 Okay guys, welcome. Thank you for having me today. I'm very excited to be here. This is kind of fun. I think it's interesting to have a group of guys who are all this focused on working on themselves. You know, taking this time out and really learning about different areas of life. It's incredible and I think focusing on yourself is amazing. You're the best asset you'll ever have. In fact, you're the only asset you'll ever have. So this is a chance to work on ourselves and I'm going to be talking today about the subject of entrepreneurship. Now, in the interest of finding out who this is really going to appeal to, how many of you have ever thought of running your own business, have your own business right now or just know you will in the future. Let me just see a show of hands. Okay, so just about everyone in the room. So what I want to do today is talk about my experiences of entrepreneurship and give you as I've really seen it. Because to tell you the truth, the only thing that I really know is the experience of me and the people that I've coached. And for those of you that don't know me or don't know me that well, my background has been I started as a coach. That was where I began. I didn't begin as a business person. I began as a coach and I began as a coach because growing up it was like a mini obsession for me. Learning about what made people tick, understanding body language, understanding psychology, understanding what really made people confident. And that was the big one for me by the way, was confidence. How many guys in this room feel like you could stand to benefit from having more confidence? Let me just see a show of hands. Okay, that was where I was. I was in a position in my life where I didn't have the confidence that I really wanted. I actually felt like I missed opportunities in life because I wasn't confident. I would constantly be not the quiet one in the room, but I'd never really expressed myself in the way that I wanted to. I know that part of what you guys are going to be learning here is expressing yourself in the way that you want to and really doing the things that you want to, both in your business lives and your social lives. And I had that issue is that I had so many things I wanted to do but I just couldn't do them. I didn't have that in me. And I was so afraid of what other people thought that I didn't actually do it. I was terrified that someone was going to point me out or I was going to suddenly be in the limelight and that was death to me. People are always surprised by what I do now because the truth is when I was a teenager the idea of public speaking was hell to me. I couldn't bear the thought of it. Now look at this. It's crazy and this is a small event compared to an event that I might normally do. But this was like death to me. But when I started I wanted to coach and I wanted to work with people in the area of confidence because that was what excited me. I think people miss out every single day because they're afraid of what other people think. They're afraid of the rejection. They're afraid of standing out of being different. And so I got to a place where I said, OK, I need to fix this for me. And it took me a little bit of time to really work out what was what and start taking those risks. But by the time I got there I was ready to coach people. And I started to work with people one to one and I started to do a couple of seminars here and there. But none of it I didn't see myself as a business person. I was a coach. And one of the difficult parts of all that was I was on one hand trying to master my craft, which was coaching. And on the other hand I suddenly as soon as I started really coaching properly I found myself starting to be a businessman because I suddenly had so many people I was coaching that it became a company. I started a company and that started to grow a little bit. And as soon as it did I got exposed as not knowing anything about business. Now I knew certain things that I could do or should do, but I just didn't know how to make that run and how to push that forward. So that was something that became a big deal to me was how do I actually understand business and how do I move forward with that. Now I want to go through a couple of stories with you that taught me a hell of a lot about business before I even had my own company. Because when I started out I was studying real estate. That was my university. That was my course. I was in real estate. And I thought at the time aside from coaching, which was my big dream off to the side, I also thought that I would deal in property somewhere along the way. And halfway through my program, one of the top companies came into the room, CB Richard Ellis. And they said, look, we want five people in the whole of the UK to go to China and work on our business. Immediately, even though at this stage I knew I wasn't going to be in property long term, immediately this was something that appealed to me. Because I was like, this is, you know, China, I get to go to China, I get to work in a completely different environment. I'm all about experiences in life. Anything that can give you an experience, I love it. And also one of the things I'm going to be talking about later on is how any experience as long as that gives you some element of success can give you credibility for elsewhere. Okay, but I'll talk about that in a little while. So I went, I decided, you know, I really wanted to do this thing. And they said, okay, look, but we should tell you, this is available to everyone on your program. And we had an 150 people on our program. But they said, but it's also available to every other program like this across the country. So in total, they were looking for five people, a couple of boys, a couple of girls, and they were people were applying in their thousands. And on my program, they said, right, what you have to do in order to qualify, even in order to be chosen from your little program, you have to write an essay. And the two best essays will get selected to go into a pool with all of the two other best essays from all the other courses across the country. So I wrote this essay. And I really worked on it. I really wanted this. Like I hadn't wanted something this badly the whole time I was at university. But I really wanted it. And I just felt like it was different. I've always wanted to be different in life. I've always wanted to do something that wasn't quite the norm. And so I really tried on this one. And I got in I gave him the essay. And I got a call about a week later saying, you got one of the two spots, you got one of the two spots to then apply to the main round of interviews. What I then found was I started asking friends, how was your essay? How was your essay? I started talking to everyone. And they said, oh, I didn't write one. And for most people that I spoke to on my program, they hadn't written an essay. Now, when the people first came into the room, there was this buzz in the room. Everyone was like, this sounds incredible. We're going to China. We're going to work. They're going to do this, work for the biggest property company in the world. Everyone was so excited. And barely anyone had written an essay. So there's me thinking, well, I've written an essay. It's one of the top two in the whole course. Barely anyone had even written one. And then when I found out why, I found out that when the people that came said that people would be applying from all over the country and thousands of applications would be coming in, everyone suddenly had that switch in their mind that went, what's the point? So no one really applied. Everyone kind of backed down. And by the way, for the stuff you'll be learning this weekend about social interactions, that's what happens with a guy sees a really beautiful woman. And in that moment, he thinks, oh, everyone wants that. And what he doesn't realize is barely anyone is going up to because everyone's thinking the same thing. And so I was like this on this program. My essay was chosen. I was one of the two. So I was excited now. And then they said, right, now you're going for an next round of interviews. So I had to travel to London to go for this interview. And I did this interview. And very quickly, one of the things I realized early on in life is that one of the greatest abilities you can have is the ability to sell yourself. And this was what I brought out in this interview. This was the thing that was important to me. So I really worked at it. I really went for it. I got through that interview, got through the next interview and eventually got chosen as one of the five that went out to China. And so I went out to Shanghai that summer. And I was suddenly in this place where it was like, you know when you get to a place where you feel like you've broken through a barrier of success and you've done something you feel is big. And then as soon as you arrive at the next stage, you're like, oh, God, now it's like a whole new level. And it's suddenly scary at that level. And that's what it was like for me in China. I suddenly got to China and I was like, this is the beginning. This wasn't the end. Getting the job wasn't the end. This is the beginning. Now I've actually got to prove myself. And I was sat at this desk in China and I didn't know what to be doing with my time. And no one really gave me anything to do with my time. And so I was sitting there bored out of my mind, like bored out of my mind for a few days. I hated it because I had nothing to do. So I'm sitting there and I'm looking at all these guys around me and all these even the western guys around me, they're fluent in Mandarin. So everything they're saying, I can't understand anything. I'm just sitting there. I can't even learn from them because they're all talking in another language. So in the end, I always had a strong kind of feeling in me that whatever I'll do to create, I'll do. Now those of you who have watched my speeches before, you'll know I talk about the idea of waiting versus creating. And that you have to be a creator. You have to create at every opportunity, not wait. And my decision was I can either wait here and do nothing or I can start doing something. So I went to one of the directors and I said, look, just give me the phone book. Give me the phone book. I'll just call through people. And at that stage I barely knew what we were even selling. But they said, oh, you know, you can talk to people and see if they're interested in commercial office space right now. So like, fine, give me the book. So I got this phone book. There's all these, you know, Chinese companies in there. And as soon as I called up the first one, I quickly realized this was going to be very difficult, me being English and trying to ask whether they wanted any commercial property space in English. And so I started talking, talking, talking. And no one understood me. And then I thought, well, okay, what's the first thing I need to do here? Because whenever we're trying to decide when we're doing something in life, how can I do this? You've always got to think of the thinnest slice that you can bring it down to. What's the thinnest slice that I can bring this down to that I can do next? Rather than being daunted by this thing, what's the first little thing that I can do? And I thought, well, the first little thing that I can do is I can find out how to say one line in Chinese that's going to get me to someone who speaks English. So I would then get on the phone and I would practice, in my head I would practice lying, practice lying. And I'd practice it, practice it, practice it. I got to a point where I'd then get on the phone and I'd say in kind of a stunted way, but I'd have the line in my head. So I'd say, and in that moment someone would go, and they would put me over to someone who spoke English. Right, in that moment they'd have it. So I go, oh brilliant. So I'd now have someone who spoke English. Now I could actually make a sale. But that moment was the moment that counted because I couldn't have got to that stage without that. And so what I learned is the concept of layering. The concept of layering. Taking one thin slice, getting that done before you worry about mastering the next stage. Now in business, it's about taking the immediate issue in front of you. If I'm trying to set up this company, if I'm trying to go further in business, I've got to find out the immediate thing that's right in front of me. And do that first. And so I started making these calls. The people around me were laughing at me as they always, you know, they're going to, right? You start speaking in broken Chinese and the people are laughing at you and that's fine, you deal with it. But what happened was I ended up making a sale. And the sale was to a Nike representative in China who then sent me $400 worth of Nike vouchers for finding them some office space. To which the people around me then got insanely jealous. Like this kid's just showed up and he's been sent $400 of Nike vouchers to go and spend at the shops. So I was really happy at this point. I was like, this is really going well. Now about a week in, a guy shows up. He's an English guy who manages the company across all of Asia and Europe. So this guy's a big guy, right? He's an important guy. He shows up at the office and he's walking through the office and I always have my radar on in business. I've always got my radar on for who do I need to meet. Who's important for me to meet right now? And when I was there I saw this guy walking through the office and I thought this guy is important for me to meet. I know that. I know that by the way everyone else is treating him. So he walked through and as he walked through he said to me, listen, can I have someone experienced who knows the retail sector around Shanghai and can show me around? Now I'd been there one week, one week. It didn't even occur to me that I shouldn't do it. I just thought yep, I'll show you around. What do you need to see? And he said, well, he said I need to see all the different malls and all the different shopping sectors and so on. I said yeah, let's do it. He said brilliant. So before anyone even had a chance to talk and I said it quietly enough that no one else would really hear because I knew the more experienced guys would look at me and go what the hell is he doing? Like this was a managing director of half the world and I'd been there a week. So he said, all right, come on then let's go. On my way out I had to, because in China you can't get, like if you don't know the characters, you can't even get a cab anywhere because it's not like you can write the name down in English and show it to the cab driver, you've got to even know the characters. So I had to go to one of the guys in the office not telling him why I needed this information but I had to go, yeah, listen, what's the main shopping centre in China? And he goes, well, you can go to this one over here. I went, that's fine, that's fine. So I took this, I gave it to the cab driver, he'd written it down for me in the characters. I showed it to him, the cab driver took us there. Me and this guy we started walking around and he was talking about, well, so what are the yields around this area? And I was making it up as I was going along, I was just saying it, right? And he was going, oh, it's really interesting, it's really interesting. We were walking around and looking at these different shops and so on and he said, so is this kind of the main strip? And I went, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's all happening here, you don't need to go anywhere else. And he was like, oh, that's really interesting. And we started talking, I started asking him more about himself and the business back home and so on. And it got to the point where by the end of probably two hours of walking around and not seeing any of the retail, we just started chatting in a really friendly way. And he said, you know what, we could really use someone like you. And immediately my brain lights up and he goes, what do you think of the office here in China? I've been there one week. He goes, just give me your honest opinion on the characters in the office. And I'm like, well, Peter, you know, I started talking about things, but I didn't know anything. But I was in that position where I thought, you know what, my character, my personality is going to bring me through this. And sometimes in business you have to have that. That thing of, you know what, I don't know everything I need to know, but I know my personality or my character is going to carry me through this. And I got to the end of this situation and he flew back home and I got a call from him. And he said, listen, when you finish in China, come and see the HR department with me because I don't want you to go through the graduate scheme back home. I want you to just, you can come and work under me, right? So immediately my brain lights up again. I'm like, wow, I don't have to go through the normal channel. I can just go and work directly under this guy. So I'm thinking this is incredible. This is like, I've fast tracked everything. And the lessons I learned were, layer your skills, do one thing then the next thing then the next thing. And then I learned that you should take a risk. If you see someone you need to meet, go meet them and let your personality shine, let your personality do the talking, even if your knowledge can't, and that if you take those risks, you can fast track the normal routes. And I got to, I got back home and everyone was worried about jobs. The market was terrible. Everyone's worried about jobs and and I'm thinking, well mine's, I got this all figured out, mine's sorted, but I also had this in a conflict. Because at the same time, I knew I wanted to be a coach. I knew I wanted to go and set up my own business and I knew I wanted to do my own thing. And I got home and I got a call from this guy and he said, you know, I need your, you're pretty much there, right? You're going to come work with me. You're pretty much there as a formality. I need you to go and just speak to the HR department. Now, I said to you that one of the most difficult things I found was when I started, I was kind of, I was in coach mode, but I needed to be in business mode as well. Because I needed to understand how to actually grow this thing. And over time, I learned a few things about actually operating a business. And I'm, I'm, you know, I got a lot to learn yet. I'm still humbled by this whole thing. But what I'd like to share with you is some of the things that I've actually found over the past few years in doing this and see if you might be able to benefit from that. I think even if you've been running a business for a while now, and you're experienced in business, understanding these things again and taking them on again won't do you any harm. Okay, so I'm going to get you to grab your pads right now. And I want you to write down my first point, which is for God's sake, just start. Just start. If right now you are in a position where you have an idea, you have something you want to do, just start. Do something. There's this terrible perfectionist mindset that we have in our culture that unless I'm ready, unless I'm completely ready, I'm not going to do it. Now, if I'd have waited in China to decide when I was completely ready to show a guy like that around, I never would have done it. And I never would have had that opportunity in the first place. We have to be in a position where we say, I'll never be completely ready. I have to find a way to start now. Even if I go back to that thin slicing concept, what's the first thing I can do? What's the first thing that I can do? And you know what's funny? There's this whole perfectionism is a joke because there are very few people in the world who are genuine perfectionists. Like people always I'm a perfectionist. That's why that's my problem. I'm a perfectionist. There are, in my experience, there are a tiny, tiny percentage of people in the world who are actually perfectionists. The rest of them are disguising cowardice as perfectionism. It's really cowardice. It's like saying, there's someone I'm attracted to over here. I'll do it when I'm ready. And we can say that we're waiting to get ready, always waiting to get ready. Or we could be honest and say I'm just being a complete coward right now. That's the choice we make. So what happens is when people make it about well, I'm not ready yet. I need to make sure it's perfect. They're making it about something else. They're making it about circumstances when actually we have to make it about an identity issue. Who do I want to be in life? Well, I want to be someone who takes action. I want to be someone who takes charge. I want to be someone who pushes forward no matter what. Can I do that right now if I'm being a coward about not starting something? No. All right, so let's start. And there's a very good friend of mine who's a known writer in London, wrote some amazing plays for the West End, done some incredible things. He said that we were having this interesting conversation the other day and he said, when as a writer you get writer's block, one of the things they teach you is to lower your standards. If you get writer's block, lower your standards for what you're expecting of yourself. And that kind of cool. We have insanely high standards of ourselves. We have standards that say we can never get it wrong. We can never screw up. And you know you wouldn't expect those standards from anyone else, but on some level we expect it from ourselves. In order to get over our writer's block or any block in life, we need to initially lower our standards a little bit. How can I lower my standards in order to get started? I'm going to grab this flip chart here. Am I hurting any camera angle with that or is that cool? We good? Okay. So I need to lower my standards in order to break this ground and get in. That's the first thing. The second thing is one of the things I've found in business is that most of what you will do will fall flat. Most of what you will do will fall flat. Not some, most. I can't begin to describe the amount of things over the last few years that I have done that have completely bombed. That have just gone nowhere. And they're all in my area. Because think of this. At this stage I'm very proud of where I am. But in my area, not like failed business ventures that I then abandon. No, in this area now that I'm talking about there are many things that I have done that have completely fallen flat. Most of what we do falls flat. And we have to be prepared for that. What's the problem? Can somebody tell me what's the problem if you're not prepared for that fact? Okay, at what point do you give up? Okay. After you fall flat. Okay, so after you fall flat you give up. Why do you give up at that point? I don't know. You just because you fell flat and feel bad about it. Okay, let's get this gentleman a mic at the back. I'd say it's because you don't know like where to go next. You're not planned for it. So you don't know what happens next. Maybe you don't know where to go next. We'll get this gentleman a mic here. For a lot of people it's the sense of failure. It's the sense of failure. It's the why me mentality. It's the it's something specific to do with me. One of the most incredible gifts that you can give yourself in life is the realization that everyone is screwing up just as much as you are. If not more. In fact, some of the best people are screwing up 20 times more than you are. I was very fortunate in the sense that when I went into business I had some partners and I had some people around me who were fantastic in business and were a little bit further than me too. So I got to watch them as they developed and they were a bit further than me and I got the privilege of seeing them screw up big before I did. So then when I would like they would they would be a little bit further than me. So when I would trail them if you imagine they would be like here and I would still be back here. Now when they were here they would have this massive screw up. This massive thing go wrong and I would see it. So then as I grew and got to that level and faced a similar screw up maybe it was the same one maybe it was a different one. I went okay but that happened to them as well. Like this was supposed to happen. Most of what we do will fall flat. The problem is for the people in business who expect everything to go right. And when they expect everything to go right and it doesn't they feel like it's some sort of personal failure and they feel like is something to become emotional about. Most of what we do will fall flat. Some of the biggest opportunities that I've ever had or thought were the biggest opportunities that I've ever had completely died and nothing happened with them. If you've had an opportunity you thought it was going to be huge. You thought oh wow this is going to be a big deal you got really excited about it and then nothing came of it. That happened to me so many times. As soon as I got one thing that helped me realize that most of what you do will fall flat is getting an agent. As soon as I got a TV agent I got sent to meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting after meeting. And everyone in that world has this meeting where they go oh you're great yeah this is great this is going to oh this is going to be huge oh I can't wait to you know and they get you all pumped up about it and then they leave and you're never here again. Like that's it you never here again. You do meet and I would have two of those meetings a week and they would never go anywhere never. And I got to a stage where you know like my staff would tell you I would get back to the office after another meeting where it didn't go anywhere and I'd be like I could have been working on the business for that hour. I've gone to another freaking meeting hasn't gone anywhere and this is just a waste of time. I'd go back to the office and I'd be like I've now got a catch up and I would get a bit frustrated with it. And then the next time I'd get a call about a TV meeting I'd go what's it about and they start telling me I go has it been commissioned yet and they start talking about it and I go all right and I'd go with a completely different energy because of what I'd already experienced. Now the funny thing is the more of those I did the more tuned I got to what people were really looking for. And I got to a point where a couple of little things started to buy it. I started getting invited getting invited to a couple of shows getting invited to a couple of morning programs and then last year I had a really good break when I did this morning a big show in the UK I did that for a period of about six weeks and I was on there every week and suddenly I was there and then after that I would start getting a few other calls. This year or the end of last year we just got called into a meeting for MTV for a brand new show get called into a meeting have the same meeting that I always have with people where I don't think it's going to go anywhere and then suddenly they get a call back they go oh yeah well no we want you and then that's become like a big thing this year is we're doing a full on series with MTV comes out later in the year it's been an incredible thing but most of what you do will fall completely flat and we have to be prepared for that the way that we prepare for it is we have several plates spinning have several plates spinning at the same time don't just have one plate spinning have several how does this conflict by the way can anyone tell me how this conflicts with traditional thinking on focus let's get Mike over here like if you have several plates spinning all at the same time and they all sort of fall flat then when you go into a downward spiral feeling worse about what's going on what if you have only one plate spinning and it falls flat I guess you'd have more enthusiasm to try again I guess do you think or do you think you'd feel like you really had no options yeah you're right what if you had a few plates spinning what is traditional focus thinking tell us we can maybe over here yeah so if you have many plates spinning you'd spread yourself off too thin you'd spread yourself too thin and there are tons of books written on focus that say you have to focus on one thing in order to do that well you have to focus on one thing the problem I have with that is that very often you don't know what thing is actually going to produce for you you don't know where the real opportunities are when you're starting in business you don't know where your biggest bait is you'll see lots of different options and you won't know which of them is actually going to produce right now does that make sense what I see commonly in business is people take all of their resources and they put them into one thing and they don't even know if that thing is going to produce yet they have no idea have you ever had a friend who's had a business idea and they've gone oh yeah no I'm so excited about this so they then go and spend like two grand on a website they like try and find premises oh I'm going to locate here and what staff do we need and where do we need to be and they start focusing on all these things we need we need cards we need business cards so I don't want cheap ones we need like expensive ones ones that are going to say the right thing they're going to say we're serious so they go and they get expensive business cards and they go and buy expensive stationery we need a filing cabinet for all the filing we're going to do but we don't have any accounts yet so but let's get a filing cabinet so that we're prepared for that and they do all of this stuff they put all of their resources into something and they have no idea yet whether it's actually going to work or not and it's the worst way to be if we have a couple of plates spinning what it really means is I'm creating opportunities in different areas and I'm going to see which of these really bites because very often the thing that you thought was going to go down well won't go down well and something you didn't think was going to be anything will become something big it's actually like that when you prepare a speech by the way you give a story for the first time and you've never told it before you've always got to have your audience that you break in on a story and when you have a story that you're breaking in for the first time the parts you thought were going to be great very often suck nothing happened no one even laughs you thought it was going to be like a big moment nothing happens and the part that you didn't think was anything the part that wasn't even supposed to be funny everyone starts cracking up and you go oh maybe that was the funny bit so you go back you rewrite the story around the funny bit and you get rid of the part that didn't work and you kind of rehash it and that's how you create an amazing speech in business it's kind of the same you don't know what parts are going to resonate with people yet you don't know what product is going to go down the best you don't know what your market wants so in the beginning putting all your resources into something before you know that doesn't work have a couple of different plates spinning and see which one works the beauty of that is if some big opportunity falls flat you don't feel like your confidence is solely rooted in that thing it's a bit like having if you imagine it like a matrix and in this matrix you've got these different opportunities if this one falls flat it's okay because you're falling back on these and you're actually allowing yourself to diversify your confidence if you have a matrix that just says this is my big opportunity this is my big break and then that screws up then you're in trouble that was why people will often say to me with the TV work that I did because the first time I was doing live TV I was very very nervous but nowhere near as nervous as I would have been if that was the only thing going on in my life luckily I had a business and I had speeches and I had all these other things going on which were really exciting me so I knew that even if something went wrong on TV that's okay I've got this whole thing over here that's what allowed me to be more relaxed what allows me to be relaxed in this environment is that I've got a ton of other things that I'm doing later today and tomorrow and the next day and all different opportunities that actually is okay this is okay this is if this if this bombs I'm going to be okay and that diversification allows us to be more confident have a few plates spinning this is very very important you don't know what is going to come off until you see it now the caveat to this is when you see something start to bite go with it when you feel something ah this this one's working this opportunity is working go with it and start diverting more resources to it once you find something that works divert more resources to it it's a bit like uh you know what happens if you I don't know how many of you are familiar with online marketing but if you are testing let's say a pay-per-click campaign on google the worst thing you can do is say right my budget the thing all the money I have savings is a grand I'm going to put this grand into this campaign and then you put it there and google eats it up in a day all right and that's your grand gone and it didn't work but that's it now because if you'd have tested five pounds or five dollars for the American audience if you'd have tested five you would have then been able to test that to see if it produced anything and then direct more resources to it if it didn't work or if it did work rather if it didn't work you could try something else but most people will literally divert all of their initial resources into one thing they don't even know if it works yet I'm going to give you a solution to this in a little while okay so most of what you do will fall flat have a few plates spinning next take every opportunity seriously take every opportunity seriously there are many instances where I see people just not capitalizing on the little opportunities that are around them and it's because they're kind of being too discerning about what's what if someone is interested in what you do and wants a meeting have the meeting if there's somewhere you can go just to suss something out go if there's someone you think might be worth calling call them in the beginning take every opportunity seriously how many of you seen a film yes man okay there's an interesting lesson in that film what's the lesson he learns at the end anyone tell me what's the lesson he learns at the end of the film there may be many lessons but what's the what's the lesson that is kind of obvious he done it because he wanted to do it not just because he had to do it okay because he wanted to do it but what is the what is the guy who taught him to say yes in the first place what's the lesson he says to him when he figures out his whole life went crazy because he said yes I can't remember anyone know he's in hospital his life is on meltdown because he said yes to too many things and he said you said you say yes to everything and then the guy in that moment says in the beginning in the beginning you say yes to everything then you get a little bit more discerning with it you get a bit more structured with what you say yes to now for me business is very much like that in the beginning when you're starting out and when you're trying to grow you have to kind of say yes to everything in a sense that doesn't mean you embark on every journey that someone puts in front of you but it doesn't mean you entertain it you go and you meet someone you find out what's going on because then you're going to meet lots of different people then you're going to find lots of different things come your way you have to do it in the beginning as you start to grow you will start to reject meetings you will start to do less you will start to say close the doors on people because you realize you have to in order to maintain focus but in the beginning take every single opportunity seriously one of the biggest opportunities in my business right now something that this year alone could take us to an entire new level is something that when it first came through on an email in my inbox I thought it was a joke I didn't know what it was I didn't know what it was all about and I almost just spammed it just said no it's nothing I chased it up because I'm in the habit of chasing up every single opportunity just to see just to see and this turned out to be the biggest thing to happen in my business so far so be very very very careful entertain every opportunity even if you don't go with it it's a bit like casting the net really wide and then when you have your options then you decide what to focus on okay you get your funnel wide when you know what's working you go with it now one of the most important skills I've ever found in business and this is going to sound so fricking cliched it's ridiculous but it amazes me that people when I work with new business people and I actually work because nowadays I do a lot of corporate coaching when I work with new business people there's something I find time and time again and it's that they've completely underrated the value of selling whatever you do whatever business you're looking to run whatever market you're looking to be in learn to sell get really really good at it there's almost this uh there's like an arrogance about selling what's the arrogance amongst people when it comes to that word sales what's the arrogance it's never taking no for an answer it's always just plowing through well that's the arrogance if you're good at sales what's the arrogance of someone who avoids sales what do they often think maybe they think it should sell itself what else yeah I have to suck I don't want to sell myself I don't want to suck up to anyone I don't have to sell myself I don't have to sell my product or that's someone else's job that's not someone else will do that if there's this arrogance amongst so many people that sales is somehow beneath them that sales is somehow beneath them and it's a terrible terrible way to be because you're at the top of your business you are the only person that is truly responsible for making it survive because anyone else can just go and get another job anyone else can leave tomorrow and find another job you're the only one who is truly 100% invested in that outcome no one else cares about it as much as you do and one of the things I see is people as soon as they can delegate sales they delegate sales as soon as they can remove themselves from that they'll remove themselves because I don't want to be involved in selling I just want to be involved in preying up the product putting some more bells and whistles on it doesn't even need them right just doing a few extra things oh there's some paperwork to do oh there's other things too I what I see everywhere is what we call avoidance activity avoidance activity avoidance activity is I'm going to do everything else except the one thing that I really should do when people get into the whole area of learning about attraction what do they often do what do you see in people who often start learning about attraction you do all the things that aren't actually what's the word you have to do to actually make someone attracted to you you do like you read books you do everything around it all the noise yeah the noise that's a good word for it you get a guy who enters this area wants to learn about attraction and so he says okay what do I need to do well I need to get a haircut and then I need to go and buy some new clothes because that's really important and then I should why I need to read more because it's really important I know everything about this subject I should probably meet some more guys who are learning about this stuff I should probably understand more about this area I should probably get my teeth whitened I should probably learn some cool places to go and all of this stuff is just avoidance activity that's all it is now I'm not saying none of it is important but it's all the icing on the cake but people get into that and they indulge in it solely because that is avoidance activity I can do this as an excuse for not doing the one thing that's actually going to get me results which is walking up to someone risking rejection and trying that's the only thing that's going to really make the difference that's the thing that if I do that remember the you know the law of 20 80 percent 20 percent of what you do is going to get you 80 percent of the results but most people live in the 80 percent most people indulge in the 80 percent their whole life do 20 percent like this much they do the 80 percent that gets them the 20 percent of the results we have to focus on the 20 percent what's the 20 percent when any new business the 20 percent is sales that's the stuff that's going to get us 80 percent of the results and I know businesses where people suddenly get into panic territory where they've not got any clients there's suddenly their cash flows going down and they see the business being brought down and they go oh god I've got to get a new client so they suddenly go out and pitch themselves like their life depends on it and they get a new client and then they go I've got a little bit of cash flow okay let's let's let's we can relax now let's go and find some new office space all right that becomes what they do next but we have to identify what's the thing that's going to get me there what's the thing that's going to get me there the most and not have that arrogance that I'm somehow above sales we're never above sales and no matter how big your business gets you're still never above sales and in addition sales the funny thing is you're not just selling a product you're selling yourself you're selling yourself I truly believe selling yourself to be one of the most important skills you can ever learn in your whole life I think it's everything whether it's attraction you're focusing on whether it's business you're focusing on I think selling yourself is the most important thing you can ever learn I want to give you some some little a little breakdown of what I think is important in selling yourself okay so one of the things I think is important in selling yourself is being passionate about the product be passionate about what you're selling okay number one two you cannot be afraid of breaking rapport whenever you sell yourself you cannot be afraid to break rapport in other words if I'm always worried about treading on people's toes I'm never going to be able to truly sell myself does that make sense I'm never going to be able to truly sell myself third speak with authority on the subject that you're talking about there is never any room for talking from a place that doesn't speak with authority never there's this great poet a stage poet called Taylor Marley who said it's not enough to question authority you've got to speak with it too and too many people are really good at questioning authority they're really good at that because it's so freaking easy it's so easy to question someone else but to actually speak with authority is much more difficult and that's what it requires that's what's required to sell yourself whether we're selling ourselves in business and I'm telling you this is what you have to do whether we're speaking to someone who we're attracted to and you're really speaking with authority about why it's important that you two are together you know it doesn't matter you are speaking with authority uncertainty immediately makes us less attractive as people in business too that uncertainty I think now it's not to say you always have to pretend you know everything about everything because you're either speaking with certainty or you're curious with certainty because if I'm talking to you about your business and I don't know anything about let's say plumbing and I talk to you about plumbing and I ask you about it and I say tell me about that thing I'm still not uncertain I'm just curious because I don't know that so I'm not going to try and speak on that subject but if I do try and speak on a subject I'm going to say it with complete authority it really does help if what you're talking about what you're selling you're passionate about if you're not passionate about it there's a whole different set of sales skills that you need to sell that thing right it can be done but it's much easier especially when you run your own business it's much easier to be passionate about what it is you're selling and whatever it is you're selling you have to be passionate every single one of the programs that I do I'm insanely passionate about and when you're passionate about something on that level you can be shameless about it that's the difference when you're passionate about something you can be shameless I do a program on impact you know what it is to walk into a room and truly have impact on someone what it is to walk into a room be able to work that room be able to tell an amazing story be able to persuade someone get someone onto your level of thinking and for me it's the most important skill in the world it's the most important skill in the world because it's the one skill that I've had to learn over the last five years religiously every single week I'm out and I'm doing this I'm practicing it I'm looking at my voice I'm looking at my gesturing I'm looking at the way I stand everything that I do is about impact when I go on TV I'm learning that same set of skills when I'm talking to someone on the phone and talk to them about a course that I have it's impact that comes out so I'm insanely passionate when I talk about this that's everything to me I don't need to worry about holding back I don't need to worry about being uncertain because I'm shameless about it this is something I'm passionate about this is something you must do and Anthony shows the same passion it's like that that passionate says I have to do this I have to communicate this to you and that's what makes the difference is if I'm that passionate I'm going to be able to sell you anything because I believe it too because I actually believe you should come and do this that's the difference and that's what we're looking for by the way while I'm on this subject I have a link for you to go to I've got a free gift for everyone in this room there's a link for you to go to it's www.MatthewHussie.com MatthewHussie.com forward slash 21 convention okay go there I have something waiting for you there it's just my gift to everyone for being in this room MatthewHussie.com forward slash 21 convention okay we have to be passionate about whatever it is we're talking about now I want you to take literally two minutes two minutes to write down if there's because I never but I always believe you shouldn't ever leave the sight of a talk like this learning something new figuring something out getting some clarity without actually taking some form of action I want everyone to take two minutes to write down okay as a result of being here if this has been an hour of my life okay this is an hour of my life that I will never get back I have to make sure that this hour actually benefits me in some way because if all it did was stimulate me for a few minutes and then I went back to normal life then it was a waste of time in these two minutes I want you to write down what action has this prompted me to take and it may be in business it may just be in your career in general right now but I want you to write down what has this talk prompted me to do what action must I take as a result of this talk if I were thin slicing it and I said there's one action right in front of me what would that action be I want you to write it down all right real modeling this is why we call it real modeling because imagine this is you right now when most of us think about who we're going to model when we look at this concept of modeling we look at the person that's at the top of our field at the top of our game so we look to this person here who's like a giant the biggest person in our field now the problem with this person is that they're not that accessible we don't just have access to this person you can't just call them up and say hey how did you do it or can you help me because these people are used to getting those calls every single day and even taking them to lunch doesn't work does it you can't everyone says oh network that person take them to lunch or whatever this person gets offered to lunch five times a day they can only eat so much lunch they don't care right so that's not going to work with that person but there's someone who's right here this person is just a small distance in front of you you don't need to know everything that the giant knows in order to make a small gap bridge a small gap in your business you just need to know what the person immediately in front of you does so when you're doing this pick someone who's immediately in front of you and model them get access to them and by the way they'll be much more happy to give you access because it'll be an ego trip for them whereas this person's over it the person directly in front of you gets a kick out of seeing someone who's just behind them trying to get some help okay and you can actually get close to this person whereas this person you can't even get close to let alone model them the whole concept of modeling is based on modeling people's specific strategies what do they do every single day what do they think what do they feel what do they how do they behave everything how can you do that with this person when you don't even know what they were doing last week we have no idea so you can't truly model that person okay one more example what did someone choose what did someone say they were going to do as a result yes in the corner take a lot more risks start if I want to do something just go and do it rather than thinking okay about weather okay so I'm going to take more risks so what I think you should do is later today sit down and write down what the top five risks you could take that would have the most payoff okay fantastic all right what I'm going to do lastly before answering a couple of questions is I want to write down the features that I've found in most of the best entrepreneurs that I know and I want to just list what it is I see that's different about them to other people so that we can at least start to model that and maybe decide whether it's right or wrong for you because I don't think I genuinely don't think being an entrepreneur is right for everyone but there are some people who it's perfect for let's look at the characteristics that they have one I found that as we said every one of these people has an ability to sell themselves every one of these people has an ability to sell themselves okay they are good at that skill most of them are exceptional at that skill you put them in a room with someone and at the end of that sitting someone wants to buy something from them or they want to hire them or they want to be around them they're just persuasive people next they have a high stress threshold they are used to dealing with large amounts of stress and dealing with it well in fact some of the best guys that I know they don't experience massive highs or massive lows they're just kind of happy and constant often it's often I worry when I see someone who experiences this extreme high as soon as something goes well I worry a little bit because usually that person is also very good as soon as something goes badly they're good at plummeting in that moment we have to be very careful with our emotions in this because your emotions are going to be messed with every step of the way you'll get something go right and then the next day something will go badly wrong it's extremely important to have that that even emotion across the board it doesn't mean you're neutral it doesn't mean you feel nothing it actually means that you're at a high level of happiness than most people are but you're not feeling the extremes all of the time because if you're feeling that in business you're going to go gray before your time next stamina these guys have stamina they know that whether or not they get there today is kind of irrelevant they're still going to be doing the same thing next week and the week after and the week after they have that stamina even when stuff is going wrong by the way just going back to that stress point there are going to be times in your business where things go really badly like badly and it's going to sting those moments are the moments where you become lean emotionally most people have those moments and they crumble but when I look back on those moments for me now those are the moments where I got lean I had a moment where one of my worst moments the moments I hated the most or it was a little period was I'd had I'd met someone who was an amazing guy an amazing client who was very very wealthy and he had this tiny little corner office in Mayfair and I didn't have an office at the time I was working out of Starbucks so he was like I have this tiny little office you've helped me do you want to operate out there for a little while and this was like he was an angel to me now when he said do you want to operate out there what he was talking about was me paying a tenth of the rent that you're supposed to pay in that area which is one of the most expensive areas in the whole of London I got there I realized that this tenth of what it would cost me was still all the money that I had but I needed to be there so it was a choice really between doing that or having a box apartment in the moment I decided I wanted the office because the office would give me credibility the apartment wouldn't so I decided okay I'm going to have I'm going to get this little office so I got this tiny little office and for a period of a couple of months I was sleeping on the floor of this office and I hated it hated it with a passion I had to I had this little sleeping bag and I couldn't let anyone know that I was sleeping there because they would have chucked me out I know they would have had a problem with it so I had to roll this sleeping bag up every night or unroll it every night sleep in the sleeping bag wake up at four in the morning before the cleaners got there put it back pretend I was the first one in the office and then at the end of the night pretend I was the last one there before I rolled it out again I hated it I hated it imagine meeting someone on a night out as well and you have to go back to your office you know it's like it was just terrible it was a terrible time and um now it wasn't that my parents didn't have a house my parents were living out in s6 at the time they had a house but I knew that by being out there I wouldn't be meeting the right people I knew I had to be here in order to meet the right people I had to be here and while I was here that was a really depressing time for me but that was also the time where I got emotionally lean I learned to deal with most of the crap now nothing that I have today compares with what I felt then and it also makes me unafraid of going back to that period because I know that I got through it you get emotionally lean in those tough moments next you have to believe that if you do everything that if you work hard you're going to get the result you have to believe that you have to believe that if you do everything right or if you actually put the work in you're going to get the result if you don't it just it's a torturous battle trying to get through it all you have to believe that if I do this stuff if I work hard it will happen for me it will happen I will get what I deserve and I genuinely believe I have a core belief that if you work hard you'll be rewarded I really believe that if you work hard you'll be rewarded that doesn't mean there are some smart there aren't some smarter ways of working hard than others but I just believe at the end of the day if you put in if you do your homework you'll get rewarded in any area of life and lastly I think you have to be a little bit mental I honestly do I honestly believe that to become a really successful entrepreneur you've got to be a little bit fucking crazy most of the people that I know that are really good that are at the top of their game they're a little nuts they're not necessarily nuts in front of people but they're a little nuts they're like they're functioning nutcases that's what they are you know how you get functioning alcoholics these people are like functioning nutcases and there is there is kind of a little obsessive streak in them that says I've got to get ahead I've got to get ahead I've got to do this even if I've been rejected on the phone 20 times I've got to make the 21st call I've got to keep going they have that in them and I do I believe we have to have that because I think the road is too long like I genuinely think starting your own business and going down that road is difficult and I wouldn't let anyone tell you that it's not I think it's really difficult I had a moment at the end of and I'll wrap up with this point before we do a couple of questions I had this moment at the end of one of my seminars I one of the businesses that I have is called Get The Guy and it's a business that coaches women in their love lives now this business I've been running events in this area for the last two, three years I got to the end of an event and I'd been going I'd been speaking for probably 12 hours on Saturday and again on Sunday it'd been a long, long two days not only that but obviously when you do a weekend seminar it's on the back of a long, long week as well so I got to the end of the Sunday and I'd given everything I'd given all of my energy I was really pumped and I got to the end of the weekend and I'm like every part of my energy from the last seven days is just like gone I need to sleep but I always try and after an event go for a drink with the people that have been on the event just to catch up just to kind of get to know them on a more personal level and I always sat there and one of the women sitting next to me said Matt, you look really tired and I said I am really tired how is that? like what is wrong with that? I'm tired, yes she said you look really tired she said you've got to look after yourself and I said I am it's the end of Sunday night I'm just tired it's okay it's cool and she said she said you know it doesn't have to be this difficult right? and I said and I knew she was about to pull the law of attraction out on me right? because people usually do at this point so she said she started talking about the law of attraction and she said you know if you just if you believe it's difficult it will be difficult and if you believe that it's easy it will be easy and this was a point where I was starting to get to the end of my tether because when you hear that stuff you know what someone is saying what they're really saying is you have to set something up to be something that you enjoy not something that you find difficult and what this person didn't quite understand is that my life is you know every day is tough because there's a lot to there's a lot to do anyone in this room who is working all the time will tell you that the days are long there's a lot to do it's pretty tiring but you love it that's why you do it because you love it because you wouldn't be doing anything else because it's exhilarating it's exciting but it's not easy and we live in this self-help culture where self-help almost has a fear of calling things difficult it's like it needs everything to be easy and so it always talks about things being easy if you label it easy it will be easy and if you know it's just not I have found that going through this road running a business trying to master the art of coaching and speaking at the same time as trying to master the art of business running the retreats that I do across the world doing the impact programs it's tiring but I love it and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world so where our finish is this in the beginning it's very likely that you'll feel more pain than pleasure you'll have like this little you'll have this moment where starting anything new there's like this novelty right you'll have this little novelty period where it's kind of fun then reality sets in and it becomes kind of difficult and the novelty wears off and then the hard work begins and then it feels tough but it will never stop being tough because there'll always be stuff to do and it'll always there'll always be an element of hard work as long as you're really working on it okay unless you remove yourself from your business there will always be an element of hard work but there comes a point where it becomes so exciting that that completely outdoes any of that hard work or pain that you feel it's on a whole different level and that's what I feel now it's really tough there's a lot to do it's exhausting but it's also the most exhilarating journey I've ever had and I wouldn't change it for anything in the world thank you for your time I really appreciate speaking to you I've appreciated you giving me your time and allowing you to allowing me to be your coach for an hour it's been a real pleasure so thank you very much thank you very much we're gonna do a couple of questions now guys so anything you want to ask your business was it called get the guy wasn't it yeah team up with 21 sorted I often in the in the women's seminars that I do there's always there's always a couple of women that say why don't you just put us all in a room together with the guys that you coach like every single time I'm like I don't know about that I don't want to be the one in the middle of that when it all goes wrong all right so you were talking about doing a lot of things and just having a lot of plates isn't there maybe a a fair of commitment as well when you if you have a lot of plates going and you have that novelty that you have over there and you just get little glimpse of everything yeah that you you never really commit so how do you get past that and just get past your fair of committing to one thing okay this is a really good question actually there are two things one when something starts to work you'll know it will work because it'll come become quite exciting because you'll start to see some results from it so as a result you start to focus more on it okay so that's one answer but some people can see results from something and still fear committing to it like for example I when I started get the guy I was before long before I was doing get the guy I was coaching people in their confidence I was working with businessmen I was working with all different people what I was concerned about was that with get the guy I would become the dating guy for women and that was something that was in my head it was like well I love coaching I love working with all people I don't want to be pigeonholed as this guy I put to you that any credibility you build in an area can be used to swing over to another branch so once you build credibility in one area I honestly believe in life that the key is to become successful in something because if you become successful in something people in another domain even though it might not be related look at you and say oh well he's done something well we should give him a shot but if you've never been successful at anything that's when people have difficulty trusting you so I was coaching a model who's been a very successful model for the last few years and now he's starting to branch out into doing films right that's nothing to do with modeling but because he's successful there people might actually give him a shot over here in a world that's completely unrelated and as exhibit C I'm standing here today talking to you about entrepreneurship I didn't start here nor did I have the credibility in the beginning of my career to talk about this the only reason I'm talking about this right now is because with Get The Guy and with MatthewHussey.com I've taken those to a position of strength so when you build credibility in one area it will feed into other areas don't become a commitment phobe about committing to one thing because when you commit to that you're building credibility which can be used for other things later on does that make sense okay Hiya um my question you know you you're talking about that thing about most things will fall flat I don't know if I misunderstood what you were saying but when you said that I thought what the fuck can you give me some examples other than your your property thing that you missed the opportunity can you give me some examples from your personal experience that fell flat I mean most you said most things I was thinking some things not most things so can you give me some some of your examples and by the way as you get better you'll find that you start getting on target more but in the beginning definitely most things will fall flat what I mean by that is not necessarily the whole business will fall flat but things within it will fall flat so you've got you've got this person that calls you up and he seems like your biggest client so far and you go this is great and then a day later he says ah actually I changed my mind and you spend all night thinking that was going to be a great thing that transform your business and they go no actually I'm not bothered if I look at the corporates that I've coached now by this point and this is this is what I really mean if I look at the clients that I've coached if I give people my biography it looks really really good all right because I've got coca-cola I've got virgin I've got Morgan Stanley I've got Accenture I've got Proctor and Gamble all these amazing people that's like the 2% that said yes the rest of them along the way didn't want to know me now that those people have hired me they all do but before that most of them were falling flat most of them you go and speak to and they go well you know I'm not sure and it wouldn't go anywhere but all you need to do is collect enough wins that you get to the next level that's it it's like a computer game just collect enough wins that you get to the next level and then people are going to give you different opportunities we had one here and one here I think I just a couple of observations when you were talking about what makes entrepreneurs different to the rest of us something that I've picked up myself and you touched upon it you said what you're passionate about yeah well won't actually be work I really believe in that you know if you're really passionate about something you'll love it so it won't seem like work so that's something I've found and also there was some research done as to what drove entrepreneurs to success and one of the reasons was this attitude of I'll show them this is what I mean by the crazy streak yeah well it's also about you know I'll show that teacher who said I'll amount to nothing yeah but think about that it's fucking crazy it's crazy like it's completely mental it's like saying you know that that girl rejected me when I was 12 someone to spend the rest of my life getting girls to show her it doesn't make sense it's complete nonsense but you're right you're right most of the entrepreneurs that I know they have that weird streak in the back of their mind you know mine was that my family was always kind of a rollercoaster financially and I never felt in control and without going into the details of it it was like it became a force for me that I had to go out and never be out of control in that area again and it became this almost this obsession with getting ahead and making sure that I'm never back in that position again and that I can look after my family and I can give them everything I want when I actually look at it it's like the people you get like the people I care about now they don't really want a jet and a hot tub and this and that and the other but in my head you go extreme and you go I'm going to get them everything I'm going to buy them a country because that's an emotional reason but I think there's a lot of value in having an emotional reason because I think it drives you in a completely different way What drove me as I was growing up due to my family circumstances was if you read Napoleon Hill's Think and Grow Rich even the thing that people fear more than death itself is actually the fear of poverty and that's what really drove me Right Yeah and it will be in the beginning what gets you to start a business is very different from what gets you to carry on in the later stages what got me to start was fear and panic it was like I never want to be doing a job that I hate because although I think all roads in life are tough I don't think there's a difference I don't think being an entrepreneur is any more difficult than doing anything else but I think you have to choose what difficult means to you difficult to me isn't working hard difficult to me is being in a job that is sapping my soul for the rest of my life that's difficult for me so that's what drives me but as you start to get more success it will be excitement that drives you not fear and panic Hi, yeah really enjoyed the speech Matt Thanks a lot it was quite inspiring to see someone derive so much happiness from the pursuit of happiness so just being kind of following on from that comment just on the whole I've got loads of questions but I'll just draw one from it I just wonder whether you can comment on the idea of whether you think there's drawing from this spinning plates analogy whether you think there's kind of like a j-curve principle involved with the span of your attention and the probability of failure based on potentially spreading yourself too thin whether there's kind of like a sweet spot on the you know the number of pursuits you should begin with and try and draw success from and see what's what fails and what's what what hits yeah I think there definitely is I think the key is when you're spinning plates to keep them within within the bounds of what you're doing if that makes sense so for example if I'm running a new program that I'm doing let's say one new program that I did last year that has become a permanent fixture is a retreat okay now that retreat in the beginning I didn't know what it was going to be all I knew is I wanted to take people out to an exotic location and work with them personally for five days I didn't know what that was going to be at the time now that's very different spreading my focus in that way is very different from saying maybe I should invest in a car wash like that would be an interesting opportunity someone's told me the cash flow stacks up I'll do it because that's like a completely different focus and actually an interesting point I had a property I had bought early on I'd bought a small house outside of London now this house over time was appreciating and had I kept it it would have made me money but every other week I would have a call from the people who were the tenants in that house talking to me about this and oh the toilet broke and the sink broke and this that and the other and I wouldn't want like the hassle of going outside London to do it because if I went outside London it'd take me a whole day out of my schedule that would cost me many thousands of pounds in work done in London so in the end I thought well despite the fact that anyone who owns property would say hold on to a property this was not good for me it divided my focus and in the end even though I knew that I was giving up an opportunity I sold the house because I said this isn't helping with my core focus if I'm spinning plates I'm going to try and make sure that they're all within the scope of what it is I'm trying to do so that if I'm coaching a corporate that's great because it gives me credibility in other areas if I'm coaching a big seminar room of people that's great because some of these people are from corporates and they'll bring me into their corporate and I'll end up coaching their corporate so it all kind of works together even though they're diverse they all feed into each other and that's I think how our lives should be even though you're spinning plates you're spinning plates in areas where they will feed into each other and not be abrasive together okay that's it all right guys thank you so much take care enjoy the rest of your weekend I know you've got a packed schedule have an amazing time and I will speak to you soon lovely to see you