My Favourite Failure: I lost my company, job, had to sell my cars, house & move back in with my mum | Tay Sweat

0:00This might sound like the plot of a spy novel, but UK startups are increasingly at risk of state actors trying to steal their assets. Take one Scottish renewable manufacturer that was harnessing wave power. They were visited by a 60-strong delegation led by a senior Chinese official. A couple of months after that, some of their laptops were stolen. Guess what happened next? Yup, pictures emerge showing a Chinese firm making a product that was virtually identical. This is why we're working with the National Protective Security Authority and the National Cyber Security Centre, the UK's security experts.

0:36They got in touch with us because they see such a growing threat facing UK startups. How are they responding? With the launch of a new campaign, Secure Innovation. It's not just your cybersecurity that matters, but your physical security too. If you want to get a better handle on your security, check out npsa.gov.uk forward slash innovation and download their free quick start guide. There's a link in the show notes. probably the biggest feeling was insecure feeling very insecure uh because i was at the lowest level i've been as an adult and i'd say since i was 15 i had my first car at 15 because i needed to get back and forth to school and pick my brother up and things like that so i didn't even have a car so at this point i'm a grown man and i'm living with my mom sleeping on her floor with no car.

1:34Tay Sweat is retired today, having put a lot of the earnings from his fitness and supplement business into the stock market. But that was actually his second attempt at that business. He failed on his first go, and that knocked him back years. It would have broken a lot of people, but Tay, well, he likes to sweat.

2:00Tay takes after his name. I grew up eating a really unhealthy diet. I ended up gaining, you know, hundreds of pounds. And at 320, 330, I realized, oh, I need to lose a lot of weight. I'm 330 pounds. So I lost the weight. You know, I got certified in nutrition, certified in a few other things. And I knew that that's the direction I wanted to go in helping other people lose the weight, helping other people get healthier and pretty much stay away from some of the crappy foods that we have access to. so as I started this company I'm thinking hey I want to not only help coach people on how to improve their health change their nutrition plans you know things like that but I want to also start you know some type of supplement company to help build you know those other products or the line of products.

2:58Don't I know all about that. Tay was working two jobs, one in a warehouse and the other as a personal trainer. His plan was to take the money he earned from being a PT and put it into his supplements business. Things went well to begin with, but the world had other ideas. The 2008 crash happened. A lot of people lost their jobs and demand for personal trainers went through the floor. He never got to launch the supplements products. He had to admit defeat for that whole venture, so he took a little holiday to reflect and reset. Fortunately, he still had that good paying job at the warehouse. I go to Disney World for a vacation, totally free and clear to go on this vacation.

3:43The job says, hey, you're fine. You have the vacation time. So I go on vacation. And after about a week at Disney World, I get a call from a friend at the job and he goes, hey, word in the warehouse is that you're going to be fired when you get back.

4:06And I'm thinking, wait a minute, how do I get fired on vacation? Well, I didn't believe it. A piece of me thinks he's joking with me. He's a good friend. So I'm thinking, oh, you're joking. I'll be back to work in a couple of days. Well, So I get back from Disney World and he was right. I get called to the office, you know, the you know, the big management office. And yeah, they fired me. They say, hey, we're going to lay off. We're tightening. We're tightening our belt and we're going to lay you off. Of course, I wasn't the only one. They brought up a few other people right behind me and we all kind of walked out together, just kind of confused.

4:52We didn't know what was going on. And honestly, this warehouse services grocery stores that thrive during down economies. So we're thinking, wait a minute, why are we being fired when this is probably the best time for business? Well, we didn't get an answer. They let us go. And once again, I ended up going to, I lost my house, lost the car. I had two cars. I lost my cars, lost my house. The business, of course, was going under and I moved back in with my mom. He has a horrible period after he loses his job when he's in the house he can't afford, but the bank hasn't officially taken it back yet.

5:39He's just waiting to move to his mom's, wondering what he's going to do. Tay is heading back to where he started, worse if anything. At least he had the car when he was 15. He gets a job in another warehouse. So I went and worked at this warehouse making a lot less money, almost like 25 % of what I was actually making in the previous job. So it was, yeah, it was a lot less, but it was money. It was something helpful. And because I was staying with my mom, you know, I helped pay a few bills, but I was able to save money. And that was my goal. Save money. I would have my mom or I had a really good friend.

6:17His name is Ed. Ed would take me to work and pick me up and take me home. Those are the two people who helped. And as I'm saving money, I'm thinking to myself, I never want to be in a position to allow someone to fire me ever again. So I want to start the business back up and it has to work. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. So what I do is I start saving money to hire someone to teach me how to successfully build and run a business. Tay's response was quite different from a lot of his peers who also found themselves in a tight spot. It's kind of this weird, stoic way of saying it. Luckily, I grew up poor.

7:05I grew up poor. I grew up, you know, not making my mom didn't make a lot of money and I understood how to survive. I'll say that. So for me, you know, I would see people who were going through times like what I was going through, who would lose their, you know, they lose their cool. You know, even that time in 2008, you saw a lot of people, you know, jumping off of buildings and doing things like that. you know, crazy, right? For me, it wasn't a, I didn't need to have to make that type of money because I knew how to survive at a, you know, a much lower level of existence, if you will, financially at least.

7:48So it sucks. I'm not happy, but I'm thinking to myself, hey, it is what it is. We have to, this is what we have to do. This is the cards we're being dealt now, let's make the best of it. That's exactly what I'm telling myself. Let's make the best of it. Let's keep our cool. One of the things I lived by since then was, hey, are you trying your best? Are you doing what you can do to make sure that things are going to be great? And as long as I try my best, as long as I'm doing my best, what I can do, And whatever happens from there, I don't have any control over. So I control, I call it controlling the controllables.

8:35Tay became a hermit. He fulfilled his most basic needs, pretty much hiding from the world, because he didn't want the world to see him like this. I've noticed friends, when they get in a space similar to that, they tend to want to hide the emotions or cover up the emotions with other things. You know, drinking alcohol. I don't drink, so I didn't drink any alcohol. Drugs. I don't do drugs. I didn't do any drugs. Women. That's what I noticed. A lot of my friends did. They, you know, they cover up the pain with a lot of women and sex. And, you know, they're trying to make themselves feel better. I didn't do any of that because for me, I'm at my lowest point.

9:20I don't want to be bothered. I don't want to be bothered with anybody. I don't want to be seen in such a bad situation. Right. So I didn't leave the house much. I would go work, work out. So I wanted to keep my health in order. So I would work out. I would go out looking for jobs and I go back home. That was my routine. And as I started to get my confidence back and started to get, you know, a job and things like that, I found, okay, I could start maybe explore to date. So I started dating a little bit here and there, but not until I was back on my feet because I was too insecure, too insecure at the time.

10:06So Tay sweats, hustles and saves. And he reflects on how this happened to him. What could he learn from it? So the one thing I've really learned when it comes to building a business is, so first of all, I went and studied why recessions happen. Because I got hit by a recession. I want to know why it happens and when the next one's going to come. And can I see it coming? And as you study up about these things, you realize, oh yes, there's a cycle that plays out with recessions and they happen every eight to 10 years. And that was the first thing I learned. And I told myself, OK, well, if recessions have cycles, that must mean that there's also a business cycle.

10:52There is a business cycle. It's an 18.9 or 18.6 year business cycle. And this cycle is going to give you the highs and the lows of business volume. And basically what that means is there's a time where the businesses, whether you start a small business, a mom and pop business or big corporations, there's going to be a business time of great booming business. And then there's going to be a time where business is not so well, it's not so good. And if you can figure this business cycle out, you can actually see what's coming before it happens and you can plan for it. So as I learned these things and I started to realize that there are cycles that play out, I actually started to plan for the cycle before it happened.

11:37And it allowed me to build a business as big as possible and spend money on advertising when things are really good at the top of the business cycle. I know it's OK to spend money. It's OK to be a little more frivolous and spend and, you know, push out more investments into the business and start new products and T-shirts, things like that. And then I also in the same breath, I realized, OK, there also comes a time that, hey, you may want to start saving money, get a little more conservative. We shouldn't be as crazy with spending and investing. And this is not the time to try to start a new project.

12:18And when I realized that. I probably it took me about four years to realize that it was actually working and it played out. But when I realized that this was something that happens every 18.6 years, I then knew I had a new. Talent, almost or a new vision is almost like a sixth sense. And I knew I would be good. I would be good in business. So that's the number one takeaway that I had from going through all of the bankruptcy and losing the business and having to move back with my mom. That was the biggest thing. Living at his mom's, Tay saves about eight grand. He spends some of that on a business mentor and gets going with his former fitness and supplement idea.

13:01He starts experimenting with Facebook ads, but he really needs to increase his income to invest more in the business. He gets a gig working as a PT at a boutique studio, which he does for free, cleaning, mopping. He wants to get in front of high-end clients. It works. He starts making 8 to 9k a month from being a PT and quits the warehouse. He uses the money to build a paid-for community where members get nutritional advice, training programs, accountability, and people like it. He adds in supplements. He's managed to decouple his time from revenue just being a pure services business. He gets up to earning a couple of million quid a year, but he still has some in-person clients.

13:46One key part of this story is one of my in-person clients, his name is Charlie. Charlie was a billionaire. And Charlie had a wealth management company, basically. He was in wealth management. He was in private equity. and I would go to his, basically his place of business to train him. So I'm thinking to myself, okay, who is this guy? How does he make so much money? And how can I learn what he's doing? Well, he tells me, so he had a really bad leg and he tells me, hey, you've been referred to me from a trusted source. He says, you can help me with my leg. If you help me with my leg, I'll give you five million dollars.

14:41No lie. He tells me I give you five million dollars if you help me with my leg. You help me heal my leg. So I'm thinking, huh, that's great. OK, yeah, seriously, I'm thinking, OK, I said, well, I see the thing, Charlie. I said, how about you keep your money? I work with you for free and you teach me how to play the game that you're playing. That was my introduction to the stock market. And, you know, he taught me a few things that at least got me on a good start to go and study and figure some other things out. And that's when I started taking the two million dollars a year that I was making. I started investing into stocks and things like that.

15:27and it just started to grow. And this was back in maybe 2017, 2017, 2018, because I retired from personal training in 2019.

15:42Redemption arc complete. That was Tay Sweat, who sweated his way out of his failure. Do you have a failure story you might want to share with us? If so, please email us on hello at secretleaders.com. See you next week.