From Setbacks to Success: The Untold Story of Jason Graystone’s Journey to Making £Millions

0:01Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:So welcome back to Brave Bold Brilliant. I'm Jeanette Linfoot, entrepreneur, advisor, investor and your host. Now over the past 30 years, I've built a career across multiple industries, leading global businesses, scaling companies, investing in ventures that change lives and really do business in a different way. And through my work at Brave Bold Brilliant, our proud business, as well as the name of our podcast and Jeanette Linfoot Associates, we now help ambitious leaders and entrepreneurs unlock growth, embrace bold strategies and create the success they truly deserve. Now, today I am joined by Jason Greystone, who is the founder of Greystone Education and co-founder of Tier One Trading.

0:45Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:Now, Jason achieved financial freedom by the age of 30 and has built a multimillion dollar business across online and service sectors. But he started out in very humble beginnings in a council estate down in South London. And, you know, today his work really does focus on teaching entrepreneurs how to achieve financial freedom themselves through the business models and the things that he's actually managed to achieve as well. through his always free ethos. So in today's episode we're going to explore Jason's journey to financial independence. We're going to actually look at how innovative the frameworks are that he uses and really how he empowers others to build profitable, sustainable and meaningful ventures.

1:34Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:So without any hesitation let's dive into the episode.

1:41Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:Welcome to today's podcast. I'm here with Jason Grayston, who is the author of Always Free. Nice to see you, Jason.

1:49Jason Graystone:Lovely to see you. Thanks for having me on.

1:52Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:You are very welcome. Now, we are going to be talking all about money. We're going to be talking about financial freedom. We're going to be talking about multiple streams of income and how you help people, how you've achieved it yourself, and really some of the tips and tactics that people can deploy in order to really put themselves in the best financial position possible. So there's a lot for us to get into, Jason. But what I wanted to do was just kick right off with, you know, financial freedom. Now, you achieve financial freedom very early on. So can you just tell us a little bit about the backstory, how you got to be in such a strong financial position at such a young age?

2:32Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:And I think that was what, how old were you when you achieved financial freedom? You were certainly under 30, weren't you, Jason?

2:38Jason Graystone:It was just before my 30th birthday. Yeah. Yeah. 29.

2:42Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:Great. So take us through the lead up to that, because some people will go, my gosh, Jason. Wow. You're a rich guy. You've managed to achieve this utopia of financial freedom. And well, I want to be able to do that as well. But take us through your journey, a little bit of the story in the lead up to that and how you how you managed to get to that fabulous position.

3:01Jason Graystone:so first of all i think um you know being free or being financially independent has has been

3:08Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:very high on my values since since i was a child they say that whatever you perceive to be missing

3:14Jason Graystone:most in your childhood becomes your highest value and um and for me that was really just security uh my my earliest memories were you know my my dad had left it was just me and my mom trying to make ends meet kind of thing typical story of south london council estate you know bailiffs knocking on the door for the electricity and hiding behind the sofa because pretending you're not in and you know all these kind of things and then to make ends meet my mum was out getting various jobs and uh i was i was looked after or babysat by this family who just happened to be like a renowned gangster family and i was kind of exposed to kind of screaming and shouting and dodgy characters all day long and it was uh you know i felt like i didn't have security i guess um i didn't feel like i was in a secure position as a child and that kind of naturally made me gravitate towards figuring out how to get security and obviously money's a big part of that which i found out later on but the the two main kind of turning points were uh on our on our estate on a Friday night everyone used to sit on the steps of the block of our flats as like a little bit of a mother's meeting and sort of moan about the week and I used to pick up on negative kind of comments towards money and you know rich people greedy all this kind of stuff and then the reason I picked up on it is because at half past seven this guy called Roy used to come down take everyone's money and go and do a syndicate lottery and and for the next 10 minutes everyone's face would be lit up with how amazing their life would be and I just remember thinking this is weird you know that they're moaning money is bad or is it good and you know I just didn't quite understand understand it but coincidentally that year I really wanted this this BMX for my birthday this mongoose BMX and uh and I left hints all around my our flat for my mum and my stepdad to to kind of get it for my birthday and they were like that we can't afford the bike but if you can raise half the money uh we'll put the other half towards it in october and you can go and get it for your birthday so i started uh i did this car wash and i washed one car the first day spent all day washing this car pretty much and um i got seven pound five pound plus two pound tip and then i was telling my friend about it that night and my stepdad came in my room and he said i'm going to the shop do you want me to get you anything and something made me give him everything I'd earned to get another bucket and sponge so my friend could help me and the next day we washed four cars and then within four weeks I had four friends washing cars and I was still on track to get the bike but I wasn't washing cars I wasn't doing any of the work I was just knocking on the doors and making the sales and you know booking them in for the next wash and all this kind of stuff and I just it was like a massive epiphany it was like this big realization that if you use money the right way you can actually have what you want but be happier as well like do to do more of what you enjoy and um and i remember that vividly and i took that into work with me i took that into the workforce and and everything else and um so i always valued money and how to use money but then when i was 22 we found out i was going to have our first baby and that hit me like a sack of bricks You know, it was like I felt like I'd failed because I felt like I wasn't ready.

6:45Jason Graystone:I wanted to provide for my children what I didn't have. And I just felt like, you know, I'm basically he's going to be the same as I was. And it was a really horrible feeling. But it did put a rocket up my backside. And it was that point where I decided that, you know, I need to stop talking about it and actually do it. So I put a plan of action in place to replace my income through investing. And that became a very, very long journey. But I became obsessed with the fact that I could save 10 % of my income and invest it at 10 % per year and replace my income in 20 years. And then I became kind of fascinated with the idea that I could actually reduce that down by increasing my savings.

7:33Jason Graystone:and then increasing my performance and then managing my lifestyle a bit better and growing my income. And I managed to get it whittled down to the point where I just needed a few years. And that's when I went into higher speculation, so trading. And I went into online poker for a while. But it was basically just to get a higher return, just to kind of grow the whole pot a little bit quicker so I could cover the expenses that I had at the time which wasn't a lot you know you mentioned rich guy but when I became financially free it was basically you know I wasn't earning too much money my lifestyle was pretty you know pretty basic but it meant I didn't need to go to work anymore and and the magic is once you're in that position you start seeing more opportunities you see you start um you start earning more money as a result of being free it's it's a strange thing um and and that's that's what

8:37Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:happened now if you are enjoying this conversation with jason graystone now is the perfect time to subscribe to brave bob brilliant because it's by joining our community that you're going to get access to more incredible insights and stories that are going to help you create abundance and scale your business and ultimately live life on your own terms so don't be shy hit that subscribe button don't miss the conversations that are going to transform your financial future and your professional life amazing yeah i love this because i mean what what you're showing there Jason is that regardless of social background and the start that people have in life everyone has a choice everyone can decide to choose a different path and it's not easy you have to put the hard work in like you said but you know that that money mindset you know maybe you think about you know Robert Kiyosaki's great book you know Rich Dad Poor Dad and if you if you read that book which you may have done you're nodding so you probably have but you know some of the takeouts there is around not spending money but investing money so that it actually you know creates that compound impact compound effect of of kind of growing your financial performance so financial freedom for you meant financial independence meant not having to go to work not having a job as such um and did that give you financial um independence versus freedom is a bit different right because financial independence is almost yeah financial independence is stage one so stage one is

10:20Jason Graystone:being free from rely you know basically covering your living costs regardless of relying on someone so a parent partner a guardian a spouse or a boss or a geographical location and i think that's a very binary position to be in like people will be listening to this now and say yes I'm financially independent or no I'm not financial freedom is where you can maintain those living costs with that income regardless of you so you can die you can lose your mind mind lose your marbles lose your energy or your physical ability and still bring in that income that to me is true financial freedom and um and and that's what you know a lot of people that that's a scaling in piece as well because a lot of people can become financially independent but financial freedom depends on your lifestyle what lifestyle you want to acclimatize to what you know and so on so it's kind of an ever-growing thing if you continue to grow your lifestyle so one of the things that kind of shocks people nowadays is I say you know to people that I have no goals or anything you know I have no aspirations to to achieve anything else because I'm very content in my life right now and if every day was like today and i'd die i'd die a very very happy person you know and i think there's a lot of people out there not achieving freedom because they are trying to please and appease other people or live in the shadows of other people and and they're just constantly chasing and sacrificing today's happiness for tomorrow's profit and and tomorrow never comes and then they end up getting a health scare or something and then it's uh and then they they quickly shift their perspectives and their priorities but for me i i don't you know i'm very very content so i think that's that's quite powerful i think being mentally free and knowing who you are and what you want um so always free my book isn't just about the idea of having financial freedom it's about being mentally free and having a lifestyle and a vocation and an income even from your job or your business that feels like it's not work so an extension of your values who you are and being able to leverage it with automations and delegations and systems and so that you're only focused on the bits that really inspire you if you're in that position you don't really need financial freedom because you're not trying to escape you're not trying to retire you know that's basically it you've cracked it the financial element is just there so you can buy time into the future should you need to stop should you become ill or injured or you need to look after a loved one or something like that then you've got the financial freedom there to to help you have some time off but if you've got no problems in your life and you don't need to stop and you're fit and healthy then you're never going to want to stop doing things that inspire you and if you can get paid to do that that's just that is mastery of of life in my opinion yeah yeah no i

13:23Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:think that's great and actually as you were talking uh jason what i was what's bringing to my mind was around sort of the definition of success and happiness really um and you know you're right we see a lot almost the you know the uh the problem of comparison comparing ourselves to others or thinking that we should be at a certain stage in our life or our business should be bigger or i should be higher up at the you know the career ladder but the reality is is how do you get comfortable in your own shoes um and it is really what i think true happiness is and money Money gives you choices. That's what I said.

13:59Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:That's what I believe. Money gives you options and choices that if you have none and you're struggling to pay the gas bill, that's a pretty hard place to be. Whereas, you know, whereas actually, like you say, if you have the money, you don't necessarily have to be a decamillionaire or even a millionaire. But if you've got choice, then that allows you to explore things in a different way without that pressure of just getting by in life, really, isn't it?

14:24Jason Graystone:Absolutely. I ask people, you know, what freedom is to them all the time. And they say like, it's, I just want to be able to do what I want to do, be who I want to be and do whatever. And I, I ask them who they are. And they don't know, you know, most people don't know who they are. Most people have not got goals that are most people don't know their purpose and their values. And they haven't taken the time to sit down and realize what that is. And then they haven't planned goals aligned with those. and then they let other people and other people's thoughts dictate their own actions. And that is not mental freedom.

15:00Jason Graystone:And it is relative all the way up the scale. I've just been to Necker Island, Richard Branson's home for the last week, spent a week with multi-millionaires, deca-millionaires, people sold their business for hundreds of millions, and it's the same thing there. You know, there's people, certain people who just do not know who they are. I've met people born into wealth. They can do whatever they want, go wherever they want. And yet they don't feel mentally free because they've got no ambition, no sense of drive, no purpose. And they're just drifting through life. So mental freedom is arguably the most important.

15:40Jason Graystone:If you're not mentally free, you'll never be free. You'll never achieve any financial freedom because you'll always be told how to spend your money. And if you do accumulate a lot of money, like those guys that I met this week, you will have this big anxiety over not feeling like enough or not feeling like you've earned it or like you deserve it or how to use it to give you freedom. So it's fascinating.

16:05Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:Yeah, it is. And, you know, I mean, I work with, you know, all levels of leaders, you know, corporate CEOs that are running multi-billion pound businesses globally through to entrepreneurs, startups, etc. And I always say people are people, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you can see someone that on the surface looks to have it all. You know, you've got the big job, you've got the big business, the title, the money, everything, everything. And yet there's just a lack of contentment or, you know, there's a gremlin inside that's the imposter syndrome kicks in or whatever it may be. So I think you're absolutely right.

16:39Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:You know, it's not just about the numbers in your bank account. It's actually having done the inner work as well to allow you to be comfortable in your own shoes, to understand who you are and what your purpose is. So let me throw a question back to you on the back of that, Jason. when you work with people because you help other people don't you in terms of through the book or through you know one-to-one work that you do with individuals and businesses on how they can get to this position themselves so what are some of the tactics tips advice that you can give for people someone that is struggling to understand who they are and what their true purpose is how can they get that clarity how do you help them and what advice would you give having managed to get there

17:24Jason Graystone:yourself yeah there's there's a couple of strategies so really you're just it's about understanding who you are first of all so the one of the best ways you can do that like this is a bit of a fun one but if you go through your camera roll on your phone or your photo album or whatever it might be you'll see that there's a common theme over the years of things that you choose to take photos of because if you think about what it takes to take a photo and I'm not talking about selfies and stuff like that. I'm talking about moments of inspiration where you've gone, you know, and you want to take that photo.

17:57Jason Graystone:It might be children. It might be the mountains. It might be animals. It might be football, whatever it might be. But there'll be some common theme there as to what you choose to take photos of. You can combine that with questions like, you know, if I was to call up your friend and ask you who you're the go-to person for, You know, what are you most reliable in? What do you bring up in conversation all the time? What do you change the conversation to? What are you known for? You know, and what would they say? And there'll be a common theme. That'll be linked probably to the photos that you've seen the theme in.

18:35Jason Graystone:What would you do on Monday morning if you didn't need money? What would your business look like if you didn't need money? You know, what would you be doing? They're really powerful questions. What energizes you? What would you spend most of your disposable income on? What do you spend most of your disposable income on? All of those questions are going to show you some clues as to what you're meant to be doing here. And as I say, whether that's mountains or kids or animals or music or guitar or piano or whatever, that is closely tied to your purpose and your mission in life. And it's probably something that you've either got high on your values because you perceive it to be missing as a child or it's just a true inspiration.

19:22Jason Graystone:It's something that you feel called to do. And the great thing is today you can monetize anything. You can monetize anything. So that's the great thing about that. The second bit is to make sure that you're not holding on to any kind of memory baggage that is warping your beliefs and actions as to how you can achieve something. So people go through life going, you know, I can't actually do that because of, you know, this bad experience happened. And it's just a big kind of inefficiency that you're holding on to that's stopping you from living the life that you want to live. I always give the example of like you come home from, you know, work and you find your partner cheating on you.

20:06Jason Graystone:Right. At that moment in time, it's like the worst thing. And you feel like you're the victim. And, you know, it's you have a trust issue. You fear going out on dating again. And if I bump into you 20 years later and I say, was that the worst thing that happened to you back then? You probably say, no, it's the best thing that happened. You know, I've now had them at this partner and had these kids and traveled this place and that place. so the fact that you saw it as the worst thing and now you see it as the best thing means it was just a thing and it took you 20 years to see the complete opposite right so imagine if it just took you a minute or two minutes or five minutes you know and you didn't have to spend all that wasted time and people do this with all sorts of of beliefs that they drag through their life and they haven't gone back and neutralized them and dealt with them and seen them for what they were and seen all the positives that came out of it like their parents arguing over money and their parents got a divorce over money and now they label money bad or if i get money it's you know i'm gonna find a bad partner or we're gonna argue and all these kind of things right whereas if you go back and you really dissect it and you'll see why they were arguing and then you'll see all the benefits that came out of that that situation and uh and you'll dissolve that that fear of money or fear of accumulating money and these these are such powerful exercises that you can do to be really clear and empowered in who you are and what you're capable of and what you can achieve and what you can accumulate and why you deserve it so um i'd recommend doing some of those exercises

21:45Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:yeah and you know that's all super simple i love simple stuff that works because we over things don't we especially when you know we we have big roles or we have big businesses you know it can all get very messy but actually when you boil it down it's really super simple you know we as human beings we add this complexity in and then so it's simple but not always easy right and that's the thing but you've got to do the inner work and as you were talking there I was thinking around you know people get triggered don't they by a past event and then you know this rear view mirror syndrome where we're looking back at what's happened in the past and then we think the same thing's going to happen again so therefore we we fear we fear that we're going to have a repetition but actually as you say that might have just been an isolated incident at a point of time so how do you then process that move forward and and the other thing i think around this jason as you were talking is around um failure right and you know things are going to go wrong it's life get over it you're going to mess things up you're going to have broken relationships you're going to fall out with people someone's going to screw you over on a deal this is just life it happens right so the sooner that you i think in your head you're not being cynical but you just say this is part of the process it's okay and actually what have i learned from it but talk to me a little bit around failure things that have gone maybe wrong for you at the point of time and how you bounce back how you manage to dig yourself out of a hole or whatever it might have been and reframed it so that you do take the learnings because it sounds easy to do but not always as easy in reality so give us some examples where you've kind of dealt with the failure piece and you're able to be stronger as a result of it jason that'd be super helpful okay well i mean

23:33Jason Graystone:just off the back of that i mean i'll say it again i've just literally spent i've just got back yesterday from a week with richard branson right so this guy he showed me all of the things that he'd done and taken risks to do and all the times he failed right and he sailed over the you know the atlantic and failed twice he crashed a hot air balloon he crashed a plane a helicopter he's done all these crazy things in his life and one of the one of the quotes that he said at the end was um that the brave may not live long but the cautious do not live at all and you know it It smacked me in the face.

24:11Jason Graystone:It was like, wow, you know, this is a living, breathing example of someone who takes failure after failure and yet has achieved some of what most, the minority of people will achieve. And just a remarkable human being. And for me, it's very much the same. I take calculated risks on a daily basis. I want to live and experience life to the fullest. And I know to do that, I need to take calculated risks, not stupid risks, not things that I think there's going to be, you know, downsides or more downsides than upsides. But I take the risk with an accepting that I'm probably going to fail a couple of times or a few times.

25:00Jason Graystone:And each time I, in fact, it's not failure. to me failure is when you give up you know that's what failure is really what the other bits are is lessons and and i was talking to my son yesterday about this i said it's not lucky if you make it you you will definitely make it if you just keep doing it like and that seems to be the key it's not it's not all some people make it and some people don't some people might be lucky some people aren't no there's a common theme for the people that do make it and it's just because they kept doing it but that's it there's no it's it's not luck at all it is just if you choose to keep doing it then you will succeed the difference is the ability to stomach the lessons along the way and not see them as setbacks or failures but see them as lessons so that you can adapt improve and hit it a different way um and and that is exactly what richard was was talking about this this week he failed one boat you know and then he gets the next boat and goes what did we do wrong and how can we do it different this time and i think it's just part of succeeding if you really want the life that you have in your head then you need to just keep trying and and don't give up

26:19Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:that's it yeah and if that purpose is strong enough and your why is strong enough when the hits the fan when times get tough it's going to keep you going isn't it's going to keep pulling you towards whatever that is um and you know i think it was someone it was gary player you know very famous golfer said oh it's funny how the harder i practice the luckier i get you know and that and that's exactly what you're saying you know it doesn't happen by chance you know it is not in my opinion it is not the smartest people in the world it is not the richest people in the world that are successful it's those that put the work in right there's no shortcut for you know just grinding it out trying something new getting back up you know and actually a great example there with Richard as you were talking you know he he's almost the ultimate disruptor right so if you think about the sectors he's gone into you know whether it was aviation and you know from my experience of being the travel industry I remember firsthand that fight between British Airways and Virgin back in the day about price fixing you probably weren't old enough to remember Jason but you know even then back all those years ago he disrupted the the state carrier british airways by you know this challenger brand and everything he's done he's kind of said how can i do it you know in a different way disrupt the sector be quite edgy with what i do and of course if you're going to do that then there is going to be a higher risk of failure in some of that stuff because you know you're up against very traditional very established ways of doing things and some of it will work some of it won't so I think it's also having that creative space isn't it to to think about well how can I approach this in a different way than everybody else um so talk about that a bit Jason yeah you

28:01Jason Graystone:mentioned having a bigger why and a stronger cause and a bigger cause and a strong purpose that's that's that's true you know that you've got a greater reason to to be doing it then it it pushes you beyond you and you don't have that inertia um i mean when i ran i remember running for a charity and i was i ran a thousand kilometers in a month and it was like you know you think about why you're doing it and the run becomes just irrelevant you know it's just oh well this is a very short-term pain but it's it's nothing in comparison to what i'm doing it for but i also think another powerful thing for keeping you going is when you're being yourself and you're doing something for yourself a lot of people chase goals that are especially today where they've put someone on a pedestal and they're looking up to someone and they're trying to mimic what they've got the results that they've got and it's not important to them and then what happens is as a result of going about it that way they get procrastination and procrastination is caused most of the time by chasing something you just don't want.

29:08Jason Graystone:It's not important to you. You know, you get burnout because you're doing something that isn't... You would never get burnout if you were doing things that you love. You just don't... The days don't even last long enough. You just don't want to go to bed. You don't want to ever stop. You're energized. It's this endless energy. But if you're doing something that isn't congruent to you or important to you, then you will get burnout. And you will be... It's your body's mechanism of saying, stop doing that you know don't do that that's not you that's not you you don't really want to do that and then you get um overwhelm and then you get all these kind of symptoms that come along with it but uh yeah it's having a cause beyond you and doing things that are aligned with you and your values that's what's gonna that's what's gonna get you forward which is again that's why I talk about mental freedom being so important yeah and you talked about authenticity there and you

30:01Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:You know, it's a bit of a buzzword, isn't it? Be an authentic leader. But it really is true. You know, there's no one better at being you than you. You know, there's no other Jason Greystone. There's no other Jeanette Linfoot. You know, we are unique. We are all incredibly unique. And I think you're right. Sometimes we try to fit in or be a version of ourselves that we think we should be, which actually, one, it's exhausting. Two, you're going to get found out anyway because people smell bullshit a million miles away. And three, it's just not going to get you where you want to get to in the end.

30:30Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:But it takes sometimes a bit of maturity, I think, that comes with age. And because when we are younger and I'm going to come to a question for you, Jason, about how you have shifted, actually, from the sort of the young Jason. I'm not talking necessarily, well, clearly as a child, a big shift from where you were from washing the cars and going out there in your young entrepreneurial hat on, which is fantastic. But if you think about the early journey of, you know, investing and creating that financial independence and now financial freedom that you have, how have you shifted, do you think, as you've matured in both as a man and a human being, but also as a kind of professional business person?

31:09Brave Bold Brilliant Hosts:What shifted? How are you different?

31:11Jason Graystone:How am I different? I think I've always been happy in my own skin. So I think, you know, you mentioned earlier about everyone's got the same kind of opportunities and everyone's got the same time and all the rest of it. I do think that our actions and our motivations are driven by what we value most. And I think you see these cycles like I wasn't I was born into no money and no security. Therefore, I was driven to create that. Right. Right. Whereas now, you know, my kids, for instance, they've been born and with everything and they and they don't value money or security as much as me because you can't possibly, you know, if you've had it, you can't you can't value it.

31:59Jason Graystone:It's not. So now what they're what they might strive for is a bit of struggle. They might want to have a bit of a fight and a bit of a struggle. so it's this fascinating cycle of us chasing what we perceive to be missing as as kids and and it's it's getting that bit right and uh and that again that goes all the way up the scale i was having conversations this week with people who are in exact same position um but i think for me i was always on my own as a kid so i was very happy and content in my own company i had to be i spent hours and hours and hours just bored you know and and i think with boredom you find out a lot about yourself you figure out what your capabilities are what you you know you don't expect too much from anything so that was one thing and i think i've always had that and then the second thing as i slowly shifted into investing and and and you know speculation and dealing with that, I think I kind of, I grew this habit and this skill and this ability to see the good and the bad equally.