658 - SIMON SQUIBB - The Internet’s Most Controversial Dream Seller - From Homeless School Dropout, To Multi-Millionaire Giving Away His Fortune

21:18It's a crazy thing to experience. So my father died of a heart attack suddenly. He was 54. And I, you know, a few weeks later had a big argument with my mum. and she kicked me out and I found myself, yeah, in the streets. Crazy experience. I went to social services, as you'd expect, for help. And at that time they said they can't help me because they had six people in front of me, women, who had kids. And they were trying to house them first and they couldn't even find accommodation for them. But you were a kid. But I didn't look like a kid. I was six foot and I did look like an adult. And so they just, at the time, by the way, when social services turned me away, in my head it actually made logical sense.

22:00I'm like, of course, someone with a baby, they need accommodation for me. I'll just find a way. And, you know, I did. I stayed on a friend's couch and then I stayed at another friend's house for a while. And then I slept on the street for a little bit. Did you? I did. Yeah, it was crazy. Is this why you left school as well? Well, I couldn't go to school. Yeah. There was no going to school. I didn't have, you know, clean clothes. Yeah. So, yeah, I have to leave school at the same time. And then the whole crazy process of that particular stage, what I learned was, one, homeless people are actually some of the kindest people in the world.

22:28like I remember sleeping one night freezing cold in the street the other person who was in the same alcove as me gave me his blanket he's like you're not used to homelessness you know you take the blanket so people have nothing the kindest people like help trying to help you get through it I actually saw I think again I'd never seen that side of life I was brought up in a in a typical middle class upbringing I'd never seen homelessness up front right close I'd walk past homeless people with my family sort of thing. And it was always a bit like, watch out, that person's a drunk or watch out, that person, you know, it's dangerous.

23:00And then I felt something completely different when I was part of that community. I felt kindness and love and people were just really, really nice. Was that in St. Neots, was it? Yeah, St. Neots. And actually, ironically, I caught the bus to Cambridge. Did you? Because you get a little bit nicer up there, the homeless community. It sounds a bit weird. Yeah, what do you mean? There was more people, actually, in Cambridge who were homeless. Right. So, you know, it's a bit like if you go to San Francisco, if anyone's been to San Francisco. It's actually where the homeless people go because it's such a big community of homelessness.

23:29Yeah, right. So they kind of hang out together and support each other. And so, yeah. Obviously, I'm lucky enough. I've never been homeless. My sort of image of that is just from TV and film, which obviously is going to be skewed and perhaps heightened. I don't know. But it's like murky world of drugs, theft, all that kind of stuff. You can't sleep without someone robbing you. did you did you find that or yeah no no i i think that um the two sides of it that shocked me one was the kindness of the people that were homeless so i i never realized you know that side of it i had an image that they weren't nice the other side was just kind of how horrible people could be right so i i did try to beg and actually someone spat at me for example and called me an alcoholic i i've never drunk alcohol my whole life i don't know i've never drunk alcohol i didn't drink alcohol but there's an instant assumption that because i'm there it's somehow my fault.

24:23Like I've got addiction of some, some, some sort. So people were quite cruel. And what I realized when I was in this environment, a lot of people got into drugs because everyone's, every one of your listeners, they might not like to hear this. Every one of your listeners is three steps away from being homeless, right? Something could happen to you. You lose your job. Something happens to a family member. You have a mental health crisis. Everyone is three steps away from being homeless. And what I realized with all the people that were homeless, those that had like drug problems and alcoholic problems, they started doing that because of the pain of being homeless so they they didn't have those problems then they were homeless it's so lonely it's so scary it's a really horrible environment where you suddenly have no no love in your life right no one no food you're not sure if you're gonna eat like the mental strain on you makes you drink right right so most people start drinking once they become homeless and then they become dependent on it because it's a way of killing the pain oh wow yeah a lot of people are assuming they've ended up in that situation because of the drink exactly yeah it's not the cause but it's the it's the effect yeah right yeah and having no home i'm telling you like it's the scariest thing uh to not have a safe place to sleep you know in the night anything could happen to you because you're out in the street right someone someone can stab you it's just your mental health strain i don't think people understand i didn't realize that um obviously i've read the articles that you were homeless but i didn't realize to what extent i i assumed oh sofa surfing and stuff like that was true that is part of it i had every single homeless experience you can I can't imagine.

25:49And it was only eight weeks I was homeless for. That's still a fucking long time. We had a guy on it, not to make this funny, but we had a guy, Bevo, came on. We gave him a little bit of a grilling. Yeah, I saw that. And he said that he was homeless. He was homeless for a day. Right, okay. So he's just outside for a bit, wasn't he? Right, right. He can wait for a walk. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. But yeah, so I didn't actually realise the gravity of you actually begging. But I'm actually, only recently I talk about the homeless part, because institutional homelessness is very different to the experience that I had.

26:23And I did get help in the end, you know, stayed at friends' houses and stuff. So it wasn't the extreme homelessness that we see. Do you know, when I was homeless in that time, there was 21 ,000 homeless people. Today in Britain, registered, so there's a lot of unregistered, over 300 ,000 people are homeless. Wow. Which is insane. That should not be happening. And then there's another category of homelessness, which is like you don't have a home, so a lot of kids are homeless because they don't have a fixed place where they're actually allowed to stay. But they could be living at like grandparents.

26:50Exactly. Or they're living in temporary accommodation, right? So there is a term that is a bit broad. But I got out of it through like no choice. I just started a company. And it sounds a bit bizarre, but I started a gardening company because I couldn't get a job because I was 15 and I didn't have an address and I didn't have a national insurance number. I went to social services and they told me to sod off. They're the only two things school taught me to do, by the way. Get a job, couldn't get one. And then go to social services, told me to sod off. So this thing happened to me. I call it the entrepreneur muscle workup in my brain where I'm like, okay, I've got to make money.

27:20Like I can't live like this. I've got to find a way. Well, before you were homeless and you had the sort of happy home life, were you money driven or did you not? No, I didn't really think about money that much. No. No, I mean, we lived in a fairly nice house in St. Nears, but it wasn't a rich life. It was a middle class life. Right. And I think I didn't really think about money when I was kind of growing up. I didn't think are my parents rich or poor. You know, my dad had an MG, which was considered quite a nice car back in those days. So I guess we had a little bit of money. But I didn't really know about money that way.

27:56It was only when I was out in the street that money really became a part of my life. Like, how am I going to make money to get somewhere to sleep? I've heard you say that before, because like people with money don't care about it. It's only when you when you desperately need it. Like you say that, like, I might get this wrong, but like when you get money, you become lazy. Do you agree with that? Well, I think there's an element of like, I call it the middle class trap. Right. Where, you know, like there's 700 ,000 uni students right now that can't find work. And there's only 9 ,500 uni grad jobs.

28:27So no wonder, right? But a lot of the problem is like they don't need to find work. They're staying at home with their mum and dad in the spare room. They can just get by. It's not their fault they can't find a job. And you kind of can drift. And in my situation, I didn't want to start a business. I needed to. I didn't want to be successful. I needed it. And I think if the parents listening to this that say, I don't know if you're demographic, but some parents listening, you've got kids who are, you know, uni grads, kick them out. I'm not, I mean, kind of, I know it's a bit harsh, but like give them a chance to go out there and make it and fight.

29:00Because if you can just cruise, humans are lazy. We will go to the path of least resistance. Right. And if staying at home and just, I can't get a job, sorry, well, that's not good enough, is it? You know, like, go build something, go do something. You've got the social media side, which is a brilliant opportunity for young people to promote themselves. And on the other side, you've got AI, you can build a business, just asking it to help you do it. Yeah. And like, come on. Yeah, the tools are there, aren't they? Exactly, yeah. Don't wait for a job, create one. Right. And so, but I think a lot of people that I do meet, even dreamers, people that have dreams, sometimes they don't have to do it.

29:31And that makes people a little bit weak. Right, right. Right. Yeah, I noticed that you said school only taught you two things, right? So are you not a fan of the school system then? I think it's out of date. And for 90 % of people, the university system is a waste of time, right? It's a big business now, but 90 % of people shouldn't be going to university. Fact. It's a waste of time. And the stats are now proving it by the amount of people that have come out of uni and can't find work. Right. They all promise work, by the way. They all lie to. But school, generally, I find it to be like my son is eight years old.

30:04I took him out of school. I home educate him. And when he was four years old and he was in the nursery school, the teacher asked him, at four years old, what will you do when you grow up? Sounds an innocent question. But it traps his little mind straight away into like, what am I going to say to make the adults happy? I know, I could be a lawyer. I could be a doctor. He wants to see what's going to make the parents smile, right? But then his mind gets trapped into a job, a thing he has to do later, which puts him on a treadmill, right? Which is what all these students have gone and done. Ended up in debt, coming out of uni with no job.

30:37What did he say? Well, he looked at me and he went, Daddy, what should I say, Daddy? What should I say? Sort of thing, right? And I told the teacher, look, please don't ask that question. Ask kids what problem you'd like to solve when you grow up. Have a bit of fun with it. You know, let kids have an imagination. We don't even know what job's going to exist. My son's eight, right? in 15 years time, lawyers probably won't even exist. I would argue robots and AI will be doing all the surgeries. So, you know, like, why are we trapping minds into this job mindset? And that's the problem with school for me.

31:07It teaches you, okay, you've got a D in this subject, you need to do more of it. I'm like, fuck that. If you're not good at that subject, do the thing you've got an A in more of it. What does your son say his dream is now that? So I ask him every week for fun. He says he hasn't decided yet, but I've got him thinking about it. You know, like millions of other people now I've got them thinking about it. And I think for my son, for example, I say what problem you'd like to solve. We just watched a thing with David Attenborough and he said that we've got the sixth extinction coming our way. So my son's like, oh, I don't like that happening.

31:35What can I do to stop that? And I'm like, oh, you know, research a bit about it. But at least he's thinking about a problem he can solve as opposed to like the job that won't exist. He's going to tell everyone he's going to get to make parents happy, you know? How does homeschooling look then? Because you're a busy man, right? Yeah. So homeschooling is, again, like when I went to Hong Kong, my mind opened up to what the world's really like. And homeschooling is another example. So if I pitch to you the modern day school system, I said, right, 30 kids in a classroom, all the same age, being forced to learn whatever we tell them they've got to learn.

32:04It doesn't matter what they're interested in. We don't give a shit. A lot of it's waffle. Yeah, we're going to teach you what we want to teach you. And you're going to sit down and shut up and learn based on what we tell you is the truth. Right. And then different personalities. Doesn't matter. Sit there in a classroom from nine to three thirty. If we all had to sit in a room every single day, 9 to 3.30, every single day of the week, we'd go mental as adults. So why would it be any different for kids? So the way homeschooling works is a community thing. So think about it like tribes. In the old days, we used to have tribes, right?

32:35And the five-year-old is being looked after by the seven-year-old. The seven-year-old's been looked after by the nine-year-old. So the kids regulate themselves a bit. And we live in an area where homeschool is quite popular. And he basically plays in the field. and people listening to this are going to clip this up like oh his kid plays in the field my son plays in the field and does what he likes to do which at the moment is sword fighting he's eight years old right he fucking loves a good sword fight right he's going to be a guard now what's great about it he's not going to get a job what's great about it is he because he loves sword fighting this is really interesting child led learning is really interesting hope your listeners are still here by the way because I'm going to a monologue now please stay you're going to learn something I promise

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34:43From athletic to athletic, Sierra's got it. But he loves sword fighting, so he follows his interest. And then he'll say to me, Daddy, how does this sword get made? And then I'll teach him a little bit about engineering. And then he'll ask me about Henry the Ape had a really nice sword. How did he get it? And I'll say, well, Henry invaded a country. And the next thing I'm talking geography, we're talking politics, we're talking economics. Basically, instead of trying to teach him silos of subjects, we're going from an interest he has into those subjects. And he just learns automatically. But are you not lucky that you've got a kid that asks why?

35:16Some people might not have a kid that's just happy to smash a branch into a tree and call that a sword. This is kind of a matrix moment. Did it happen because the system did it? I think my son is like the way he is because we let him follow his interests. So that's my whole point around what's your dream. If you follow your interests, you will learn shit. Now, you're not a very good podcast host. You said it yourself. But you like being on camera. You like having a lot of listeners and views. so you got good at it right you practiced at it yeah so you're shit at something but you got good at it kind of you know what i mean yeah you had to get good at it yeah yeah i think that's the thing if you follow your interests like i'm really bad at accounts right but because i love business i've had to get good at accounts i don't really like you told me to learn accounts i'd be like fuck off i'm not interested yeah but you tell me i want to build a business and make a difference in the world okay i'll learn accounts so i can actually do that right so then you learn the hard shit because you're doing the thing you love yeah fair enough with the homeschooling element Is there nothing from the government or laws that you have to make them do certain exams or anything like that over time?

36:17So literally this week, they've made some new structural changes to the home education model. But originally, education was an opt-in system, right? So when people have a kid, you don't have to take them to school. You opt into the school system. But when you do that, you give the power to the school and to the teachers. You know, parents are getting told off taking their kids on holiday, right? Yeah. They go a week early to save some money because it gets so expensive at school term. They get fined, they get into trouble and all sorts of like repercussions. It's your kid. You don't have control.

36:51So when you opt into the school system, you are basically given control to the school to decide whether or not they go to school or not. Yeah. But when you home educate, you're just not opting in. Now, deafened councils have different rules, but they do have safeguards in place, as they should, saying, is your kid learning stuff? What are they learning? So every three months I have to produce, I say I, my wife does it all, she produces a report that shows what he's learned. And if you looked at what he's learned versus the school system, like he's naturally learning. He's consuming through interest.

37:24He's not consuming based on what the school system have told him to learn. So they don't care that they're specific, not the specifics of like maths, English, science, or whatever. It's just as long as he's showing knowledge. They have a broad curriculum model. But again, like most of the people doing the judging don't even have kids. They're like council forms that you tick the boxes to say. But again, like as a parent, I want the best for my child. And people think, well, some parents don't want the best for their child. Not many, not many. People want the best for their kid. So I spend a lot of time making sure my kid gets the experiences and the knowledge that he needs.

38:00And so today with the internet, there's so much knowledge out there. Do you let him go on YouTube and just learn stuff? I go on YouTube with him. Right. So, yeah, I don't let him scroll the internet on his own. I think I'll get the council of people around my home quite quickly. Yeah, I just let him surf the internet all day. But I reckon now, honestly, kids at 12, 13, 14 years old, if you were just teaching yourself AI, you're going to be far more advanced than those coming out of university right now. Fair enough. Well, let's go back to you. You said you were homeless and you started your gardening.

38:30venture um how much of that was a business in terms of like what we know a traditional business to be and how much was that knocking on a door and asking to cut something it was not a business right i say a gardening company it was uh yeah my my first basically i went to social services i couldn't i couldn't get any help there i tried to get a job couldn't get one so i was pretty desperate and i'm like i cannot live like this i cannot i cannot carry on and then i said earlier the entrepreneur muscle woke up in my brain. I walked past a big house and it had a messy garden. And my brain just said, they've got a nice house.

39:02They've probably got money to pay me to clean up the garden. So I just walked up to the house and knocked on the door. And I said, oh, your garden's really messy. Would you pay me to tidy it up? And the guy that answered said, yeah, sure. All right. It's like, how much? I just picked a number at the top of my head. £200 a month. And he went, all right, yeah, I'll give it a go. I think he was just looking at me and feeling sorry for me, probably. And then I went, could I use your equipment? have you got because everyone's got a garden he's got the equipment yeah right so he's like yeah yeah sure no problem no problem and that's how it started and I just thought I don't know I started doing the garden and I was really shit at gardening so I thought I better get some help therefore I need to knock on more doors so I just went and knocked on more doors and just asked loads of people told me to piss off some people didn't even answer the door even though they were in the house you know there were so many experiences I had I probably knocked on 200 doors and five people said yes but the first one said yes it gave me the confidence that other people might and that's how I started.

39:54But I used other people's equipment and I got other people to do the gardens because I was shit. I was good at knocking on doors and looking sad. How did you... That was good. How did you push past the no's? Well, I had one yes. So it's like anything in sales. Once you know that there is a market, someone said yes. After that, it's just finding someone else who said yes. Yeah. So I always tell people, like, you need a lot of luck in life, but you also need to spot the luck. So I was lucky that the first person said yes. If the first person had told me to fuck off, I probably would have lost my confidence.

40:22Yeah. But no one pays you to tidy up their garden. No, that's stupid. And so, you know, yeah, I just got lucky that someone said yes. I think also I didn't have a choice. If I didn't do this, there was no job. There was nothing else. Is that what pulled you out of the homelessness? Yeah. So I managed to make enough money and then I was able to pay for renting a room and then I was able to like get myself out of it. So how do you go from gardener, from homeless to gardener to moving to Hong Kong? What's the transition? Yeah, so I got lucky. I got some customers. I started outsourcing the work. I got more customers.

40:57And I managed to basically get nearly 90 customers paying me monthly to do their gardens. I had 20-odd-plus people part-time working for me doing the gardens. So I built this crazy thing up right out of nothing. That then does feel like a business. Well, now it feels like a business. I was still doing cash in hand at the time. So I probably should have registered it. I think I'm out of the tax bracket problem now. But anyway, the point is I built this business and then this is where I had no knowledge of business because something crazy happens and it all collapsed overnight. England has a winter.

41:28No one fucking told me. So the winter came and everyone stopped doing their gardens. So I built this thing up. But by that time I turned 16 and I got myself an address. I had rented a room in a house. So now I had a place to stay. So then I applied for jobs. And this time I got a job and I got a job in a hotel. So I was like, OK, great. I've got a job now. What were you doing in the hotel? I was basically receptionist and, you know, doing all the front of house stuff. I was a good talker back then as well, just like now. Was the gardening only a few months and it was literally just over the summer?

41:57Eight months. Yeah, eight months in total. It was a little bit longer because I had some of the projects keep going. Some people were like, oh, yeah, keep the garden, basically maintain. It fizzled out and then I got a job and then I got completely distracted. And when I got a job, I did what a lot of people, I think, do when you get a job. I started getting addicted to having a salary. I'm like, oh, this is great. I just do this work. I fuck around a bit and I get paid every month and I'm not having to worry about cash flow. But this entrepreneur muscle working up on my brain by this point. So I couldn't really go back to like working for someone else for very long.

42:26And there was this little niggle. And then one day in the hotel, the phone rang and the receptionist picked up the phone and she said, I'm sorry, we're full and put the phone down. She was very happy. Like the hotel's full. I don't have to do the booking sort of thing. And I was like, we paid a lot of money to get that inquiry. Why don't we find him another hotel to stay in? And that time everyone was ringing phones. I'll show you how old I am. No one was doing it on the internet. So the phone used to ring all night and we were just slamming the phone down because the hotel was full. So I said, well, let me take the phone call and I'll find them another room nearby and book them in there, something equivalent.

42:58And then I'll take a 15 % commission. So then I built another business called Accommodation Express. And that business did quite well. And I sold it for a little bit of money. And when I sold it for a little bit of money, the person, my accountant, who did all the kind of paperwork for it, said, if you leave England now for a year, you won't have to pay tax on this, capital gains tax on this sale. So it was basically, I could pay capital gains tax on the sale or have a year traveling. So I basically, my friend was living in Hong Kong. So I basically went over to Hong Kong and I was going to have a holiday and just experience, you know, traveling a bit.

43:29And when I got to Hong Kong, I fell in love. And then I started another business, which turned into a company called Fluid, which I then sold to PricewaterhouseCooper. And that's how I retired at 40. The end, end of the podcast. Thank you, goodbye. I hope you enjoyed this week's episode. we will talk about Hong Kong but I want to just quickly go back to that what's the hotel company called? Fissile Hotels no sorry the accommodation one so you were taking 15 % right? how does that work then? so what's the first step there? so you suggest a different place to someone who's calling up and then that hotel you have to agree with them that they're going to give you 15 % of that right?

44:11yeah but they're standard Every hotel will give you a 50 % commission if you place a booking with them. Back in those days. Now I think you probably have to get a written agreement. But back in those days, if you give a referral to someone, they give you 15 % commission. I mean, it's quite common with affiliates these days. Most companies, probably your listeners might not know this, but most companies, there's probably affiliate links down in your bio in this podcast, right? There's not actually. There's not what's fucking wrong with you. Anyway, every single one of my videos has an affiliate link down below.

44:37And when people click those things, we make 15 % commission. So if you buy something from my network, I make 15 % commission from it. Right now, it's the same price as if you go buy it direct. The difference is I've promoted it. So I get 15%. So it's the same model. The people ringing up, I'd say, look, this hotel is full, but there's an equivalent four-star hotel just around the corner. It's a little bit more money. Do you want me to book it for you? And they'd be like, yeah, sure, thanks. Because they're in the area, right? Yeah, right. So then I ring the hotel and say, I'm placing another booking today.

45:06It's John. This is the details. He'll be turning up, you know, 9 p.m. and that's fine. And then that will be registered as my booking and I get 15 % for it. So aside from the gardening thing, was this venture the one that really kicked off business for you? Well, it was kicked off in the sense that I made 80 ,000 pounds. So for me at the time, the young person, that was a killer amount of money. That was life-changing money. And that was enough to fund you every year in Hong Kong. In my mind, that was enough for me to go a bit of travelling. And then when I got to Hong Kong, I was like, oh, once the entrepreneur muscle wakes up in people's brains, and I'd love it if it woke up in some people's your listeners brains today.

45:41You can't stop it. It tells you ideas all the time. Do you think everyone has that muscle? A hundred percent. A hundred percent everyone has it. Just like you have a calf muscle, you have a bicep muscle, you've got to work it out. What about if you're an idiot? Idiots are the best. Idiots are the best because idiots basically we're very, very simple. I'm one of these people. We are very, very simple people. We're very binary. We break it down to the dumbest thing. And so all the people that worked in the hotel, by the way, they didn't spot this idea because they're smart. They're just doing their job, right?

46:10And they're putting the phone down. They're smart. I'm stupid asking, like, why are they happy to turn those people away? It's a stupid question. Idiots make the best entrepreneurs. Really? I think so. We all make ourselves out to be geniuses so we can sell our book, right? I mean, I'm no different. But the reality is, it's just arbitrage. You're not an idiot though, are you? I'm not now. Right. I was when I was younger. I think I've evolved in... You can grow more intelligent. that's that felt targeted at jack then no i was looking at you i actually looked at you don't worry you can go into it i don't i don't i don't know i don't feel like i have like that entrepreneur side to me are you money driven i just want to have a comfortable life but i'm not fussed about having mad shit but i don't care about driving fancy cars are you only in this or salary or what's your what's your list yeah he pays me he pays you yeah but how do you so So you're freelance?

47:06Yeah. Okay. I'm like a sole trader. So what else do you do? We have another thing that we do as well. You're an entrepreneur. This is entrepreneur stuff. What are you talking about? It's just content creation is weird though. No, no, no. Content creation is fucking exciting and massive. And it is a business. I met someone yesterday who wants to be a singer. Taylor Swift is a business. It's a business. But what about if that person is shit at singing? They can't be a singer. By the way, you can still go on TikTok and get millions of views and make money. In fact, the shitter you are, you could be more.

47:36That's true. Were they any good at singing? Yeah, pretty good. Yeah. Pretty good. Is that enough to give you a career in that? I'm not Simon Cowell. People get me confused with him sometimes. I am not him, but I can't judge. I don't judge people, by the way, like that. I think everyone has a different taste. It's like my wife is an artist. When I first saw her paint, I thought it was shit. But it turns out some people like it. You know what I mean? It's very subjective, isn't it? Music is the same. You can't say... I'm sure Iron Maiden was told there were shit singers at one point, smashing up guitars.

48:04Green Day were, because that's why they're called Green Day because they were in their talent show. They were terrible. And the teacher said, that'll be a Green Day in hell if you ever make it. Perfect. Good, exactly. The best revenge served cold. Does that mean when you go up to people and say, what's your dream? Yeah. Surely there's been times when you've gone, that's a shit dream. Yeah, if I come up to you and said, I want to be a model. I would say. Yeah, what would you say? Go on. What would I say? Yeah, go on. I want to be a model. I want to be on the catwalk. All right. Do it, man. Gucci.

48:29I want to promote Gucci. Okay. First of all, What's exciting about this time in history is there's never been a time in history where an ugly person could be a model. You could do it. And the reason I say you could do it is all you have to do is make a TikTok of you walking down the catwalk. Yeah, but that's not me being a model. That's me being a content creator. No, no. What is it? No, no. A model and a content creator, they're not far different, are they? The only difference, maybe you could argue, a model on a platform is that they don't own the platform that they're walking on. But if you go on TikTok and do it, you can own the platform.

48:59You can literally change clothes. What sort of model do you want to be? A sexy one. Sexy model? Yeah. Okay. It's going to be a stretch. You're making it harder for me. I tell you what, as a challenge, let's dress you up sexy, make a catwalk, do a video. I reckon it will get millions of views and that video will make money. And therefore, you are a model. Is that true though? Are you that thing though? So if I want to be a footballer, I can't obviously. I'm not good at that. You just pick a footballer, man. What is a footballer? Yeah, but a footballer is being paid to play football for a team, right?

49:30Is it? Yeah, I guess so, isn't it? Isn't it? I don't think so. I think a footballer is someone that plays with a football and maybe can make a living out of it so they can keep doing it. But if I do keepy-ups on TikTok and people watch it, does that make me a footballer? Yeah, yeah, look at the Sidemen. Do any of them play football? Are they footballers? Some of them are, aren't they? They play football, a charity match. I mean, the charity match is a good example. Are they footballers? No. Are they content creators? Are they business owners? It's all merging, isn't it? Are they earning money to play football?

49:57like Chris MD earns money to play football a lot of kids by the way come up to me saying they want to be footballers and I always think like why not fucking try while you can there'll be an age when you can't try anymore like if you try and you don't do it at least you tried you don't want to live a regret do you it was only about last year when I thought I'm probably not going to make it yeah yeah it was a sexy model only last year I reckon you could do it I reckon if you were really passionate about it that's the key you've got to be passionate about it you've got to really it can't be a joke and I think you're joking I'm getting to know you but I think you're joking I think you've got to really believe it and then anything is possible right it is anything is possible how hard is it for you to find passionate people when you're asking them in the street because I think if I was just throwing that question I'd be like oh I don't know if I saw you walking down the street I'd go fucking hell that's that guy that might give me a grand yeah so I'd just come up to you yeah can I have a grand yeah I'd just make up a dream then and there hoping that the answer and the response from you is here's a grand, go further.

50:58Let's do it. What a waste of an opportunity to get millions of people to help you with your dream. But I'm just being honest. That's what I do. All right. When I see you coming, mate, I'm going to make sure I've got my wallet on me. Yeah, you're cheating scumbag. That's not right. But what I'm saying is... I understand what you're saying. There must be a lot of people that know you and can see you. Your mantra is I'm helping people. So where there's help, people will take advantage of that help. So there must be a lot of people that come up to you and try and blag something. Yeah. First of all, I love blaggers.

51:27And when I see people blagging, it's kind of like that's their skill. And I have not had anyone, to be fair, in the six years I've been doing this, I don't think anyone's come up to me lying to get the money. Because the problem is, and I think this is a good thing, but we're filming it. So it's going to go up online. So if you're lying, the whole world's going to see it. But what about this? I see you and I go, and say I'm a kid and I want a brand new Xbox and I want to play the new FIFA. I know if I'm smart I'll go Simon I really want to be a streamer but I ain't got I ain't got an Xbox mate I feel like you're training people how to scan this is what this podcast has turned into alright this is a good idea people listening try this come up to me say you want to stream you need an Xbox show me your broken phone it'll be fine what percentage of people would you say that you've helped like how often do you actually see the follow through of these because you're posting so many videos like how months down the line how many of these are actually following through with their dreams and actually doing them as well 76 % of stats are made up but I can give you some stats if you want but like that's what I mean like how do you know you're giving an impact beyond the video that people see okay so I think there's a couple of elements to it first is people that watch the video feel inspired and we get a lot of DMs from people I've never even met yeah that have gone I'm making excuses too I have a dream I'm going to do it so and then they DM to say they did it two years later, three years later.

52:53I think that's one part. It's not just the person in the video. No. I don't want to put the pressure on that person to perform for me. I'm not here to make them perform for me so that my stats look good, right? I don't want them to have to do it. I want them to want to do it, right? So in our system, I have 48 people full-time helping me with this. It's not just me. But behind the scenes, we have a platform called Help Bank. We have a whole infrastructure where people tell us their dream and then we get them connected to Will Smith or get them connected to people that can help them. We try to get them the knowledge they need.

53:21they might be missing, that school didn't teach them about how to do cash flow, for example, or how to build a brand. We give all that knowledge to them for free. And then we try to help cultivate them through the journey. Sometimes people's dreams change. They evolve, right? People, there was one guy, for example, his dream was to go to Australia. So he went to Australia. And he's like, okay. Well, you paid for that. I paid for it. It was like, oh, I don't really like it here. And he came back and he's like, my dream is to actually fix the education system. So now I hired him. His name's Lucas.

53:47He works for me. But the point is like, you know, your dream can evolve and it can but you need to keep developing your experience in life to figure out who you are what you want to do yeah but most of the dreamers that we help go on to like follow through in some shape or form majority of them fail but that's that's the exciting thing at least they don't have regret right they tried to do that thing and they did or didn't make it it doesn't really matter it's the experience right of trying i i want to talk more about help bank um and that company but let's just peel it back a little bit back to hong kong you go there that's when you start fluid right and that's the big game changer for you in your life right um how did that come about what was this your idea did you meet someone tell me everything yeah so um most of my brilliant ideas have been a partner's idea that i've helped so i've invested in a lot of companies 81 businesses actually at this point right so you know uh i've invested business recently called lovable which has kind of taken over the world because it's now a seven billion dollar company and they voice clip what you want it to make app-wise and it makes the app.

54:49It's just incredible. What? AI? Yeah, AI. So I can spot talent. I'm quite good at investing in talent. I think with the agency business that I built out of Hong Kong, I met someone called Helen when I went to Hong Kong and she was an incredible graphic designer. But like all talented creative people that I've ever met, they underprice themselves. So she was doing all this incredible work for Deutsche Bank and other brands, but she wasn't charging properly for it. So I met her and I was like, I fancy you. She was really beautiful. And I think that you could be charging more. So these days you're not allowed to say this anymore, I know, but I did fancy her.

55:26I'm not allowed to say it anymore. There's nothing wrong with that, is there? Is there not? I think these days you get cancelled for it. I'm out. I'm going to get cancelled. Unless she was 12, you're fine. No, she was not. She was 20, I think. I didn't check her ID. Anyway, point is, I helped her. I said to her, you need to charge more. And then she said to me, look, I really don't like dealing with customers. Can you tell them they need to pay more? So then I started helping her negotiate some of the deals. And the next thing you know, we started a joint venture together called Fluid. So it was 50-50.

55:57And Helen became the creative director and I was the sales director. I did all the marketing for the business. I got all the customers. I did all the pricing. And she just built the creative team up. So then we built that business called Fluid together. and that that in layman's terms it's a business where people come to you and they need what what do they need from you they need they need marketing help right they need strategy for their business to either launch it or grow it so one of the big projects i worked on was cnn cnn wanted to go into asia so they would ask us how would you do it we give them ideas and then they pass to do the execution of that idea so very creative strategy kind of thing um but helen was the talent and i I was, again, that guy just knocked on doors.

56:37And, you know, the gardening thing never really left me. I just knocked on more expensive doors and got more valuable contracts. But it was the same thing. I just knocked on doors and said, hey, we've got this amazing creative talent. Would you like to use that service? And we built it into this massive company. What makes you a businessman other than a salesman then? I think sales is probably the number one thing. Everyone can learn it too. You can be an introvert and use tools to sell. I think if you can sell, you can get the right partner in life. You can get co-founders in life. You can get investors.

57:04You can get clients. I think everyone should learn to sell in school. I think if you're an introvert, there's a way to do it. You use email and there's other ways. If you're an extrovert, you can go into public speaking events. Sales is such a good thing to learn. Everyone can learn it. Is that pretty much what business is, sales? I think pretty much. A brand like Nike is just selling you their story. A brand like Apple is just selling you their story. It's storytelling. It's content creation. For me, it's like business is made out to be very complicated. In reality, it is not. It is simply telling a story and people buying something that you get it for less.

57:40Right. So I had a service business. What it cost me to do the work, I charge more than it cost me to do the work. Yeah. It's not hard. Right. It really isn't. It's made out to be this complicated thing because that's how we sell books, us entrepreneurs. Right. It's very, very complicated. It's not. It's really simple. And most of it is sales. Well, how hard is it to physically make a company? What are the steps you need for an idea to be this actual sort of like physical thing? Yeah, I think you need stamina. And I think that's why I love purpose as a reason to go again. Like what I spent the last six years, I posted a video every day for the last six years.

58:17That's mental. And I pretty much gone live every day for the last two and a half years. How do you have time? I just find time. Right. Yeah. When I'm at the gym, I do it. When, you know, I'm neglecting my child for an hour. I'm not giving him home education. I do it. You know, I basically, I think that, you know... So I want to fix the education system that let me down when I left school at 15. I didn't know how money worked when I hit the real world. I didn't know this thing about how to build a business. I didn't know you could take an idea in your head and make it real. Every single one of your listeners right now is holding a device that was once in someone's head and they made it real.

58:50Think how crazy an iPhone is. They made it real. It was in their head. That's the power of humans. And no one taught me that at school. So I want to fix that. I want to make sure that, yeah, if you want to go to university, you can. If you want to go do an apprenticeship, that should make that easier for people to do that. but if you do want to build a business it's not fucking hard i know entrepreneurs love to make it sound hard every entrepreneur i meet it's like oh you don't want to be an entrepreneur so hard i'm like give up all your equity then don't do it why are you doing it they don't want to work for someone else do they you'll never meet an entrepreneur that wants to work for someone else so i think that's the thing we're not teaching it to people and i and i'm driven the point i'm making is if you have a mission above and beyond yourself it motivates you to work hard on something and get good at something is there a physical thing someone has to do to make a company would Do you go on a website?

59:32Oh, you can, but these days it's also easy. Yes, of course, I think you need to have, you know, a good accounts software because you want to make sure you log your costs and your income so you can pay your taxes and not get into any trouble. That's all automated now. You probably these days, a website's becoming less important, but yeah, still need a showcase of your business. I think you need a story for your business to differentiate you from other people. What is your product? Not just what does your product have in it? Like this has caffeine in it. I haven't mentioned that once, have I, this coffee?

1:00:01No. This product helps people follow their dreams. So it's what it does for people, not what the product is. You never see Apple telling you what Pentel is inside. No one gives a shit. You feel like you're part of something when you buy an Apple, part of an ecosystem. So I think that's the thing. Business is just storytelling in reality. What drives you? Why do you care so much about other people doing well? I think I'm just helping the 15-year-old me. It's much more selfish than perhaps it looks in the camera. I love, I also get a real kick out of helping other people. We all do, actually. We used to live in tribes, right?

1:00:35So what used to happen before money became this big important thing is if you had a problem in the tribe, we help you fix it. Your tent fell down. Right, well, let's get that fixed. Stay in my tent till it's fixed. We'll get it fixed in the morning. Don't worry about it. Not gonna let you be homeless. Because the tribe needs to be happy. We've kind of lost that bit, right? It's a bit individual now. I've got my house, closed the door. It's all about me. but naturally in our DNA that's not how we survived hundreds of years thousands of years we survived by helping each other so what I've discovered and I'm very privileged I don't need to earn money so I can do this I know this is privileged but what I discovered when I started helping people when I didn't have an agenda I wasn't trying to sell them a course I wasn't trying to get something out of them I just helped them because I could so I'd introduce them to someone not because they want Dragon's Den I'm going to get 5 % because I know someone at Tesco and I just introduced them because I can it was I felt so good.

1:01:27I got oxytocin released, I find out later. You feel good when you help people. And that's something in us naturally. So it's like when you give someone a Christmas present or something, right? You wrap it up, you feel good, you give it to them, you feel good, right? Yeah. You're giving something to people, you're helping people. It's in us naturally. It's weird, isn't it? Because the argument is, and I actually don't sort of subscribe to this viewpoint, but the argument is that there's no selfless act because even doing something good makes you feel good. So everything is inherently self. Which is fine.

1:01:53Which I think is fine. Yeah. I think if you do good, and you feel good doing good, that's great. I actually have a problem with people that do bad, that get good. Like these people that sold the mortgage crisis to us all and they all made loads of money, right? Or hateless ticky-tocky selling these schemes to kids. Right, yeah. I mean, I don't even like saying his name because I don't want to promote these people. But exactly, I think those people, by the way, there is a karma that comes around. When people lie, when people do those things, I've seen it. They go up quick and they come down just as quick.

1:02:20And then there's all sorts of things that, you know, behind closed doors, they don't get deals they would have got. Their life will not be better long run when they rip people. I agree. So I think doing the right thing by your fellow human, I'm in a privileged position where I can help people for free. So it's unlocked this thing in me that I didn't realize was true. I grew up in a transactional world, right? Business is quite transactional. It's give and take. I'll help you if you help me. But actually what brings us joy is give without take. I help you because I can. You're probably not even the person to help me.

1:02:50There's nothing you can do to help me, but if I can help you, I'll do it. Why not? If it's an introduction to someone or a bit of advice, why wouldn't I do that? The world's better if I do that, right? You know you said you was out in Hong Kong with Helen and you made Fluid and you sold it to PWC, was it? You don't need to talk about numbers and details, but, well, maybe the details. What does that mean? You sell it to something, that changes your life? It does change your life. So what they come in with, they see you and Helen doing great things, big what is it corporation and go we want that from you yeah so um if we want to give the audience a lesson on selling a business yeah i would say that the best way to sell a business is just build a business you love that you don't need to sell because you know if you look at companies that have done really well like facebook he was forced to take money yeah you know he wasn't chasing around for investors they kind of came to him right because he had a successful business i think same with fluid fluid was a very successful company i was actually the chairman of the company when PwC started working with Fluid.

1:03:53So I wasn't even full-time working in the business. I was more full-time on my investments at that point. So I was actually more full-time investing in companies at that stage. But when PwC came along, they wanted to partner up with Fluid to help their clients. And as they started partnering up with us, they started realizing that we were going to make a lot of money in partnership with them. So they started, because they're very clever people, they're accountants, they started doing the numbers on the back of an envelope. They're like, well, we should just buy this company. and so it was good timing on my side because i was also ready to sell it i was open to selling i didn't need to sell it it was cash cow for me yeah i sold it life-changing money like i'd never had so much i had a lot of equity which wasn't cash cash in bank is very different to value on paper right and suddenly i took the value i had on paper and put it in a bank account and that was life-changing am i allowed to ask how much i'm not allowed to talk about it are you not no yeah i I signed an agreement that I wouldn't talk about the amount.

1:04:49Right. How did you know the value of the company, though? Because we're talking big numbers now. Yeah. How do you work that out? So it's interesting because over the years, a few companies tried to buy us. Right. And there is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday Night Football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL Live, NFL Primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app. Sierra has all the best active and outdoor brands you need.

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1:06:10What propels you? Propel with Gatorade Electrolytes. Most of the time, generally a business is worth 10 times profit or three times turnover. You could generally benchmark a business, generally speaking on that. Now, there's always these days outliers because there's companies like Instagram that made no money for seven years that get sold for a billion to Facebook. Yeah. Right. So that. So what happens is sometimes there's a there's a based on potential. So if I was trying to use an example, but like a house where the house maybe is renovated, but the garden isn't done. So if you make the garden nice, the house value will go up more.

1:06:46So when some companies buy you, you want them to see upside in your business. So when PwC made an approach to buy us, they projected what the business could do with them as a partner. So the value of the company was based on what could happen over the next two years. And for big companies, they're very smart. They can save two years and own the business in two years from the potential profit that we were going to get. They'll buy it. so it doesn't even have to be based on your turnover or your profit you know what i mean so in that particular case they projected what the business could be worth with them as a partner right and that's what the value was right that's it how did you not let that life change of money go to your head it did go to my head it ruined me for a while did it yeah no but in in terms of like if that was me and and i had that life change of money i'd be out partying all the time but i'd feel like well you had made it so like you said you said you'd never drunk alcohol in life so So what were you doing?

1:07:36Well, I think I was very lucky. I had a couple of things going for me. First of all, you know, if you make it slowly, you know, from 15 to 40, I didn't make it overnight. I wasn't a lottery winner. So I had learned how to manage money because I'd had companies and I'd been managing P &Ls. So I didn't touch the money actually initially. But what it did do was take away my hunger for a little while because money had been a big part of my drive to not be homeless again, right? to not be in that difficult situation again. And that had driven me for those 25 years to make sure that I never got to that spot again.

1:08:10But when the money came, I lost my drive because I also lost my company. It sounds good selling a company. If I had my time again, I might not have sold it because I lost my identity as well. I built something up that was successful. Suddenly it sold. A lot of founders have this problem. Suddenly, who are you? I'm Simon Scrib, the guy that doesn't do anything all day. Right. Like the once had a company that did all right. Okay. Not that interesting, is it? So once you sell that company, is that pretty much like overnight? Yeah. You have nothing to do with it anymore? I had a one-year process of handover.

1:08:44Okay, yeah. So in that time, I was involved in making sure the clients were handed over, making sure all the business operations. So there was a year where I was involved. It was sold, but it was a year of handover. Right. And then I was out. So I didn't have to work in the business anymore. One day you close that office door and you're out. No, no, they took over the whole infrastructure. So the whole company continued. it just i wasn't the owner of it anymore and i wasn't running it anymore so they were running it it's in their machine it's in there but i already had my own uh investment vehicle a business called nest so i was investing in companies so that distracted me but i also sold that business and then i moved back to england and what i think was bad was i suddenly had no purpose i had no mission but i had a really good wife who was very very steady and we had a baby so we had a little baby at that time so that distracted me i went to the gym got a six-pack again looked after the baby so that was okay for six months and then i started to go a bit mental frankly i was like what do you mean mental i just what am i here what was the point of it you lost yourself kind of after i've gone to the gym a lot after i played golf after i you know play with the babies you know i'm like what's why this is like i've got to have a reason to live this and that might sound like a reason to live it is a reason to live but i needed something to do i've been working since 15 like fighting every day since the age of 15.

1:10:01And I just sat back and thought, what problem would I like to solve? It's the first time I asked myself, what is my dream? I hadn't been living my dream. That wasn't my dream. This was all unplanned what happened to me. This is the first time I asked myself, what is my dream? And I thought the education system that I came out of is still the same. It does not give us what we need to live in the real world. That is ridiculous. I'm living in the future. How come this education system isn't AI driven and giving people personalized education? it doesn't make sense so that's when i get the bit between the teeth where i'm angry i'm like right what should i do to fix it so what did i do i went on tiktok and started teaching kids business which sounds like a joke but i was one of the first people to do it what made you turn to that why are you at home going to the gym or whatever and you've just gone you know what i'm gonna go on tiktok yeah well first of all i love marketing and so i was also interested in i've never deleted any of my tiktoks you can go back six years ago you'll see the first tiktok is me taking my son to london zoo so i was just interested the filters the music how does it work What was it, like a day in the life sort of thing?

1:10:58I just took him to the zoo. Yeah, it's not even a vlog. You're making it sound way too sophisticated. I'm not Casey Neistat. I was just like taking my kid to the zoo. And I was playing with the filters. And I just enjoyed learning about, I didn't want to become obsolete as a marketing person. And everyone was talking about TikToks blowing up. So I started going on there. And then I realized there was a few scammy people on there selling get rich quick e-commerce stuff. And I thought, these people are lying to people. I'm going to go on there and tell them how business really is. it was a bit of like um again it's quite selfish it's like oh that's wrong i'm gonna go say what's the truth but it kind of blew up because i was i was legitimate i'd actually built a business yeah i'd actually done it with nothing yeah and i wasn't selling a course at the end of every video so it's just like here's the knowledge see you guys and people are like oh this is refreshing there's no course at the end of it it's just giving the knowledge and i just got a bit addicted to that where when did it start to blow up from videos of taking your son to the zoo to what we know now well i think it took about three years before the content started blowing up and then i went on this youtube uh live and this guy really pissed me off so then i doubled down and i hired a crew and i thought i'm gonna be bigger than him in four years time um yeah no i i think about four years ago and it was nothing to do with you i um i started to get a bit of traction on some of the videos and i was just playing around you know like i'm like i've got to make this a business so that I can scale it.

1:12:23So that's when I started taking it more seriously. So I invested in, like I brought in a co-founder, a guy called Callum. He brought in another co-founder now called Jack. They helped me get the YouTube channel right and build up that. And then, you know, YouTube's a whole different animal to TikTok. Instagram started posting on there because I was just doing TikTok. And I basically built up a whole crew to try and make it a little bit more legit. You know, not just a little hobby of mine on the side. And more and more people were coming on the platform asking for help. and I couldn't help everybody.

1:12:50So I just felt like I needed to build Help Bank to try and make it so that I wasn't the only one helping people. I wanted a community to help people. So it's like people helping people. That's kind of the idea. So if I've got 21 million people following me, imagine if they all helped one person today. I did live earlier on my Instagram. Within 35 seconds, there was 2 ,000 people there. If 2 ,000 people all helped one person today, we can change their life, right? Give them a client, get them an investor, get them a co-founder. So I started thinking about how can I build community so that it's not all on me.

1:13:18I can help two people a day. That's why I try to help two people a day. I can't really do more than that personally. So I thought, right, what can I do to build out an ecosystem of people helping people? And that's when I built Help Bank with a lot of help from other people and started scaling up. So you help two people a day. Yes. Who would, give me an example, what would the two people be today? And how much input would you have in helping them today? So one of the biggest things I can do to help people now is give them exposure for their idea. So on the way here to this podcast today, we filmed three people's dreams.

1:13:52And one of them is a personal trainer. So I've got him coming to my event on the 22nd of May. I've got a big event with Live Nation. He's going to come on stage and get everyone going on the fitness. So we'll do a whole content series on him. So the biggest way I help people now is get them exposure. Most people don't need money. They need a client. So if I can get them a client, they don't need money from me. They can learn cash flow, which I can teach them. They don't need money from me. Sometimes people need money. So other times I've given people money. one of the people today they need a little bit of money because they need to get the equipment they can't afford the camera and so sometimes people need a little bit of money but you don't want to give them lots of i've given people 20 grand for example and they accidentally wasted it right right whereas i've become someone's first customer then they it's more valuable because then they then they service me that say as a as one person wanted to be social media manager it's give a man a fish he can eat for a day teach a man's fish exactly exactly how does it make you feel when like the 20 grand when that's wasted how are you feeling in that moment okay i don't care okay yeah i don't care i make the money back from the views and the video yeah and i get sponsors and i get all that money back so in the first three or four years it was all my own money so i was losing money but the platform now if i give someone 20 grand it's basically i need to make one youtube video to make that money back wow so so in reality it's like i i can make a knowledge video that will make 20 000 pounds and that'll and then i can just give that person the money right you see what i mean yeah what i don't want to do is give it to them be upset if they if it's yeah what i'm upset about is maybe i didn't give them enough knowledge to know what to do with that money so that's that's on me because i'm like oh i thought you knew what to do because you asked me for the 20 grand we gave it to you i thought you knew what to do right right so then i i go back to my okay we haven't given enough education yeah we teach people more if somebody listens to this out there and they're they're broke this is a really harsh question but it's literally just a question how much of that is their fault compared to like the system being against them i'd have to speak to the individual i mean i need more detail i will say one thing though being broke me having nothing was the best thing that ever happened to me right because when you've got nothing you've got nothing to lose so i think people that have got money are stuck sometimes they've got a good enough job they've got a good enough flat they don't do their dream because they've got it just enough it's people that got nothing like fuck it might as well start something yeah and if you know cash flow like your social media i could be your social media manager i charge you two grand a month i'll do a post a day and i'll help you with your social media i could get 10 clients like you you'll probably say yes and give it a go right and then i'll ask you to pay me a 50 deposit for that work and then if i do the work you'll pay me the final amount at the end of each month if I do a good job.

1:16:30Everyone's happy. Once you understand cash flow, you can start any business with no money. It's like you don't need money to start a business, especially service business. So most people who don't have money, I say start a service business first. Now I'm launching a drinks brand. This is costing me a couple of hundred thousand pounds to launch. This is not the first thing you should do. I don't think. It's quite hard to do it. I'm not saying you can't because you can pre-sell this. I could pre-sell this drink before I've made a single can. That is another way to do it. Crowdfunding, if you like, that type of thing.

1:16:56so you could do it but I would say probably if you've got no money start a service company and then you can build up a bit of a team then you can start doing social media for yourself with the spare capacity you know what I mean if talking to people out there with no money what is the quickest way and the easiest way for someone to make a grand crypto no joking I'm joking god no someone's out there they're listening they're going to clip that they're going to clip that are you not for crypto not for crypto nope No, no, no. Why not? I think the technology is brilliant. Yeah. I think blockchain is the future of banking, for example, 100%.

1:17:34Yeah. I think the problem is when I was younger, I used to invest in stocks and shares and I lost a lot of money. Right. And what I realised was I should only invest in things where I can affect the outcome of that business. So if I invest in Dreambrew and then I'm promoting Dreambrew, if I wake up tomorrow, I can make this product and this business more valuable. whereas if I just buy shares in this company, in reality, I can't do much. If I buy shares in Tesla, I can't move the needle in Tesla. Elon Musk can. I can't really move the needle. So if I invest all my money in Tesla, I can't influence the outcome.

1:18:11That's ridiculous. You're just gambling on the company. Exactly. And that's how I feel about crypto. I can't make Bitcoin go up. I can't make a house go up. No. Right? The government can make a house go down. I have to keep my fingers crossed they don't do something stupid. Yeah. And it goes up. I have no... Why would I put my time and money into things? I can't control the output. So my whole thing is like, I'm not against crypto. I think if you want to do it, do it. But it's gambling. I don't like property either. I think that's all a scam. I think you should invest in things where you can affect the outcome of that thing you're investing in.

1:18:43Isn't property quite sort of linear though? Like you buy the house, you do it up, you sell it for more. Isn't that quite simple? Well, with stamp duty and all the other costs, legal costs and fluctuations, in cost of renovation. I think it's a crappy business. Do you? I think it has no soul to it. Like people that do that, I mean, I think business is about building a brand. If you build a brand, not a business, it's something you can sell. It's something someone else can run. If you are just renovating properties, it's okay. I just don't think it's, it's okay. It's not a groundbreaking thing in my mind.

1:19:17You don't, you have to keep doing it. And when the market goes up, I know a lot of people that were renovating houses, they've stopped right now because it's a nightmare. The market's up and high, but yet somehow, you know, the interest rates are high and getting that it's not it doesn't work. Right. So I think that doesn't make sense to do it as a business. How does someone invest in a business that they can affect the outcome without a big following? Like you can affect that quite easily because of the followers you've got. But say someone that Jack said, like someone's broke, they want to try and earn money quickly.

1:19:43How how can you then affect anything if you've not got anywhere to cause that effect? so i think social media now is very different to what it was a couple of years ago if for example i am a i like fishing i can go live fishing and yes i'll get views and if i say interesting stuff in that live if i start doing gimmicks in that live my my income will build you can make money instantly on live right so i think that therefore i'm fishing doing something i love and i can make money from it okay now let's say you want to invest in a business well i would suggest you invest in something you love yeah something you're interested in and so for example callum who joined me i didn't need his money but i made him invest all his savings in our youtube channel so he had 15 000 pounds right it was 22 at the time yeah and i made him put all that money into the youtube channel so now he invests in the youtube channel and then the youtube channel works and then he makes money what if it didn't work well then he'd lose his money wouldn't he that's just but he's the one affecting the outcome exactly so you can invest your time more importantly and money most thing that's valuable is time so and this is a crappy example just came to my head it's going to be you can cut this out if you want but i think if i saw someone who owned like if i saw a corner shop that was struggling a bit i and i live nearby i go there and say forget social media following let me help you renovate it a bit and then i'm going to go out and promote in the local letter boxes that this shop's now doing this promo on this thing the other you can affect that shop's success by your input on that business and say to them give me five percent if i increase the sales by 25 right don't have to be about money it can also be about applying yourself yeah to making that business better but every business i've ever invested in i only invest in because i can make it better before i had a social media following by the way social media following was just cherry on top of the cake yeah it's all about effort and social media isn't the only way to market a business with your help bank do people have to pay to use the service no it's all free It's all free.

1:21:40Yep. And so you're generating your income through the views and the revenue, the ads on the videos. Yes. Yes. Right. And affiliate income. Right. So if someone goes on Help Bank, all the knowledge is free, all the community stuff, the service is all free. But if you say, hey, I'm going to start a business, and then you go to our starter kit, we've got a thing called starter kit, and then you buy the products on that starter kit, we make on average 15 % every time you buy it. It's all clear. We're very transparent about it. That's how we pay for the site. That's how we pay for all the services for free.

1:22:10So the people themselves don't get charged. They get all that help for free. And they never buy from us. That's it. We'll never make any money from that person. But if they decide to buy from us, and most of them do to support us, we make our money back from the big companies. The big companies then can afford to pay us the 15%. Right. And people can get that help for free. That just shows you how much, like you were saying about the hotels, the products, that shows you how much the markup is on all products if the companies can just afford to give 15 % away from people's. Well, I think, yeah, that's part of business, isn't it?

1:22:37The cost of goods, sales. if you go on Dragon's Den, it's always about the margin, isn't it? You've got to have a 60%, 70 % margin on most things so you can do things like that. Again, like my book is on TikTok Shop right now. Someone could buy my book, do a video of the book, put it up on TikTok Shop and make the money back for the cost of the book so that you can get 10 % if you buy on TikTok Shop. If you promote my book on TikTok Shop, you'd make 10%. This is very normal. Amazon have it. Any product on Amazon, you can get an affiliate link. It gives you the link on Amazon. You then promote that product.

1:23:06You'll make a commission from Amazon for that product. It's just a standard business, margin, margin. The supermarkets make a huge margin. When you go to the supermarket and buy something, the supermarkets making the margin. Yeah. So I'd much rather an individual made it. Right. A human, I know a single mum that's selling my book online. She's paying for nice food this week from that. Right. Brilliant. I'd rather she did it than say necessarily a big company. Your sort of goal is to help 10 million people. Yep. Is that right? Yep. We've got two questions. One, how on earth do you keep track? of it like when do you go tip their helps and two surely if you help 10 million people build a business that just saturates all the market there's not enough there's not enough room in there do you know i mean it's not enough food for everyone to eat do you know i mean yeah yeah yeah uh yeah uh which point first so first of all i think everyone's going to have to become an entrepreneur okay so so if a personal brand everyone's going to be a person well it doesn't have to be a personal brand that's one avenue that's one way to do it but i think that if you can't find a job, which is what's happening to these 700 ,000 uni students, what choice have they got?

1:24:13They can go on social benefit or wait for a job. I think they're going to have to create a job of their own. Now that can be dog walking business. That can be fishing. That can be playing crap music that people happen to laugh at and support you anyway. You know, like people are going to have to create their own jobs. That in the near term, until university basic income kicks in, this magical amount of money is going to come in. People have to have something to do, right? and they need to earn money, I think entrepreneurship's about to explode. We've not even scratched the surface of it yet. And the good thing is the world is allowing you to do that.

1:24:43Things are getting fragmented. You have all the big companies, right, without naming any big brands, but they have huge companies that own large chunks of the market. Thanks to Vibe Coding, AI, social media, there can be a million small companies as individuals. So you could launch an account app today using Vibe Coding and social media, and you could be competing with a massive billion-dollar company. So I'm excited by this because I think you're going to get power to the individual. It's already happening, by the way. Look at people like, you know, Mr. Beast launching products or KSI launching products.

1:25:17Influence and products are already starting to happen. And they're starting to overtake the big brands. Yeah, yeah. Right? YouTubers used to have merch, but now they actually have products. Yeah, you have your own businesses. I'm launching my own coffee. I'm not getting Starbucks to sponsor me. Fuck that. I have my own brand. But that's going to happen on a micro level. Right. And I think that's exciting. And frankly, it's the only way to deal with this present crisis we've got where there's no jobs anymore. So I don't think entrepreneurship is an option anymore. It's a necessity. It's the only path, unless you go down the trade path, which I think is another one, you go become a plumber.

1:25:47That's also not bad. I think that's a good idea. But I'm saying that entrepreneurship for me is about to explode. And so that's the first question. I don't think people are like, well, who's going to do the shit jobs? If everyone's an entrepreneur, who's going to do the shit jobs? which by the way, you know, robots will do the shit jobs. It's only at the moment robots are more expensive than humans that they're not picking up the garbage anyway. Yeah. Right? The second point is that was the argument for keeping slavery. Right. We need slaves. Someone's got to do the shit jobs. No. Humans are amazing, brilliant, talented, incredible things.

1:26:20What the fuck have we got them doing? What I would term is like shit jobs. Right? They're brilliant. If Elon Musk today announced, hey, good news, I've created a human being. It thinks on its own. It does. It keeps itself foods wise. It manages itself. It recharges itself and it can drive a car. Oh my God, I've invented a human. His stock price will go for the roof, right? Three days later, you've got him standing in the street holding a McDonald's sign saying, you know, McDonald's that way. You've got a human. A breeze bot could do this job. You've got a human doing it. What the fuck? Right? You see what I mean?

1:26:52Yeah. It's actually insane. Like humans have been somewhat dumbed down to do jobs that it's just cheaper to get a human to do it than a robot right now. Right. But I want to liberate humans. I think humans are brilliant. Just go follow your dream, for fuck's sake. You've got a team here with you today. I have. What are you doing? What's your day today? So we go live a lot now. Right. So people in real time can see it happening in real time. Because sometimes people think the clips are fake. Right. So now we're going live so people can see the whole thing happen in a day. People coming up to me or me going up to people and asking them in dreams.

1:27:25A lot of people tell me to fuck off. Do they? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But a lot of people now queue up to see me. So it's kind of completely two different worlds. You've got the people that know me that queue up to see me and you've got the people that hate me and wish to just leave them alone in the streets. Are the people who are telling you to fuck off unaware of who you are or are they doing it because they dislike your online stuff? No, I think they just don't know who I am. I like to think. I don't get a survey. I don't know. Do you get hate online? A little bit of hate online, yeah. It's got less over the years.

1:27:50What are the main criticisms that you get that you're happy to share? I think there's sometimes legitimate criticism of like, you know, not everyone can dream, you know. Some people have to just pay their bills. I get that, you know. I get that some people, they don't have the capacity to dream because they've got to pay their bills. I get that. But I'm not saying that when people give me hate on that, I think people just misunderstand me. Because I put a lot of positive content out there. They think that I'm just looking down on people with jobs. I'm not looking down on people with jobs. I just want to make sure people got informed consent.

1:28:25If they love that job, great. I'm happy for them. But if they don't, I want them to know they've got an option. So I think sometimes people misunderstand me. I get a lot of hate because it's like not everyone can be an entrepreneur. I'm like, sure. Again, informed consent. Can we at least give people the tools to be one if they want? Right? At least know how to make their hobby an income stream if they want. I just want informed consent. And then I think the final thing is a lot of people who think I'm just doing it for me. Right. And to them I say, yeah, I'm doing it for me. I really enjoy it.

1:28:54I get a lot of satisfaction. But they think it's an insult to me. They're like, oh, he's just doing it for views. And well, the views help the dreamers. So yeah, I could not film it, but that would be one less help I've given that person. And I have helped a lot of people about filming it. Most of the time I'm like, shit, I wish I'd filmed it because I could have given them a customer. I could have got them exposure with followers and so on. Are you getting decent profit from it still now though? Like as in when they say you're doing it for you, Are they saying you're just doing it for views or are they saying you're using them to earn more money for yourself?

1:29:25Yeah, but I give away all the money. I've given£426 ,000 away this year. So you must take a wage though. You must take like an annual salary. I take personally minimum wage just for the tax structure because you need a credit score in England. You need a credit score in England. Without a credit score, you can't get a BT line. So yeah. I mean, look, for myself personally, I don't think... One of the things I find interesting is like bad people, like the people that did the financial modelling for mortgages, a lot of them walked away with hundreds of millions. I'm all okay with that, are we? They're okay that they sold mortgages, they're not allowed, but they made hundreds of millions.

1:30:00But let's say someone that's actually helping someone, doing good, not allowed to make money. Why the fuck not? Yeah. Now, I'm lucky enough I don't need to earn money, but my team are really well paid and I want them to earn a lot of money. Some of my team are going to earn more than Google employees. They fucking deserve it because they help people. Why the fuck shouldn't they? right so in my model i'm not a charity model no i'm not asking people to give me money i'm making money from selling product and services we make money and then i use that money to pay my people really fucking well i want google quality people in my company yeah so we can make even more profit and then we take a part of the profit and we build things like help bank a system to help people for free and then we take another part of that profit and we give it away to people i feel i feel like you sharing your story and and how you made the money from fluid i think that helps perhaps the people that just assume oh grifter all this stuff like they know now that you've made your money so you're not using the the platform to financially benefit your your own life so i've already got all the money i need yeah yeah and i think that's and that is an important point i do think those societies a little bit upside down like even if even if i had let's say not made money before and i was making money from this does it matter if i'm helping two people a day funding their dreams what does it matter that i'm making money evil companies are allowed to make money why can't a company doing good make money and i want to be careful of it because my team are really well paid i'm not a charity yeah and i want that talent to build the system to help people for free follow their dreams do you do you prefer to help people that have nothing and want to get a startup off the ground and only have that idea would you feel the same if a millionaire came to you and said i need help scaling this company up yeah would you say i will help you've I will help anybody, rich or poor.

1:31:41I don't discriminate. How would you help this podcast? I would get rid of you as host. Oh, shit. You're going to be a model anyway, so you're fine. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I don't know the backbone of it. I don't know if you're joking, but I actually really like what you do. I think you could go live. I think, yeah, maybe the brand structure you've got with Spotify, I don't know what the deal is. I'd probably get you more money there. And I'd do more marketing around social media live. But I'd like to look into it. but I think what you're doing is good. You want to go live now? You're making good money, aren't you?

1:32:11It's all right, I am. How much do you make? I'll tell you, but we'll... All right, off air. I'll tweet it later. Do you want to go live now? Yeah, sure. Wow, thanks for the promo. You really does help people, doesn't it? Yeah, that's mad. See, promoted to 3 ,000 people. You're like the Santa 365. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that is my worst nightmare, being called Santa, I think. Just one of... I can't sit on my lap. So here's, we'll wrap this up now, but here's a potentially tricky question. Do you like being famous? Does that drive you? No. I don't like being famous. I think fame, okay, I'll put it a different way.

1:32:54I love experiences and I have enjoyed the experience that fame does bring. But I have a little kid and a wife. People have been knocking on my house door. like it's it's quite scary people have found out where you live yeah and I do ask people to please you know respect the privacy of me and my family and sometimes when I'm out with my son you know people interrupt and it's hard you know and I don't want to be rude to people because it's the first time they've met me if I'm suddenly rude it's like oh Simon Scrib is a twat but Ricky Gervais gave me some advice on this which I have actually kind of taken on board which is like I said to him you know how do you deal with being famous because I never knew I don't really know what fame is until it's happened to you You don't really know what it is.

1:33:35And I said, how do you deal with it, Ricky? And he said, I just don't go out. Well, I don't want to be bothered. I just don't go out. So it's kind of an interesting kind of take on it. It's like. Where did this conversation happen? On Twitter. Did it? Funnily enough. Yeah, I've got the thread because that's how we communicate. Yeah. But I think that for me, like, I do think this is an important lesson for people. A lot of people want to be famous. The thing is, it comes with a lot of cost, a lot of personal cost. They'll say, if you want to be rich and famous, try just being rich first. There is something in just having the freedom to do what you want and not be bothered.

1:34:10And when I go sit in a coffee shop, I have given away that freedom. And people do feel they have a relationship because they watch my content. They feel like this is their shot and they come and talk to me. Now, I really like people. So I think I can handle it. And I'm older when I'm doing it. So I've had a whole life where no one really knew me, except in the business community. So it's a different experience for me now. and I can handle it mentally because it is a mental load. And I quite like people. But if you could flick the switch and still have the platform, still somehow be able to help these people but not be a known person, would you do it?

1:34:44Yes. You would? Yes. And I am working towards that, to be fair. How? Help Bank will be here when I'm not, right? I cannot forever make content. I will be dead soon, right? Hopefully not too soon, but I will be, you know? And so I am working. It's very stupid to build a business where it's totally reliant on me forever. And so it wouldn't be much of a legacy if I die and that's it, no one gets help anymore, would it? So I am building out Help Bank and Dream Brew. This isn't called Simon's Squid Brew. This is Dream Brew. This is a company that will stand on its own two feet. I will use my influence to promote it.

1:35:19Same as the Steve Jobs model, right? Steve Jobs is famous. He promotes Apple. He dies. The business must carry on, right? So that's what I want. But I enjoy helping people. I like people. I don't mind people coming up to me. Sometimes I need to ask for a bit of time if I'm with my kid or something. Most people are pretty damn nice about it. So I'm managing fame, but it is actually a sacrifice. It's only worth it, I think, if you have a mission. Fame is only good. You don't know it until you've got it. So as someone that's got that fame, you only really want it if you can do good with it, I think.

1:35:49I think people that are actors that are famous, kind of, what a nightmare that must be. I think if you've got a mission, you want to solve a problem in the world like I do, then I'm using it to show how you can do anything. Your dream is possible. We can fix the education system. And if I didn't have all the followers I've got, I wouldn't be able to help the people I've got. So I kind of have to be grateful that I've got the tool. But fame in itself, I don't really see the appeal. So if, say, like BBC came to you and offered you to be a new dragon on Dragons' Den, would you turn it down? Nope.

1:36:19Dragons' Den I don't want to do, but I am probably going to do a TV show with BBC. Really? Yeah. But isn't that just going to boost your fame? I'm already famous. Social media was already in the new TV. so ironically I get more views than the BBC on our channel already we get 500 million views a month so I used to think you had to go on TV to become famous it's the opposite you create your own platform yeah it's changed massively now how about this then if somebody offered you 100 million pounds but said you have to bin off help bank you can't do social media anymore would you take it? no you wouldn't?

1:36:50no I can't help people anymore doing what I'm doing I really love what I'm doing I really really enjoy it well I think you've proven that today I would say you have yeah I really enjoy it Yeah. It's been good fun, this, mate. Yeah, really nice to catch up with you guys and hang out. I'm sorry I told you. No, it's all right. It spurred me on. And I'm grateful to have this moment to hang out with you guys. Bless you, mate. I think you've answered this in the pod itself, but you always ask people what their dream is. What's your dream? My dream is to have a bigger platform than you, and I've achieved it.

1:37:22My second dream now is to fix the education system. I think it's going to have to be off an alternative to it. because I think the existing system is so embedded. But I want people to get the knowledge to follow their heart, not follow a path that's set out for them by the school system. And I think we're going to have to. With AI taking jobs, we need to give people the ability to have agency over their life and create their own job. So I want to fix the education system. Is there any way of you fixing it without going into politics? Is that not something that you're going to have? Yeah, just offer an alternative.

1:37:51Elon Musk made the electric car movement happen by building a brilliant electric car company. And then they all had to adapt. he didn't go to government and say help me build an electric car company just build it people are using my platform kids are using my platform to learn kids go learn on YouTube kids go learn on TikTok like it or not that's what they're doing they're going to school and being told what to learn and then they're going home and watching stuff they want to learn and that's the platform I built as an alternative to the education system could we ever see you go into politics?

1:38:19I have thought about it I just think those guys so I actually hired a consultant to be like help me get into politics and in the first week I realised I just can't do it because he said one you have to say Brexit's a good idea it's a fucking dumb idea I cannot just lie you have to say policies that are popular with the public that's what Nigel Fry says all the time he says a policy that's popular but it doesn't it's not really what he thinks necessarily I just can't do it I'd rather build something like I'm building I have complete control over it it's completely transparent honest authentic there you go I fixed the education system I don't need to go into government to do it Can't you do it your own way, though, without following those sort of conventions that they do, that you can do it your individual way?

1:39:01I won't rule it out. Yeah. But I don't think you can put a fire out in a house from inside the house. I think you put a fire out in a house from outside the house. So you can solve problems outside of politics. I think we can solve a problem that they can't solve because it's so embedded. There's so many lobby groups. You know how much money the universities make and how many people in politics come from those universities? They're not going to dismantle that infrastructure. they're just they're in the house that's on fire and they cannot put the fire out they're part of it so it has to be from an outsider so I don't know I mean again I'm not saying no to politics but I don't think they have that much effect on us I think we as individuals can have a bigger effect by building platforms that help people and change their lives and make a difference and give them the education for free that isn't tainted by some bullshit university grant and you're already doing it yeah exactly Simon thank you so much for coming on mate this has been Jack Makes Happy Hour podcast with me Jack Makes Stevie White and the brilliant Simon Squibb.

1:39:55Simon, we always finish with the same question. What's the meaning of life? I think the meaning of life is to help a fellow human without expecting anything back. There we go. Perfect. And have lots of babies, probably, if you can. How many have you got? One, as far as I know. You better get working. Yeah, yeah, I'll get back home now. Let's do it. My wife needs to get ready. Cheers, mate.

1:40:21Jack Mates Happy Hour. There is so much NFL on ESPN right now. Monday night football, plus pregame and postgame. NFL live, NFL primetime. Everything you need to stay on top of every game, every week. Unbelievable. And now NFL Network is on the ESPN app. More football, more coverage, more ways to watch. Football's on, all season long, on ESPN and streaming on the ESPN app. On September 25th. No one's coming for us. It's just you and me, boy. 58 miles. Heart of the Beast is the must-see adventure of the year. An incredible story of survival. I got you. One of the most extraordinary on-screen blonde you'll ever see.

1:41:12Only the greatest dog to ever walk the earth. Brad Pitt. I'll get you home. Heart of the Beast. Colleen Theater, September 25th. Rated PG-13. May be inappropriate for children under 13.