Simon Squibb: Investing in Strangers, Building Businesses and Our Education Problem (E322)

0:28Watch it early on the High Performance App. schools told you were going to be, or what your friends think you are. Go find out who you really are. That's the voice of businessman, podcaster, and social media creator, Simon Squibb, who joins us today on High Performance. I'm Jake Humphrey, and alongside our brilliant expert, Damien Hughes, this is the show that explores stories, ideas, and mindsets from some of the world's greatest high performers. Now, it's likely that you'll recognize Simon from his social media videos, which often go viral, where he just walks up to strangers with a very simple question.

1:01What's your dream? A question which is also the title of his new book. And look, it can sometimes feel really easy to get this pressure that you can always be hustling or grinding or pushing yourself to the next level. But in this episode with Simon, we actually explore the importance of having dreams, the reality of pushing to get to the next level, how you can identify what it is that you want in life and once you've done that how you can go about achieving it. This was a really interesting conversation with someone who as you're going to hear is keen to challenge assumptions and conventions wherever he sees them.

1:36You'll hear Simon describe how he's used adversity as a motivator in his own life after being made homeless at a young age after the sad death of his father and how he's become wealthy to his own hard graft. It's an episode that is inspiring and also challenging. And whilst, like me, you may not agree with everything Simon puts forward, you will hear him ask some important and sometimes uncomfortable questions. You'll also hear Damien going toe-to-toe with a guest on the topic they didn't agree about, which is rare, but was really interesting. So stay tuned for that because it's a conversation that made us think twice about a number of things.

2:13And actually, this is an episode that I'm going to be sending to my nieces and nephews who are at an age where they're making really big decisions about their futures and what Simon advocates for is for you to fully understand exactly what the options are before you decide on university or working life or further education. Honestly, it's a really interesting episode and I think you're going to learn a lot from it as we welcome Simon Squibb to High Performance.

2:43Simon, welcome to High Performance. Thanks for having me. I dressed up for you for those not listening uh on spotify here i am all dressed up so for those that um are listening and not watching we've done over 300 episodes of these shows now and no one has ever turned up in a tuxedo before yeah i i thought i'd be different and stand out so yeah try to get your views up on your visual channel now everyone's going to go there and have a look right absolutely if you want to see it uh follow us on social it's really not worth it though is it maybe some people want to see maybe for some people simon squib in the suit is is all they need.

3:15Yeah, the real reason I'm wearing a suit, no offense to you guys, is because I'm going to an awards dinner tonight. I've been nominated for TikTok creator of the year, so hopefully I'm going to win. But by the time this goes out, I probably haven't won. But it doesn't matter. Failure is good. There you go. And we'll talk about that in great detail. Simon, how would you describe the mission that you're on? It's interesting because I think when people are describing their business mission, I have a business mission and a personal mission. I think my personal mission is to fix the education system.

3:40And if I'm being honest, it's probably build alternatives so that people have more choice. Right now, I feel like 90 % of the population get forced into going to uni. And then they kind of feel obliged for a sunken cost to go and get a job. So I want to give people more choice than that. I want people to realize as young as 15, I started a business at 15, you can start thinking about owning your own future, you don't have to work for someone else. But a lot of people think it's harder to work for yourself than work for someone else. So I want to change that mindset and give people the tools to have more choices.

4:10On the business side, I have a few different businesses, but we have different metrics based on them. But ultimately, it's about free education that helps people do what they love. All the platforms I'm involved in, all the businesses I have, are revolved around that and funding people's dreams so that they have no excuses but to go and make their dream happen. Okay, well, let's start with the first really fascinating point you made there. People think it's more difficult to work for themselves than go and work for somebody else. Yes. What's the truth? Well, if anyone listening thinks that's true, if anyone listening thinks it's easier to work for someone else than work for yourself, then they have been brainwashed.

4:41Okay, because I know why. It's pretty obvious. Any boss that you have is not going to tell you it's easy to be a boss, because then you're going to want to be a boss. So everyone that's telling you it's hard is either your boss or people that have never experienced being a boss. They're working for someone else. And so easy is a really interesting thing. What does easy mean? For me, easy means making sure that you actually own your time, that no one can fire you. I want to be in control of my own destiny. If you work for someone else, it's easy at the beginning, but gets harder over time because your bosses change, the directive change, you can work somewhere for five years, and then they just let you go.

5:18Doesn't matter how much effort you've made, how good you were for five years, they'll let you go. And then you have nothing. Especially if you don't own equity where you're working, you own nothing. Whereas if you work for yourself, it is harder at the beginning, only because it's a learning curve. And that learning curve makes you feel alive, by the way, that helps you grow as a human. and it gets easier over time. So all the businesses I have built, within five years, I've got someone else running them. But no one can fire me. So I spent five years building something up, now someone else can run it.

5:43Whereas if I work for someone else, I work five years and then they just get rid of me. I have no ownership. So how can it possibly be true, and most people do think this, that it's easier to work for someone else than work for yourself? Because again, you get trapped in that job, you end up being owned by that company and they can cut you whenever they want. That's not easy. And working for someone also, by the way, is not easy. So when someone says to me, oh, it's so hard being an entrepreneur, I'm like, okay, well then give up all your equity, go work for someone else. If you want to do a survey, go ask anybody, own their own business for more than a year, just give up all their equity and go work for someone else because it's so much easier working for someone else.

6:17They won't do it. No one will. So how can it be true? It's just a lie. But I think that working for someone else might not be easier. But I think taking the first step to work for yourself is really hard. You know, like, I'm the founder of High Performance, right? I'm the co-founder of a production business with 300 staff. I've done it myself. I've also been employed. And I've got nieces and nephews who are about to go to university age. And like you, I question if university serves them. But I don't know what their first step is to do this themselves. I think that's the hardest part. Like, what's the first thing you do?

6:51Because the job is already there. You can go and get a job. First of all, don't take easy choices when you're young. You take easy choices when you're young, you'll have a harder life later. So when you're young, take the hard choices. First of all, your costs are lower in life. Your expectations of like, when I go on holiday, I want to stay in a villa. I want a nice pool. I've got all these expectations now as I've got older. Plus I've got responsibilities. When you're young, you don't have any of this shit. So take all this risk when you're younger. It's so much easier. What's a hard choice when you're young and an easy choice?

7:19Well, I think the easy choice is, you know, get a salary in people's minds. Get a salary, instantly a pay packet, guaranteed amount of money each month. People see that as the easy choice. or go to university for that matter. Most people don't know what they actually want to do when they grow up. So they go to university because they want to get away from their parents. They want an independent life, but they don't actually know what they want. So they go to university, but they waste four years, the most precious four years of their life. And in England, get into debt, not in Scotland, but in England, get into a serious amount of debt.

7:46And for what? At the end of it, they come out with a qualification that actually often pigeonholes them into a particular job. So my idea is like, hey, everyone should take a year off. Go explore the world if you can. Go travel, backpack, go see different things. go get experiences in different businesses. Go find out who you really are, not what the school's told you you're going to be, or what your parents have told you you're going to be, or what your friends think you are. Go find out who you really are.

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9:54so how do you do that like so when you say find out who you really are what that sounds like quite a big abstract concept but what do you understand that to me well i only can draw on my own survival bias right so i was 15 years old when i started the company and i didn't know until i did it that i'm actually quite good at sales now sales generally is like a dirty word now we all call it marketing now because it sounds cooler but i realized i quite like sales so i knocked on someone's door, had no experience in this business at all, said, Hi, my name is Simon Squibb. I'd like to take care of your garden.

10:24I'm starting a gardening company. Would you let me take care of your garden? They're like, sure, how much are you going to charge? Like 200 pounds a month. Never started a gardening business in my life, never done a gardening job in my life, never knew anything about sales. I just had no choice but to do that in that moment, because I needed money to survive. And I realized I was quite good at sales. And I quite liked it. I quite liked talking to someone, them saying yes, and creating revenue. And so I would never have discovered that if I'd stayed in the school system. The school system, my parents wanted me to be a lawyer.

10:51So how was I ever going to discover that I'm quite good at marketing and sales? I would have just gone into being a lawyer, which there are no marketing and sales jobs within a lawyer sphere, right? So I think that people don't know who they actually are, mainly because when you enter the school system, they ask you the wrong question. The first question the school system asks you is what will you do when you grow up? That traps your mind into thinking, doctor, lawyer, whatever, right? A particular career. The question that should be asked to open up your mind when you're young is what problem would you like to solve when you're older now assuming we're all going to live to 100 thanks to elon musk you now have the chance to maybe do five six seven careers that ultimately lead to solving the problem you care about but you might not know the answer instantly when you're young but my seven-year-old i asked him that since he was about four what problems you want to solve and then recently he said to me oh i want to solve what david attenborough says is coming the sixth human extinction i want to maybe stop that from happening.

11:42I'm like, wow, cool. He's kind of got something that he cares about, that matters more than a career. And now he can reverse engineer. What does he like to do? What's he good at? What's his hobbies? And how can he solve that problem by following that path? Because our brains will automatically go, right, great, go to uni, do environmental sciences. I know. And then you'll be equipped for saving the world. Yeah. We're brainwashed by, university is a business. It's a massive business. It's like the credit score system. It's a massive business. These things aren't here to help us. These things are here to guide us to do a certain thing so we work for someone.

12:12Because that's how you make money. You don't make money selling time. We all know that. Time is not infinite. So if people are selling time 40 hours a week at a certain hourly rate, it's not scalable. But everybody's taught to sell time, except the ones that know that selling time is not scalable. Everyone that buys your time is selling your time 100 times more over. They're making real profit out of outcomes. But you are trained to sell time. As a person, 90 % of your listeners will be thinking 40 hours a week, 60 hours a week. How many hourly, how much they're getting paid an hour. This is not scalable and you cannot get rich this way and you will be trapped selling time forever.

12:44And that's what the school system teaches people. But there is something about having a depth of knowledge in a topic though. There has to be room for Really? for expertise or learning It depends on what it is. Learning a craft, sure, but Elon Musk knew shit about space. He went and learnt it. Elon Musk knew shit about cards. He went and learnt it. You know, I don't want to pick Elon Musk down as the, the best entrepreneur in the world. But I mean, certainly from a learning point of view, every business I've ever started, I didn't know it until I started it. So I started a gardening company. I knew nothing about it and I learned on the job.

13:17And then I brought people in that knew it. And then I started a creative agency. I didn't know anything about it. I brought people in that did. And then I learned the business as I went on. In fact, going into something without knowing it made every business I did different. You don't go in there with, I just met someone on the way here, stopped me in the street and their dream is to travel and blah, blah, blah. Anyway, they were telling me they're going to go work in this company to get experience. The truth is that company will teach you their experience. It will not make you different. If you go do it for yourself, you'll actually do something different because you won't be trained by them and therefore doing it the old ways.

13:45I actually think there's something really great in being young and naive and going and looking at things fresh with a modern look. You know, how can I do this? Not how it's always been done, but how it could be done. Again, you know, I must have done that with cars, right? You didn't go, oh, I've got to go work at Ford for a few years, see how they do it. And then once I figured out how the car industry works, I might start a car company. No. But I'd also challenge others. Surely you have to know the rules to know how to break them. Well, what rules in particular do you mean, for example? Well, if we were going into something like space travel, you used Elon Musk as the example of it, you need to know what the conventions of space travel are to then go in and challenge the idea.

14:26So who would you learn that from? So you think NASA, you go to NASA, right? You say, right, I want to know how the rules of space are. and they'll say, okay, first of all, we spend 150 million on a rocket that never comes back. But that's the way it is, just the way space travel is. This is so expensive. And so, no, I don't think so. I think I'd rather not learn from NASA. I'd rather learn, okay, why are they not reusing those space shuttles? That doesn't make it... Aeroplanes, if they took off once and we threw them away when they arrived in our destination, air travel wouldn't exist. I think it's actually the young generation in particular have got a chance to rethink all this bullshit that we have been told as fact about an industry and how it works.

15:01And everything's getting disrupted. So I think the only way to stay innovative is not learn the old ways, but maybe think about the new ways. Now, that doesn't mean to say there's not probably a scientific structure, but how to get a rocket to take off. Sure, there's probably some, you know, mathematical structure that you need, but you can either hire that person in, or sure, go learn it if that's what you want. But I want to make sure people have got informed consent. I want to make sure people, when they're making choices about what they're going to go and learn, it's because they decided it's what they wanted to learn, not because they were told by university, study this one particular thing, now you know this one particular thing, do this one particular job.

15:33That's all. I want informed consent for people. They want to have choice. Right now, I think a lot of people don't have choice and they don't even realise it. I'd challenge back and say, I'm sure we do have that if you're willing to ask the questions to go in and, like, you could do that already. We don't need to break a system to be able to go in and change it. Sure. It's your opinion. I don't agree, but it's fine. But, I mean, would you rather get on a, like, to use your example, Or would you rather get on a plane with a pilot that says, I'm just learning how to break the rules of aviation travel?

16:07Or would you rather have somebody that has done their 100 flying hours to tell you what the rules of aviation travel are before this time? If someone wants to be a pilot, then they should go and learn to be a pilot. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about people having the ability to do what they want to do. If you want to be a pilot, sure, you're going to have to go into university and then you're going to have to follow the pilot instruction scheme and that's all fine, right? I totally agree with you. But I don't think I'm talking about that. I'm talking about those that perhaps don't want to follow the system or don't want to get a standard job.

16:39I haven't actually met very many happy pilots. If you're using that particular example, a lot of people that become pilots will solve this dream and they just sit in a cockpit for 13 hours a day, like brain dead. So, I mean, yeah, sure. It's mostly autopilot for flying planes now anyway. So, yeah, if that's what you want, go do it. You'll have to follow that system to do it. I'm not saying people shouldn't go learn a craft if they want to do a particular thing. I'm just saying make sure that particular thing is what you really want to do. Right. So we're not saying here, don't go to university.

17:10What we're saying is, if you're not sure what you want to do, or you're not sure university is right for you, go and explore. If you then decide that you do want to go to university, if you want that experience, which is, you know, I think we mustn't say university is wasted time, right? University is a life experience. it's just a different life experience to not going to university right yep you go and do that it means you can't do lots of other things you go and do lots of other things it means you can't do that some people love uni some people hate it but you're just saying understand what you're getting and don't think that you're getting something that maybe you're not yeah I just think right now there's so many people making the argument go to university it's happening all the time subconsciously parents your peers the school system literally their success is reliant on who goes to university when you leave school for example So I'm actually just saying there needs to be a bit of a counterbalance here.

17:57People don't think they're going to have a good life unless they go to university. And university is a business. So everyone thinks, like, you know, recently someone came to me for a job in marketing. And they said, they're four years in doing a marketing degree, 52 ,000 pounds worth of debt, right? I'm like, okay, what are the five ways you make money on TikTok? How does the algorithm work on YouTube? How is shorts working in the future? How can you make money from your social media? How can companies make money from their social media? How can marketing be a profitable thing? None of these answers they had to any of these things.

18:27They're like, oh, I just learned about how a company in 1990 went bust because they spent too much money on marketing. And I don't know, you know, the internet didn't work back in 1990, it turns out. A lot of companies didn't make it. Okay. So, look, marketing for four years, you know, just go and learn it in the real world. Either, you know, go work for someone temporarily to learn and make money while you're doing it, or just start a social media agency or just, you know. I think a lot of the time, this kind of four-year university thing, to me, I agree with you that some people get some value from it.

18:59But I find that people have, again, survival bias. If someone went to university, they say, oh, I got on network while I was there. Thank God I went to university, I got on network. Well, I got on network, not going to university. People are like, oh, I had such a great experience, I went to university. I had a great experience, not going to university. The difference is, I'm not fine-tuned into a particular job role at the end of it, which university funnels you into or you're now going to be a lawyer or you're going to be this, you're going to be that it doesn't let you just figure out what you could be it tells you what you're going to become and I think that leads to a lot of misery for a lot of people and again, I meet a lot of people every day in the streets in their 30s and 40s who went to university who end up being a lawyer for four or five years and they hate it because they're still selling time it's not scalable and they've got debt they have to pay off I think survivorship bias is a very important thing for us to recognise Nice.

19:47I am in the question very hard before you go to university camp. I'm not in the don't go camp, but the question it very hard. I didn't go. You didn't go to university. You're in the maybe don't go, but certainly question it very hard camp. You went to university, studied at universities, lectured at universities. And maybe you're in more in the, well, I'd consider it really carefully camp. I think where we have to be really careful is long before university, the way that we're educating our young people. Now we've created a foundation, the High Performance Foundation, because of our frustrations with the lack of soft skills being taught in schools and all of the things that people who sat in the chair you're sitting in right now have told us has got them to where they are today and not being taught in schools.

20:28I thought you'd like this. I got a text from my daughter who's only just got a phone. Florence messaged me the other day. This is what she said. The girls are being annoying because they say if I don't do a maths or science A level, it means it looks like I don't work hard. And if I do dance, drama and business, it won't set me up for life. Oh, rubbish. I wonder how that plays into your thoughts on the school system. When I was younger, university was for a particular path. It was for STEM-related activities. It's now become such a big business, it's for everybody. And I feel like people have got, that text is a good example, railroaded into a path they don't really want to be on.

21:06And so the one thing I'd say about that message, which I love it, The one thing I'd say is I think the word work hard has got a little bit overused. And so like I personally made the most amount of money when I haven't been working hard. Really? When I delegated other people to do things and they were better at it than me. Now, don't get me wrong. I actually like working hard. I think work should be a positive word, first of all. And if you have a purpose, you don't mind working hard. And I think that's the key I would love to give to the next generation is like work should be a positive thing.

21:38it shouldn't be this negative thing and i think it has become this oh work i've got to work i've got to i love working i don't need to work today i don't need to work i could just sit by my pool hang out my kid or dad i don't need to work i love working i grow i learn i meet people with different opinions to me that i can debate with i grow because maybe i'm wrong and maybe i'm right maybe i'll change your mind maybe you change mine maybe the people listening get something like work's amazing and i think we've kind of lost that a little bit like work's this thing we have to do to pay the mortgage as opposed to work is a thing we do to fulfill our lives and give us purpose and make the world a better place that that's my argument and i think university has a little bit done this to us and i think also for that matter corporations have done this to us too so in your book you talk about people often coming up with their own excuses whether this is because of the brainwashing that we get from society whether at school or in general can we go through each of those seven reasons that people often put in their own way that stop them seeing work as something to enjoy you're talking about the seven steps in my book though right you've read so i i in the book i've written out um the seven things that stop people from fulfilling their purpose so take us through them yeah it's it's a like a you know a massive part of my book so um i i think it took me a long time to actually understand this and i i've interviewed thousands of people.

23:00I've probably done one of the largest human surveys in history. It's my argument at the moment. People can say, no, you haven't. There's been bigger surveys. I've gone and asked thousands of people in the street what their dream is, and I've seen what's stopping people. And there's lots of things. I'll tell you a couple of them, because if I tell all seven, we'll be here all day. First of all, people will use money as an excuse. That's a common one. People will say, I don't have enough money. So I think that's because they haven't been given financial literacy and how money works. So most of the businesses I have started have been super successful.

23:32Either I started with no money, and I can give a formula how to do that, or I've raised money, not my money. So I think people don't understand how money works. If I didn't understand from a young age how money worked, I wouldn't be able to build any business. So how do you start a business with no money? Well, maybe when I was younger, my ambition wasn't as big as it is now. I didn't want to build a tech platform like I have done now. When I was younger, I just wanted to pay the bills. So I built a service company. So my first business was a gardening business. And what I said was, I'll take care of your garden.

24:02They said yes. Then I asked them for a deposit. Now that 50 % deposit paid all my costs. And then when I'd done the work and collected the final payment, the other 50 % was my profit. This fundamental structure on how you can start a business with no money, no one's been taught it. And so people instantly, they'll say, oh, I don't have money to start a business. Well, what business do you want to start? Well, they won't even let their mind go there because they don't think they've got money to start a business. So that's level one. Level two is I don't have time. Because I don't have time. I'm like, you have deliberately told yourself you don't have time.

24:35What you mean is you don't have a purpose. Because if you really care about something or someone, you find time. Time is just a made-up concept as well, as far as like we have seven days a week and Saturday and Sunday is chill day. Most people think, oh, I don't work on Sundays. I work on Sundays. I work any day I have to work to make my mission happen. And I don't think twice about it. And people are like, work-life balance, aren't you working all the time? No. I don't feel like I'm working at all. The opposite. I'm working all the time, but I don't feel like I'm working at all in the context of what people think work is.

25:05So that's another level. How do people remove the excuse of time? Well, first of all, tell people, you haven't got much time on this planet. You better use it meaningfully. So when you're wasting time watching Netflix or listening to content that doesn't bring you any value and wasting time. Most people are wasting time. That's why they've got no time. If they had a purpose, they'd find time. So find a purpose. The second step in my pyramid of why people don't do it is they don't have a purpose. If they can discover their purpose, they will find the time. Can we talk about that? Sure. Because I feel in not this similar position to you where I'm very much pro get out and do the work, get out and set up businesses, off you go.

25:42But people will say to me, but you knew what you wanted to do. And I feel very lucky that I've found my passion. What would you say to people where they are stuck and therefore actually I think of my nephew Joseph going to university is almost the answer because he hasn't found the thing that he loves. What do they do? There's a couple of answers to this. First of all, a lot of people go and do things by default because they're in fight or flight. Fight or flight status is basically where they've got peer pressure or financial pressure. The part of the brain that allows them to be creative and figure out what their purpose could be cannot be activated when you're in fight or flight.

26:20So when you can't make ends meet, your electricity might get cut off tonight. If you can't feed your family next week, because you're not going to run out of money, there's no time to be creative. You just have to survive. And you go out and hunt and you don't think twice. Right? So when you go out and hunt and you don't think twice, you can't be creative. You can't figure out what you're meant to do, because you're so busy in fear that there's going to be a war you can't affect, a bill you can't pay. Your brain is so activated by fear, it's not allowing your creative part of your brain to engage.

26:49So you're never going to find out who you really are, what you really want, because it's not alive, that part of your brain. So the first thing to do is come out of fight or flight. And a combination of like, pretend you've got money for a minute. Pretend money is not a problem. Just try to get into that state for at least 10 minutes. Because you might be able to dive into that creative part of your brain and come up with the very solution that's going to make sure you're not broke anymore. Right? I think that's one part, fight or flight. I think the other thing about it is for a lot of people who are not sure what to do, the best thing to do is expose yourself to as many things as possible to find out what you love and what you don't love.

27:23So I traveled and I went and did things in different businesses to find out what I enjoyed and what I didn't enjoy. So I discovered quite young, luckily, that I quite like sales. I love that idea of knocking on someone's door and saying, can I be your gardener? And they say yes, and that's instant revenue you've created from nothing. So I think that you then double down on what you're good at. Again, the school system will tell you to double down on what you're not good at. So if you're not good at history, they're like, well, you know, you've got to study history more. Let me get you in a tutor to teach you history more.

27:52But if you don't like that thing, then why double down on it? So I think we've got to go, for me anyway, like what I tell people is, try to figure out what your hobby is and make a living out of it. You know, a lot of people think they can't make a living out of it. But your daughter, did you say? Was it your daughter just then in your text? It was my daughter that texted me. Yeah, so she sounds like she's creative. There's money to be made in creativity. And we're told you can't make money being a painter. Of course you can. Today, more than ever. You go live on TikTok, you'll make money being a painter right now.

28:21And I don't work for TikTok, but I just love these tools that are there. For young people, they've got a lot of difficulty with things like buying a house and it's hard for them. But on the other side, wow, these tools now, it's the great equalizer. You don't know if you know the concept of the great equalizer, but the social media is a great equalizer. I can go live on TikTok now. I have a bigger channel than Channel 4. You know, and for those listening overseas, it's a small TV channel in the UK. You know, I have more reach than a TV channel right now. That's incredible. And it cost me nothing.

28:52I just go live on social media. I had 417 ,000 people on my live last week. 417 ,000 people. And it cost me nothing to do it. And it cost them nothing to watch it. I think that's the other really important thing. We look at things in a very binary way. social media is bad for children, playing computer games is a waste of time for children. I remember Richard Osman sitting in that chair and he said, well, how are your kids playing computer games? Are they engaging? Are they being creative? Are they using a headphone and a microphone to talk to other kids? Are they aware of how the game's been programmed and created?

29:26Do they know the improvements of this version of the game from the one that was released two years ago? He said, that's brilliant. And it's a bit like, oh, kids shouldn't be on social media. What are they consuming? How are they consuming it? Like, everything that you would ever want to know, I think, is there. Totally. And it's about educating people not to not go on it, but to not go on the stuff that's not good for them. Well, I think it's like anything. I interviewed Tony Fidel. He invented the iPod, right? And then he was part, of course, therefore inventor of the iPhone. Yeah. And Steve Jobs famously deleted him off his phone on stage when he introduced the iPhone.

30:03So there's always a controversy around Steve Jobs taking the glory for inventing this product. Anyway, one of the things he said that really stuck with me in the interview was, I was saying the iPhone's bad. All these people looking at their phones, looking down at their phones, you know, does he feel bad that you created this product that's so addictive? And he said, no, no, the iPhone is a fridge. What food you decide to put in that fridge is up to you. And see, I believe in social media for social good. You've got to have the algorithms that are feeding you help, knowledge, support, guidance.

30:30You are in charge of your algorithm. And people will throw this thing, well, in China, they've made it so that kids only get to watch education content and in America, they just watch whatever they want. Well, that's up to you. You know, there's a combination of parental support and kids realising from a young age they're being manipulated all the time. Manipulation is nothing new. I was manipulated when I was young. I was told to buy a Mars bar or drink milk. I was told these things would make me run faster. I mean, I was told a Mars bar would make me run faster. So I was manipulated when I was younger.

30:59And years before that, they were told cigarettes were good for you. Totally. This is what I mean. Have some brandy. Yeah, it's good for you. Brandy will help you get pregnant or something. I think we've been manipulated forever. I think if we don't give the kids the chance to be exposed to these things and then make them aware they're being manipulated, how can they ever control all these addictions that are being thrown at them all day long? I think it's ridiculous to ban social media. 16 people in Australia, they're doing that right now, banning 16-year-olds on social media. It's so dumb. It's so dumb.

31:28Because? It's the new ban drugs thing in a way. It's the new war on drugs. right? And I think education beats control every time. So I think you've got to teach people how everything is manipulating you. Governments are manipulating, the Australian government's manipulating people, right? They're figuring out how to make money for tax revenue. And some people, you know, they'll take money from vaping companies, but they won't take money from social media. It's all a manipulation. So I just think we need to make people aware of it as opposed to ban them from things that, if they fly from Australia to England, now they're exposed to social media, they're not going to have any knowledge of how to control it.

32:06And they're going to miss out on opportunities. Because if I'm 16 today, and I don't know what I want to do, I'd probably start going live on social media and share that with people and build a following up and earn money from it. We're literally cutting off opportunities for people when you ban stuff. Education is key. But it has to be honest education, transparent education, it has to be deep, truthful education. Well, tell us then, so if we have a 16-year-old kid watching this, what are the kind of questions they should be asking when it comes to social media to understand the influence of it well maybe the best way for me to answer that question is how i hire people okay so i hired someone a little while ago and by the way everyone that joins me gets equity in the company then they don't just work for me they work for themselves as well and i think everyone should get equity where they work right but when i hire someone i ask to look at their feed and see what's happening So one particular person who I hired recently, I looked through their feed.

33:03They're a young man. So as you'd expect, lots of pretty women come up. Okay, fine. That's, you know, part of growing up and, you know, that's fine. But then non-stop football. Okay, now I'm not against football per se, certainly not against people playing football at all. But literally, he's spending so much of his time caring about whether or not Chelsea wins a football match. Now, if Chelsea wins or loses, it makes really no difference to his personal circumstances. Mental health-wise, it does affect him if they lose, right? And it actually doesn't make any difference. Those millionaires on that pitch and the billionaire that owns the club will be just fine.

33:38Whether they win or lose, it's got nothing to do with him. But he's been a little bit manipulated into thinking it really matters. And like, does it really matter? How much does it really matter? And I think it's just like highlighting these things. They make money out of you if you watch. They make money if you buy a t-shirt. They make money if you buy a season ticket. It's just a business. Now, fine, if you want, once you're aware, again, informed consent, that these things are being delivered to you to manipulate you to buy things, and you still want to do it, great. What I have an issue with is if he doesn't realise that's taking up at least half a day a week of his time.

34:11Half a day a week, he could be putting into something to have a better life for himself. Instead of supporting billionaires who own a club and millionaires who play football, he could be bettering his own life of that half a day a week and the£100 a week he accidentally spends on football. So I like to look through people's feeds and see how they're being manipulated and then educate people a little bit about it. I'm in the midst of this at the moment with my nine-year-old is not on social media. Neither is my 11-year-old, but she has a phone and there are girls in her school and boys in her school that do have access to social media.

34:39And I think at break time, it's unpoliced. And if someone's got TikTok, everyone wants to have a look at it, right? What do we do in that position? Because cigarettes were banned for under-16s for a reason, right? Is there not an argument that you just, you're not mentally mature enough at 11, 12, 13 to make these informed decisions even if a parent says you know that social media is not always good for you you're talking about the brain of a 12 year old up against a TikTok and Instagram and Facebook and X spending billions to keep you coming back for more they're experts in algorithms and feeding what the human brain wants what would you say to parents of those younger not 16, 17, 18 year olds but 10, 11, 12 this is a really sensitive subject that if I pick a side I'm going to get hate okay so it's like a minefield the question you're asking is a minefield what are you doing then well I've got a seven year old yeah okay so there's a couple of elements that and I'm not a perfect parent and I'm learning as well about this side of it because I didn't have social media when I was 11 so I but I did have MTV and I did have cigarettes and and all the other shit that's out there that draws you in.

35:52Okay, so I think... Okay, how I presently do it with my seven-year-old? He joins me on TikTok Lives sometimes. So he's with me when we do stuff. So he's aware of how it all works. He's brilliant, by the way, on social media. He's just a charmer. And he just loves talking to the community and saying hello. And they love him. And we have fun together. So the other day we did a live. He played his favorite songs. I played my favorite songs. And people in the audience told us their favorite songs. and we played them. And it was just fun. We had a really good time. He is allowed to play games. We have a Tesla.

36:24And when we go in the car, he's allowed 10 minutes with me to play a game. And he really enjoys it. So he knows what's out there in the world, but we make it a fun activity we do together. Okay? Now, he has a couple of things that he's a bit addicted to. One of them is a thing called Yoto, which is like a storytelling device. And it's got no screen, but he loves this product. And it tells him, he listens to history, and he listens to things he really enjoys on this Yoto. And it is a bit of an addiction because he always wants to listen to the stories, but to me, it's a healthy addiction. He wants to hear what happened in 1066 in the Battle of Hastings.

36:59And he hits like a book. No one was ever saying, oh, you shouldn't be reading a book. That's really bad for you. You're addicted to reading books, aren't you? You're always reading books. What's wrong with you? Weird addicted person. Books are also designed to make you buy them and read them. I think there's good addictions and there's bad addictions. And we should accept that humans are not perfect and everyone has different needs. He gets a lot of satisfaction being addicted to that Yoto and listening to those stories. But I think, I don't necessarily think, he doesn't need YouTube. He doesn't need that.

37:26And computer games, at the moment, I'm with him when we do it. Now, he's seven. I don't know what it'll be like when he's 11, 12, when it's school and all those things. But again, I don't think banning anything ends well. It's like, as soon as you ban something, you actually make it more desirable. And so I think there's an element of education and it's parental responsibility to educate. and it's also our responsibility to take part in what they're doing. So my mum and I had a big falling out when I was 15 years old, but I would say my mum actually was a pretty good mum. At points in my life, she did crazy things, but one of the great things she did do is like, if you want to smoke, do it in my house.

38:02I don't want you getting into trouble. I never wanted to smoke, partly because I was allowed to. And then she'd tell me how bad it was and how awful it is and all of that sort of stuff. And I think there's something in that education. It's still my choice, informed consent. We're free, right? We're meant to be free anyway. So I don't think banning or controlling people ever ends well, ends in civil wars, and it ends in a very difficult situation for parents and kids if you try to control kids. I think you should be there, and it's my parental style, guiding and advising and supporting. But banning is a big mistake.

38:34So be in their life. Be in their life. Be a part of things. And I definitely don't think, say, you're not allowed to look at TikTok. That's just stupid. If you're still overpaying for wireless, it's time to say yes to saying no. At Mint Mobile, their favourite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I made the switch because I was tired of those ridiculous bills and sneaky charges from my old provider. With Mint, I'm paying$15 a month and getting the same high-speed data, unlimited talk and text and coverage on the nation's largest 5G network. Honestly, the quality is just as good, if not better than what I had before.

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40:48Can you tell us a little bit about the difference between a dream, a goal, and a purpose? You need to give me these questions ahead of time. That's a deep one. Dream, goal, and purpose. Okay, so a dream, a goal, and a purpose can actually all be similar, depending on the context that you're using it in. But to me, a dream is something like I dream of fixing the education system. Okay. A goal is what I set myself today, which is to come on this podcast, hopefully reach hundreds of thousands of people. So today is just one step towards my dream. But I have one goal today. Purpose for me is the fuel to do it.

41:32so why almost like why do I care about this problem partly is what your purpose is so I was 15 years old when I was kicked out of home and I couldn't get a job because I didn't have a national insurance card and in England you need to get a job I begged on the street and couldn't I didn't get any money people spat at me and ignored me and thought I was a drug addict which I wasn't and so I had no choice but to go and start a business and I and I say that was if it's glamorous I just as I said earlier knocked on the door and started cleaning gardens you know I think purpose is now for me over time, I look back at my career and I realize that that 15-year-old kid who struggled, who couldn't afford a course, who didn't have access to network or knowledge, didn't get anything from the school system for the 12 years I was there about how money works.

42:19I desperately want to go back and help that 15-year-old me. Right? And it's still the same problem today. We're still not teaching financial literacy in school. people still don't know how money works and people still aren't given the tools on how to sell and anyone can sell people still aren't given the tools and you could start a business of your own you know you don't have to go to university and even if you did it for a year and then went to university you'd probably get a better job because you'd have experience in life so purpose comes from personal pain I think but purpose is the driver, the fuel the reason to go and do it the reason to have that goal and the reason that dream might exist and so yeah I think purpose is so crucial.

42:58Again, I would teach it at school. Like, what is your purpose? It's a really important thing to ask yourself. Would that be the first question you'd be asking? Yes. Or the dream? Well, I mean, what's your dream is my opening question to get people to open up and I can see where they are in the stages of like, where they want to go, right? Yeah. If people's dream is just to own a house, I know they're a little bit trapped by the system. And they just think that's it. They don't own a house yet, so they don't know that a house can own you, won't necessarily make you happy. If you're doing work you don't love every day, but you're sitting in a house you own it won't make you happy I think what's your dream is an opening question for me to understand where people are at but I think the purpose to me is the thing that we all build over time but I didn't really find my purpose until I went through pain and once I found my purpose I then had to fill my own bucket up first before I could ever circle back and say right, my purpose now is to help others get the help they need if they want to start something So if there's anyone watching this that thinks I don't want to go through the pain but I do want to discover my purpose.

43:57What are the kind of questions or the angles that they should be thinking of? I think you should want pain. I think you frame that in a way I would not answer it. I think people should definitely seek out pain. Explain more. Well, I actually think bad luck is good luck in disguise. So if you look at anyone who's been successful, and I've interviewed hundreds of people that have been successful, billionaires, and what I've noticed about all of them, similarities, at some point they had some sort of pain. and it could be, you know, deframed in different ways it could be, you know, for example my wife, her mum got cancer and all the doctors told her her mum was going to die and there's nothing you could do and she just felt that wasn't right so she went and learned something called kinesiology, which is a healing method that's been a bit shunned because it's not traditional medicine, it's preemptive care partly and it's kind of energy based, anyway she went and learned this discipline called Keen Theology.

44:56And she's now a healer, which I tell people that, but like, oh my God, it sounds woo-woo. She's the least woo-woo person you ever meet. But she can heal people with this energy that she's learned this craft. And so I think that, you know, she needed the pain of like something awful happening to her mum getting cancer, which is, I wouldn't wish it on anybody. It's a really awful thing to have happened. But equally, it's given her a purpose, this healing energy that she now gives to other people that have been told they've got no chance of living. they're going to die for sure she gives them hope and sometimes hope helps people live and so I think pain is such an important thing I actually wish it on people in a weird strange way my father died when I was young don't get me wrong I'd like to go back in time of him not die of a heart attack when I was 15 years old I'd love him still to be here but equally him leaving me so young has given me the life I've got today which I love I believe pain really builds character and that if you have no pain, the people I know that have no pain often have pretty unhappy lives because they have no purpose.

45:59So I think one of your superpowers is obviously is communicating, but I think also is challenging people to reframe the way they view the world, whether it's believing that owning a house is just the right thing, whether it's believing that university is just the right thing, whether it's believing that avoiding pain is the right thing. I think this is a real area of mastery for you. And the truth is that I think our research probably backs it up that the people that have sat in that chair have been through trauma and trauma leads to triumph. You know, people talk a lot about post-traumatic disorder.

46:34They talk very little about post-traumatic growth. What do you think that the death of your father did for you? Well, I think for the early years of my life, it gave me no choice but to succeed. You know, burn the boats is what the Vikings used to call it, right? Because my mum kicked me out of home and my father was gone. So I had no, I can go home and stay in my parents' house. Sometimes when you've got other options, humans are lazy. We'll default to that easy option. I'll stay in my mum's basement and play computer games because I can. But I think when you have no choice, it's really powerful.

47:11You can't go back. You've got to make it work. There's just no choice. So partly that, I will say, I spent a long time being sad that my father left me so young because he never saw me pass my driving license, never saw me build a successful business. He never saw me doing what I'm doing today, right? And that is sadness I often felt. So I reframed it. And I say that my father gave me one last gift. He died at Christmas, right? He gave me one last gift before he left me. And that was the freedom to fail. because when he was alive at school, my teachers, even my parents, they all had this anticipation I was going to be a lawyer.

47:49And that was my path. And when he was gone and his support system was gone, I was suddenly free to fail. I tell people this all the time. If you have nothing, you have a competitive advantage. And I didn't realize it until I had nothing because now there's no expectation on me. I could do a gardening company and it failed. Who cares? Who gives a shit? It's people that have expectation on them, like your daughter. No, she's got expectation on her. She can't fail. She's got to do maths. She's got to work hard. She's got to live up to other people's expectations of her. Whereas I, at 15, was given this gift.

48:23I could just go and do something. And if it didn't work, no one gives a shit. And I was free to try. And I did many times try many things and failed many times. And I felt such a gift to answer your question. My father gave to me. so now I reflect and I suddenly say to him thank you for giving me that chance and you've been very successful you've made a lot of money, built some great businesses you have a huge following how are you going to give that gift to your children? well first of all kids don't do what you say, they do what you do so the most important thing to me is not that I leave him a load of money the most important thing is I show him how to help people and I show him the joy that I get from helping people because we've lost this.

49:12We think that joy comes from owning things. We think joy comes from owning and having money. It doesn't. And if anyone doesn't believe me, maybe think about the time when you gave someone a present. You know, you went and carefully selected it. You wrapped it. You wrote a little note and you put it under the tree. You just can't wait for the day they open it, right? Just to see what they think of what you've got them. that joy of giving is something we have actually kind of a little bit lost without realizing that actually helping someone else makes us happy so my job is not to leave my son hundreds of millions my job is to leave my son with the knowledge that i have and i've learned the hard way that what makes me happy and what makes every human happy actually i don't care how bad you are helping someone else so how are you going to invite pain into your son's life then well i think he has a little bit of pain every day because my son's homeschooled and I think homeschooling is not painful I think he enjoys his homeschool but I leave him every day right and I and I feel it every day he's like daddy play with me play when I looked I promised to help someone today I've made a commitment to do something today and if we say we're going to do something we have to do it so every day I give him a little bit of pain by telling him exactly what I'm doing and he asked me yesterday are you okay daddy I always tell him the truth I was feeling a bit sick yesterday so I don't feel good I've been overworking lately I need to rest a bit but I can't because I've got all his commitments and but that's life so he had a bit of pain because i had a bit of pain and i think just being honest with him is how i i don't know if you need a traumatic a massive traumatic event to necessarily create purpose but i think showing vulnerability showing a little bit of pain every day and showing him that you know that life is meant to be painful people that retire die quite quick after statistically two or three years after retiring people die right so it's because they don't have pain or stress anymore like we're meant to have stress it's good it pushes us to go and do things you know so I think I show him he's seven you know he doesn't need to have serious pain but I am not going to leave him money every single day someone you know someone pops up on my feed telling me legacy planning leave your son loads of money you need to do this you need to do that no he doesn't need my money I'm going to give him knowledge but I think if I gave him a load of money I think that would actually be a problem and I think that to me the most important thing is I give him a sense of purpose.

51:30Help him find his purpose if I can before I'm gone. But also let him find his own pain, what pain points matter to him. And I think you're very right when you say your son doesn't need a big traumatic incident. Nobody's going to look at your seven-year-old and hope that the same thing happens to him that happened to you. That's not what your son needs or any 15-year-old. But what they do need is for their resilience to be built. Totally. People have sat in the chair opposite us and resilience beats talent a hundred or a thousand to one without question. Yeah, follow through, persistence. Because no matter how talented you are with no resilience, you don't go anywhere with that.

52:05And actually, I think the truth is that pain builds resilience. You know, for you, it's a big, large trauma, right? You lose your dad at 15. Well, you try and hurt me now because nothing's going to hurt as much as losing my dad at 15 and having a traumatic relationship with my mum and walking the streets. By the way, I cry all the time. So you say that. I still get hurt a lot. But yeah, I know what you mean. Please don't feel you shouldn't cry. Because I think this is the important stuff that we should be talking about, right? We can fluff around, don't go or do go to university, but this is the real connection, right?

52:36Which really matters. And I talk about that as someone who had a trauma as a young guy and I feel it's been vital for me. So I feel the conversation needs to be how do we create resilient young people? Well, I think, first of all, take risk. lean into pain we've got so it's so easy now to say no to things and delay it so again on the way here I got stopped by another young man who said he wants to go to Australia but he'll go in a couple of years I'm like why not now oh I don't have enough money I don't have this I don't have that like just have you got enough money for a one way ticket yes and if you really got in trouble could you get a ticket back somehow yes go go land in Sydney and try and survive a week you know worst is it's a story you can always ring your parents up I don't really like your having plan B but you can always ring them and they'll give you a flight and come back pain is good experience is good and so I still feel it today I was asked to do a TED talk a little while ago I was going to say no because I blame time I don't have enough time the truth is though I'm a bit scared of it so I always say yes to things if I have any sort of fear and then I push through that fear and then I feel success on the other side of fear.

53:54It's like doing a triathlon. If anyone has, they've got to train for months, it's painful. I know someone doing a triathlon at the moment, their toenail fell off and their foot's in pain. But then they did the triathlon. Oh my God, the euphoria of pushing through the pain, right? So I think people should lean into pain more. They should take risk more. Again, to my point, don't get some job that just gives you a regular salary and numbs your brain and kills your hope. you know go and start something try something travel somewhere do something hard every week I moved to Hong Kong when I was 23 I left all my friends and I built up a life after having a hard hard time I hated it I moved to Hong Kong I hated it and every week I was I'm just going to move back I don't like it I don't like it and then six months in suddenly it all changed and I fell in love with it and I had the most amazing experience in Asia so on the other side of pain is joy but we can easily say no now can't we it's so easy to say no to things that might cause us a pain you want to go for a run no i'm a bit tired do you want to go to the gym no that's all right do you want to eat healthy this week no i just want to indulge and indulge we've got too weak and it's got too easy you know stop pressing a button getting food delivered to you go pick it up go in the rain go out there in the wind fight that's where the joy is can i ask you a question then about how you recruit because you mentioned earlier about you asked for their feed how do you sort of square it away when people want to come and work for you then rather than send them away and say set up your own business do your own thing so you can go work for someone i i'm not saying you can't go work for someone there's a couple of criteria i suggest to people okay one is you're gonna learn a lot now if you can go work for someone and learn a lot great because you're getting paid and you know you're not university you pay them and i'm not sure how much you learn right but if you go work for someone you really respect them hopefully or you believe in their mission and you can earn i wouldn't do it more than six months or a year max otherwise you might get addicted to that drug called a salary but if you can learn and go work somewhere fine what i would say is be cheeky ask for equity they might say yes yeah so so my my advice is don't not don't go work for someone my advice is just make sure you don't get addicted to the salary system selling time and make sure there's a there's a clear amount of knowledge you're getting from the experience however i also think and this happens in my company i have a mission to fix the education system and help people believe in themselves and do what they love and promote people who have dreams and get their knowledge out to get their dream out there in the world a lot of people i have 18 people on my team now have the same belief they have the same purpose as me.

56:35So they don't have to go and do it on their own. They can join forces with me. I call this one plus one equals 11. Right? The power of teamwork is incredible. But they should all own equity when working with me. Otherwise, well, one, I'm a hypocrite. And two, more importantly, they could build something that they don't own anything in. So why not? So if you have the same purpose as someone else, and ideally the same moral code, then you can team up with someone else, just make sure you've got equity because that's a scalable item whereas selling time isn't that's it you've mentioned a few times you want to change the education system if I made you education secretary today what would you set it up to look like?

57:20first of all they'll never make me education secretary but we all know that right there's no if they did okay so I think we need to turn the whole thing upside down okay right now without going too deep because I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I'm so certain they're not going to make me education secretary. I'm so certain they're not going to change the system. I'm building it separately myself directly. But the truth is the system, present system, is doing exactly what they want it to do. It's creating people to go work for companies, big lobbying companies. It's working just fine.

57:57We already know it's not providing people with what they need to live in the real world, but they haven't changed it for 100 years. What is it that they need to live in the real world that school's not giving them? Okay, so I'd probably flip it and say, the first thing is, understand the individual and what they actually like, what they're naturally good at, and how their personality fits a learning experience. So right now, the school system is one size fits all. You're going to do exams. You're going to sit on your own and do those exams. And if you get an A, you're clever. And if you get a D, you're stupid.

58:28That is ridiculous, right? So I think I'd flip it and say, and the best way to explain how I would do the education system if I was in charge, is how I'm trying to bring my son up. Now, if my son grows up to be a mass murderer, then don't ever take my advice on the education system ever again. But I think he's a great human being, but this is how I educate him. When he was four years old, we went into a garage and he picked up a road map. It was so dusty because everyone's using sat-nav now, right? So he picked it up, AA guide, and he opens it up and he starts saying, Daddy, this road here connects to that road.

59:00What does this road do? What's the M25, Daddy? Starts like looking. And so anyway, he's so obsessed with roads. So he says to me, Daddy, how did they build this road? Why did the M25, how did they build it? So we go and Google it and we find out politicians tried to stop it and why people were lobbying against it being built, how much it costs, how much it overruns. So he's now learning about maths, budgeting, politics, all from his interest in roads. If I said to him, hey, four-year-old, I'm going to teach you about politics. You ready? Politics? I'm going to teach you maths. Are you ready? Maths.

59:33No. So you lead by interest and you learn all the things you need to know to understand your interest. So I love business. So I've learned accounts. I don't want to learn accounts. If you told me I had to go learn accounts, I'd not be interested. But if I know I need to understand accounts to manage cash flow, to make a business work that has a purpose that I care about, I will learn that stuff or I'll bring someone in that knows how it works. So I think the education system should be really tailor-made. I'm hoping with AI and the future technologies that will make them work for us instead of we work for them, then those technologies will allow us to understand us as human beings, how we like to learn.

1:00:08Am I an introvert? Am I an extrovert? Do I like to read? Do I like to be in a community learning? Do I like visual learning? Do I like audio learning? And we tailor make the learning to the individual around their interests. As opposed to right now, which is like, we want more lawyers. We want more experts. Part of the challenge though, isn't it, is that we're trying to educate millions of people at the same time with limited resources. Therefore, the only way to do that is to remove those at the extremity, push them all in the same direction and get them all to sit the same exam. I don't... Yeah, 100 years ago, I agree.

1:00:41But this experiment should be over. Yeah. And now, thanks to things like YouTube and frankly TikTok, people don't like to hear this, people are learning on TikTok. The algorithm is now teaching our kids. Okay? Whether we like it or not, that fridge is there and people are consuming from it. Right? So my argument would be like, go where people are already naturally consuming content and give them content that helps their lives be better, but tailor it to their needs. That's what algorithms do. So I'm just saying, yes, 100 years ago, we didn't even know the word algorithm. So sure, yeah, 100 years ago, mass education, Carnegie and Henry Ford, fucking great.

1:01:16Let's get people learning in mass. Let's make sure that they don't learn too much. We still want them to come and work in our factory and buy one car and go on two holidays a year and come back to our fucking factory. Sure, 100 years ago, mass education system. It doesn't make sense today. We know different. Everybody's different. Everyone has different learning abilities and skills, superpowers if you want. Some people are ADHD. That's a superpower if you give them the knowledge in the way that they like to receive it. So I think it's time to just rethink how we deliver information. Me personally, I love learning on YouTube.

1:01:51I learn a lot on TikTok. And we can slag these things off if you want. I trained my algorithm to give me the knowledge I want in the way I want it. And so I just think we need to rethink the tools out there. Stop looking at TikTok as evil and YouTube as a waste of time. And sitting in a classroom learning exactly what everyone else is learning for four years makes no sense to me. Everyone learns differently too. Like my seven-year-old, when it comes to certain things, whoa, he's so advanced. Like, anything about history, I can ring him up now who answered anything. He loves history. Ask him about certain other things, he's not interested.

1:02:26It doesn't mean he's stupid just because he's not interested in those things. It means he's got certain things he's interested in, certain things that drive him as a personality, as a human. And I'm just feeding him via that personal ability to learn, as opposed to like, sit down and read this blackboard. And people don't like to hear it because everyone wants to put this sort of thing into conspiracy theories. But it's not conspiracy theory. If you just follow the money, Who makes money getting people to go to university? Who makes money getting people to come out of university to work for them?

1:02:57Why would you change an education system that's making you lots of money? Do you think JP Morgan wants to change it? Do you think anybody powerful wants to change it? No, they want those people going to work for them. They don't want them starting their own JP Morgan. God, no. Come and work for us. Sell ours. Dumb these fuckers down. I get really upset about it because I think people don't realise it and that's not right. I don't mind if people realise it and then do it that's informed consent, I don't mind but I think people don't realise they're being dumbed down and look, we live in this world of misinformation and disinformation and fake news and social media algorithms and everything else and it's so easy to look at all that and think there is no hope so are you an optimist or a pessimist for the young people?

1:03:39100 % an optimist, and it's funny you say that because one of my things is when I started this journey 5 years ago and I started going on social media and giving people the knowledge and help I was complaining education system's still broken oh you know why are politicians so useless why is there so much debt culture in England why are credit score companies stopping people from living life because they're having to worry about their credit score and I was complaining and what I said to myself was I'm going to start giving solutions to the problems and not just complain about them there's a lot of people out there complaining about the education system and complaining about this and complaining about that I wanted to be a bit more practical about it and say, look, I'm not happy with the education system.

1:04:18Here's an alternative. Here's some free knowledge that can help you live a better life. Here's a platform for free that can give you some support. And I wanted to start building things that weren't about complaining but were in fact hopefully giving people a solution or at least a way to change if they want. So I think I wanted to stop complaining and start offering a way of actually solving the problem I'm complaining about. Brilliant. And the final question after this amazing conversation for people who are feeling inspired and ready to go, what do they need to do right now? I think if you know your purpose, you know you're meant to do something, don't live with regret.

1:04:54Regret's the worst. People in their 90s interviewed what they regretted. The only thing they regretted is what they didn't do. If you do something and it fails, it's a great story. I've failed so many times. I've got great stories. People love inviting me to dinner parties because I've got great stories of how I failed. But I think people don't, they should make sure that they lean into that purpose. If you don't know your purpose, then just start asking yourself that purpose. is go work with people who have purpose. Go see what it looks like. Go work with people that are doing something meaningful.

1:05:22Go work with people that enjoy their work. Learn what that looks like. Give yourself a chance to see the world if you can, especially when you're young. Just see how it really works out there because the world's an incredible place. It's so exciting out there. Give yourself hope by going to some of the poorest countries in the world and seeing how kind they are to each other. Just give yourself experience because that's all it is anyway. This whole journey is just an experience. Just go out there and really lean in and hopefully along the way you'll find your purpose. But I think some of the most interesting people I know haven't found their purpose yet, by the way.

1:05:51But they're asking what it is, and they're looking how they can contribute to other people's purpose. And they are making a difference in the world by helping other people who have a purpose. And hopefully at some point you find yours. And then that's the holy grail, I think.

1:06:07Damien, Jay. Well, I thought you two were going to come to blows at the beginning. No, not at all. I really enjoyed it. I think the point that Simon was making that I really responded to was the quality of the questions you ask that lead to the quality of your thinking that means that you make better decisions. And I think that was the main point that I took away from it, of just question everything and make sure that you're making informed decisions rather than operating on autopilot or doing it because society or convention demands it. And I think you can think, oh, Simon's saying don't go to university, right?

1:06:39That's not actually... When we started to dig a bit deeper, when he goes at the beginning, it's kind of like a, it's a headline grabber. University's a waste of four years. When you actually talk to him about it, he's saying for some people, it's a waste of four years. For other people, it's a fantastic use of four years and it could be the greatest thing they ever do. But I think it's a good reminder that he's not right. We're not right. The person watching or listening to this with an opinion isn't right. It's all just an opinion. And I think what we should be doing is having conversations like that where opinions get challenged.

1:07:11So like, you know, Simon says, you should allow young people to use social media, right? Well, he's got a homeschooled seven-year-old. So he doesn't have an 11, 12, 13-year-old in the school setting getting access to some horrendous stuff on social media. And they're too young to police it themselves. No matter how often you tell them to be careful, they're going up against the algorithms designed and controlled by billionaire corporations. And of course, he's a guy who's on TikTok. So, you know, he wants people to be using social media, right? So he doesn't necessarily have the experience that a parent of a 14-year-old who's at high school might have.

1:07:43Therefore, his opinion of use of social media is probably different to mine and yours. I think, personally, it should be banned, certainly in schools during school time, in the evening, if your parents are there, it can be policed. So I think if high performance stands for anything, it's about exploration and allowing different opinions to be challenged, to be discussed, and then letting our audience decide where they sit. Yeah, 100%. Again, it comes back to we're not telling anybody here anything. I don't think that's our place or our intention. I think it's about asking people to ask better questions that just lead to that better quality thinking.

1:08:19And I think Simon certainly made me think today. There's some things that I would still come back and challenge. Like you say, the social media stuff, I think it can be pernicious for young adolescents. I've questioned that Simon said his own seven-year-old son is on a platform well what happens if his own seven-year-old son starts receiving abuse on that platform from people that do it you know at seven years old do you really have the ability to make an informed decision that you want to be speaking to millions of people or them to know who you are you know and that's again i have no answer to that but i think sometimes we need to be careful of our own survivorship bias we often talk about we do me-search rather than me-search.

1:09:04We use our own story and then assume that that is going to be the same for everybody's story. And I don't think it is, but I think Simon's story is unique and compelling. And he's got some really interesting questions for all of us to reflect on. And I've got a lot of family members who are getting to this age. I've got a 17-year-old nephew. I've got a 15-year-old niece. I've got quite a few other family friends who are coming to this university decision-making age. I'm absolutely getting them to listen to that conversation because I think they should hear someone offering you an opinion about going out into the big world, about chasing pain, about being employed, about the fact you don't need money to start a business.

1:09:42It's all there to be discussed, to be thought about and to be considered. And Simon's drive for this comes from a place of pain, from losing his dad at 15. But it's a great reminder that you do need people like Simon to change the agenda, to ask questions, to push people in a different direction because it moves society forwards. So I look forward to seeing how his mission progresses. I think the mission is really honourable and really exciting. And I think what he's offering is a brilliant alternative because as he says, one size doesn't fit all. And I think the more choices we have, the better informed we can be.

1:10:19Absolutely. Thanks, mate. Thank you, mate. And that brings us to the end of today's episode with Simon. Huge thanks to him for joining us and sharing his views. if you'd like to check out the tuxedo he arrived in then you can watch all of the episodes on the High Performance app the very best place to enjoy our content the place you can get it first and the place where you can start to create habits that will drive real change in your life so check out the High Performance app thanks so much for joining us and we'll see you soon for more from High Performance

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