 You often hear the saying within luck, if I'm lucky, if I say I'm lucky, people that are being polite to me and say, well, Simon, you worked hard and then the people throw out quotes like, the harder you work, the luckier you get, it's not true. The harder you work, the luckier you get is an Instagram quote that is not true. And I see it thrown around all the time. And I know plenty of people that have worked themselves to the bone, ended up mental health issues, physical issues, working hard does not equal success. Many, many, many people have proved this yet. It's still the same thrown around as if that's gonna fix all your problems, working hard. I was more successful when I worked less hard. Simon Squibb is my guest on this episode of Inside Ideas brought to you by 1.5 Media and Innovators Magazine. Simon is an entrepreneur, angel investor, mentor, podcast host, founder and chief purpose officer at the Purposeful Project. He has started 17 companies invested in over 60 plus startups and has mentored hundreds of founders. Having sold his award-winning branding and digital agency fluid to Price Waterhouse Coopers, Simon now focuses on inspiring, motivating and guiding both budding and experienced entrepreneurs by sharing his personal experiences, insights, ideas and tips. His mission is to help one million people start and grow business of their own. And he's also involved in many other investments and projects around the world. A couple of them are The Good Luck Club, a podcast and his book is coming out soon called Hack Luck and it should come out next year in January. We're gonna touch and talk about all those things today on this episode of our podcast. Welcome Simon, it's so good to see you and thanks for coming on the show. It's wonderful to be here, thanks for inviting me. You're most welcome and I'm so glad I've been stalking you and seeing you online and your activities, it's absolutely wonderful. You've been doing this for a while as far as branding and your company fluid and kind of been involved in business and purpose of business and trying to find the brands and the focus inspiring and motivating people. For me, I always take my work, which is really, I don't look at it like work, kind of like Bob Proctor says, it's not really work, it's more fun or passion or purpose that why you do it and just leap from bed and do it every day and really enjoy it. But I see it as a model that gives you some sustainability, some resilience through tough times with the better operating system. And so my first question for you is because of all this experience, because of all your companies, because of leadership, has that given you any resilience, any stability during this pandemic time? And my question is, how have you and the family weathered this pandemic? You're right in the middle of a new lockdown. How has it gone? How has it been? What experiences and things have you guys had and can you share that with us? Of course, yeah. Well, first up, I would just say that my bio makes me sound amazing, but I had started from humble beginnings. I left school at 15 years old and my mother kicked me out of home when I was homeless for about five days. And then I was forced to get into entrepreneurship because I needed to suddenly pay rent in the squat I managed to find myself in. And so I started off with not such a glorious sounding CV as I have today. And I like to highlight that for anyone out there that you've kind of got to start somewhere. And sometimes if you start at the very bottom, it can actually be an advantage. And when you ask about resilience, that's what jumps in my mind because I feel like once you've kind of gone through certain types of pain, everything after that is relatively easy. And I think I would have said without doubt that it was never anything that hit me in my life harder than when my father died and then I got kicked out of home and then I had to leave school. None of that seemed much harder, but COVID has brought a new level to things. Personally, I feel like I'm very lucky. I mean, I'm financially stable. I'm able to spend time with my family about concern that I can't pay my bills. So I consider myself very lucky. However, it has spurred me, frankly, to come out of retirement. I left school at 15 and I retired at 40. I didn't want to make mistakes with my father and keep working until I died of a heart attack from overworking. So I stopped working when I'd made enough money never to work again. But I decided to come back into the fold as it were because I feel like I've got certain knowledge that I think would help people right now, especially those that are made unemployed, can't find a job, coming out of university, can't find a job or being furloughed as in England and then no job at the end of that furlough. So I feel it's my responsibility to come back with the skills that I have and start helping humanity. And I think, in a way, COVID has brought me back to business when before I was very much in kind of a selfish mode for the last few years when I retired, where I did nothing but exercise, enjoy myself, play with my little baby boy who's now three and just enjoy life after a lifetime of working hard. But I do feel now is the time if you've got ability to apply purpose and go into the workforce and help. So that's what I've been doing. But everybody's fine, thanks for asking. We've just gone into lockdown here in London. So it's of course a very strange time to go back into lockdown again. And yeah, the rules aren't very clear. These are people who are confused. But it's certainly not a good time for anyone in the world. And I feel like for my family, we're one of the lucky ones right now. So I want to follow up and touch some of those things that you opened those up, some extra questions that I'd like to dive in deeper to. And if they're uncomfortable or you don't want to address them, just let me know. We won't touch on them. But you said your father passed away, which is horrific. And then your mother kicked you out. Did you look back at that now as, boy, school of hard knocks or a rough lesson? But are you thankful for that? Have you mended ways with her? Or is it still estranged? And what has there been a process in that as well? I mean, sometimes when things major events like that happen, there's permanent bitterness or just estranged of relationships that never get mended or never go back. Or sometimes say, boy, I'm glad I got that wake up call at an early age because it set me on this new path. So I'd like to get into a little bit more of what that was like, if you don't mind. Well, I mean, for me, I look back at my hard times in life with some appreciation. I think it's not easy to have a very traumatic experience. I'm sure everyone's now feeling it through COVID. It's not good having a traumatic experience at the time in particular. But I do think a bit like COVID, it can bring some benefits you didn't expect. I just assumed if something horrible happens to you, my father passes away. Of course, that's a horrible experience at 15 years old. He died of a heart attack right in front of me. So without doubt, that was a horrific and sad experience to go through at 15 years old. But in a weird way, and it took me a long time to see this, my father actually gave me a gift. And as strange as it sounds, he gave me the gift to go and pick who I want to be. Whereas up until the point where I was living at home with my mother and my father was still alive, my life had been somewhat predetermined. My parents had identified that I was a pretty good speaker, a good person explaining things, a good person debating and arguing things. And therefore they had decided that I'd make a good lawyer. So they mapped out a life for me that if you asked me at 14 years old what I was going to be, I was going to be a lawyer. And so the idea of being an entrepreneur never really even hit me, although both my parents were entrepreneurs. It seems as always, parents want you to have the opposite life to the one that they had. So to be a lawyer was this stable, prestigious thing that my parents wanted me to be. But when all of this happened to me and I was suddenly living in this, or initially living in the street and then found a squat to live in, it kind of woke me up in a kind of purposeful way, a part of me that had been, I guess, put to sleep by the type of life that I'd had, the protective life with a clear path. I didn't even think what I was going to be because someone had told me what I would be good at. And so I never really explored whether that was going to make me happy. It was just pre-programmed. And then suddenly as I'm sitting in this kind of whole new world, I'm not surrounded by my family anymore. I'm not surrounded by my school colleagues anymore who all had a similar training to me. I was suddenly aware of the world in a way that I had never been. And at first it's really scary. I tried to relate it to the movie, The Matrix, for those that haven't watched it. The guy that lives in the computer program and doesn't realize it, and then he comes out of the computer program. And his first reaction is, oh my God, I want to go back into the computer program. And so I had a very similar experience initially. I'm like, my God, this squat is a nightmare. And these people are, it's crazy. I just, I want to, I don't want to worry about money. I just want to go back into doing what I'm told and getting my livings paid for. But then something woke up in me and I started a business. I by accident started a business and I never looked back. And that's why today I'm on a mission to help other people realize that there's plenty of ways to live a life. Getting a mortgage, for example, and getting tied down into debt and getting a job that pays you a monthly amount of money and you perhaps do and don't enjoy it is not the only way to exist. And I think me being woken up in the horrific way that I was through difficult circumstances gave me an insight into the world that I think can be useful to people today that are going through pain or in difficult times. That's beautiful. Thank you for sharing that. The reason I wanted to dive a little deeper into that is different cultures and all over the world pretty much every human being goes through this rite of passage. Some are forced, some are not willed and others actually are also skipping this rite of passage until something major happens in their life to kind of open their eyes or to see the world in a different way. And so from what I hear that sounds like a real, almost like a forced rite of passage. You had this path that you thought you were on and now it just totally changed and it's set on this new course and where you had to like the book that titled that you've got a hack luck. You've got to kind of hack and figure it out really quick. Couple of days to figure out how you're going to survive and go and move forward. So thanks for sharing that. The other reason I really ask that question is I speak to a lot of authors, a lot of futurists, a lot of social entrepreneurs around the world and it's really funny how they talk and they speak about these things or their life in the past has really been one of different businesses, innovations and authoring. And it's a lot of talk but then when a pandemic or a hard time comes you can really see if that has also been applied into practice, into the lives. Do they have that resilience or whatever? And that matter of fact, this year during the pandemic there were several authors that I interviewed all their books were launching during the pandemic. And so you'd imagine that type, they're like, oh, how do you launch a book and talk about a book during the pandemic or others were really dependent on speaking engagements during this time that totally disappeared. So it's like a reinventing of yourself. And so that's kind of a leading question why I want it. I want to genuinely care but I also want to know how you've applied those things during this time and pull that out because our listeners really need to hear that because those are tools, tips, acts that they can apply if they're struggling now to get to a better spot to get into the future that they really want to actually do they have a vision of the future or the goals and the direction they want to go in and who's out there ready to help them. And so that's kind of the direction I'd like to take us as well today on our discussion. You have a project that deals with kind of revitalizing libraries, doing your podcasts in the libraries and speaking with entrepreneurs in the library. Can you tell us how this pandemic has affected that? Are libraries doing social distancing or how is that going? And now a little bit more about your project as well what the thought process has done that work. Sure. Well, there's a few things that you've asked there. So if I missed something, please pick me up on it. But basically, let me just start off by saying to your audience that I have gone through a tremendous journey building businesses. And when I retired at 40, I actually sat down and wrote my book and I started out like I think a lot of successful entrepreneurs do writing about how brilliant I am about how I moved to Hong Kong at just the right time in 1997 when Hong Kong was getting handed over back from the British to the Chinese and how I was there at the right time when everyone else was running away from that part of the world at that moment thinking that China was going to turn Hong Kong into a communist state and roll in the tanks. I moved there. So I started writing about how brilliant I was in making these decisions. And then I realized as I started kind of really laying out honestly how I was successful, I realized I was lucky. There was a huge amount of luck that played a part in my life to increase the chances of me being successful. And so, you know, and you kind of alluded to it a minute ago I see a lot of this kind of inspirational quotes floating around and I'm always very conscious to make sure that I don't become one of those people. And I think the quotes themselves need nuance to really make sense. So one I saw the other day, you know, someone was saying was beyond the quote is we've all got as much time as Beyonce. You know, in other words, she's achieving so much to the same amount of time that we have. So you know, she'd be inspired. But you know, the truth is the nuance of that is what we don't have her resources, right? So, you know, it's always about the detail, isn't it? And so what I realized when I'm even now today when I'm trying to help people understand how to be successful, it's really, you know, I use my own journey, but I want to be very careful to try and make it into simple elements. So for example, you often hear the saying within luck if I'm lucky, if I say I'm lucky, and people that are being polite to me and say, well, Simon, you know, you worked hard. And then the people will throw out quotes like the harder you work, the luckier you get, you know, it's not true. The harder you work, the luckier you get is an Instagram quote that is not true. And I see it thrown around all the time. And I know plenty of people that have worked themselves to the bone, ended up mental health issues, physical issues, you know, working hard does not equal success. Many, many, many people have proved this yet. It's still the same thrown around as if that's gonna fix all your problems working hard. I was more successful when I worked less hard. When I realized things like I'd started companies and someone else could come in and run it, it was better at running the company than me. And then I could work less hard, but that business would do twice if not three times better. So it would be equivalent of me staying in the business, if you know what I mean. So basically, just very briefly mentioned that there are three ways to increase your chances of luck. And it's actually a formula. And so there are two types of luck. And I think the people understood this, they'd understand how to make themselves luckier. The first type of luck is the one that's presently in the dictionary. And this is random luck. But there's a very small amount in the world of random luck. And there are some, for example, where you were born. You know, you can't control that. You are born where you are born. But we all know where you're born does not equal eventually 20 years, 30 years later happiness. We know plenty of people in England, for example, that are born into the royal family that are not happy. Okay, they were born in England into a super wealthy, super famous family. Doesn't mean they're happy 30 years later. Equally, we all know stories of people that were born in very difficult circumstances that end up being happy later. So I guess, but the second type of random luck to say is coronavirus, right? So, you know, it's not inferior to anyone's fault. It's not a conspiracy, but it's no one's fault. It is what it is. It's bad luck in a way for everyone. And but the second type of luck is a very different thing. The second type of luck is a process, three-step process to achieve. And in part, summing up, it would be how you deal with coronavirus. You know, that's up to you, whether you see it as a negative or positive, an opportunity to change, an opportunity to improve, an opportunity to innovate in your business, that that's kind of a different choice to the actual accidental luck that's come your way. So, but I will just say, you know, as far as tips for getting through coronavirus in this difficult time, you know, my top line is really this concept that if Buddha once said, everyone will have 10,000 hours of good luck and 10,000 hours of bad luck. And my update to that is we will all have 20,000 hours of good luck if we look at our bad luck the right way. I love that, that's a wonderful saying. There's also really during this time, as we've heard of, this is another saying comes from Peter Diamandis. The world's biggest problems are also the world's biggest business opportunities. So those people, I deal with projects all over the world with World Food Program, the FAO, the United Nations and those innovations, those projects, those startups that come out of problems where people are saying, hey, I wanna solve and get out of the situation that I'm in, I wanna improve and make my luck better are having so much success because they're changing their lives, they're changing their situation, they're not developing some kind of a project for people in another country and another culture than theirs, they're solving their own problem, they're coming out of that and assessing their own needs. So I really like that and there's that balance, that yin yang type of a balance that, you can look at it as so bad but also as so good the opportunities that are presented that shows you the systems and our world's kind of broken in many ways that it can be fixed and changed and improved upon. There's a question that kind of goes along with Hong Kong and some of your business dealings and that is, you consider yourself to be a global citizen and how would you feel about a world without nations, borders, divisions of humanity, one from another and during this pandemic, the corona is obviously global citizen, food's a global citizen, water, food, air, global citizen species, what are your thoughts and feelings on that and how does that relate to your business and your life? Yeah, without sounding like a crazy person, which I'm always conscious that if you're not fully awake some of this stuff might sound mad, but I've always felt that we really should be one planet and I always thought this concept, if aliens were coming to Earth to destroy us, it could be a good thing, why? Because the whole planet would suddenly stop dividing itself into America, Russia and China and India and we suddenly better work together to build things and create things that make the world safe from this invader. So, I'm a fan of Star Trek and so I love the whole idea that we really are in this together and the truth is we are, it's so obvious, this is one planet we're on, right? So, I think things like coronavirus it should be one centralized organization coming up with a solution, not Russia racing against America to create a vaccine as if it matters who's first, you know? And so, pooling resources will mean that we're all first and so I've never really understood this concept of separation. In fact, to prove I've never really understood this concept of separation, I invested 10 years ago in a comic book business that did really badly and by the way, I think failure is a fantastic thing to experience again and again which you can learn so much from it, but I spent over a million US dollars on this business and one of the things, one of the premises of the business and one of the reasons I invested in it was it was about the earth 6,000 years ago when so-called gods lived on the earth and they had children with humans it was half human, half God children and what they did and some of these kids in theory were good but they did bad things and some of the bad people did good things and so I love that hoping but the whole continent was completely joined together which of course it was at one point in earth's history we can track it back, you know dinosaur era, the planet that was completely one continent so I think that, yeah I think this kind of separation element that's happened through language, through culture it's something that we should try to break down which is why I'm so glad Donald Trump just lost the election if I'm being honest, not any- I'm right with you, I'm ecstatic I've got 70 million people that will be signing off right now saying, we're not listening to you anymore Simon but the point is ultimately I believe in this kind of united planet and I feel like it has to be to save the planet and frankly to create things that help humanity get through things like AI and to get through this kind of social media dilemma we're facing in a way we need to unite, have one wall that applies to all companies otherwise what happens with the internet for example, the company that can get away with breaking the law will move to that country where they're allowed to break the law so we kind of need to unify things and I think that's one of the big next steps that I'm hoping will come in my lifetime I really like the name of your book, Hack Luck because there's this big component of hacking if that's what businesses do if they can't do certain things in their borders and within their nation they find a tax oasis or they try to ship their goods or produce their goods somewhere else to get around these loopholes and it's just a different form of hacking where it's not good, bad or ugly it's just if we're not unified then we're gonna find a way to continue business regardless and so we've got to keep moving forward so I really like that it's interesting because I wrote a screenplay with a German lady here in Hamburg and it was called Destiny's Colliding it's very similar to this comic book story that you discussed which was real interesting but it's also, I'm sorry you lost but it was a good lesson learned but what's interesting, if you've ever read Yuval Noah Harari's books at all Sapiens, Homo Deus or any of the other books 21 Questions that he's written or heard him speak he just came out with a comic book of his book Sapiens so that we could all kind of have this more a different form of median for a very complex and deep subject matter so I like when things kind of start track or put it in a comic book or fictional type of a situation it's very nice to see that so that's interesting I'm going to hit you real hard with my hardest question now that we'll probably have today and that's the burning question WTF and that's not the square word that most people would think it's actually what's the future what's the future of this journey for you I don't want to know politics or what the world or Simon Squibb, what's the future? I guess I'm doing what I can and hopefully eventually able to follow through to show a few things to the world first of all, business can be good and that there are people doing business that can do good I don't think people that have been successful should be vilified I don't think just because you've made money and I am a multimillionaire I don't think because I am a multimillionaire should be vilified I think the only way to balance things out is to take your success of wealth and make sure you pass it on to others so I'm on a mission I guess to also bring value to the word free so it's been an interesting experience for me in the last 12 months to give people advice, insight, knowledge, contacts for free and there's almost like a suspicion built into the system these days that the only way it works is if you charge money for something and so I don't know how money has become such a real thing it's the first virtual reality item you've bought into people are literally happy or sad based on what they think they've got in their bank and I feel like I'm on a mission to bring value to free to show that not everybody who's made money is evil and that being successful can be a good thing and I think that you don't need to tread on people to be successful I want to counteract some of the business cultural elements that are out there that if you don't charge something it's not valuable or you've got to tread on people to get ahead all these silly quotes like the hardy you work, the lucky you are I almost feel like these are like slogans baked into the system to make people go and work for you if you work hard one day you can be rich like me when that person then goes and pays gold today I mean, Trump lost the election while he was losing the election to playing gold so I just feel like my mission now is to be a present father be a good father be an example for my child of how we should operate in the world is three, I want him to see that being kind being generous and being patient are good things and there are rewards for being that way and I don't want him to see and I was on this part but I've made a lot of money it was very successful I was getting more and more power and I don't feel that that necessarily is the right thing to focus on so switching out and focusing on helping people giving people things for free without any expectations in return sharing with my son that journey I'm hoping I leave the world a better place for him and leave him a legacy to perhaps do what I'm doing times 1,000 hopefully he can do even more good for people maybe he'll be the person working with your family to create a united planet who knows but we have to start somewhere and so I'm doing my bit to try and give back and I see the rest of my life playing out that way trying to bring value to free trying to bring value to people without any expectation in return trying to help people break through their limiting belief systems help people get luck this is why I figured out a formula for luck I think we all need luck to be successful only successful because I'm lucky so there's a formula to it there's a process, a three-step process you can go through to getting luckier I'm on a mission to update the dictionary so people can see that because someone made it their next door neighbor made it and they didn't and they worked really hard they don't get bitter about it they realize that maybe there's a formula that person followed that isn't just work hard to be successful and everyone deserves the right to have that formula in their hand and give it a go was there a certain mentor or thing that happened and occurred so after you sold fluid that kind of changed that course you said you initially started writing the book and it was kind of very focused on you instead of on what you've given back to the world and was there like a mentor or somebody who kind of helped you on that transition was it the birth of your son or was it shortly after some kind of event at all? Well, I have been married for 20 years and I love my wife and she is a wonderful human being and I think she has been my mentor in many ways she has helped me I mean I grew up in a family that was quite capitalistic and quite in my mother today you mentioned that I still I realized as some members of your family you know you don't have to like them right just because you're born into that family it doesn't end up having to like them you know and I have a thread to my mum but honestly I don't like her she's a racist and I'm married to a Chinese person you know like and so I don't particularly like my mother but she's my mother so I'm trying to be respectful towards her but having said that you know I feel like that there is definitely a piece of me that wants to help people realign them their mindset around what is good and what is bad I mean in school for example when I was able to talk moral code you know you're not shown in any way what is right or wrong and I don't and I think in business there's a lot of people doing a lot of things wrong I do think avoiding tax is wrong I know you you know you can have that but I don't think it's the right thing to do if you're making money in a country based on people in that country you should be paying your fair share to bring support and help to those that don't have the money to do it themselves and so I think you know I just I just want to bring balance back if that makes sense I love that is there some certain sustainability models or some resilience models that you kind of you know are the pillars or definitely principles in your business models of startups you help or ones that you invest in and say you know this is these are the models that I want to push and support but also for you that have kind of promoted that as a social business or as sustainable businesses out there that you could tell us about well I'll finish off the question you asked me previously because it actually ties into the question you're now asking you know that when I sold my last company Fluid to PwC initially my first instinct was to grow bigger so I started a platform called Meta which is in Nairobi, Africa and Hong Kong and I basically wanted to go bigger not stop working actually my initial instinct was not to stop working but then I realized that I was perhaps just after power and then I wondered how much of an impact I was actually having other than you know having more people work for me and getting more prestige out in Hong Kong I mean everybody in Asia pretty much you know you talk about entrepreneurship my name will come up I was sponsored by a big institution don't talk about entrepreneurship but I felt like I was starting to get to a point where I was always charging people for my advice so I'd get paid to go into public speaking for example but I always felt like what about the people that can't afford to go to that event and pay you know what about the unemployed people that can't afford a business coach or to hire an agency like the one I owned to help them you know who's going to help those people and I felt like I was you know because I was increasing my staff costs and you had to keep feeding the machine and slowly but surely you'd get further and further away than that 15 year old me you know so I think you know I had a conversation with my wife as I mentioned earlier she's always been an inspiration to me and I said look you know I carry on this path I'm going to make another 30 million pounds but so what you know what what am I going to do with with all this money and secondly you know is it money that I need and I felt like I needed to go back and help that 15 year old me but it took me about three or four months of struggling with the capitalistic nature that I built up you know when you have to pay the rent when you're 15 years old and survive you do shut off a little bit of the purpose feeling and you just need to pay the bills and survive but as I got more comfortable I think that woke up in me and my wife helped me that wake up in me so I had a second awakening really I had the first one which was awakening into the entrepreneur world and realizing what an amazing world it was and that I was an entrepreneur and then I had a second awakening I think a few years back when I sold my company and I realized that I could actually help someone that was unemployed I didn't need to get paid whereas everything up to that point my agency fluid and my investment firm Nest and all the businesses in between had all been geared up around the premise that we will do this for you if you do this for us and so I wanted to play in the space that you're unemployed, you don't have any money how can I help you get out of that situation and you know of course it's sometimes for people it's awkward they're like well I can't pay you I don't need money well what do you want from me you know there's that awkward period but but I love the idea that it's like no I just want to help you you know there's no cash you know like wake up there aren't people out there that actually are like this let me prove it to you let me give you advice and let help you through the so you know just because you asked about awakening earlier you asked about the moment you asked about your back mentors and they're all kind of the same answer so I wanted to make sure I answered that properly you definitely did I love that and especially that it was your wife and that probably makes you guys a pretty powerful couple and a great team you know to support each other and I've always seen well no that's not true I haven't always seen but for at least 20 years I've seen business as a business romance type of a situation Tim Laverich is a good friend of mine he wrote the book The Business Romantic and that I want to work with people that I love that I trust and in a job or something that I jump out of bed that I'm excited to do something that I have passion about and purpose for and so I realized that that's so vital to have that you know tie to business romance that you spend the majority of your time what people call work away from those that you love the most and so if you're going to spend that time why wouldn't you want to trust and like and be around those and and so I really I love that fact that you shared that to go back a little bit more because you didn't 100% answer the question about the purpose full project or your podcast and kind of how that has developed and maybe even been affected during this time of the lockdown because I know you were actually going into the libraries trying to get people back into the libraries and and and do that I'd like to hear more my listeners would like to hear more around now but also how that ties into this goal of what your mission is what you said this whole time to reach a million people and help them start a business to get them out there and show them that it's easy that they consider that that it is doable given the tools and the free freeing us to make it work well the the mission to help a million people start a business of their own and make sure anyone running a business doesn't feel alone doing it is both a big ambition and a small ambition I mean in a COVID world in UK alone there is a million people expected to be laid off over the course of previous six months and the oncoming six months and so you know a million people doesn't sound like a lot when you put it in context of what is potentially happening right now thanks to COVID's impact so that's a million people that would otherwise be doing something every day and and having something to keep their brains occupied so but I I basically felt like we needed to build a system that was scalable because I've only got so many hours in a day and one of my things about helping people be successful is some some of us that you've got to learn to buy time not sell time but from my side you know there's only so many hours in a day so how can I help people that isn't just me personally giving up time which I do do and you know I've got tomorrow I've got 18 phone calls with people that need help so I'm on it I give people 15 minute slots and and often I can help them quite a lot in that period of time but but there's got to be more than just me giving my time for free to help so there's a couple of things that we we started so under the purposeful project banner which which has this big lofty goal of helping a million people start a business of their own I would just like to say we've already helped 52 people start a business of their own so that's a good start but we we we felt like what can we do so one of the things we we we did and we're doing is we interview the world's most successful entrepreneurs and we get them to share their story about how they did it what I didn't want to do was kind of the Gary v model which is if you stand on a soapbox telling everybody how brilliant I am and this is what they should do and I do think I'm brilliant I do have an opinion about what you should do but my view on the world and my background and my skill set and what I know as a privileged white person living in England might not be relevant to certain individuals in the world so I felt it would be amazing to interview the world's most successful entrepreneurs from different backgrounds and different starts in life to download how they did it so that anyone listening out there could relate to that individual because some people relate to my story and some people won't and I get it a lot on social media but like you know it's easy for you to say that you know white privilege and you know I have to probably agree there's an element of it for sure so so I like to have a balanced view so we've interviewed 54 people I've actually I don't want to interview people like Elon Musk partly because he's been heard from enough and we all know his news I have nothing against him but I want people that perhaps are a little bit more relatable for people Elon Musk almost seems like an anonymity for a lot of people he's like not real he's a billionaire he's crazy you know he's amazing I could never be that and actually what I tried to do is interview just normal people frankly people like me I came from nothing you know I was homeless I was 15 years old I had no real education of merit other than the basics I'm dyslexic and and so you know I always I do honestly feel if I could make it anyone can make it so but again I only can really say that to a certain demographic so so I that's what we did we did a podcast show it's just vote is one of the 20 most popular podcasts in the world and and I'm pretty proud of that we're up there with Joe Rogan and all the others and and we you know we we just tell it as it is we're not sugarcoating entrepreneurship no journey is easy but we are explaining the freedoms that it brings and how you can achieve success and entrepreneurship with nuance not with an instagram post some inspirational you know work harder you'll get lucky stuff but but more you know granular like how did you solve this problem how did you push through that pain what was that thing that allowed you to push through and and be um owning the world's largest online bank like one of my guests owns called Simon Long he owns a bank the wheelab you know he was working in a bank seven years ago you know we've promised promotion and didn't get it and and decided right I'm going to start my own bank who now owns the world's largest bank and what's interesting about a lot of these people is most people have never even heard of these people you know they're not they're not necessarily you know Elon Musk jumping on stage looking for PR they're in back office making things happen and so you know that's what we did we decided to do a podcast show and we felt that that was a good way to inspire people a lot of the time the stories themselves that these entrepreneurs tell within the podcast also help people get through difficult moments because we've all had them whether it's coronavirus I mean I went through SARS in Hong Kong in 2003 that was coronavirus 1.0 literally medically it was coronavirus 1.0 it was the first iteration of coronavirus and I was living and working in Hong Kong in 2003 when that happened and we tripled our business during the equivalent of lockdown in in Hong Kong because we moved all of our focus to online businesses and we grew you know and brands like Alibaba were coming up during that time and we're spending a lot more than the more traditional supermarket businesses for example so anyway I guess ultimately you know there's always going to be a reason to not not push forward but we did we did find that you know during difficult times like SARS my business has actually grew and today we're trying to make sure that people realize that difficult times are also a big opportunity so bad luck is a good luck so I keep keep saying you know there's three ways to hack luck there's a three-step process to it and if you follow it then you know you can turn a bad bad situation into a good situation I really like that because you know there's the big discussion always you know do we want to have mentors like Elon Musk everybody wants the influencers and the big guys as mentor but the best mentors really like you said your wife my dad's my best mentor ever people that are close to you are wonderful mentors to be around to have that are close and local and the ones that the rest of the world probably doesn't hear about are also doing pretty well and being pretty successful and have some great stories to share I've seen some of your podcasts I've listened to them and you know you've found some TikTok that entrepreneur that started business is very successful got three million views um does his own videos does his own Instagram I would push everybody that I know to your social media channels to your websites I'll put them in the list in description to go check you out to to join in and find your wisdom to get your mentorship and to get that extra little help and nudge to to move forward for the future because I'm really seeing that that you're given the information away you're helping some people and I I thank you for that I that's really important to do I like uh that that line of thought because those are usually the most powerful mentors and the type the most powerful type of wisdom people that put on their pants just like you and I do who get up every morning who have families who who have been there and done it um are going to be straightforward and easy to reach and give you the information to make this world a better place so I mean I I think the reason you want to help a million people become entrepreneurs and start that is because why because you think there's more purposeful people in the world that the world will be better what what is your reason behind that what's the true let's let's be honest and open with people what do you get out of that well I think first of all um I'm going back and helping that 15 year old me you know it's uh I guess healing your inner child um of sorts I started when I was 15 years old and it was hard on my own you know no no one taught me about cash flow or money management or hiring people with mobile code how how that could work partnerships um what a mentor was what a coach was what the difference was what what scale meant what purpose meant that was never talked to me in in my home or school and so you know I I learned all these things the hard way and and I feel like a lot of the principles of being an entrepreneur can be taught and they're not and I think that's because it's explained is some mystical thing that some people are born to do and some people aren't I mean no one's born to do anything we're born at zero I see it in my son he's a product based on how we teach him so we're no one's born a doctor no one's born a lawyer you know that these these things have to be taught so a big part of me is is you know to answer it simply is going back and helping that 15 year old me the fact that the average person I'm helping is more like 27 highlights to you just at what stage of people's lives they wake up and realize that that job that they were promised either isn't going to materialize or the job that they have got isn't the one they thought it was going to be that beautiful brand and that image of what their job is going to be isn't what it what it what they thought it was going to be it's not purposeful as they thought it was going to be it's not as enjoyable as they thought it was going to be and and that's the moment I kind of want people to realize that you know you don't need to wait someone to give you a job you can create your own and I think it's because the second element isn't just going back to that 15 year old me and helping me but it's also giving the gift that I was given to as many people as I can that you realize that you know being free to spend your days on things that make a difference not spending your days on what someone else tells you to do so you can earn money to pay your mortgage in a house you don't really need you know I just want people to see the difference and have the ability and the option to make a decision to be an entrepreneur and even if they use those skills to then get a job I still think it's useful skills that everyone deserves to have and I wish that someone had taught them to me so I guess in a way I'm still going back to that point of helping that 15 year old me I think that's where that's where the selfish piece comes in I wish someone had helped me and I'm going back and doing just that and so at 15 years old I didn't have any money I wouldn't be able to pay someone for help so I want to make sure I'm removing that barrier from the equation and so yeah so I mean I guess that's probably the truth of it I like to think that I'm aware of that selfish need to go back and help that 15 year old me but it's a good selfish need because it means that I am actually doing something good I'm giving to those that deserve it and you asked me about the library and this is how the library ties in now I know in the US libraries still are given a lot of respect and libraries perhaps aren't in as much trouble but in the UK the library in the libraries in the UK we've had about 700 of them closed in the last three years the present conservative government here doesn't really see them as that important and I would say that they've never sat in one for a day to see how important they actually are a lot of people use them as a way of for example of getting on the internet a lot of people can't afford the monthly fees the internet broadband supplies charged get online and they can't afford to sit in a coffee shop and pay four pounds or whatever six dollars worth coffee to get access to the internet so so how do they connect to what's going on in the world so they go to a library the library in the UK is still the only place you can walk in where no one asks you for money as soon as you walk through the door and and so I feel now in particular more than ever libraries are actually needed to keep communities connected and to help the most vulnerable amongst us but they're all about to close and covid has only sped up the problem the problem already existed partly because the library model in the UK was originally funded as a community service requirement by the government but that has been stopped they didn't see it as vital because they don't understand the value of community and they don't understand what it's like for the poorest amongst us and so I was walking past one of my local libraries and saw that it was closed down and in disrepair I had an idea to take my mission of helping one million people start a business of their own and giving people the tools to be entrepreneurs and so on aligning with the library mission and this is how I viewed it the library is not a place where books sit the library in my view is a place where knowledge sits the fact that one format of knowledge is books is just one format I believe the future libraries is taking knowledge and putting it in many different formats including for example a podcast where and then I looked at the library ecosystem and I looked at it like I mean you've got WeWorks in the US you've got WeWorks here the brand you know again WeWorks is designed if you can afford to pay for a fancy office and a fancy chair in a fancy office then you go to WeWorks right but what about those that can't afford to pay for that CEO WeWorks they shouldn't have access to that network they shouldn't have access to capital to help them grow their businesses they shouldn't have access to knowledge so the library can can replace that in a COVID world how that also translates in my mind is I've managed to mobilize a whole series of successful entrepreneurs from the podcast and I mobilized them yet again to do things like office hours and what we do is and I'm doing this tomorrow on Tuesdays and Wednesdays we basically offer entrepreneurs helping entrepreneurs zoom in zoom out so we're in the library it doesn't matter where we are really but just symbolically the knowledge it's inside the library you zoom in you ask an entrepreneur a question about your business and then you zoom out and it doesn't matter if you've got money or not just like the library we will help you and so and the way we scale it is we put that kind of model in every library across the world hopefully eventually and we take the library and we don't we turn it into an entrepreneur hub an entrepreneur center and then the library has a new lease of life and after school you go to school as you normally would and then after school school hasn't taught you anything about entrepreneurship it hasn't taught you about how to do anything in business properly but after school you can go to the library and in the library will be a whole series of knowledge based bits of kits that will allow you to learn how to do a podcast for example or teach you how to to get your youtube channel up and running or help you get better on instagram and help you do the things that I think are going to keep you interested in life later that aren't just you know learn to be a lawyer and then go be a lawyer only to realize that you don't enjoy it I like to give people all this access and that's what the library brings to to our mission and hopefully by bringing our mission to the library we can save libraries which is you know it's all synced up but that's the libraries to us they follow our ethos we want to help people for free the libraries want to help people for free we want to give people knowledge the library want to give people knowledge so it makes total sense that our organization teams up with the network of libraries and tries to try to bring their mission back to life and take our mission together to the market that's absolutely a wonderful mission and you know this mission that you have of reaching a million people is real similar to Simon Sinek's why and then you just discussed a lot about purpose just for our listeners or those who might not always know about some of those things one of the very first podcasts that I ever did was with a good friend of mine John P. Stralecki he wrote numerous books here in Germany he sells a book every 26 minutes but his book that I like the most is the big five for life it talks about your purpose for existing it talks about finding the big five for life is applicable to hunting in Africa or seeing the the big five species but it's really about finding your five purposes or your big things in life and this creating every day this museum moment where if you were to walk people through the museum of life that they could see your purpose and know your mission and know where you've gone with that and I really like those type of tools tips and tricks for those who might be just starting out on this journey of entrepreneurship you know I've also owned 17 companies currently own a few and I'm involved in numerous organizations so I want to help people just as you do make this journey make this transition to show them the tools the skills the speak the the abilities to do that that are out there that are really actually free they're actually free they can be divided by free they can be found at libraries that can be found online and so I I am just fully in a line with you on on the terminology use and not what you want to depart the library system is such a wonderful project that you guys are are involved in and it's one that already exists that you're updating the business model to our current state of the world to keeping up to date with our exponentially growing world so thank you for sharing that I have really kind of three four big questions left for you the last three are really for my listeners as a sustainable takeaway for them what they can apply into their lives but before that one last question from you on similar to the burning question WTF but what does a world that works for everyone look like for you? Well without sounding like a socialist I guess I believe that wealth should be equally distributed and that everyone should be given the same amount of opportunities and maybe it's also idealistic but you know I don't think because in England for example if you want to be prime minister you have to go to Eaton what it feels like everybody who's ever become prime minister seems to have gone to some you know very exclusive school and I don't think that it should be that way I think it should be about who's best for the job and who's going to do the best for country they lead so I'd like to see the living level playing field play out a bit and I don't I don't like the idea that you know I didn't like the trend of billionaires becoming presidents so I'm glad I'm glad that has actually fallen away a little bit even with Mayor Bloomberg who I quite like I'm glad he didn't get the nominee for democratic party and I'm glad that Trump just lost the election you know so I think my world would would would be more equal and and everything is based on your frankly your attitude your your your merits your willingness to learn and and and those things and so there's a part of me that hopes that you know technology will bring this about with things like universal income playing a part where it's not about how much you earn but about the impact that you have in the world and how that impact affects you personally and what your contribution is personally and it shouldn't all be about how much money you earn I think I mean I say every single day in a lot of my communications and I'm a multimillionaire I don't really like saying it and I'm English so you know we don't actually like speaking like this but I do know that it means something to people that if you can prove that you have made it therefore you've got knowledge that's worthwhile listening to which is a little bit sad too because I think there's a lot of people I know that have failed musically that have a lot of knowledge to share a lot of insight to share so I hope that the world becomes more balanced than people realize that success isn't about how much money you've got but about what you've done to help other people and what you've done that made the world a better place as cheesy as it sounds and I think that's what the world would look like as far as I'm concerned it would look like people are praised based on the good that they've done not the balance in their bank account so you've caveatted a couple of your statements before you know kind of that don't want to seem too crazy about saying we need aliens or what if an alien visited us what would they say that were humanities divided for me from itself or you've caveatted you know the trumpet and I'm full alignment with that can I get can I can I tease you or maybe ask you some a couple more questions before we wrap up the final questions that maybe you might need to caveat again that that also have to do with this thing that what I'm hearing goes against your way of doing business or your thoughts or feelings as well in life and in your businesses and that is you know racism and division and how how we do that you don't need to be a millionaire to start a business you don't need to have the success at the beginning and you can fail and learn these wisdoms what about the Brexit how do you feel about that the whole Brexit vote and do you think there's you want to address that that there was some form of racism and some form of jobs that was kind of pushing the fear of that vote and then now that that's occurred in my opinion wouldn't there be tons of jobs available now to jump into because there's no one from outside immigrant workers are no longer coming or taking those jobs or you know history will always tell you the future right if you study history carefully enough it can give you a very clear idea of human nature and what happens and you know I know it gets brought up a lot but you only have to look at the rise of Hitler to understand you know if you blame a particular thing for all your problems in the world in theory that one thing is fixed and all your problems will go away right so you know that's basically brexit there are a lot of like the things I've just alluded to in my ideal world there was a lot of people that had been disenfranchised by technology there were a lot of people that had been left behind by technology and they feel agreed and so who do they blame and and so you give them someone to blame and and and that seems like you know you have like a pressure there's a there's a release right it's like okay well let's get rid of those immigrants and you know suddenly everything will be fine everything will be fine and I think you know without without judging you know I feel like as always with the world there's a lot of simplification going on and so when you break down the facts that the truth is that immigration is a critical part of making an economy work and anybody who has any understanding of economics knows that you know you you need all diverse types in an economy to make it work and so um and so you know America was built on the back of immigrants and those that were immigrants yesterday are today's mainstream American tycoons and you know the Statue of Liberty says it best right I mean you want you want the hungry and you want the poor you you know there's always going to be uh that not only the right thing to do to help people like that um but it also eventually you know like anything good you do in the world eventually pays off for those that are doing good and I think America's a great example of that exact philosophy and so um I think you know it is it is a complex issue uh Brexit and I'm not sure anyone wants to hear about it anymore nor you answer that perfectly yeah but I would just I would just say that you know I do genuinely genuinely feel that Brexit is just a political game set out by an elite bunch of out of touch people sold as the ultimate solution to a very complex problem and in the end it is all bullshit you know Brexit will either happen in spirit only to appease the people that voted for the people that wanted the power and the people with power will continue to really develop things in their own idiotic way half signed to help them and half just to get through the day without having to work too hard so you know uh I don't have much respect for the political elite I don't think they've ever done a hard day's work in their life most of them they certainly I don't think in it to help other people and that's just the way politics generally is and I think once you accept that you stop asking the government to solve your problems for you and you start solving them for yourself you'll be happier a lot quicker I love that that was perfect when you initially first brought up uh Trump and us being aligned there as well I'm I'm actually you know really ecstatic of the results uh and uh see it as a new day and some new hope that move start moving in the right direction but what I thought was so humorous is um they they said you know he's off golfing while you're while waiting for the election results and things and they said it says 209th time since he's been on office that he's been golfing so he's been since 2016 he's went golfing 209 times um I'll tell you what boy that that's uh for somebody who's supposed to be leading that sounds like pretty elitist and and crazy thing it's okay to have vacations and and things like that but 209 times that's a little bit more than a 30 day vacation allotment and most people don't even get around the world so I just I just hope that it stops people saying the harder you work the luck in you get because if you want to be president of the United States learn to play golf yeah learn to play golf it really um you know there's the people that will tell you the heart the harder you work the luck you get are the people that are actually playing golf telling you it yeah so start realizing that it's about um I think having luck uh it's not about following some bullshit instagram posts that tells you um you work hard then you too can can can be like me just start being like that like that already you know enjoy what you do every day is that that is success I mean you mentioned it a little bit earlier and I I live by this you know I people think that they get a mortgage because they want to own a house because they want to be wealthy and I say well you know do you enjoy what you do every day if you enjoy what you do every day you don't need a big fancy house to fill the hole um you know you will just enjoy what you do every day and everything else follows up that yeah that that's another thing that because of the lockdown period more of us have been able to see our human zoos the homes that we live in the buildings apartments etc and through that process we've actually seen I don't want to be here 24 7 I've created a place that's not that enjoyable on a lockdown non-stop so I totally I totally agree that uh that I have three more last uh takeaways and it's mainly for my listeners I would like you to give them a sustainable takeaway and free gifts for them if there was one message you could depart to them um that was a sustainable takeaway that had the power to change your life what would it be your message well it's hard to pick one but I think the overarching theme I've probably put forward is um that ultimately success is is defined by you not by society not by other people's opinion and I I really believe that if you can home in on not filling a market gap for example which a lot of people pitch me a business they're filling a market gap with this idea but instead they're doing something they really love that may or may not fill a market gap I think that just a precursor to being successful I think is is defining what success is for you and I think success is about enjoying what you do every day and I'm not talking about being happy every day that's impossible I'm talking about something you alluded to earlier too which is you jump out the bed every day and you're kind of excited to get stuck in and and I would say to anybody that doesn't have that feeling invest in that first don't invest in the stock market or buying a property or any of these things that could distract you and potentially trap you because debt is a trap right that trap you then to do the thing you don't love to pay for the things you don't really need to impress people you don't really care about you know and I think that go all the way back to the basics and make sure you you spend time figuring out what it is you love to do and if you're not sure what it is you love to do go work with people that do love what they do and you'll soon be so infected by that feeling you will even fall in love with their mission or you will find yours perfect what have you experienced or learned in your professional journey so far that you would have loved to know from the start say boy if I would have known that 20 years ago the bad luck is good luck great I won't even go into depth because you've touched upon it in your book as well or and what way you mentioned to us today are there two or three actions that people decision makers could take to to accelerate or impact their field as being an entrepreneur some actions that they could take do more things great it has more value than you think great thanks very much I really appreciate it Simon it was a joy and a pleasure unless you have something you want to ask me we're done today no um if any of your listeners want to reach out you can connect to me through my website simonscript.com if you're interested in helping us help 1 million people start a business of their own you can connect to us through the purposefulproject.com and if you want to hear the stories of the world's most successful entrepreneurs how they did it what they learn then connect to the podcast show through the goodluckpod.com I will put that all on the show notes and I'm sure many will reach out to you it's so good to see you again please take care and we'll speak soon again thanks