:54 – We take our time when it comes to hiring a flight story
1:34:57 because I fundamentally believe the success of a business
1:34:59 is directly linked to how good you are at hiring
1:35:02 and better hiring starts with smarter insights.
1:35:04 LinkedIn, who’s a sponsor of this podcast
1:35:06 are some of the strongest hiring data available
1:35:09 to help you identify the best candidates for your business.
1:35:11 Their platform will even pair you with those
1:35:12 who match what you’re looking for,
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1:35:19 Because these days,
1:35:22 hiring isn’t just about finding the most qualified person,
1:35:24 but also finding the one whose experience,
1:35:26 abilities and interests align with your company’s mission.
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1:35:50 So is there anything else that would be on the list of things
1:35:55 that if you were a 21-year-old Daniel Priestley
1:35:56 and you’re in 2025,
1:35:59 what are the fundamental moves you’d be making?
1:36:00 I can guess a couple of things.
1:36:03 You’d definitely be making content, that’s for sure.
1:36:06 You’d be climbing the podcast pyramid,
1:36:09 build more and more leverage and reputation, etc.
1:36:11 Are there any other big life decisions?
1:36:14 So the key is the big opportunity
1:36:18 is build a personal brand next to an elegant business model.
1:36:19 That’s everything.
1:36:21 If you build the personal brand,
1:36:23 it doesn’t have to be a massive personal brand.
1:36:25 If you’ve got five to 50,000 followers
1:36:27 within a high-value niche,
1:36:29 if you’re seen as a key person of influence
1:36:30 in a high-value niche,
1:36:34 that’s enough of a personal brand to make seven figures.
1:36:35 If you’ve got an elegant business model,
1:36:38 you can sell to anyone in the world,
1:36:41 you can communicate your value to anyone in the world,
1:36:43 that’s some of the stuff with an elegant business model.
1:36:46 So essentially, those are the two pillars.
1:36:48 If you’re not financially successful
1:36:49 or where you wanna be at the moment,
1:36:52 you wanna look at building a personal brand
1:36:55 and attaching that personal brand to the right business.
1:36:56 Those are the two steps.
1:37:00 So ultimately, if I was 21,
1:37:01 I’m trying to build my personal brand,
1:37:04 I’m trying to attach that brand to a great business.
1:37:07 That’s the key to capital, it’s the key to talent,
1:37:08 it’s the key to customers.
1:37:11 So it’s that personal brand on a scalable business.
1:37:15 You look at every single person who’s succeeding right now,
1:37:17 they’re focused on just those two things.
1:37:19 – Why don’t people do that?
1:37:20 When they hear you say all of that,
1:37:23 why is it that they then don’t do it?
1:37:24 And those people agree.
1:37:25 So they start at home now,
1:37:27 they go, yeah, I get it.
1:37:29 The foundations you laid are perfect, makes sense,
1:37:30 and they still don’t.
1:37:32 – I’ll tell you why.
1:37:34 Years ago, I went to Bali
1:37:38 and I saw this massive mountain on the horizon
1:37:41 and we decided that we were gonna book a trip to climate
1:37:45 and it’s called Mount Agung.
1:37:48 So they wake us up at midnight and we get in a bus
1:37:51 and we have to go to the mountain at midnight
1:37:53 and climb through the night, all right, that’s crazy.
1:37:56 And so from one o’clock in the morning,
1:37:57 all through the night,
1:37:59 we’ve got this tiny little headlamp on
1:38:00 and we’re climbing and we’re scratching
1:38:03 and we’re like going up the side of the mountain.
1:38:06 And finally we get up there about six a.m.
1:38:07 And I’m like, I didn’t even realize
1:38:08 why we were climbing through the night.
1:38:09 Like it hadn’t even occurred to me,
1:38:11 why would we be doing it like this?
1:38:14 And then finally we get up the top and I realize,
1:38:16 oh, this is why we’re doing it at six a.m.
1:38:17 ‘Cause the sun comes up at six a.m.
1:38:18 So we get to the top of the mountain
1:38:20 and the sun comes up and it’s like glorious.
1:38:24 The air is thin, it’s crisp, it’s just incredible.
1:38:26 And it’s cold, right, which is rare in Bali.
1:38:28 And then the sun lights up Bali
1:38:31 and I can see all of Bali and all of the glimmering sea
1:38:32 and it was just beautiful.
1:38:34 I’m standing there and I’m just loving it.
1:38:37 Taking it in and we put eggs in the hole
1:38:39 and the volcano steam cooks the eggs.
1:38:42 And then I look onto the horizon
1:38:44 and there’s this thing called Mount Ranjani.
1:38:46 I say to the guide, what’s that mountain over there?
1:38:48 He goes, oh, that’s Mount Ranjani.
1:38:50 I go, oh, is that on the island of Bali?
1:38:51 He goes, no, no, that’s on a different island.
1:38:53 I go, oh, how do you get there?
1:38:54 You’ve got to catch a ferry.
1:38:55 How many days does it take?
1:38:56 Oh, you’ve got to go for three days.
1:38:57 How long does it take to climb?
1:38:59 Oh, it takes about this much time.
1:39:01 Is it higher or lower or blah, blah, blah?
1:39:02 How much is it?
1:39:03 Can I book through you?
1:39:06 And he says, Mr. Daniel,
1:39:07 you need to appreciate the mountain
1:39:09 you’re standing on right now.
1:39:12 Fits his arm around me.
1:39:14 You need to learn to appreciate the mountain
1:39:16 you’re already standing on.
1:39:17 So when I was standing on that mountain,
1:39:19 I could see everything but the mountain, right?
1:39:21 I’m looking around the horizon.
1:39:21 I’m seeing all this.
1:39:23 I’m seeing the mountain on the horizon.
1:39:24 But I couldn’t see the mountain
1:39:25 that I was already standing on
1:39:27 ’cause I was too close to it.
1:39:32 So the biggest thing that people miss in today’s world
1:39:34 is that they’re already standing on a mountain of value.
1:39:36 They’ve already got so much value
1:39:38 but they’re so distracted by the mountain on the horizon.
1:39:39 They go, oh, Stephen Bartlett,
1:39:41 he’s already so much further ahead.
1:39:43 He’s creating, he creates podcasts.
1:39:44 I could never do that, right?
1:39:47 Or they go, oh, you know,
1:39:48 I saw this person who’s really good in my industry
1:39:50 and they wrote a book and I could never write like that.
1:39:53 Or, you know, you know,
1:39:54 I don’t know if I’ve got anything of value to share.
1:39:57 Some people have floated a company for a billion dollars
1:39:59 and I’ve only just started, right?
1:40:01 What am I gonna share?
1:40:04 And what they miss is that every single person,
1:40:05 your story is relevant.
1:40:08 Your background is relevant.
1:40:11 The people that you know is part of the mountain of value.
1:40:14 You know, your relatability is part of the mountain of value.
1:40:16 You’re losing your relatability
1:40:19 because as you go so high, people just starting out
1:40:21 can’t even comprehend how to get there.
1:40:23 So someone in the middle is gonna take a place
1:40:25 that you previously occupied
1:40:26 because they’re more relatable.
1:40:29 There are only two steps ahead, not 20 steps ahead.
1:40:32 So every single person has this mountain of value,
1:40:35 but the biggest thing at the moment is the distraction
1:40:36 of all the other stuff
1:40:38 and you’re so close to your own mountain of value,
1:40:39 you can’t see it.
1:40:42 So the first thing I love to do is just put my arm around people
1:40:45 and say, please learn to appreciate the mountain
1:40:46 you’re already standing on.
1:40:48 – It’s so true.
1:40:51 And yeah, so I was just talking to someone
1:40:53 before you came in about my girlfriend.
1:40:55 She’s a breath work practitioner.
1:40:57 She’s got her own studio, barleybreathwork.com,
1:40:59 if anyone wants to get her retreats.
1:41:01 And she, hashtag out, I guess.
1:41:03 And she was spending a lot of time
1:41:05 talking about making Instagram videos again.
1:41:07 And in fact, I think a year, two years passes
1:41:08 and she’s talking about it
1:41:10 and she’s gonna buy, she buys a camera
1:41:11 and buys another camera
1:41:13 and buys another camera, et cetera, as we all do.
1:41:15 And I realized that eventually,
1:41:17 the reason why she wasn’t starting is she was so,
1:41:20 I think a little bit too focused
1:41:24 on how it might perform that first video she dropped
1:41:25 that she never dropped the video.
1:41:30 And I was reading a book over the Christmas break.
1:41:32 I think it was the courage to be disliked.
1:41:34 And it talks about the possibility gap,
1:41:36 something like the possibility gap
1:41:38 where it’s the gap, but when you say,
1:41:42 you announce your intention and before you do it.
1:41:43 And you can live in this gap
1:41:46 because there’s been no evidence to prove you can’t share.
1:41:47 There’s been no evidence to prove
1:41:49 that you’re actually not good at violin
1:41:50 or you’re not good at DJing.
1:41:51 So you can live in this gap for a long time.
1:41:54 It’s like the world, the realm of possibility.
1:41:54 You’ve announced it.
1:41:56 People are now giving you credit for it.
1:41:58 And there’s been no evidence to prove you can’t do it.
1:41:59 And one of the things that actually got her posting
1:42:01 over Christmas was when I said to her,
1:42:03 instead of like trying to make good videos,
1:42:06 let’s make the objective, get to video 1,000.
1:42:08 She’s posted every day since.
1:42:11 She’s posted 30 odd videos on her Instagram since then.
1:42:12 – She changed the goal.
1:42:14 – The minute she, the goal became,
1:42:18 let’s get to video 1,000, she was off to the races.
1:42:21 – The other thing that happens is in an exponential world,
1:42:23 in an exponential curve,
1:42:26 every double eclipses everything that came before it.
1:42:28 And when you go through a doubling speed,
1:42:29 you’re doubling and doubling and doubling.
1:42:31 Each double is worth everything before.
1:42:32 So imagine this.
1:42:35 We put one grain of rice on a chessboard,
1:42:38 then two, then four, then eight.
1:42:40 Eight is bigger than seven that came before.
1:42:44 Then 16, which is bigger than 15 that came before that, right?
1:42:45 And it goes like this.
1:42:48 So every double eclipses everything that came before.
1:42:53 So in an exponential world, just those 1,000 videos,
1:42:58 you might only get 10,000 followers, right?
1:42:59 It might be small.
1:43:00 But then you get a breakthrough.
1:43:01 And then in that breakthrough,
1:43:04 you get more than 10,000 followers from that breakthrough.
1:43:05 But it was all of that that led to that.
1:43:07 – That’s exactly what happened to me.
1:43:09 Almost to the number. – And to me.
1:43:11 – The really important part there for me as well
1:43:13 is just to go for 10 years at anything,
1:43:16 you are gonna need to really love the fucking thing.
1:43:17 And so as much as we talk about strategies
1:43:19 and tactics and wait lists and all these things,
1:43:22 the overarching thing of how do we get to consistency
1:43:23 so we can start to compound
1:43:26 is a consequence of love and passion.
1:43:28 – And repetition.
1:43:29 This is what we’re talking about, repetition.
1:43:31 How many times has a Dell song set fire to the rain?
1:43:34 How many times has Ed Sheeran done Castle on the Hill?
1:43:37 How many times have Metallica done Master of Puppets?
1:43:42 So like all of the greatest that you admire,
1:43:45 they all do repetition and it’s perfect reps.
1:43:47 They do it over and over and over again.
1:43:49 No one’s talking about this.
1:43:52 Some of the biggest, most successful businesses, WD-40.
1:43:55 WD-40 was the 40th attempt to create a spray
1:43:59 that would do that thing that WD-40 does.
1:44:00 And then for the last 50 years,
1:44:03 they’ve just been selling WD-40, it’s their one product
1:44:06 and they just sell it in a small can or a big can.
1:44:09 Tabasco Source, it’s a 150 year old business
1:44:10 and they just sell Tabasco,
1:44:12 but every house in the world has Tabasco Source.
1:44:16 Fender Stratocaster guitars, they figured it out in 1950s
1:44:18 and they have made that same guitar ever since.
1:44:20 Porsche 911, they’ve barely changed it,
1:44:23 but Porsche 911 is the most successful sports car
1:44:25 because they just get good at doing Porsche 911s.
1:44:30 You know, I love Swiss Army knives, Rolex watches.
1:44:32 They are all businesses where they figure out what to do
1:44:34 and then they just fall in love with the repetitions.
1:44:36 They just do it and do it and do it and do it.
1:44:39 And you’ve done 400 episodes of the show, I think.
1:44:41 You know, and the first 100…
1:44:43 Is that true?
1:44:44 421.
1:44:45 421.
1:44:47 421 episodes of the show.
1:44:50 I would almost guess that the last 21
1:44:52 probably eclipsed the first 100.
1:44:56 To say the least, right?
1:44:59 In fact, when I was on the show last time,
1:45:02 you’d just crossed 5 million subscribers.
1:45:04 I think you’re coming up on 10 million.
1:45:06 Yeah, we did 500,000 in December.
1:45:08 So this is called doubling speed.
1:45:09 Yeah, it’s man-mental.
1:45:11 Doubling and doubling and doubling.
1:45:13 What will blow your mind is that you’ll go from 10 million
1:45:16 to 20 million in the year ahead.
1:45:19 So it feels, ’cause that’s exponential growth.
1:45:23 If you continue to do the reps, you will cross 10 million.
1:45:26 And in the same speed that you went from five to 10,
1:45:27 you’ll go from 10 to 20.
1:45:32 You’ll have 20 million subscribers to the channel.
1:45:34 If you continue to do the reps.
1:45:37 So when we crank the handle, we go through doubling speeds.
1:45:41 And you wanna figure out what is the activity
1:45:42 that leads to exponential growth
1:45:44 and just do it, do it again.
1:45:46 And fall in love with doing it.
1:45:48 It’s really that simple.
1:45:50 Well, if you’re playing the right game, it is.
1:45:53 I analyzed your episodes, by the way,
1:45:55 of your last 117 episodes.
1:45:57 What percentage were authors?
1:46:02 I’m gonna say it’s a high percentage.
1:46:04 It’s very high, 78%.
1:46:04 Okay.
1:46:08 91 out of 117 are authors.
1:46:10 They’ve all written books.
1:46:13 But what’s interesting is the ones who haven’t written books
1:46:17 are typically superstars and megastars in some other thing.
1:46:21 But almost all of your guests have written at least one book.
1:46:23 But 78% of your guests have written a book.
1:46:25 Writing a book is a good idea.
1:46:27 It is a good idea.
1:46:29 And it’s a good idea for the unobvious reasons
1:46:31 that most people don’t think it’s not necessarily to sell books.
1:46:33 ‘Cause I’ve got a book that’s sold pretty well,
1:46:34 but I don’t think it’s gonna,
1:46:36 I don’t necessarily think it’s made much money.
1:46:39 No, it’s relationships on steroids.
1:46:40 It is the ability to have a relation.
1:46:42 It’s a parasocial relationship.
1:46:43 It’s the ability to have a relationship
1:46:46 with an anonymous person on the other side of the planet,
1:46:49 where they clock up seven hours with you.
1:46:53 Literally what was once inside your head word for word
1:46:55 is now inside their head word for word.
1:46:57 So you actually connected a very deep level
1:46:59 with people at scale.
1:47:01 So authors becoming an author,
1:47:04 one thing that I recommend to all the listeners
1:47:07 is have a goal to become an author.
1:47:09 Even if you haven’t done anything, yeah.
1:47:11 – Well, you can document your journey.
1:47:13 You can discover that you are standing
1:47:14 on a mountain of value.
1:47:17 A lot of people think they’ve not done anything.
1:47:20 I have had, I’ve had people who’ve written
1:47:23 really successful businesses about the passion
1:47:25 that they have and the vision that they have.
1:47:27 Sorry, really successful books
1:47:28 about the passion and vision that they have.
1:47:30 I have people who, like I’ve got someone
1:47:35 who was very successful at selling as a small business,
1:47:36 selling a corporate contract.
1:47:37 And they wrote a book
1:47:40 about how small businesses can sell to corporates.
1:47:43 And that was based on maybe eight to 10 major contracts
1:47:46 that they’d won, but then they documented the process.
1:47:48 And now they have a whole business
1:47:51 teaching small businesses to sell to corporates.
1:47:53 So like if you’ve done one little thing,
1:47:56 that could actually be a massive business bigger
1:48:00 than one of our guys, Howard Tinker,
1:48:01 he ran a successful restaurant
1:48:04 and he had a successful process for building his restaurant,
1:48:06 regulars and people who, you know, locals
1:48:07 who come back and back.
1:48:11 And he actually wrote a book, it’s an Australian term,
1:48:12 but he says more bums on seats.
1:48:14 In America, it would have to be more butts on seats,
1:48:17 but he wrote the book called More Bums on Seats,
1:48:18 gave it out to a thousand restaurants
1:48:21 and said, “Here’s how I built my restaurant.”
1:48:23 And then ended up building a massive coaching
1:48:25 and consulting business, teaching restaurants
1:48:27 how to do their sales and marketing.
1:48:29 So he had one little restaurant
1:48:33 and then he turned it into a big thing.
1:48:34 Gabriela, who I mentioned before,
1:48:37 she helped some couples get pregnant
1:48:39 through her fertility interventions.
1:48:41 And then she wrote a book called Fertility Breakthrough
1:48:44 and now she gives away 4,000 copies a year
1:48:46 and her business is massive.
1:48:47 – On that point of sales,
1:48:49 are there any frameworks for sales
1:48:52 that you advise or give to entrepreneurs when they’re trying?
1:48:54 ‘Cause on stage a lot of people ask me this,
1:48:55 they say things like this,
1:48:56 I’m trying to sell to a customer
1:49:00 or I’m trying to sell to the CEO of this company
1:49:02 some idea that I have to change the company
1:49:04 or I’m trying to sell downwards as a leader.
1:49:05 Is there a framework for selling?
1:49:07 – Well, you wanna productise your sales
1:49:10 and what you wanna do is productise the demo
1:49:11 and the customer needs analysis
1:49:14 and give it a name so that it feels like a product
1:49:17 and it doesn’t feel like a sale, it feels like a product.
1:49:20 So that you feel that you’re getting something of value
1:49:22 by seeing the demo and doing the customer needs analysis.
1:49:24 That’s one of the first things.
1:49:25 – So break that down for me.
1:49:26 So when you say the word demo.
1:49:29 – So the demo is explaining the value of what you do.
1:49:32 So you wanna craft a demo.
1:49:34 Crafting a demo is like,
1:49:35 you wanna be able to do the features,
1:49:38 advantages, benefits, the research that backs it up.
1:49:39 You wanna be able to show some data.
1:49:41 You wanna have an emotional story
1:49:43 that tells people how this product works
1:49:44 and how it changed someone’s life
1:49:47 or how it delivered a valuable outcome.
1:49:49 So all of that’s in the demo
1:49:52 and the demo shows how your product
1:49:53 is the path of least resistance
1:49:56 between the current reality, the desired reality
1:50:00 and the obstacles that a ideal customer has.
1:50:02 So you take an ideal customer, this is where they are.
1:50:03 This is where they wanna be.
1:50:04 This is what’s stopping them.
1:50:07 Look at our path of least resistance that we’ve created.
1:50:09 But it’s not for everybody.
1:50:11 You have to do a customer needs analysis.
1:50:13 So a survey or an assessment
1:50:16 and then that tells you whether you need this product or not.
1:50:17 So you wanna productize that.
1:50:18 You wanna give it a name
1:50:20 and you wanna give it like a landing page
1:50:22 and people can sign up to it
1:50:24 so they can experience the presentation
1:50:27 and do the customer needs analysis.
1:50:31 – I’ve got a picture here called the messy middle.
1:50:33 – Yeah, the Google report.
1:50:35 – I’ve actually never seen this before, this image.
1:50:36 – Yeah.
1:50:38 – Can you explain to me?
1:50:39 I’ll put it on the screen and link it below
1:50:40 for anyone that wants to look at it.
1:50:44 I highly recommend you do what this image is.
1:50:47 – Yeah, so we used to think of marketing as marketing funnels
1:50:51 and marketing funnels, essentially we would push people
1:50:53 through a marketing process from awareness
1:50:57 to consideration through to trust and commitment
1:50:58 and purchase.
1:51:00 So it was this marketing funnel
1:51:02 and we’re just kind of funneling them through.
1:51:04 And that’s how we, you know,
1:51:06 almost all marketers draw funnels.
1:51:06 – Yeah.
1:51:08 – And then Google did some research
1:51:10 to see is this actually true?
1:51:11 Is this still how people buy?
1:51:15 And they found it’s actually not how people buy it all anymore.
1:51:19 So top of funnel, middle of funnel and bottom of funnel
1:51:22 has been replaced by a trigger,
1:51:25 a totally random journey through a playground
1:51:28 where we explore and evaluate randomly
1:51:31 and then a trigger for signaling intent
1:51:34 and then purchase over here.
1:51:39 So what this might look like is I might see an influencer
1:51:42 talking about her, you know, handbag and I go,
1:51:44 oh, I’m interested in that brand.
1:51:45 I’ll give them a follow.
1:51:46 – Yeah.
1:51:47 – And then I ignore them.
1:51:51 And then I discover that they’ve actually put some videos
1:51:53 on YouTube and I start watching a video on YouTube
1:51:54 but then I go and do something else.
1:51:56 And then I see a review website
1:51:59 and I go on the review website.
1:52:01 Then I find out that that brand has actually created
1:52:03 a waiting list for a new product.
1:52:05 So I actually see, oh, I might drive the waiting list.
1:52:07 Now I’m like ending up down here.
1:52:10 And then I get on the waiting list.
1:52:13 They tell me that they’re only releasing 500 of that product.
1:52:14 Would I like one?
1:52:15 Yes, I would.
1:52:18 So then I basically go and purchase.
1:52:21 So it’s no longer a funnel experience
1:52:23 because customers have figured out
1:52:24 that they can disappear within three seconds
1:52:26 if they want to, right?
1:52:27 They can just jump your fence
1:52:30 and the funnel feels dehumanizing for most people.
1:52:32 So they don’t like to be funneled.
1:52:35 They like to go on an adventure.
1:52:36 So rather than thinking of our marketing as a funnel,
1:52:39 we want to think about it as an adventure or a playground.
1:52:41 So we’re going to create things
1:52:43 that people can interact with and play with.
1:52:47 So they could watch a video.
1:52:48 They could listen to a podcast.
1:52:50 They could take an online assessment.
1:52:53 They could complete a customer needs analysis.
1:52:55 They could watch a demo.
1:52:58 They could get free access to a trial in a portal.
1:52:59 They could join a community.
1:53:01 They could join a discussion group, right?
1:53:02 So these are all things
1:53:05 that people can engage with or play with.
1:53:08 And we want it to avoid feeling like a funnel.
1:53:11 We want to feel like it’s lots of value,
1:53:13 lots of great experiences.
1:53:15 And then at a certain time,
1:53:17 there are moments to act if you want to buy something.
1:53:19 If you’re the right person at the right time,
1:53:21 this is the moment to act.
1:53:23 So it’s a bit of a different way of thinking about marketing,
1:53:24 but it acknowledges the fact
1:53:26 that we’re living in a very different world
1:53:29 where funnels worked when people were afraid
1:53:30 of not seeing you ever again
1:53:32 or that they’re afraid that they would miss out,
1:53:34 but no one’s afraid of that anymore.
1:53:36 – The people that came to you
1:53:38 following your last conversation
1:53:40 and that sent you messages and DMs,
1:53:43 what is the most frequently occurring question
1:53:44 that they asked you?
1:53:48 – How do I start when I don’t have a brand?
1:53:51 Like a lot of people say,
1:53:53 I’ve got a big idea or I want to launch,
1:53:54 but I don’t have a brand yet.
1:53:58 I’m invisible, I feel invisible
1:54:00 and that makes me feel stuck.
1:54:03 And essentially, they know what they’re excited about,
1:54:05 they know what they’re passionate about.
1:54:08 I’ve got a big new product idea.
1:54:11 I’ve got a way of expanding into a new territory,
1:54:12 but I don’t have the brand.
1:54:14 – And is that where your five P’s come in
1:54:16 for becoming a key person of influence?
1:54:20 – So the five P’s is we have to learn to pitch, right?
1:54:24 The entrepreneur journey is a journey of a thousand pitches.
1:54:25 One way or another,
1:54:26 you’re either gonna pitch an average pitch
1:54:29 and end up with nothing or you pitch a phenomenal pitch
1:54:32 and end up with a 10 to a hundred million dollar business.
1:54:33 If you’re either on musk,
1:54:34 you end up pitching your way to Mars, right?
1:54:38 But the entrepreneur journey is all about pitching.
1:54:40 So we’ve got to have a great way
1:54:42 of pitching the business so people are excited.
1:54:44 – In person or digitally?
1:54:45 – Could be video, right?
1:54:48 I’ve seen Mark Zuckerberg do hundreds of pitches
1:54:51 over the last 20 years for Facebook and new features.
1:54:56 Steve Jobs used to do it on stage,
1:54:57 but then the video went out.
1:54:59 So you can do it to video, you can do it to camera,
1:55:03 you can do it on a podcast, you can do it live,
1:55:05 you can do it one to one, you can do it to groups,
1:55:07 but you have to learn how to be able to pitch an idea,
1:55:10 get people excited about something through your words.
1:55:11 Entrepreneurs and founders,
1:55:13 they are the spokesperson for their business,
1:55:15 they have to be able to be good at pitching.
1:55:17 The second thing is publishing content,
1:55:19 publishing videos, publishing podcasts,
1:55:22 publishing a book, publishing on LinkedIn, right?
1:55:24 So it’s essentially taking the elements of a pitch
1:55:29 but putting into different formats, 7/11/4 stuff.
1:55:32 The third element is the productization,
1:55:33 the product ecosystem.
1:55:35 Too many people sell time and skills,
1:55:36 they have to sell intellectual property,
1:55:40 media, data, software, or productized services.
1:55:42 They have to have a scalable product,
1:55:44 something that doesn’t require their time and effort
1:55:46 in order to sell it again and again.
1:55:48 ‘Cause your time and effort as a founder
1:55:50 has to be on the demand side, not the supply side.
1:55:52 So we’ve got to productize.
1:55:56 Raising profile is the next one.
1:55:58 So having your social media platforms,
1:56:01 doing some live events, winning some awards,
1:56:05 getting on traditional media or third party platforms,
1:56:07 all of that is your profile.
1:56:09 And then the next one, once you’ve done all of that,
1:56:11 is doing your first joint ventures and partnerships.
1:56:14 So big business happens when you can find the right partners.
1:56:17 So you might need a capital partner for investment,
1:56:19 or you might need a distribution partner for sales.
1:56:23 You might need a product partner,
1:56:26 someone who actually partners to incorporate something
1:56:27 that they do into your product.
1:56:29 So you’re packaging up through partnerships.
1:56:33 So I always focus people on pitching,
1:56:34 publishing product profile partnerships.
1:56:36 That’s the role of the founder.
1:56:38 We call that the key person of influence role.
1:56:42 Personal brand feels like this weird thing,
1:56:43 or it feels like branding,
1:56:45 or it feels like this kind of like,
1:56:47 oh, I’ve got to get up every day
1:56:51 and photograph my breakfast and all that sort of stuff.
1:56:53 But actually, if we just focus on pitch,
1:56:54 publish product profile partnership,
1:56:56 most people who are sensible people
1:56:58 with successful businesses, they say,
1:56:59 oh, that makes sense.
1:57:00 I like all of those things.
1:57:02 Yeah, personal branding has got a bit of a wrap, isn’t it?
1:57:04 A bit of a stigma.
1:57:06 The goal is not to be an influencer,
1:57:09 to be a key person of influence, and there’s a difference.
1:57:11 And I think there’s different types of personal branding,
1:57:14 and the best, most effective type of personal branding
1:57:17 that I’ve seen is what I call idea promotion,
1:57:20 where you’re promoting your ideas to the world,
1:57:22 maybe in a particular niche or industry,
1:57:24 but it’s all about, here are my ideas,
1:57:25 and you can do that as well, obviously,
1:57:27 through books and through podcast appearances and stuff.
1:57:29 But there are other types of promotion.
1:57:32 So some people do deficiency promotion.
1:57:34 Here are all the ways that I’m flawed,
1:57:35 and they build a brand around that.
1:57:38 Well, the one people most object to is self-promotion.
1:57:40 Self-promotion, which is, here’s how great I am.
1:57:42 Look at me, this is my lifestyle, this is my car,
1:57:46 this is my abs, here’s my dinner,
1:57:48 here’s my girlfriend, my boyfriend, right?
1:57:50 So all of that sort of stuff is self-promotion.
1:57:53 That’s narcissistic, and that’s associated more
1:57:55 with an influencer.
1:57:57 A key person of influence is operating
1:58:00 within a high-value niche and their idea promoting.
1:58:02 They’re saying, here’s the big insights that you need.
1:58:03 Here’s the data that you should pay attention to.
1:58:05 Here’s the problem as I see it,
1:58:07 and here’s some nuances around the problem.
1:58:09 Here’s the solution or outcome that’s achievable,
1:58:11 and here’s how you get to that outcome.
1:58:13 So they’re basically, it’s part thought leader,
1:58:16 but also part entrepreneur.
1:58:18 You don’t need a huge following for this.
1:58:22 Influencers notoriously can’t sell stuff.
1:58:24 Many influencers have a million followers,
1:58:27 and it turns out they can’t sell hoodies.
1:58:30 Very, very difficult to get anything sold.
1:58:32 People look at them as entertainers,
1:58:35 but they don’t really look at them as thought leaders
1:58:39 or someone who’s directing serious spend.
1:58:42 A key person of influence might have 5,000 or 10,000 followers,
1:58:44 but when they say this is the thing to buy,
1:58:45 everyone buys it.
1:58:48 So that’s what we’re going for that.
1:58:50 And can anyone do that?
1:58:51 Anyone can start.
1:58:53 I mean, I’ve been working on this for 15 years
1:58:54 with five and a half thousand companies.
1:58:59 We’ve got single mums with children who have special needs,
1:59:03 who have gone from struggling to multi-million businesses.
1:59:08 We’ve got people who had been stuck at five people for 10 years,
1:59:10 and then they go to 50 people.
1:59:13 We’ve got people in 50 different industries,
1:59:17 from real estate, dentistry, to medicine, to IT services.
1:59:20 So the world is open at the moment.
1:59:24 Every single industry has a thousand different micro niches.
1:59:27 Every micro niche needs a key person of influence or two.
1:59:29 Every micro niche can have a book.
1:59:32 When we were stuck in geography,
1:59:34 there was no point to doing all of this
1:59:35 because you only had a five mile radius
1:59:37 or 10 mile radius anyway.
1:59:41 But now we can reach 1.5 billion English speakers online.
1:59:45 We can reach 70% of the world on fast internet.
1:59:49 Your tiny little micro niche could be extremely valuable
1:59:52 to 35 people on the planet
1:59:54 who each happily pay 100,000 a year.
1:59:58 So we live in this world where the micro niches
2:00:00 are incredibly valuable.
2:00:02 Every industry has a thousand micro niches.
2:00:06 Every micro niche needs a key person of influence or two.
2:00:08 There’s absolutely no reason why…
2:00:10 And this is where the economy’s headed.
2:00:12 So there’s no reason why a lot of people can’t do this.
2:00:13 Can everyone do it? I don’t know if everyone can do it,
2:00:16 but a lot of people can definitely do it.
2:00:19 So what do you think is maybe the subject to question
2:00:22 that I haven’t asked at this point in the conversation
2:00:24 that people will be sad at home thinking?
2:00:27 There’s one last thing that I think we should talk about.
2:00:30 If someone’s feeling frustrated, stuck or overwhelmed,
2:00:34 there’s the one thing that knocks out everything else
2:00:35 for cutting through problems
2:00:37 or cutting through things that get in the way.
2:00:41 And that is this idea called environment dictates performance.
2:00:43 Environment dictates performance.
2:00:46 And what that basically means is that we behave according
2:00:48 to the environments that we show up in.
2:00:52 So if you are in an environment where nobody’s doing this stuff,
2:00:54 it’s gonna feel impossible.
2:00:56 If you’re in an environment where everybody’s doing this stuff,
2:00:58 it’s gonna feel effortless.
2:01:00 If you’re in an environment where everyone talks
2:01:03 about how money’s evil, you’re never gonna make any money.
2:01:05 If you’re in an environment where everyone sees money
2:01:08 as just a tool, you’re gonna make a ton of money.
2:01:11 Many years ago when I was in my early 20s,
2:01:14 someone suggested that I go to dancing classes
2:01:16 and I thought, this is ridiculous.
2:01:19 Like I can’t dance and I’ll never be able to dance
2:01:20 and dancing’s weird.
2:01:23 I went to a dance class and in that environment,
2:01:24 it was normal to learn dancing.
2:01:27 And within three lessons, I was dancing really well.
2:01:28 I enjoyed it.
2:01:30 I did three years of dance classes.
2:01:31 I got really good at it.
2:01:33 And it was one of my favorite places to show up.
2:01:35 But nothing would have happened
2:01:36 unless I made the commitment
2:01:37 to get into a different environment.
2:01:40 So the final thing to talk about is that
2:01:42 if any of this feels really hard
2:01:44 or really like difficult, for me, I feel effortless
2:01:46 ’cause I’m surrounded by people who live this way.
2:01:48 Every single one of my friends
2:01:50 is scaling a business and a personal brand.
2:01:52 But if you’re not in that environment,
2:01:55 it’s gonna feel really weird and foreign.
2:01:58 So the easiest thing people could try,
2:02:02 just simply try the idea of changing environments immediately
2:02:04 by doing a few following things.
2:02:07 If you feel stuck, find the highest place
2:02:10 that you can get to, physically the highest,
2:02:12 go to the top floor restaurant in your town.
2:02:16 Go to a place that is like an office
2:02:19 that has a foyer that overlooks the whole city.
2:02:21 Do whatever you can to go high up
2:02:22 and then see how the problem feels
2:02:25 when you’re actually high up looking out to the horizon.
2:02:28 Just that change of environment will give you new ideas.
2:02:31 Go and talk to someone who you haven’t talked to in a while
2:02:33 who’s two, three, four steps ahead of you.
2:02:36 But meet them in an opulent hotel.
2:02:39 Anyone can go sit in a hotel foyer of a five-star hotel.
2:02:42 Go and meet for coffee in a five-star hotel foyer
2:02:44 with someone who’s three or four steps ahead of you.
2:02:47 Suddenly, you’re gonna feel very, very different.
2:02:49 Enroll yourself onto a course
2:02:51 where everyone’s learning the same thing
2:02:52 that you’re learning.
2:02:54 And that environment means that it’s normal.
2:02:56 Like let’s say you’re afraid of public speaking.
2:02:58 Enroll yourself in a public speaking course.
2:03:00 Everyone’s going through the process of public speaking.
2:03:03 Suddenly it feels like pretty normal.
2:03:05 Enroll into an entrepreneur accelerator.
2:03:06 Everyone’s an entrepreneur in there.
2:03:09 Suddenly it feels very normal to be scaling a business.
2:03:11 So environment dictates performance
2:03:14 is the big thing that changes everything.
2:03:15 Pay attention to environment.
2:03:18 – What I’d love people to do that are listening now
2:03:20 on YouTube or wherever you might be listening.
2:03:22 I think YouTube is probably the best place to do it,
2:03:24 is if you are one of those people
2:03:27 that feels a little bit lost and you are, I don’t know,
2:03:30 you are working in a restaurant at the moment
2:03:31 and you’re working evenings
2:03:33 and you heard Daniel talk about AI and all of these things
2:03:35 and you just feel like it might be a bit far away
2:03:36 or you don’t have the people around you
2:03:39 that can potentially help you with that.
2:03:42 Let’s start a little bit of a community in the comment section.
2:03:44 So I think it would be really, really cool
2:03:46 if people detailed their situation,
2:03:48 talked about where they’d want to get.
2:03:49 And if you just throw that out there
2:03:51 in the comment section, who you are, where you are,
2:03:53 obviously keep your private details to yourself,
2:03:58 but as anonymous as you’re comfortable being or not being,
2:04:00 throw the seed out there.
2:04:02 And it will start a conversation with somebody else.
2:04:03 I see it all the time in the comment section.
2:04:05 People start chatting, they start getting motivated.
2:04:08 – And jump on a Zoom call with that person, right?
2:04:12 Or a Microsoft meeting, or a Google meeting, right?
2:04:14 See if you can just randomly meet up
2:04:15 with someone who’s aligned on values
2:04:18 because they watched the same video, right?
2:04:19 Anyone who’s going to comment this
2:04:20 is watched all the way to the end.
2:04:21 – Yeah, exactly.
2:04:23 – So have a little video call with them.
2:04:26 Like jump on a Zoom call and just say,
2:04:28 hey, let’s discuss the episode.
2:04:29 What are you up to?
2:04:30 What are you doing?
2:04:30 What are you taking away from that?
2:04:32 That’s a change of environment.
2:04:34 You’re putting yourself around a new person.
2:04:36 – And just so you know who these people are
2:04:39 that also got to the end of this and are doing this,
2:04:41 if you could all start it with a waving emoji,
2:04:43 then at least you know that your people
2:04:44 that got to the end and saw this part.
2:04:46 And if you could be friendly to those people
2:04:49 and maybe reach out to them, talk to them,
2:04:51 and safely, right?
2:04:53 Do your own process of verification to figure out,
2:04:56 make sure that they’re not a crypto scam or something.
2:04:58 Safely, maybe connect with them on LinkedIn,
2:05:00 verify who they are, and then form that relationship.
2:05:02 Because there are people in this audience that I know
2:05:05 are searching for like-minded individuals.
2:05:06 And as you say, by the very nature that they got
2:05:08 to the end of a three hour conversation,
2:05:10 they are like-minded in some way.
2:05:11 – Super aligned.
2:05:12 You might discover you’ve got more in common
2:05:14 with someone on the other side of the planet
2:05:17 than someone who’s just down the road.
2:05:19 – This year, 55% of businesses globally
2:05:21 are utilizing AI in some form.
2:05:24 It’s become so integrated across every point
2:05:26 of my businesses that it’s hard to remember a time
2:05:28 when my team and I weren’t using it.
2:05:30 Adobe Express, who sponsored this podcast,
2:05:33 is a prime example of a tool our team uses day in and day out.
2:05:35 Its generate image tool only needs a few words
2:05:37 describing what you want, and using AI,
2:05:40 it returns many images for you to choose from.
2:05:43 If you’re watching, see how quick and easy it is,
2:05:45 and you can try it yourself for free.
2:05:48 The customizable templates mean you or anyone in your team
2:05:50 can create something that stands out
2:05:52 without starting entirely from scratch
2:05:53 or being a design expert.
2:05:55 It’s the type of technology that differentiates
2:05:59 Adobe Express from being just another design tool
2:06:02 and makes it the quick and easy create anything app.
2:06:04 So at Adobe Express, we’ll download it for free
2:06:06 in the app store right now.
2:06:09 In terms of energy, there are so many reasons
2:06:12 why I’m a big Matcha fan, if you don’t already know by now,
2:06:13 and so much so that I actually invested
2:06:16 in the UK’s leading Matcha company called Perfected.
2:06:18 And one of my favorite Perfected products
2:06:20 is these delicious Matcha pouches
2:06:22 that come in every flavor from salted caramel
2:06:26 to peach flavor to mint flavor to berry flavor.
2:06:29 One of my favorites is this vanilla flavor,
2:06:31 which I’m going to make in just two seconds.
2:06:35 You just take this mixer here, get a little bit of a powder,
2:06:38 pop it on top of the shaker like that.
2:06:39 Put the lid on.
2:06:43 Shake, shake, shake.
2:06:47 Delicious.
2:06:48 If you haven’t tried this yet,
2:06:51 you can find Perfected at Tesco and Holland Barrett stores
2:06:56 or online where you can get 40% off with my code, Diary40.
2:06:58 Head to perfected.com and put in code Diary40
2:07:01 to try this delicious multi-flavored Matcha now.
2:07:03 Highly recommend, and if you do it,
2:07:05 please tag me, send me a message online.
2:07:08 We have a closing tradition on this podcast
2:07:10 where the last guest leaves a question for the next
2:07:12 without knowing who they’re leaving it for.
2:07:17 Where do you draw the line between health
2:07:21 or anything, optimization and pleasure?
2:07:24 – I think optimization can lead to pleasure.
2:07:27 One of the things that happened to me personally
2:07:31 is Christmas Eve just a few weeks ago.
2:07:33 I got a phone call from a GP
2:07:35 who I’d never spoken to before in my life,
2:07:38 who had looked at my health results from my blood test
2:07:40 and said, Daniel, I need to call you
2:07:42 before something bad happens.
2:07:44 And I went, what are you talking about?
2:07:47 He said, well, your pancreas has an enzyme
2:07:49 that’s associated with bad things.
2:07:51 Has anyone commented that you’re turning yellow?
2:07:52 I went, no.
2:07:57 He said, have you lost consciousness or been dizzy?
2:08:01 No, have you had to fall over,
2:08:03 have you had to have a sleep all afternoon,
2:08:03 something like this?
2:08:04 I’m like, no, none of that.
2:08:06 He said, okay, you’re really close
2:08:07 to having a health problem.
2:08:09 The reason I’m calling you Christmas Eve
2:08:11 is because Christmas day, if you drink alcohol,
2:08:12 if you eat too much food,
2:08:14 you could end up in an ambulance
2:08:15 with these levels that you’re in.
2:08:16 I’m like, this is so weird.
2:08:17 I’ve never known this.
2:08:20 I just had a blood test to sort of see my markers.
2:08:25 And I got this result and for about a week,
2:08:27 I didn’t know whether I had some serious disease.
2:08:28 I didn’t know any of this.
2:08:30 I went and got a CT scan.
2:08:33 Suddenly I find out that my doctor said pristine.
2:08:36 I have a pristine pancreas in gallbladder and liver.
2:08:38 And I had these elevated levels,
2:08:40 but it was associated with some other things.
2:08:42 It was associated with some changes to diet,
2:08:44 sleep, exercise, all of this.
2:08:46 But it was like a reprieve.
2:08:48 It was like a stay of execution.
2:08:49 It was a wonderful experience to go,
2:08:51 oh, wow, okay, it’s not serious.
2:08:52 It’s reversible.
2:08:54 That data has changed my life.
2:08:56 Just that week, it was the greatest gift
2:08:58 I could have got for Christmas
2:08:59 because for a week,
2:09:02 I felt like what it must feel like to lose your health
2:09:04 and to be told that your health is in serious decline.
2:09:08 I had the real experience of what it would feel like
2:09:10 to receive bad information.
2:09:11 But then at the end of the week,
2:09:13 and I got the CT scan,
2:09:15 I had the real experience of like,
2:09:17 you know, the ghost of Christmas, right?
2:09:20 It’s okay, Dan, it’s not too late.
2:09:22 So suddenly I’m optimizing.
2:09:25 I’ve got my Woot band and I’m getting a lot of pleasure.
2:09:27 Like having the data is great.
2:09:28 Data is a great thing.
2:09:29 There’s nothing that frees you more
2:09:31 than having visibility of the data.
2:09:34 – What was that epiphany that you got in that week?
2:09:36 Like what is the, for us that, you know,
2:09:37 for people that don’t want to have to go through that
2:09:39 to realize what you realized in that week.
2:09:40 – It’s an age old epiphany,
2:09:44 but a healthy man has many goals.
2:09:45 A sick man has only one.
2:09:49 – All right, so when you think you’ve got your health,
2:09:52 you’ve got all of the possibilities ahead of you.
2:09:53 When you think you’ve lost your health,
2:09:56 you’re only focused on getting that back again.
2:09:58 And you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.
2:10:00 You don’t, like you don’t know what,
2:10:02 until you hit that crisis point,
2:10:04 you just take it all for granted.
2:10:08 It was just one of those magical moments of going,
2:10:11 oh my goodness, I have this incredible body
2:10:14 that’s functioning, like I need to take care of this.
2:10:15 This is my vehicle.
2:10:19 So it was, you know, the epiphany was just,
2:10:22 I’m so focused on business and life and opportunities
2:10:23 and all this external stuff.
2:10:25 But actually there’s great joy and great pleasure
2:10:27 in taking care of yourself.
2:10:31 – I think that’s so wonderful to hear and so refreshing
2:10:34 because it’s the, often the missing piece
2:10:38 in the big picture of like success and optimization is this,
2:10:40 I had it for many years, this,
2:10:42 we take for granted that all that we strive for
2:10:44 and all that we’ve accomplished
2:10:47 and all that we love and know is sitting on this tectonic plate
2:10:49 that we don’t even know is there until it shakes.
2:10:50 – Until it shakes.
2:10:51 – It’s like I was in Cape Town,
2:10:55 there’s an earthquake of this year while I was there
2:10:56 and I’m sat at my house
2:10:59 and then it’s suddenly at two a.m. in the morning,
2:11:02 like underneath me starts shaking.
2:11:04 And I, oh my God, I didn’t realize.
2:11:06 I thought the house was the base.
2:11:08 Actually the base is the tectonic plate.
2:11:09 And in our lives, that’s our health.
2:11:11 As entrepreneurs, we disregard it so flippantly
2:11:15 in the pursuit of some kind of accolade until it shakes.
2:11:18 – And then that becomes the only important thing.
2:11:19 – Daniel, thank you so much.
2:11:21 It’s an honor and please keep doing what you’re doing.
2:11:22 It’s amazing.
2:11:23 Thank you.
2:11:26 (upbeat music)
2:11:28 – Do you know that 80% of New Year’s resolutions
2:11:29 fail by February?
2:11:32 It’s because we focus too much on the end goal
2:11:34 and we forget the small daily actions
2:11:35 that actually move us forward.
2:11:36 Those actions that are easy to do
2:11:38 are also easy not to do in life.
2:11:41 It’s easy to save a dollar, so it’s also easy not to.
2:11:43 Making one small improvement each day,
2:11:45 one tiny step in the right direction
2:11:47 has a big difference over time.
2:11:49 And that is the 1% mindset,
2:11:51 which is why we created the 1% diary,
2:11:54 a 90 day journal designed to help you stay consistent
2:11:56 and focus on the small wins
2:11:58 and make real progress over time.
2:12:01 It also gives you access to the 1% community,
2:12:03 a space where you can stay accountable, motivated,
2:12:05 inspired along with many others on the same journey.
2:12:09 We launched the 1% diary in November and it sold out.
2:12:11 So now we’re doing a second drop.
2:12:13 Join the wait list at thediary.com
2:12:14 and you’ll be the first to know
2:12:16 as soon as it’s back in stock.
2:12:17 I’ll put the link below.
2:12:20 (upbeat music)
2:12:22 (upbeat music)
2:12:25 (upbeat music)
2:12:27 (upbeat music)
2:12:30 (upbeat music)
2:12:32 (upbeat music)
2:12:35 (upbeat music)
2:12:38 (upbeat music)
2:12:40 (upbeat music)