E082 - Mark Tilbury’s Simple Guide to Making Your First $1Million (From ZERO)

0:00It's not a sprint to get to your first million or your first hundred thousand. and it's more of a marathon. If you put the process in place to be able to get there, you will eventually get there. You've just got trust in the process. This man is a multi-million dollar CEO. And he's done it in months. Let's meet Mark Tilbury. Young people, they're really impatient and it's like they're just fast tracking their way to earning as much money as possible as fast as possible. Yeah, overnight success for me is five to ten years of hard slog putting everything in place to look like an overnight success because they've taken those hits, they've taken those L's and now they know how to fly.

0:35I don't think some people cut out for it. It doesn't suit everyone. It might be that you're an entrepreneur and you can run a business. Fantastic. What was one of the failures that you experienced that taught you the most? That's a good question because it's a very, very hard one to answer. What's up guys and welcome back to First Things First. We have a special guest today, Mark Tilbury. How are you doing? Absolutely great. Well, how could it not be great? It's absolutely gorgeous and i get to meet you at last mike and it's been a little while we've been trying to put this together for some time but as you're based out here a little bit difficult yeah today's the day today is the day you're like one of the ogs in the game in terms of entrepreneurship because you've been doing it for a long time probably more than anybody else i've had on this podcast so you've clearly got a lot of wisdom to to share well i hope so and i think the difference I have to a lot of people is the number of years that I've been sort of doing my own thing.

1:35So I would say probably from about 14 years old, I've been doing side hustles and various different businesses. And you learn as you go. And that's what it's all about. And you can't beat experience. You know, when you've got experience, you're going to look something like this and not necessarily like yourself, you know, it's age. And hopefully now I've got to the age that I can pass some of that information on to youngsters and help them on their journey. at what age did you decide to start sharing that knowledge uh it's about four years ago uh that we actually started the youtube channel and it's primarily because i thought that a lot of the stuff i knew was now being taught in schools which it isn't and that actually came as quite a shock to me we were on a skiing trip and i was talking to about four guys around the table younger guys and two hours the conversation went on almost like a podcast it was and um they were lapping up the information i said to my son afterwards i can't believe that they don't know this stuff it's basic stuff and he said no it's not at all um and my son was a videographer at the time uh we made a decision that we would you know try and do some youtube and get this message out to the youngsters to help them out and covid hit and curtis's work dried up so we really pushed into the YouTube and um it seemed to work you know it seemed to hit a you know to a point and I think there's um a little bit of I can't ask my parents because they won't talk about money so I'll listen to what Mark has to say and it seems a bit different um we also took the the risk of going on to TikTok as well now I went to China I do a fair bit of business in China and everyone's on this thing called TikTok and I came back and I said to my son you know what you know we could compliment this by being on tiktok he said i'm not having you dancing on tiktok yeah i had the same that's not yeah that's not for you and i said no no no let's just put the message on there and see how that goes and you know 7.4 million followers later it's uh it's been a great success and obviously that's fed some of our youtube success as well um so yeah it's very good very enjoyable and it's nice to get the recognition from people when you meet them and the fact that they're doing well because they've implemented some of the things that you've spoken about Yeah.

3:47Do you tend to notice there's a specific demographic that's following each of these platforms? Well, it was very male-orientated to start with. I mean, we were probably about 95 % male audience, and now it's about probably about 82 % approximately. So a female audience started to follow. It is a younger audience, that's for sure. So probably from 18 to 24 is our core audience. um but again the audience from 24 to 32 34 is growing fast yeah so that may be the biggest growing area at the moment yeah one thing i've noticed is that they tend to kind of grow with you because when i started off it was a lot of people who were similar age to me and now they're kind of between 25 to 35 plus yeah yeah well my message really is for for for anyone because i I believe everyone can make better financial decisions, everyone, without a doubt.

4:44And if they think like a millionaire, then that's going to change their life for sure. And obviously, the younger you start, the better. But realistically, if you implement any of my tips at any age, you're going to turn your life around for sure. As long as you commit to it. Yeah, even yesterday, just doing some prep, I was going through all the videos and I was like, oh, yeah. I think a lot of it's to do with the spending yeah I haven't I mean I look back at my uh the past 10 15 years I definitely haven't been good at spending or saving well you've probably been good at spending a lot yeah yeah yeah but I feel as though a lot of that spending has been investment into myself and the personal brand and just getting myself into situations that have helped me out and I've always had a an abundance mindset where I've thought that you know money is going to come my way if I just if I I'm not afraid to spend it I feel like if I spend you know some people can spend more and they can get it back in return yeah well you see a direct link from what you spend to what you earn and if you can see that direct link I can understand that but you should always look at this safety net aspect as well because you obviously there is an abundance people are led to believe there's a bucket of money and that's how much there is and you get a percentage of it and that's all you get because that's who you are but there is an abundance of money out there but quite often that abundance is only there for a short period of time for a particular person so yeah you've got to keep one investing in yourself for sure if you feel that that money can be recouped, but also look at a safety net as well, because at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter that you've put a safety net there, whether you use it or not, but if it's there, it's a good thing.

6:38What do you feel as though most 18 to 25 year olds are wasting their money on? Everything. I mean, it's always the next shiny thing really, isn't it? With 18 year olds. I think it's driven a lot by social media as well, because obviously look at they're heroes on social media such as yourself and you are living a very nice lifestyle and they feel that they've immediately got to live that lifestyle and of course the thing is it's not a race it's not a sprint to get to your first million or your first hundred thousand you know it's more of a marathon you know if you put the process in place to be able to get there you will eventually get there you just got trust in the process yeah do you think i'm flashy um i I think your business has to show a certain amount of flack.

7:24And that's part of the message, isn't it? You know, and young guys have to have someone to aspire to. And I think you are someone that people aspire to. You know, I don't want to sound the wrong way, but obviously you're very fit. You've got the right body. You've got the right lifestyle. And that's very aspirational. Yeah. But sometimes I think there is a disconnect with youngsters that they feel um these aspirational people are too far away and they can't get there because they feel it's got to be instant yeah um and i've not many met many people that have had overnight success yeah overnight success for me is you know probably five to ten years of hard slog putting everything in place to look like an overnight success and i think your story is probably similar to that as well um i mean you can you know tell us more about it if you go back to my very early videos i was living in a terraced house in newcastle doing my meal prep every day for years it was like quite a humble lifestyle for sure and i think that's that was one thing that worked for me because everybody could relate to it yeah but then the moment i moved here to dubai and things started to get a little bit more flashy i noticed there was a few people who were like oh i can't watch anymore because I just can't relate to it.

8:37But I think one thing I've done is I don't overly do it in terms of flashing materialistic things. I don't think you'll ever see me do that. But in terms of quality of life and lifestyle and surroundings and environment, that's definitely on view. Yeah. And you enjoy that lifestyle, which is great. And it is something to aspire to the lifestyle that you want. And we were chatting before the podcast about my lifestyle and whether I could move out here. And really the Dubai lifestyle isn't really for me. I like it in bits and pieces. Second time here, I'm sure I'll come over again, maybe every couple of months, you know, so it's a nice place to come to.

9:18But I enjoy my setup, you know, and it's everyone's an individual and you've got to look at what your life goals are to try and achieve those. i'm curious to know what you like to spend your money on like do you do you splash out on yourself um well i do like i like as i say holidays i love um i love skiing i used to love motorsport to the extent i was into motorsport so i'd race in fiesta cup clio cup on the touring car package um i decided to retire from that but when i retired from it i i sponsored a young lad called jake hill and that was 10 years ago um and he's been gradually going through the process of getting better and better as a racer and last year he won the british touring car championship his number he's always raced as number 24 and jake will won in 24 and that's really really cool for me so i'm almost racing through him now so i spend my money there um i spend my money on my hobbies i race model aeroplanes you know 200 mile an hour model aeroplanes travel the world doing that and thoroughly enjoy it.

10:22We're in Abu Dhabi at the end of this year. So we go to the Formula One Grand Prix. Then we race our aircraft the following week. Quite a big event. So, you know, there's lots of things I enjoy doing. Love golf. Yeah. As you know, golf can be expensive. I choose to be a member of a local club that's not that expensive, but very inclusive. Nice to, you know, enjoy the company of people. But that enables me then to go and play all around the world. So wherever I go, I take my clubs. I had a lovely game of golf with a friend of mine two days ago here. That's it. John Bougalooge. Who won? Well, he won, but there is a technicality to that win.

10:58But I haven't played for, I played one game in two months because the weather back home is atrocious. I was going to play last weekend and the course was waterlogged. Yeah. Don't have that problem here. No, no. But you do have a problem trying to play in the summertime though. Yeah, too hot, isn't it? Yeah, but that's when you come back home. Yeah. What do you call home these days? Home, I'd probably say home is here. This is the base for now. yeah will it be the home forever i don't know like it's uh i think one thing i like about my lifestyle now is i can pick up and relocate if i choose to relocate depending upon my mood or where is the place to be so yeah as a as a single guy who's focusing on his career i think this is a good place to be might not be the best place to be because i know i'm here it doesn't necessarily mean oh everybody has to move to the by i think there's actually already quite a lot of people here and i don't want any more people here because traffic's terrible yeah so there's other hot spots around the world which i think if you want to make it in business entrepreneurship just go to where the money is and where the the buzz is um in the summertime base tends to be more so europe yeah but there's usually three months of travel and that's fully understandable i mean just the sunshine makes a difference to your day i mean i used to do quite a lot of business in california and just getting up in the morning, putting your sunglasses on when you go out.

12:18I mean, it's just automatic here and it's automatic in California and it just gives you that buzz in the morning. And I think that's hard to beat. And you can't really get that at home. No. Because it's the odd day where you get that buzz and you do feel it, but you don't get it all the time. Whereas certainly in these sunnier climates, you get that, I want to get out of there, you know, might even encourage me to do a bit of fitness as well. you know that's the thing with with me i prefer to stay at a lower body fat percentage because it just helps for business the videos literally everything but when i was living in the uk when it was colder it was it was so hard to stay leaner because you're always like you've got like three layers on there's no real motivation for you to be leaner because nobody sees it and you want to eat a big stew or hot pot because you want to get some warmth into you and some carbs so i noticed for for me and what i was doing it was just it wasn't the spot for me and particularly when it comes to filming content like i like to shoot a lot of content outdoors and for six months of the year in the uk you can't really do that so it was it was a bit problematic but i did love i enjoyed being in london like it's especially back in before covid i feel like it was a def it was a better place we were struggling with our short videos to be honest you know it gets so cold and dowdy that it's not great so we went to new york and did um a load of shorts just recently but that was even colder but at least you had the iconic sort of backgrounds to film in front of but when you come here it definitely gives you that inspire oh sorry inspiration to just flick that switch and do so much more i think young people if they're a little bit lost and they don't know what to do I would always suggest to them just try maybe living somewhere else for a little bit now this could be maybe against the advice which you give because it will come at a cost like you've got to pay to get yourself there then you're instead of maybe staying at home for a little bit and you're staying at the parents or whatever you've got to go and get a place for yourself and you know say for example if you wanted to go live in New York that's going to cost you quite a lot of money yeah but just having that taste of living in a different city different environment different people it can be quite good for you know getting some inspiration or figuring out like what are the things you like and don't like and when you are young you really do have that freedom where you can kind of do whatever you want you don't really have any responsibility i mean a lot of that i do actually agree with i think anytime you put yourself out your comfort zone you're you're stretching yourself and if you're stretching yourself then you're turning yourself into a better person more rounded you know more worldly wise um and you get to meet a lot of people as well and of course as you're aware your circle of friendship that that's the biggest gain that you can probably get because let's face it if you're you know surrounded by five losers that say oh i wouldn't invest you're going to lose your money then you're not going to invest if you've got five better off people wealthier people around you say yeah we all invest why don't you well you're going to invest you know so that just surrounding yourself with more you know knowledgeable wealthy people is the way to go and also i think there's a bit of a thing that you leave education and think right i'm done blunt i know it all i'm at the top of my game there's nothing else i need to to learn here i'll now go and work and do my life um but i think you've got to flip that and um learn something new pretty much every day yeah you know if you don't you're going to get left behind and it's a bit like um you know getting some antivirus software in your head at times because you've got to get rid of all that outdated older knowledge and reboot everything and go again and you know i look amongst you know some people i know i wouldn't necessarily say in a friendship group but some people i know and they're have they learned anything since they were 30 i doubt it you know and now they're struggling with internet banking you know how can you struggle with internet banking but they're struggling with it you're struggling with everything all the technology and oh yeah they don't care about us they're leaving us behind they're shutting all the branches of the banks and this that and the other but they haven't you know done a reboot you know they haven't tried to keep learning through their lives and that's why it's a marathon it's not a sprint you know just keep working on the process keep improving yourself you know exactly as you say with fitness you know if you stop today you're going to lose what you're known for aren't you you are going to lose it over time and it's exactly the same with knowledge you've just got to keep reading keep listening to people surround yourself with people that know more than you you know that's the best way of doing everything and even in running a business except that you you're not the best at running your business you just happen to be the person running your business you might be the figurehead for it or whatever it is but every good business needs an incredible team behind them and i have to say i have an incredible team behind me and i couldn't do what i do without them you know and that is very very important to remember yeah it's not all about the figurehead you know how elon musk would never have got his rockets up into space if it was just elon musk making rockets where he needs these youngsters that have all the new ideas and the new energy to be able to create that to make that happen to give them an environment to make that happen that's what he's done you know and that's really important you know i i think he even has a team tweeting on his behalf because i have no idea how he has the time to do all the things which he says he's doing yeah of course when when you uh i want to know a little bit about the the first few uh entrepreneurial ventures that you had when you were younger because i don't want to go all the way back and you repeat your life story again but to summarize you you left school when you were 16 yeah i left school 16 but as i say i would say journey started from about 14 i think we should all start talking about money yeah from about that sort of age group and as i say there's barriers up against that but you've got to break through those and you know either watch good content or talk to your parents and find out what went wrong in their lives because generally something's gone wrong in their lives and if you repeat the same process they went through you're going to get the same yeah and if you want to break that you've got to do something a little bit different but it was a different time back then for you i mean there was no youtube yeah totally different time yeah no amazon yeah no internet yeah yeah you know you had to you know once i started investing at 18 i had to phone up a stock broker and yeah buy buy buy sell sell sell you know it's a totally different world that's why you have to keep rebooting all the time to keep up with the technology and the way things change um so you know i always say try as many things as you can yeah when you're young you know from 14 get out there you know if you can get a saturday morning job you know it doesn't matter what you're doing you know you can be making coffees you can be working at mcdonald's flipping burgers eventually you will find out what you don't like doing all right so we can discard those can't we and you find out what you do like doing and also what you're good at and also where the money is as well so if you get yourself like a venn diagram you've done all these jobs so you get a venn diagram you've got three circles you know you know what you're good at you know what your passion is and you know where the money is right so if you've got one thing that goes into the middle into that sweet spot so i know say for example um you like youtube um and you're good at producing videos and there's money in it there's the sweet spot you've got it from all three areas that's that's where you are and that's what i did you know when i started my first business i was you know good at communicating um so that made me good at sales so you got your sales covered um i was passionate about uh flying radio control helicopters which at the time was very hard to do and not many people did it so that was my passion and there was money in it so the the three combine and then you try and twist it a little bit to make it different from everyone else and by working in a model shop for a while part time i could write down all those different things that they were doing well like oh they sell well or he's a good customer i get his number and all the rest but the important thing is not writing down what's good it's what's bad about business that you're working in as well and really drill down ask good questions you know you're only going to get good answers if you ask good questions so the quality of your questions determines the quality of your answers and you can learn so much from a small business that you'll never learn in a big business yeah because you're just a number there whereas if you're in a team of let's say 10 15 people you can learn everything about that business and then all the bad things you can make sure you can improve on those and it's it's not about inventing the wheel here when you start a business you know wheels already been invented you're just tweaking a few spokes and that will make your business unique i mean uber didn't invent taxis yeah i just invented a better way to do it you know still a car still a driver but a better system you know so you're not inventing the wheel same with airbnb be as well i've seen exactly yeah exactly they own no property yeah and yet look at it it's enormous so the the the model company was one of the first ones you started that actually had some degree of success yeah i mean i did lots of different things lots of different businesses i'd say most of them were successful but not really scalable and that's the important thing so obviously service-based businesses that you operate around your local area are not that scalable they're good for fast money they don't cost you much to set up so car washing rounds all that sort of thing don't cost much to do but they do bring in you know money um so you can scale you can't scale that sorry then you're going to selling products locally again very hard to scale so it's all about gradually moving along gradually building your worth and changing how you're operating as you go through life trying to think of the first few things which i did when i was i think that the very first was this is when I was a teenager, I needed a bit of pocket money.

22:30My dad was not going to give me any pocket money. He's like, you can work for it. And that is a good thing. That is a good dad. I'm like that. I'm sure you do the same. I had to clean everybody's shoes. So me and my brother played rugby. So I had to clean the rugby boots. I had to polish everybody's shoes. I had to mow the lawn and I had to clean my dad's car. So doing all those things, he would give me my pocket money. then I was a gardener temporarily this was in between university during the holidays I would just go and garden people's houses which was all right it was very labor intensive but it was like decent bit of cash yep and then I remember one summer this was probably the most tedious job I ever had it was working in a warehouse and I think it was it was uh these wine glasses that were sold by Asda they'd made loads of them but they made a mistake on the labeling, which said like three for two, and they didn't want to show that.

23:24So they basically needed people to put stickers over that label so that no one could see it anymore. So there's me, a couple of friends, and a couple of Polish people. We would basically unpack crate after crate of these boxes of wine glasses, and there were six of them in a box, and we had to put sticker one side, sticker other side, put it back in the box again, and again and again the whole summer doing exactly the same thing and all these jobs you've done you find out what you don't want to do long term yeah but they also help you with your interaction with people because again social media is stopping a lot of this interaction so you know everyone thinks they've got thousands of friends but actually they haven't yeah you know and all this thing about meeting people and socializing i would say there's one thing youngsters lack at the moment from my you know what i see is that social interaction yeah you know with real people and i think that's invaluable to be honest because meeting people is is always going to be important whatever you do yeah and being like just punctual as well just showing up on time for something looking presentable and like you said just being able to have that communication and people skills because everything there's so many people who immediately become self-employed and they just don't really understand how business works well i was saying on the uh punctuality you know early is on time on time is late and late is just not acceptable yeah you know you should be early you should i mean we were here 15 minutes at least early sat in the lobby thought about having a coffee you know make sure we're ready to come up and be here on time i think it's very important it shows respect for your guest for your host sorry yeah um some people can get away of it i mean some people have probably earned the right i mean i won't name names but some people can be late purely because of the you know the what they've built up the credibility they've built up but i think realistically it shows it shows a lot of respect that you're on time so much and it's it's under underrated shall we say yeah and i i also have had my fair share of uh with this and other things just your time is valuable you don't want to be wasting your time waiting on other people no for sure it's one of the reasons i go to the gym and i train by myself because i'm like look i i don't have the time to be waiting around for people to show up and to be talking during a gym set and it's like i need to go when i'm available to go and i go get it done and they'll smash that hour or whatever you're going to do and get back on yeah get on the treadmill i've noticed as well a lot of people especially young people they're really impatient and it's like they just want to immediately go into their the first job being their dream job and fast tracking their way to earning as much money as possible as fast as possible yeah that's for sure which i feel like i mean yeah good for you if you can manage to do that and there is ways to do that but i think a lot of young people just need to go and do some shitty jobs yeah just to get a feel for it i think the trouble is that is pushed by social media again isn't it is follow your passion and all the rest of it uh what if your passion has no end money to it yeah you know one of my passions was racing cars well you know all the will in the world even half the formula one grid don't get paid as drivers you know they're there via lots of sponsorship and everything to get them into that position so you're not going to earn a lot of money yes it's glamorous and it's a lifestyle and all the rest of it but realistically you're not going to earn long-term wealth out of it so you know a passion might not be the thing that that you should go for straight away because passions once you've got your financial um situation sorted out you can follow whatever passion you want yeah so i got my finances sorted out my business sorted out everything ticking over nicely i went motor racing i got yeah everything sorted out i can go and do other things you know you can follow your passions once everything's sorted out now obviously if your passion happens to tie in with your business that's very lucky and again take my business for example i was very passionate about flying models and i've flown all around all around the world um but i wasn't going to get paid for it that's what i saw and i thought i've got to get myself into the model industry if i'm going to enjoy my passion and use some of my passion towards my business um so yes you can say i followed my passion but firstly it was business and i always separated my own hobby as it were my own enjoyment of the hobby are separate from the actual physical business business was business you know you can be friends to everyone you know all your mates down the model flying club doing great deals and everything but you're not going to survive are you so i think separating that passion from your business is is quite important but sometimes you get a bit of crossover which is good i think for me i realized that my passion was going to the gym i just loved working out but i never saw myself being a teacher a coach and i can't say that i am the most passionate person ever about educating or teaching but it turns out that i was quite good at it because first of all i knew how to do it myself i liked i just loved going to the gym and also because i'd built up so much experience with coaching people on a one-to-one basis for years yeah when it came to educating people online i was actually quite good at it so that kind of worked out for me and then obviously as you said once you get your finances finance is sorted and you've got like a decent stream of revenue coming and then you can maybe follow all sorts of passions which is kind of like what I've done and there's there's things I've tried which have worked and then other things which I've tried which have not worked so much but that that's the the rule of business isn't it yeah lots of things won't work um and there is a definitely a fear culture out there as well um and I think yeah while you're young you can take so many risks it's it's unbelievable because you're going to bounce back you know and failure is drummed into in school as failure well i always look at it as a lesson you know it's a free generally it's a free lesson okay if you lose a bit of money it's cost you a little bit but it's cost you a little bit to learn a lesson yeah and you're not going to do it again you know you've learned from it and you can move on from it so don't be afraid to fail you look at all the richest people in the world all the people that you look up to they've all failed multiple times multiple times you know and that's what makes them successful because they've taken those hits they've taken those L's and now they know how to fly what was one of the failures failures that you experienced that taught you the most oh that's that that's a good question because it's a very very hard one to answer um I I think going into business with someone in Europe that I really didn't understand him enough and he only brought perhaps what i brought oh yeah and i think the lesson i learned from that was that you need to bring someone into a business that complements what you do so say you're a baker for example and you bake the most fabulous cakes in the world you're brilliant at it everyone looks at your cakes that sees them they're the best can't believe it i want them and you can sell them locally if you can't market them you can't sell them if you're no good at marketing so you need a marketer yeah you need someone who can run a business so that's when you bring in that partner that's good at all those things you don't know how to bake and got the first clue he knows how to sell them yeah you don't want somebody else who's also going to be an amazing baker because it's like yeah what's the point yeah what's the point you know you can invest in a partner that brings all those complementary things to the party and if you said that's probably a regret mine that i didn't initially have a partner when I started out that complemented what I didn't know how to do so a lot of those lessons were hard learned how old are you at that point well I actually physically started my first shop so let's say bricks and mortar store at 20 so it's pretty young really I did an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner um up until the age of 20 and I got a bit bullied I couldn't get the jobs I wanted I won various awards for you know the my time within the apprenticeship which no one else had ever done at the the company I was with and I thought well hey here we go all the big jobs I love making staircases in fact it's not so much I like making staircases I like going to a house that's really awkward to put a staircase in so let's say a listed building that's particularly awkward you know very quirky and working out how you can get that staircase in not only to fit and do a good job but to look the part yeah now making it is the other thing which is fairly enjoyable but the design of it that was it and that's where i thought my my my life was going i was going to design really upmarket staircases furniture all that sort of stuff staircase connoisseur yeah you know well there's a lot of money in it yeah i mean i made a staircase before i left uh working for that particular company with you know not just me team of guys are making it and the staircase was uh 29 000 pounds okay now that was oh that was the best part of nearly 40 years ago all right that's a lot of money you could buy one and a half terraced houses for that amount of money at the time because i always remember they were 19 999 for a terraced house at that point yeah and this staircase was so big they craned it in through the roof of this london house and to see that in place and then to talk to the guy who owned the house and that was inspirational again you're getting out and you're talking to people and he was the first person that said to me look you know you're yeah i thought yeah i asked i always ask questions you know like how do you get so you don't have to go to work and how are you playing golf in the middle of the week he said well you've got to get your money to work for you yeah if you don't get your money working for you you're working forever you know you've got to build your own dreams not someone else's yeah it's very important so does that come down to having the right team or pursuing the right type of yeah i think you build a team don't you you build a team as you go forward and um you know that that's the important thing to get the right people around you it takes time you know you get the wrong people and you know you can have a team of 12 people and this happened to us i don't know about six years ago i won't say names but we had like a rotten apple within the system yeah and that can disrupt the whole thing it's amazing absolutely amazing how much it affects morale get up and go everything about the business so you know the first rule of thumb is if you feel you need to sack someone you should have done it yesterday yeah don't linger okay have you have you gone into a business partnership with anybody else since that yes i have yeah i've had a couple of successful partnerships i mean i have a fabulous partnership with my son currently um but I had a partnership a few years back and that was successful you know there's no way I could run and I was also partnered with my dad as well at one point because he ran one of my stores and another store I opened was in partnership with another guy um he decided he wanted to go his own way he did unfortunately going his own way it didn't survive um but when it went down I knew he was a good guy he just didn't have the business experience he then came back and worked for me um until he retired so you know never burn your bridges either it's another golden rule as well particularly if you know they're good people you know good people are hard to find how does that dynamic work with your son because i i like the idea of that because it's something i would quite like to do when i have a son hopefully one day but you're kind of going into partnership with someone who doesn't have a whole deal of experience so it's almost like you're i'm curious to know how it how it works because no doubt you're men mentoring them quite a lot on everything but at the same time you're in a business partnership uh well i would say in the early days yeah certainly you're mentoring a fair bit because it's uh it's all about business and the things you should and shouldn't do what you what you what you might want to achieve i mean i remember him coming to me when he left school because he didn't want to go to university which i think is a very very brave decision when all your peers are pushing you down that route he's 16 or 18 at the time he was 18 at the time and decided not to go and he stopped and set up his own business and i said well look what are you aiming to make a day and he told me an amount i said no no no son you you you're off off the mark you've got to be looking and he was very he was so upset so upset and i think the trouble with parenting you can you can go oh well done yeah oh well done son well that's brilliant fantastic but you've got to be realistic you know his skill set is worth more than he's pricing himself at now obviously you can do free jobs and i get that it's very important when you're starting out get some testimonials get some free jobs done so you can show what you're capable of doing but then you've got to find your value and if you're valuable you should be upping it all the time just keep upping what you're charging and at the point someone says no or they're thinking about it you've got two decisions were they your sort of client did you want them anyway or is it you're just getting to around that point the value where you should be you know within a year he was up to a thousand pounds a day you know on the jobs he was going to and you know okay i wouldn't have said that to him straight away to get to that area but he's capable of that yeah you know and and seeing that capability i think you've got to be strong you know i think parenting is very hard which you will find out at some stage you know they always say there's no handbook for parenting well in actual fact it's probably thousands um but none of them are necessarily a blueprint for it um but i think praise where praise is due but not praise just to keep your kid happy yeah i mean sometimes the the best parenting is being quite hard and quite harsh yeah i i just recently saw a post online of um a prisoner on death row writing i don't know if you've seen it he's written a letter to his mother um i know it sounds like sort of passing the buck a bit but it was like when you didn't pick me up on this when when i stole this from the shop and he said oh to keep it it's not worth taking it back and you know when dad wanted to tell me off and you said he couldn't and then you split up because of the rows we had you know all those things are hard parenting but they should happen but that led him down the route he ended up on um and i i think it's important to be you know fair I always remember um my son son's passion when he was younger was magic absolutely loved magic and I like I like magic I know how a lot of it's done but I still enjoy it because you can if you can't see how it's done and you know how it's done that's good magic yeah a good sleight of hand and he'd show me tricks and I'll say yeah yeah yeah it's good but I could see how you did it so you got to practice on that and again it's upsetting for you know you give a bit of praise it's good but it can be better and i think eventually appreciate that because he was doing kids parties and you're only good enough when i can't see how you're doing it you are good enough to go and do that in front of anyone and you get to that stage and yeah you are good yeah i would imagine one of the most difficult things about parenting is if you grew up and you didn't have anything no i didn't have anything that's for sure yeah and then you almost think oh i want to give my children or my son everything i didn't have but then if you give them too much then they don't have that drive yeah don't ambition i've noticed as well if i've ever been if i've ever got money for whatever reason for not really having to work for it i just don't value it that much easy come easy go yeah i mean my son wanted to start his videography business and he needed a laptop now look i could go and buy that laptop for him give him the money go and get it whatever um but what do you learn from that about business not a thing yeah so i said to him well you're gonna have to sort out how you're gonna do that you're gonna either have to wait and earn the money oh but i'll lose money because i've got this job i needed for i said or you're gonna have to borrow the money or you're gonna have to however you're gonna get an advance on the job you've got to work out how you're gonna do it because that's that's that's your lesson to learn now he'll always say well i could have just given it but but but i shouldn't just give it it's better to learn the lessons of business along the way otherwise you miss them yeah yeah and what's the point of missing the lessons because they're they're crucial yeah yeah it's like someone winning the lottery and go yeah i've made it i've made it well you can't make it again yeah whereas if you learn all the skills and you've made a million and you lose it well you can do it again because you've still got the skills in fact you do it quicker exactly second time yeah i went through one of your posts where you rated some of your income streams based on how difficult they were to basically achieve.

40:28I think you started off number one, personal brand. That's one of the easiest things you can start. Yeah. And I think everyone should have a personal brand. You know, you get out there and be very careful as well, because everything you post is there forever. You know, someone's got a snapshot of it. Someone's, you know, taken a picture of something you've said, or it's filed away somewhere and that can come back to bite you. So your personal brand it's really important but that's a problem though because a lot of young people are idiots they are posting things which they're probably going to haunt them later on like one of the things i'm quite happy about was when i came onto the scene i think it was probably about 26 so i'd i know for sure if i was pumping out content as an 18 year old i would have probably said or done some stupid yes and it's a shame because as i say it will haunt you for the rest of your life and one of the things we made sure of again with my son was you know you can only you can be online you can be on facebook at the time and various other things but you cannot swear cannot swear oh you've got to think about what you're doing but if you swear you lose your device because we're not having it so that makes you thoughtful of what you're saying rather than because once you've done it once you've sent it that's it it's out there in the ether forever yeah so that was that was quite a crucial stage and i think also and i'll probably get a bit of hate for this but youngsters probably shouldn't have um you know the power that they have in their handheld devices at the ages they're having it i mean i'd like to say 16 is probably around the age they should have it but let's be you know good about it say 14 but they've got them at eight i mean they've got access to everything everything i think as well if you are young and you're on those devices and you somehow figured out a way to get a lot of followers very quickly that is probably not the best for your mental health yeah or the way that i don't know the world works because you're automatically a young age have a lot of attention and you might not have even done much to to get that attention i mean they used to say that we didn't talk about mental health as much back in my day which is true but then i don't think there was as many problems back then and i think it is definitely a thing now where it's it's more of a thing for sure because you hear it all the time it's you know it's in your employment laws and everything to make sure that you're you're being careful with people and not upsetting them and everything else because it's definitely a thing yeah without doubt i mean you never had you know several million friends online that suddenly turn on you and tell you you're ugly yeah yeah you might have had the school bully but you knew he was a school bully telling you that so didn't really matter did it because he tells everyone that yeah so it's one of those things you can't get comfortable in yourself can you with social media that's another problem youngsters have that they're not comfortable in themselves i think they've got to change to fit in i mean you've got to be comfortable with who you are i mean i was tall ginger lanky love playing with model aeroplane i mean come on yeah come on i mean model airplanes turned into my business you know i was tall and skinny so i'm not too fat now thankfully so that sort of kept on but i've lost the ginger hair so you know there's your blessing yeah yeah you you mentioned the the model airplanes you said number two was the ebay store yeah so is that still yeah it's still very big yeah yeah we do a lot on ebay and we buy um a lot of i always say failing businesses or or there's a lot of people retire within my niche that can't necessarily sell their businesses they just want to pack up and i'll go in and i'll offer an amount for the whole lot sweep the floor they're done in that same niche within that niche yeah so it can be you know it's a quite a wide niche so it can be die cast models it can be radio control models you know anything sort of within that niche there's a few things that come in from outside it but that niche for us is is quite good so you're basically eliminating the competition you want to take well i think competition's good but i don't think you're eliminating it i mean i've actually had people on ebay though not i wouldn't say eliminating the competition no there's plenty of competition out there i mean the biggest competition is coming from you know direct uh to customer competition from the manufacturer it's actually a big competition you're not going to crack so you got to be aware of that and that's again that's part of flipping the script as we go along um but no it's um i've had people literally break down and cry because They've got so stressed with their businesses by the time they get to retire, what to do with it, and they've had all these hassles and stuff.

45:02You know, we clear it through, and they've literally broken down with joy that it's all over at that stage, you know. So that's good. You want Amazon as well? No, Amazon doesn't really work very well for us. We've tried a couple of different ways of selling on Amazon. For us, it doesn't really work. But for other things, it's fantastic. So it just depends what you're into. Why doesn't it work on Amazon? I just think it's just the model space just doesn't seem to work. People aren't searching for it. Not really. They might search for a main product, but because we sell so many small component parts, it seems to work better on eBay.

45:37And eBay is an amazing search engine. I mean, essentially it is a search engine and it finds everything we've got. So you might have one part that you would never sell in a million years in your shop. You put it on eBay and there's someone in out of Mongolia that goes, oh, that's exactly the bit I was looking for. bam and out it goes you know i wonder you know a lot of these people who are selling stuff on amazon they probably underestimate ebay like it's still yeah yeah i think it's very good i think amazon's very good but they they do sort of serve as slightly different markets i think you say ebay is older ebay is older yeah yeah i think definitely yeah because i remember when i when at first it was like the place yeah to go when i was in my 20s early 20s and it was it was fun then it was like so unregulated you could literally sell anything you wanted to sell yeah so i remember i kind of got into i guess it was drop shipping very early on i knew nothing about how anything worked i just knew at that point in time there was a demand for ed hardy clothes so i found uh someone that was was selling it somewhere in china and i was like oh i'll just literally buy from because it was it was cheap there i was like i'll buy it from china i'll just ship it to these people who were buying it from wherever they were buying it from yeah anyway i didn't realize until you know a couple weeks months later that these i never saw the clothes they were the replicas they were fakes yeah so obviously what i was doing was highly illegal because i was selling fake uh merchandise so i mean i made a lot of money very quickly but then ebay were very quick to be like hey this what you're doing is legal so they actually um they kind of blacklisted me so i didn't have my ebay account anymore my paypal was blocked and it's a shame really because i think i had the right idea but just the wrong approach and just a lack of understanding of how the actual world works yeah but i remember yeah there was there was definitely back then ebay was the place to be well one of my team had a very successful ebay site and he knows ebay inside out which is really good um and he was uh he was really into his gaming and again it's one of those situations where you say to yourself i'm not going to earn money from gaming you know i'm just not at that level where you can earn the money but i know about all of it and i know that these sticks are better and these paddles are better and so he set up a store on ebay and within a year he's doing quarter of a million turnover which is very very good now he's come to work for us so um but it's it works and and i think the thing with ebay is it has got expensive it has got forgotten by some but for others it's a go-to place um i think i was buying furniture i'll be looking at amazon perhaps and other sites but and maybe not ebay but for certain um you know products it's very good yeah you know what my my dad actually he gave me a really good idea when i was young when i was a teenager he was like look you know how to use ebay why don't you go around the neighbor's houses and ask if they have anything that they want to sell and obviously at this point in time i had a lot of free time yeah so there was a guy who lived across the road from me who actually had uh he had like a corner shop but he had this garage basically full of crap yeah which wasn't being sold he hasn't got the time to try and sell it he's not got the time and he actually had this old till system this massive till system yeah in the garage and he was always complaining about it just taking up so much space and i said to him look why don't you let me try and sell it and then you can just give me a little cut from what selling prices and anyway we sold it and actually got quite a lot of interest and the bids went up and it sold for like one and a half thousand pounds yeah and then you'll probably find someone wanted it for parts or whatever it happened to be and it's the perfect sale they couldn't find anywhere else that's that's really good for for people especially the teenagers who do have a lot of time you'll be surprised how much junk people have and they just want to sell and there's still there will be a demand for it somewhere well i always say as a as a side hustle that's something you can certainly do and you know expand it a bit go around the local trading estate you know go to the local plumbers merchants they might have a cold tap and not the hot tap you know they can't sell it on its own no one wants it but you put it on ebay and you've got the time to do it because time is is is your tool when you're young you've got plenty of time you know just get listing get selling and you can do it in a commission you can do it on a or i'll buy that pallet off you i mean you buy pallets from amazon can't you of returns you know sometimes your quids in sometimes not so but it's a good certainly a good side hustle to get involved with we'll get back to the podcast in a second but first of all i want to say a massive shout out to bionic i have been using their supplements for the past four years i never knew what supplements i needed to take 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51:12And go back to that list we have, number three was the stock market. Yeah. Yeah. That one's kind of less... I've been investing since I was 18, you know, so it's definitely been very, very good for me. It tends to be less sexy because you've got to be in it for the long run. Well, you can. You can day trade, which is rather sexy but very high risk. But my strategy is always long-term, and I invest heavily into index funds, which are very, very straightforward. For me, the less I do, the less I touch my money, the better. Think of your money like, I think we did this in a video, like a cookie. The more you handle it, the more it crumbles away.

51:50So if you can lock it away in a tax-advantaged account like an ISA or a Roth IRA, all your gains are tax-free. Leave it for a while, it's going to be worth a fair amount of money. And again, time is on your side. The younger you start, the better. And for the cost of a coffee a day, you can be a millionaire. If you can get 10 % per annum in growth via an S &P 500, for example, which is what it's averaged over the last 40 years, you are a millionaire. And that's your safety net. Now, I get a lot of people say to me, say i don't want a million when i retire well that's not that's not your only thing you're doing yeah that's that's on the side that's your wealth building yeah and it's very very important just to keep that ticking away in the background the less you have to do the better and if you get into the habit of setting a certain amount every month that you can afford ideally a percentage of your wage so as your wage goes up you increase it you've got that safety net for you forever now my safety net i probably never have to use it it becomes generational wealth for my family so yeah i was going to say you i imagine you still to this day not touch i don't touch it i made the rule that i didn't want to touch it i thought i'll put it away i won't touch it you can always crawl out the gutter if you know there's something there yeah a lot of people don't talk about the psychological effect oh that can have on your happiness and well-being knowing that you in the worst case scenario it's there yeah because when you don't have it and you you literally have nothing to your name or you're even in the negative like that you can't stop thinking about it and it ends up stressing you out every single day like i've been there before even with you know in earlier stages of life when i'm not being very good at tracking my money when i have been in a situation where my expenses have been more than my income and I've not I've literally had nothing else to my name it doesn't feel good at all and you you you try to do everything you can possibly do to get yourself out of that situation well a lot of people say I don't understand how to do it and I do several walkthrough videos of how to to to set up an account open a brokerage you know do all these things but realistically you know you just got to take a morning off or a day off and look after your finances and sort it out it's all it takes for the rest of your life you know a morning a day maybe if it takes you longer and you will work it out you know use the videos we put out there work through it gradually bit by bit you will get there and once it's set up perfect you know this is on your youtube channel yeah there's lots and lots of different videos you know walkthroughs and things so it's ideal what's your thoughts on having a wealth manager or somebody to do it for you well if you've got a wealth manager you've got charges and the beauty of an index fund is it's um passively managed so you've not got high charges your charges are like generally 0.01 of a percent it's very very small so if you invest 10 000 pounds for example you're just costing you about a tenner it's not very expensive you know very very cheap whereas if you've got a wealth manager he's going to charge you upwards of one percent to a bit more that might not sound like much but if your growth is eight percent well you're losing a percent of that yeah but you're not losing it one year you're losing it every year so accumulate for 40 odd years so it becomes a big amount so that one percent might equate to ten thousand pounds less at the end or more you know it's a significant amount so i think you can do lots of wealth management and that's great i mean i'm not a financial advisor i just talk about what's worked for me yeah um so you might be in a position where you want wealth management i mean you might be mike you know is that well i've been i've been toying with the idea yeah that's that's how it works but it doesn't really affect your safety net all those other things you can do are you should do anyway yeah you know and if you've got an access to that and ideally i mean i always say you know 70 of your earnings is gonna you know go towards your living expenses your rent your food and bits and pieces 20 you should be investing yeah should be investing i mean i was always told 10 when i was younger so a minimum i've ever invested or put away is 10 of what i've earned minimum and that's growing um and so i'd say 70 on living 20 on investing and then 10 for the fun stuff yeah don't stop you having fun now yeah you know but you're securing yourself later on down the line as well yeah it's like delayed gratification yeah i guess but as i say if you don't have to touch you don't have to touch it's you know generational wealth at that point which is great uh next on the list was your the brand product range so that's the century uk it is yeah basically um this started in school i was 14 years old in a geography lesson and i said to myself i can't afford the model airplane i want to buy the kit's too expensive for me to buy it so i designed it just drew it out went to the woodwork class cut a load of the plywood parts out went home built this model and it flew really well and it's called the riot and um i always had this design in the back of my head that i maybe i should manufacture it um and it got to the point where i had to really do my own product range so i could control the price and the quality and everything within that range within the space i'm in so i flew to china to find a manufacturer because that was the place and probably still is to to manufacture that sort of product um didn't understand a word of chinese had had a card with take me to the hotel take me to a toy fair um could have said anything to be honest yeah i didn't know if i was coming back to the red light district didn't have that one yeah could have come back with one kidney missing you know i just didn't know but again it's taking yourself out your comfort zone to make things happen yeah and um i was fortunate to meet a lot of great manufacturers and then some you know a couple of them invited me over to shenzhen so i got an internal flight to shenzhen and went in their factories and went yep you are the guys i need you to manufacture my products and then you find other products as well that maybe aren't that good you know like a glass with a hole in the bottom it looks brilliant but it doesn't quite work so it just needs adapting oh right now that's perfect so i could adapt a lot of products as well and make them better make them good enough for our market and that's the quality control aspect so Did that require a lot of upfront investment?

58:18Well, it's like anything, you know, as you go through your business and you're building your wealth, I was able to organically grow that. And I just read Shoe Dog just recently by Nike, the founder of Nike. And very, very similar story. Okay, that's a multi-global brand, but the story is very similar. You know, you stretch and you rob Peter to pay Paul and you know it takes time then you get to a point where you think is all this going to implode you know i'm selling so much gear but i've got no cash flow so there are times where you may need to borrow to push your business along um i'm very organic i like not to borrow if i can help it but sometimes you've got to borrow to make more yeah and that's what it's like but that's a good book anyone wants to read it very very good and that's it's that still ticking over nicely yeah yeah certainly is yeah yeah and then you have retail stores yep originally i wanted hundreds i thought you know i'm going to dominate my have hundreds of shops which is what a lot of people think and then obviously you've got to bring that back because of the online side of things yeah especially the uk death to high street i mean yeah you look at it now and there's barely anybody walking apart from london like everywhere else is very quiet yeah it's decimated really isn't it But the retail stores we have are put in the right positions that they work very well.

59:48And believe it or not, from time to time, I jump behind the counter and I'll sell. Last weekend, I wanted to play golf. The course was waterlogged. I went, you know what? I'm going to go stand behind the counter, see what's going right in the business, what's going wrong, say hi to some of my older customers that have been coming in for years. And I really get a kick from that. yeah in fact i still when someone comes in and they want let's say a model airplane that everyone wants a spitfire yeah it's not the right airplane to buy first off you're going to if you can get it in the air you're going to crash it so when you can explain it from a point of experience and you explain all the right things to buy this is best because this is best and you put all the deal together in front of them and they go do you know what i'm going to buy that that's still a kick yeah yeah it's amazing it yeah yeah whether it's a block of flats for multi-millions or whether it's a you know a model airplane that someone's taken your advice on the kicks are saying my grandpa used to collect them not ones that had a motor and flew but they were the ones that you would buy be in loads of different pieces and then you would assemble it and then you'd paint it yourself still very popular in fact it's growth part of the industry at the moment because obviously a lot of people got small homes or small spaces so it lends itself quite well to that so it's a growth part it was a declining part that's now bouncing back yeah and then the the last two residential real estate and commercial real estate yeah which were these are more difficult to kind of get into yeah they are i mean you you can get into residential real estate by buying in a reit or in a buying group um are you getting to real estate by finding properties for investors as well.

1:01:30And that's quite a big industry in itself. But I like buying property. I always see property as a very tangible asset. I'll drive past the properties I own just to go, yeah, that's that. Yeah, that's that. Not on fire, still. Yeah, still working, rent still coming in and you can touch it, it's real. So I do like property for that reason um yeah it's very very good i could have done a lot more with property than i have um but again because i am a little averse to borrowing i do borrow when i need to um i could have heavily borrowed but then you can look at the flip side of that and the recessions that i've been through which is i think three major recessions could have toppled me had i overextended so you got to weigh way up the scales would you say you're more risk averse i am definitely more not risk of it i'm i'm borrowing of it okay which i think is slightly different yeah because what we said about the um you know the feeling of having achieved something or owning something i like that i like that i think that our ways like buying your own property a lot of people say you should rent your property not buy your own property and i get it the maths works if you're not gonna you're not gonna live in it for seven years you're gonna be moving around absolutely what what is the point in owning it but if you do want to own it the feeling of this is paid for this is mine no one can take this away from me that i think outweighs sometimes for me the the maths of doing it a different way yeah so would you advise youngsters in the uk for example to try and get onto the property ladder or hold off a little bit um if you're buying to to rent as in buying to rent it out, I think it's a good way of going about it.

1:03:21Still? Yeah, because you've still got your mobility then, haven't you? And people do like to be able to move around. So that is not a bad investment in my book. Now again, maths-wise, it might work that others are better. And my son is a little bit against buying his own property, for example. But if you're buying to rent it out, I mean, essentially, your tenants are paying for your building that you're buying. And say, for example if you had a house in the uk currently that someone's renting from you and paying the mortgage for for you then you've you're always on that ladder you're always rising with that tide aren't you so you've always got something to go back to so i quite like the idea of that um but obviously if you're if you're going to be there for five years or less you know the maths actually doesn't work out at all you know you're much better off to rent much better off as long as you invest your deposit you know that that's how that all works you can't just go i'm better off renting i'm going to spend all my money yeah you've got to look at that deposit you would have put down on a property to buy and invest that because that's what makes the difference the fact that that's increasing in value in the background and that deposit will always then be big enough to use as a deposit otherwise it's losing value yeah you said in one of your reels three of the worst businesses to start.

1:04:37number one clothing brand yeah number two uh why do we need any more clothing brands for god's sake i mean most most of them fail i mean obviously if your influence are led then it can be a good thing but i've done it it's not easy yeah there you go the rag always when i was up and coming the rag trade was the hardest thing to be involved in and that's essentially what it is so um the trade yeah that's what it's called um but the clothing industry is difficult it's very very it's weird because everybody still wants to do it yeah because they see the people that have done it and got it right and maybe lucked as well to a certain degree and they're selling out on every drop of course they want some of that i want some of that but who's going to buy mark tilbury's range of shirts i don't know probably no one but sounds cool yeah i've had a lot of youngsters dm me and message me about wanting to start their own clothing business i'm like do you do you really know what you're getting yourself into like you have to live and breathe this yeah and you're not going to see the payoffs for a very very long time if ever yeah and the initial cost just to get the stock yeah and everything else up and running is well it's stressful you just look at one item of clothing one item doesn't matter what it is let's say a a sweater or a hoodie for example well it's not one is it that's one design right now you need what five sizes yeah really probably at least five sizes how many colors you need four yeah four or five so how much inventory is that well you're done in aren't you yeah unless you can pre-sell it if you can pre-sell it then of course you go into that and and that's a totally different um animal but you know normally you can't pre-sell everything uh you got number two restaurants yeah they're always closed did you ever dabble into no no i thought about it i thought about um starting you know with franchises like mcdonald's or costa because you've spoken a lot about franchises in the reels yeah i think um there is definitely money to be had but again it's not my area of of what i'd say i'm comfortable with and i know so you should go out your comfort zone but you know i think there's a link but before i'd get into a restaurant you know there'd have to be something else first before yeah i i got close enough to a knowledge base that would help me in that and the problem with restaurants particularly independent restaurants is everyone goes to the new shiny restaurant and as soon as the new shiny one opens the other one's tarnished see that all the time here in devise yeah of course there's a new hot spot which is relevant for a couple of months and then people get bored yeah and they go to the next place yeah and that's how it works yeah and it's very unfortunate because you know you can be the best chef in the world well that's you could be the best chef in the world for certain but you won't necessarily have the best restaurant because you don't know how to manage it how to promote it and all the rest of it most of the best restaurants have the best team behind the promoting them and and doing all of that sort of stuff but most people that start a restaurant are good at cooking or good chefs yeah and that's not really the direction so would you would you say that if you wanted to get a taste of that world it would be better to start with a side hustle Well, I'd say really with a side hustle.

1:08:03And that's why I was saying you need a link in between. So say, for example, you want to get into running a burger joint. American diners are us, say. Really, you almost want a burger van first, just to get used to it. Test all the recipes. Why is your burger so much better than all the other millions of brilliant burgers out there? You know, find that niche. Is there enough profit in it? now when i go to bricks and mortar and make a restaurant for this with all the added costs of doing that is it still profitable yeah and i think people just think well you know cost me cost me a pound to make it i sell it for two pounds i'm going to be in profit but you gotta sell a hell of a lot of burgers for that yeah if you're going to franchise any brand out there what would it be um i'd have to say i haven't looked into it enough what would you go for oh maybe i like burgers in another in another life i would have set up a like a burger chain you know like five guys in shakespeare well they're both doing very well but i think if giving it a bit of thought though i think i'd go more the healthy route purely because that's where the youngsters are nowadays they're all on the health kicks and doing the gym work and everything and i think there's probably probably a shortage of that actually joe the juice that's one that's very good at the moment so that is yeah that's expanding yeah yeah i would go for one in barcelona actually in some uh some european cities there's a place called honest greens oh okay i don't know if you've ever been i've heard of that they've got a couple in barcelona i think they might start in barcelona madrid some in new york weren't they yeah are they gonna open one in london as well but anyway it's like the best healthiest food it's so delicious it's so fresh and whenever i'm traveling to these places i'll eat there like every day but there's nothing like that in here and in a lot of other places well you're adding the value because of the health and also the convenience aren't you because we started off the conversation with you saying when you started you had to prep all your meals and probably couldn't go back to doing all that again you know and that convenience is where you're adding value and if you can add value to a product and deliver that to millions of people yeah what a business yeah that is the business all about adding value the last one you mentioned was day trading yeah i don't really like day trading i think um the only people that seem to be making money out day trading are people telling you can make money out of day trading yeah um it's very very difficult um i think you have to be very very very knowledgeable um and if they were really honest about it um most people wouldn't want to go to the extent that they need to go to for day trading i've done various videos on day trade and some of them won't be available yet um but it's a very very tricky difficult business that's made to sound easy yeah so they can sell a course on it yeah and that is a shame i mean that's you see so much of it now so many people selling courses yeah people who have made a bit money who are then teaching other people how to make money and it's just like this yeah weird cycle that seems to be happening at the moment exactly now i mean we come or i should say i come from a uh um a place of i got helped by a mentor you know he helped me and uh i try not get too emotional because he's not with us anymore um he's a great guy and you know he didn't even know how much he was helping me okay i did i did get emotional talking about him um and that was what clicked four years ago because i thought you know it's time to give that back yeah give it back and that's what we do how do you how do you manage to find somebody like that in your life um i don't i think they find you really yeah i think if you're social person put yourself out there um don't be afraid to talk to people talk to people you know people you can't be a shy youngster you've got to get out there you know all this knowledge is there isn't it and um i guess he just latched on you know and i latched on to him he always had a flashy car you know but he deserved it because of how he worked always had a bit of money on his hip you know this is the thing always had the yeah i wouldn't necessarily the best around used to rally cars as well yeah you know you think blimey oh this is a guy you know and anything any nugget he threw my way it was like that's gold yeah i remember that i'm not going to forget that you know and that's what you need you do need that without a doubt and we have a lot of followers and subscribers that are from one parent families predominantly that's the mum you know they've got no one to ask yeah no one i don't need to be looked up to that's not what it's about but you know just making sure that you know they're not missing what they should have had as youngsters yeah i think one thing with what i noticed when i if i meet younger fans or do meetups or whatever they tend to be quite timid like they're not they're not confident and they're quite shy and you can tell they're they're kind of stuck in their own way and it reminds me of me in a lot of ways when I was younger I was I knew I had potential but I was like stuck inside of my own shell like I needed to just come out but I found it very difficult so I wasn't very confident I didn't feel like I had much to offer the world.

1:13:48And it was a long journey, hard journey to kind of get out of that and to become the person that I am today. And I think a lot of people, they see the end result now and they think, oh yeah, well, it just must be easy for you. Like it's, you know, you can speak on camera, you're good at communicating with people, you're good at talking, but it was all skills which I had to develop. And I had to put myself out there in very uncomfortable situations to become more comfortable. And like you said, if you're too afraid to ask for help or have conversations with people, then that's going to limit you quite a bit.

1:14:26So you just got to go for it. And youngsters are getting more and more locked up, aren't they? You can't go out, there might be a weirdo down the park. Well, when I was young, we went down the park, we knew who the weirdo was. So it didn't pop for us, we knew who he was. You know, you just got to get out talk to all the people around your local area you know get known speak to people you know and surround yourself with the people that you know are good yeah and don't be afraid to change your friendship group as well i mean some for some reason it seems that yeah your people you meet at school have got to be your friends for life well that's not the case yeah you know that yeah i mean making the breakout here you some of your friends i'm assuming would have been left by the wayside so to speak yeah they're still in leads and and that sort of hurts a little bit but your friendship group changes and you shouldn't be afraid of that because one leaves another comes in your core friends i mean i would say five all right and that that's my core base i know who they are i know i can lean on them i know that if they need help they can lean on me you know um and that's my core base and then lots of associates some coming in some going out and that's how it works how have you found it now with obviously the rise of your fame on social media when it's like i imagine at this point now you've probably got more people than ever trying to reach out to you yeah either do business together or just wanting your time they're wanting advice yeah how are you managing that um well it is a little difficult um because again when we started it was to help so many people as we can and when it gets to a certain number it becomes very difficult it becomes very difficult to answer all of what we don't can't answer all of the messages and all of the dms it's it's impossible um so at some stage we will have to narrow that to the the serious guys that want to start a serious side hustle um or serious investing or really want to get niched down so that will have to happen and whether that's in a membership or some form of community that we can get together then it has to happen because that way i can then still help on a one-to-one basis and that's where the real help is yeah without a doubt so so that that will happen at some stage i think yeah what's your thoughts on the current state of the uk at the moment and starting a business there i i think there's always room for businesses absolutely always room for businesses whatever business you name there's it generally it's come up when there's been other competition against it or bad times bad times will come and go good businesses will ride through um but starting a business just for the sake of starting a business is a bad thing you know you've really got to research what you're doing be good at what you're doing um aim it into the right place and if that needs mentorship to do that then seek that mentorship out and if someone says no no mate you shouldn't really shouldn't be going for this listen because there's reasons for that because there's reasons why everything's done the way it's done it's just whether or not there is an alternative way to do that thing that's been done and whether that will work yeah basically there's four four main types of business you can have a service-based business um which is basically you know selling or helping people in your local area very very cheap to set up um you can have a product-based business that's local again so selling to your local people but there's problems with that very hard scale but they're all stepping stones you know you can then get onto a global platform so you're selling lots of products on ebay or on amazon you know doing amazon fba again all very scalable when you get to that stage or you can look at service again but do that online and that gives you the global reach but also gives you the profit margins that you might be after you're more in the 80 profit margins rather than with products probably down to 20 percent so really it's all a gradual thing you know if you jump straight into business i'm going to start a business tomorrow that's not a good thing if you work on it work your way through and look at it as marathon not a sprint then i think any time is a good time yeah i mean i started right in a bad recession when i opened my model shop people said you're absolutely mad it was a massive recession what year was that oh well it's 40 odd years ago 47 years ago there you go um so no 37 years ago get it right 37 years ago and they said you're mad there's no room in the market for another model shop there's plenty of model shops out there you you you're absolutely off your trolley you're opening it in a garden center the complex i mean how mad is that well it turned out to be the best thing i ever did because yes it was a recession but i wasn't taking wads and wads and wads of money and then hitting a recession and going what's happened i was taking what i was taking and going well that's what i take right let's improve on that let's improve on that so it got better rather than getting worse going into a recession so actually people say you shouldn't start in a recession actually it's not a bad time it's like buying individual stocks while the market's down it's quite a good time to be buying yeah or generally because the market has a habit of bouncing back so you're getting at a discount so certainly starting for me during a recession was a good thing what would you do if you uh you go back to being 18 21 years old you know everything you know now but you have no business not a penny to your name what would you do i would do online service-based business yeah without a doubt yeah because that's where the high profits are as we've mentioned you can make a lot of money on it um it's accessible worldwide if you do a good job you can't go wrong yeah that makes sense um a little bit upon portfolio diversification strategies i want to talk about how what what are the the absolute basics that people should understand when it comes to doing that well that's quite a loaded question do you want to refine it a little bit um i guess more so on the the the stocks you want to invest a little bit of money okay where should you put it well i don't think you should invest in um individual stocks when you start for sure because there's a lot of work that goes into looking at individual stocks where there should be you can't just do it on a gut instinct you've got to get rid of um the emotional thing it's got to be a logical step index funds are the way to go now if you want to diversify the sp500 is 503 companies currently that's pretty diversified so and you're looking to earn somewhere hopefully around 8 to 10 per cent per annum yeah you can then diversify a little bit more so i have about 60 70 roughly in s &p 500 then i have an all market fund now that's everyone in America.

1:21:29All the businesses would be in the whole market. Okay. That's about 20%. And then another 10, 15 % will be in an emerging market. So again, still an index fund, but it's an emerging markets fund. So that'll be countries like China, India, places like that, because, you know, they might not go bang and grow, but I don't want to not be part of that if it happens. And to be fair it's performing quite well at the moment so that's quite a diversified portfolio just within index funds then i personally do a little bit of individual stocks but do a lot of research before i do and also do a little bit of crypto as well i was gonna ask you about that well so you it's quite exciting it's quite sexy bit of fun it's done quite well yeah can't grumble i would have thought you would have been more against the crypto i'm not against crypto i mean i'm very for technology i'm very for future thinking and moving forward um i don't invest in mean coins i have done but not really interested in it's a bit like day stock trading it's still a substantial amount of money but it's only about five percent of my portfolio yeah so this is the thing i think people don't really understand now if i lost all of that five percent it's five percent of my portfolio worth yeah i can take that it'll sting i wouldn't like it but i can take it but if you put 100 in or 50 in of your portfolio into something that can disappear that's not so good yeah so just be sensible remember it's all about the safety net keep that safety net ticking away in the background yeah where do you see the the future of entrepreneurship in the next five to 10 years hopefully being celebrated in the uk rather than looked down upon to be perfectly honest i mean america has always looked at entrepreneurs as being beacons of hope yeah um it's quite weird as well because most entrepreneurs are looked at as weirdos at school you know for whatever reason and then celebrated once they make it you know so i i think um hopefully celebrated more i think things like um dragon's den are helping you know which is shark tank in the states i think that helps the entrepreneur spirit because they can see the the entrepreneur trying with their idea trying to get capital trying to get it there and then they see the results in the shops i mean we had um a case very recently um with a perfect head which a matcha based product i don't know if you've seen those yeah which is obviously an energy drink without the caffeine um and we're pretty good friends with them we went to their launched they were on dragon's den we even went to the airing of dragon's den in a big cinema in london because they invited us to them and we podcasted with them and they're doing very very well so if you get the right product and be driven as an entrepreneur that's great the thing i don't believe you can be is taught to be an entrepreneur you gotta have it in you i think you have to have it in you you can learn a lot along the way but there's a certain element and that's why not everyone should start a business and that's why we don't say to everyone you should start a business to become wealthy just manage your finances that's the easiest way for you to be able to come wealthy it might be that you're entrepreneur and you can run a business fantastic let's help you along the way superb but it doesn't suit everyone and that's a mistake i think the same thing about being an influencer or building a personal brand like a lot of people like the idea of that but i don't think some people uh cut out for it or can deal with being in the spotlight like that yeah i think there's a difference between influencer and personal brand because i think you can build a personal brand um that helps you in lots and lots and lots of ways that are way pre-influencing yeah um so you know i think everyone should really look after their personal brand i'm quite adamant on that um really look after it because this is the future everything is gonna everything's gonna be visible so just look after what you're doing as a personal brand and it's a good way of getting yourself out there as well i mean when when you go for a job an employer is going to look at your personal brand and if your personal brand is just a few posts on facebook telling someone to whatever you know that's what they're gonna see and then you're I don't know why I didn't get that job.

1:25:56Yeah. It's like you're the new and improved CV. Yeah. Like they're going to. Or the new and worsened CV. You know, it depends how you're looking after it. Yeah. But the way I kind of decide if I'm going to collaborate or do business with somebody is I'll obviously go, I'll check, I'll go to the Instagram. What kind of stuff are they posting? Yeah. What's their engagement? What's the following? Have they also got other platforms which are popping off? Like it's. Because that's going to reflect on you at the end of the day. if you employ someone so yeah i'm sure they'll bring out a law at some point you can't take that into account but we'll see won't we yeah yeah what else have you got a plan for the rest of this year in the future um well as i say i would really like to to knuckle down to being helping more people again because when we first started we could physically help so much more on a one-to-one basis so if i can get that um up and running where i can help more filter through a little bit more that's really important um a lot more traveling yeah um because we've got um lots of people in lots of countries that would like to do meetups and and that sort of thing and again that's getting back to that one-to-one isn't it where you know they can come along we can you know give them a little bit of help a little bit of guidance even if it's just a rallying call you know sometimes you need that don't you when you're out there and you're young and you're trying to to go forward someone to say you know you're you have got this yeah you know i if i went back to myself at times you know i i could have done with that you know you you've got this don't worry about what they're saying you know you know do your thing you know you know do what you're doing because you're different you're you'll end up with a different result yeah if you're the same you're gonna end up with the same result everyone else gets and generally speaking that's not actually what you want you're trying to break out of that so you got to be a bit different exactly you know you remind me a lot of simon squibb oh dear he's a good friend of mine yeah in terms of like what you're doing the message you're spreading and you're just you're just out there to help as many people as possible well you can only you can only try i mean simon is a good friend he's got a very good message um he believes everyone should just quit their job and start a business of their own which i as i say we've just spoken about not everyone is suited to start in a business some people will work for other people and do very very well and as long as they're investing on the side they are going to have a great life they're going to live their passions and everything so i think there's there's more than one way to to to live in the life that that simon puts over that you get by only starting a business um but he's a good got good message out there that's for sure yeah i see you've got your your notepad there have you got any questions for me um well do you know what i've had a couple of um um comments on facebook that's not facebook on instagram and various things and on my dms recently they're saying mark you're getting a bit porky son can't be having that you know the old shirt starting to go so i've either got to go and find a new tailor which i'm not sure if you'll be able to give me a number for i do have a number of it but i think the better option is so i can still fit into my normal clothing is maybe you should um sort out a fitness program for me you know i'm 57 years old don't want to wear the bones out too much so what do you reckon i should be doing well i would first of all ask what it is that you're doing at the moment uh i play golf regularly as regularly as i can okay and i do walk i don't buggy um and I prefer to walk.

1:29:20I ski, love skiing, which is fairly energetic. And I can ski all day, no problem at all, and reasonably fast. Sun's slightly quicker now, slightly. I have to admit it because it's fact. And it's so annoying. It really eats me up inside, to be fair. What's going to happen when he starts making more money than you? Well, that won't be too long the way he's going. And that's great, isn't it? So you can celebrate those things. That's great. means i've done a good job exactly so i take all the credit yeah um so yes i can ski a full day i would say i'm relatively fit just got that later middle age spread it's just starting to occur so i i would say probably start doing some form of resistance training doesn't have to be a lot can even be twice a week maybe three times a week you know when you're staying at these hotels when you're traveling most of these places will have a gym uh somewhere on one floor you've also got your gym at home yeah what equipment's nice shiny and new and not yeah yeah so very simple uh training split full body sessions three times a week doing probably compound movements and then it would just be a matter of you don't have to do any ridiculous cardio or anything like that you don't need to i think if you're doing the resistance training tweaking your diet so the diet is fairly good i i have to be honest i i but i probably it's more probably overeat then that's the problem but the the contents of the diet is fairly good but you hit on protein now my wife's very on that at the moment so it's a couple of eggs every morning for example you probably need more than that though really yeah well the thing is as you get older the protein requirements get higher as well okay so a general rule of thumb um one gram per pound of body weight around like 1.8 grams per kilogram okay so you don't accidentally eat that amount of protein so you you would need there needs to be some degree of planning probably ideally eating three to four times per day decent source of protein uh in each meal and then like you said it's just it's not just don't overeat a lot of what the the japanese people do and you don't see any fat japanese people is they they eat until they're around 70 to 80 percent full okay so they're they're they eat enough but not too much and then obviously avoiding desserts avoiding junk food and i'm avoiding the sugars for sure and the desserts because you know my age you're looking at the possibilities of diabetes and things like that which you really don't want to go down that road so i'm uh i'm already on the anti-sugars i've cut out all the cokes and all that sort of stuff as well so mostly water coffee i do like a coffee i do like a tea but that's that's that's fine so doing that not overeating and then um you don't necessarily have to track but when you do i always recommend some people track at least once in their life so they can understand the numbers yeah so like we look at a plate of food okay how many grams of protein is there the carbs the fats total calorie intake and then you start to understand oh maybe yeah i've been overeating or i've been overdoing the fats or underdoing the protein most people usually underdo the protein and then a very underrated form of cardio or just a method of burning calories just walking so you probably do decent amount of walking yeah reasonable yeah it would just be a case again once twice three times a week going on the treadmill you probably have a treadmill at home to put it on an incline 11 oh it's harder then though isn't it it needs to be harder can't be holding on to the handles and then do that for 30 40 minutes yeah you know if you watch something on your phone at the same time the time goes by pretty fast and literally just those little tweaks you'll be burning more calories on a daily weekly basis just pulling back the amount of food that you eat and then that'll that'll sort out okay so i've got to make the sort of commitment to my fitness yeah that you've got to make to your finances exactly yes my portfolio my commitment yeah it's a deal there you go made on air we can't go back on that awesome i appreciate your time and for coming on um where can people find you uh you can find me at uh mark tilbury basically type that into anything and you will find me um that's it really isn't it just mark tilbury on youtube's the best way because um there are lots of free lessons on there it's it's all free just look it up and i'm hoping it'll help you along your way you know life is a journey not a destination enjoy the whole trip and it's a it's a long one it's a great one if you let it be wise words thanks very much