A step-by-step guide to finding your dream life and actually making it happen with Simon Squibb

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2:22Grace Beverley: What is up? I'm Grace Beverly and welcome back to Working Hard, the podcast shared guidebook on how to improve your own life and achieve what you actually dreamed of doing. Because life's too short for boring podcasts and bad advice.

2:36Grace Beverley: What is up and welcome back to Working Hard. Guys, I'm so excited for you to listen to this episode. I want to start with something that I think a lot of people will relate to. There's that feeling of knowing that there's something you want to build or create or do, but constantly finding reasons why now isn't the right time. And the person I'm speaking to today has spent his entire career trying to prove that wrong. Simon Squibb went from sleeping rough at 15, starting a small gardening business, and step-by-step building business by business, and eventually experiencing a life-changing business sale.

3:06Grace Beverley: Since then, he's dedicated his life to funding Strangers' Dreams on the street, and built a global movement around the idea that everyone deserves a shot. If you're confused about your path, or you've got an idea that you just can't shake, this episode is a proper step-by-step guide to building your dream. We get into what freedom actually means, how to figure out what you actually want, how to start without quitting your whole life and what failure really teaches you. But before we get into the episode, please make sure you're following the podcast on whatever you're listening to it on right now.

3:32Grace Beverley: It means a lot to us, but it also means that you get a new episode in your feed every single Monday, completely for free with no paywall and means that we can keep it that way.

3:46Grace Beverley: Simon Squibb, are you currently more working hard or hardly working? I'm doing both. I think it doesn't feel like work, so I feel like I'm hardly working, but I'm actually working hard. But I think that's why purpose helps you work without feeling it. Yeah, and I want to dive into that because your story is incredible. Even just like going through the bullet points of where you've been and everything. I want to go right back to the beginning because I feel like that context around your relationship with work is so important. And you've spoken about being 15 and having the harrowing experience of watching your father have a heart attack and becoming homeless and unable to find a job.

4:29Grace Beverley: can you tell me a little bit about how that shaped your relationship with what I guess was then you just being thrust into this idea of work as an essential way of keeping you alive rather than maybe leaving school and being able to dawdle around a bit and work out what worked for you when I think back to my early days I would probably describe myself as having an unlucky start to life but I think luck is a strange thing sometimes that can be perspective but yeah my father died and I found myself three weeks later homeless and I did what the system told me to do the system tells you go get a job you can get a job or the system tells you if you can't and I couldn't get a job by the way because I don't have a national insurance number and I didn't have an address so no one will give me a job and so then the system tells you go to social benefit go get social security money and they'll give you a home and it'll be fine so I went to the social benefit system and they just basically said no in fact they said I think which is kind of worse than no they're like no because there are six other people in front of you that all have kids and they need housing first and in my head as a 15 year old I thought I was a fully grown man and I totally understood I didn't I didn't I didn't get angry no you've got to give me a place to stay I'm a kid I didn't think that I was like oh right absolutely you know like people have kids need need somewhere to stay that's I will be all right you know I can I can sleep outside and you know so it didn't even occur to me that that the fact the social system didn't and couldn't help me it didn't occur to me that that was wrong and and so then I just moved into this third area which is like an area that I'd never really been taught which is why I'm so angry today I wasn't taught that I can have an idea in my head and make it real and the only reason I discovered this was a possible thing for humans is because I had no choice and so I had no job I had no social benefit underpinning me and one day I'm walking past a big house and for the first time in my my whole life my entrepreneur muscle woke up in my brain and it spoke to me for the first time we all have it everybody every single one of your listeners has this entrepreneur muscle.

6:46If they don't know it, they have it. You just need it to be activated. And sometimes having a really difficult thing happen to you can activate it. So you don't just want it, you need it. And I needed it to wake up. And it did. And it told me the garden was messy in this big house. Surely they've got the money to pay me to tidy up their garden. That's it. And then through sheer having no choice, I walked up to the front door of that house. I knocked on that door and I asked the person that answered it, would you let me take care of your garden and would you pay me to do it and they said yes and that was it that's the first gardening company business that I ever started and so yeah I think that I look back at my childhood that kind of stage in my life in a weird way I spent a long time feeling really sad about it and often feeling my dad was gone my life was awful I had such bad luck and now later in life I look back at that moment and think wow I was kind of lucky I was lucky to break free of the system, the treadmill system.

7:44And I was lucky to wake this part of my brain up that everybody has and realise that anyone can, if they want not, they should anyone can, if they want be an entrepreneur.

7:53Grace Beverley: Yeah. And I think that's really powerful. And I think it reflects why so many entrepreneurs came from a place where actually, if you ask them, you know, what made you start it? Yeah. So many entrepreneurs have a very specific origin story. And it was this idea and it led to this and they decided to quit this and whatever. I think so many entrepreneurs come from a position of need where the maybe not the same kind of existential need that you were facing at that time but that need of kind of actually the risk of not doing this feels bigger because I don't know how I'm going to get to where I want to in my life if I don't start taking some big moves and I think that that actually is exactly in parallel with what you've just said in that when you create a life in which taking risks is the only option, then you start making those moves at a much higher rate and with much more enthusiasm because it is your kind of one option.

8:52Grace Beverley: So I'd love to hear from that point, how did that turn into your entrepreneurial journey? Because I can imagine at the same time that turning into anything else would have still been a leap. Well, I think what happened to me, you can fabricate this, by the way. You can fabricate. Most people want to be successful. All your listeners, by asking them to put up their hands and say, who wants to be successful? Everyone's listening right now because they do. They want to make their lives better in all sorts of ways. The truth is the only way you make your life better is needing it. But you can fabricate it.

9:22So what happened to me next? Okay, so I started this gardening company. I asked someone for help because I didn't know what I was doing. and they said they would only help me if I paid them. And that was my first experience with a course selling model. And they said to me something I'll never forget. They said, if you don't pay, you don't pay attention. And I remember thinking with all my might, like, listen, I'm desperate for knowledge. I don't know what I'm doing. I will pay attention. This pay to pay attention is not true. It's pain that makes people pay attention is what I discover later. If you give people pain, then they pay attention.

9:57Sometimes money can be a little bit of pain, but the truth is I had pain. I needed that knowledge and it wouldn't help me unless I paid them. And it just stuck with me, which is why I'll never charge anyone for help. I will not charge people to get help because you can't leave people behind. I was left behind because I didn't know what I was doing. So my first business failed. So gardening company didn't work. In the end, it didn't go as the way I'd like it to go. So what happened next? Well, I turned 16. I had a national insurance number. I was only homeless for eight weeks because this gardening company worked at the beginning.

10:27I made money. I got myself a place to stay. I had an address. Now I had a national insurance number. I could get a job. And that's what I did. I got a job. But it was too late for me to enter the working world in that way. And the system, I'd woken up. My brain would no longer accept the way the world as it was. so I got a job in a hotel and in the first two weeks of being at that hotel the phone would ring and the receptionist would pick it up and be like hello um I'm sorry we're falling in a hotel today and put the phone down so they were so proud to tell the guest who was calling for a room uh well this is before the internet your listeners might not remember this people used to ring hotels um so this is a long time ago uh put the phone down and then I said why did we just hang up on that customer we could have got their details maybe next time we can tell them if we've got a promotion.

11:17And the receptionist was like, well, you know, this is what we just would fill up. We haven't got time to deal with it. We've got guests checking in. So I came up with an idea of something called Accommodation Express, where people could ring up the hotel that was full and we divert them to a telephone number that would find them a hotel in the nearby vicinity. And we get 15 % commission for booking that room. So otherwise the inquiry wouldn't be wasted. And I started my second business, Accommodation Express. But basically once that entrepreneur muscle had been woken up in my brain, I found it very hard to accept a salary and be told what to do.

11:44And so I started a second business called Accommodation Express. And this did work. This made me, in my mind at that time, proper money. I made£80 ,000, which at the time was a huge, huge sum of money for me. And I managed to make a business work. And so I actually had the early days of hotel.com. I actually sold that business too early. Another mistake. You do make so many mistakes in the process. But I went from, okay, I can get a job now to realising that, no, why would I get a job? Why would I sell time? It doesn't make any sense. I want to build a brand, not just work for someone else's brand.

12:18I want to build something where eventually I own my time.

12:20Grace Beverley: And what were the main emotions that made you kind of feel that? Because I totally understand the experience of, I guess, a certain element more freedom when starting your own thing or freedom to think and solve problems the way you want to. but I also think that given how you were at the time I can imagine that that also would have been a huge call internally to security like I think that the way you say it it feels very oh yeah of course this is the case like of course I exercised that entrepreneurial muscle once and then I thought well now I'm an entrepreneur I have to do things that way I can imagine someone in the exact same situation thinking the opposite and going, oh, well, that didn't work after, you know, that winter because people didn't need gardeners.

13:09Grace Beverley: So I need to find something where even if the business struggles a bit more, I'm still being paid. What do you think it was that made you think of entrepreneurship as the only solution for you rather than one of two solutions where one actually maybe is a little bit more security for what had been quite an insecure situation for yourself yeah I'm thinking back it's a really interesting point I think there was lots of factors first of all I think once you've experienced entrepreneurship one you realize how hard it is but kind of like exercise or anything something hard makes you stronger if you complete it so I I got a bit addicted to the building concept and I enjoy it I enjoyed taking something from nothing and making it real.

13:57And I got a bit addicted to that. So when I was in the job, what was security, I guess, which was the salary bit, wasn't enough to take away that I would pitch an idea to my boss and they would say, no, no, Simon, that's not what we do here. That's, you know, we're not going to take the inquiries and turn it into a business. We're a hotel. We just take bookings, you know, sell the conference room, please. You know, that type of thing, right? So I'd woken up. That's the only way I can describe it my my ability to accept commands that didn't make sense or opportunities that were being missed my brain just wouldn't accept it anymore yeah if I had if I hadn't started something that failed I wouldn't have felt that feeling I'm talking about it's so funny

14:35Grace Beverley: because when you say that that really makes me think of what I felt originally when because I only did 13 months in corporate before I I guess I became an entrepreneur and the only reason that happened. I think I would have done well more had I started in that corporate world after university. But because I did that before university when I was 18 and I had the one main thing I had issues with in the corporate world, I didn't mind the hours. I didn't mind having a boss. I didn't mind or I found it very glamorous. I thought it was great. I love tottering around. I thought it was, you know, I thought it was what I wanted to do.

15:09Grace Beverley: The thing that frustrated me the most was when things were being done slowly, inefficiently, or in a way that didn't make sense to the business. And there was no way to change it because it was just the way things were done. I think had I not got so frustrated with that, I would have gone to university, started the businesses as I did, and still gone back into corporate because I would have thought just as I haven't tried entrepreneurship, I haven't tried my corporate dream yet. So I need to also see that through to see if that's the right thing for me. And it's so funny, I always wonder about whether that is something that everyone has or whether it's like I I see it as almost a I think it could be a negative trait in some ways like the inability to put up with things being done badly and just want to even if it takes double the amount of time to actually fix the process just to not see things being done in a in a stupid way I totally agree once you get that itch it means that like anytime I talk to a business owner now, anytime I'm speaking about a specific problem, even if it's not one, I've got a business in that area.

16:13Grace Beverley: I'm like, I could probably spend an hour talking to you extremely passionately about why something doesn't make sense. And that is the essence of entrepreneurship. I completely agree. I think people listening, there's something about this that's quite important, I think, to dig into. You kind of, again, I believe everyone can be an entrepreneur. Not everyone agrees with me on this. But I think the thing that we're talking about here it's not a skill set thing it's a realization that you are in control of things thing and and once you have control over your life it's very hard to give it back right so it's like i mean i've never been to prison but i don't know what it's like imagine being released and you you have to follow the rules when you're out of prison still again and but being in prison was the reason you know you're not going to commit a crime again right i think people don't understand that they can control their own destiny and that includes frustrations in your life so for example I only work with people I like.

17:05I don't have to work with people that I don't have fun with, right? I don't have to. Whereas in corporate, you have to do that. Why would you? There's little things, right? If there's an opportunity in the business to make your customers happier by investing a bit more, you can just do it. Whereas a finance department will say, well, you know, cost covering, we're not sure we want to do that. It's just, you can do things. And I think it's something everyone can do. And once you experience it, you won't want to go back. it's a bit like being a parent on paper being a parent makes no sense yeah zero so i've got an eight-year-old right and when you look at it like you're gonna lose time it's gonna cost you money you could argue it's stressful that's why a lot of young people aren't having kids now because on paper it doesn't make sense but when you have a kid you have unconditional love you never experience it until you have a kid like i i don't have unconditional love for my parents or my family or my friends you have conditional love but when you have a kid of your own it's unconditional love you never and you're having your own business is a similar kind of thing you just have control and you have unconditional love for it and that can't be had via logic salary makes sense logically but the upside is capped that's obvious but the control is the most beautiful thing like own your hours you and i can stop this podcast right now and just go for lunch if we want right we have that power why would you not want that's total freedom that's totally out of the prison freedom, right?

18:26Grace Beverley: Oh, see, that's where we differ. I think that, like, I completely understand that logic and I think it makes total sense. I don't, and maybe it's because I have investor-backed businesses. I mean, not all of my businesses are investor-backed, but, and maybe it's because, I don't know, maybe it's the way I see things or, like, whatever it might be, but I don't believe there's any job in which you don't have a boss. I think that, and where you have total freedom. By the way, I agree with you. I have a bosses too. Because that's the thing. What I don't want people to do is to start a business purely because they don't want a boss.

19:01Grace Beverley: I think that that is one thing that it can be a big reason and you can still make it big and you can still do incredible things. But you're always going to have a boss. Like my boss is the customers. It's the investors. It's the money we've put into the cash flow of ordering certain things. So, yeah, we could go for lunch, but actually if we don't do the thing that needs to be done in order to make the marketing happen to do that, then you're fucked and you go back to having a different type of boss or whatever it might be. I so strongly believe that there are different jobs for different people in that if you're risk averse in a way that it makes you anxious to be ever in a situation where there is more risk rather than it making you hungry, then maybe it's not the right thing for you.

19:43Grace Beverley: Like maybe your better version of a boss is a traditional boss versus all of these different things that, yeah, one day you might feel total freedom. The next day you might, you know, it might come slamming down on you and you realize that you're now in hundreds of thousands worth of debt or whatever it might be. I do totally agree with you that most people assume that they're the way they're doing things and the way they're making money is the way that it has to be. And I think that that's far more compelling coming from you because I come from a much more privileged background. And I think that if I sit here and say like, oh, but you could all do this when actually I will have access to so many things that, you know, other people might not do.

20:24Grace Beverley: I think that it points me to the fact that actually all I want is, as you say, for people to think more about the opportunities that are actually ahead of them and what they're genuinely suited to. And if it is just the fear holding you back rather than because it's maybe not a good idea, then go for it. Like 100 % go for it. I agree with what you're saying. I think there's always nuance. So when we're having these kind of like conversations that say about freedom for a second, if I walked out of this podcast right now, it would be a good clip. the podcast would probably do better. You'll make more money.

20:56Literally, if I just want, I'm leaving. This is not the interview I wanted. I'm sorry, it's rude. This is going to help the podcast, right? So freedom comes... You underestimate my conviction in myself

21:10Grace Beverley: because if you think that I would post that... No, but you know what I mean? If you and I left for lunch now, you've got the wrong investors if they care about that. And if customers don't understand that, you know what, we decide just to go for lunch, you've probably got the wrong customers too. See, so for me, my personal freedom, I make content, personal brand is one of the hardest things I've ever done. I built 19 companies. Personal brand building has been the hardest thing I've ever done. Why? Because I'm actually trapped in it. I have to do it every day. I work for my team. They tell me when I have to record.

21:44I wanted to have breakfast with my family this morning. Dudley, my team, wanted to meet me at 7 a.m. because we're doing a documentary on university and he wanted me to record. So I kind of work for them. but what I'm getting to is like having said all of that I do have freedom because it's my choice

21:59Grace Beverley: to do that yeah it's like a choosing your heart and this is what's important and I'm not glamorizing it I'm not saying it's an easier life and I agree with you I have a boss the team that I work for tell me what to do I have a boss the dream is that I promise to help right I have a boss my wife right I have plenty of bosses but all of them are aligned with my values and if today I want a day off, I will do it. And yes, that might mean the income of the business drops a bit, but we have to have freedom. And I think that's what I don't like about the present system. People at nine o 'clock turn up, finish at three.

22:30Quickly, I'll say the other side of it. I love data. And I'm looking at the data at the moment of 700 ,000 university students that have come out of university with an on average debt, 58 ,000 pounds, spent four years of their life in university, promise the job no job they can't find a job 700 000 kids there are 9 500 graduate jobs for those kids okay so there's not enough jobs and they're sitting there many on social benefit very talented probably a lot of them your listeners ready to go and the job doesn't exist so my argument now and i've been making this argument for six years but now i've got data to back me up We want to give people the chance to create their own job until they find one.

23:14Let's put it that way. Until they find the safe job with the perfect boss and the perfect customers, great. But we want to give people a chance to create their own job. And my version of entrepreneurship might be a little bit different to how you and I operating. You and I operating. I've got investors in my businesses. Sure, we're operating a different type of entrepreneurship. But there's different types of entrepreneurship. I met someone yesterday who can't find a job. They've lost all their confidence. They have no confidence. I said to them what do you love to do I love to walk dogs I'm like start a dog walking business I have a working cocker spaniel that needs walking all the time I'll pay you to walk my dog and I'm not the only one that needs that so if you love walking dogs why don't you just do that for now make a little bit of money have some fun build a little fun business that probably will fail right but people need to create their own job when there isn't one and that's what I'm getting to now like entrepreneurship is the wrong word it's a French word it's the wrong word I'm trying to think of a better word but it's like go out there and do something with your talents the thing you love match it with the thing that you think that you're good at.

24:13And so don't wait for someone to give you the keys to a better life by giving you a job. And so I think that I don't want to glamorise entrepreneurship. I've never said it was easy. I think working for yourself is hard at the beginning. It does get easier over time.

24:24Grace Beverley: 100%. Working for someone else is easy at the beginning. It gets harder over time. Let's face it. So people get a new boss come in. Oh, I'm new. I'm doing things differently. I don't care that you work till midnight every day for the last three years. I'm the new boss. And I need to see that you're good enough. Oh, I'll bring my old team in and you're out. Right? I know people that worked in companies 10 years, like Oracle just laid off 30 ,000 people. They built that company. They're gone. They're out. They own nothing. So to me, it's like, why not give people this one other option, which is entrepreneurship, for want of a better word, a chance to do something you love every day.

24:54Forget the money. If you can just pay your bills, that's a win if you're doing something you love every day.

24:59Grace Beverley: I totally agree with that. I also think the one thing that on top of that that people miss in what you're saying is the end failure of the business, for example, to say your gardening business or a dog walking business or whatever it might be. That is no different from just leaving a job, whereas that carries so much more weight for people. Like if I start something and it doesn't go on to be this massive thing and scale in all these different ways and all of this, if it gave you a job for those few months or for that year or for those few years or for that fucking week, like you earned some extra money, that was still success for the purpose that it served at the time.

25:37Grace Beverley: And I think that it's so easy, I think particularly with social media now where you're seeing so many people do so many incredible things and build massive companies and all of this. It's really easy to think that actually the solution you're looking for has to be this big, bold, wheel reinvention type thing. When in reality, the large majority of businesses, A, didn't start like that. B, not every business needs to be the biggest business in the world. Like if your business is aim is to keep you afloat and to mean that you can, as you say, maybe choose your hours, maybe do something you love, maybe be on your feet rather than be at a desk, whatever it might be that motivates you.

26:14That is still a version of success.

26:17Grace Beverley: And I think so many people are put off by this idea of kind of where does it go in a few years? That used to be my biggest thing when I started my first company and when I first came out of university. I was just shit scared. I was like, what do I do with this company in 10 years, 15 years, 20 years? Because I was like, oh, I don't know if the model now would work for it. Then it's like, stop thinking about that. Stop obsessing over where this is in a few years. Start obsessing with how it's serving you and the customers and the company now. And I think that if more people thought about things in the way that you've just suggested and just said, OK, what would make my year better if I didn't work for this person?

26:53Grace Beverley: And if I had a bit more money and if I was on my feet more, great. there's a hundred percent something you can do even on top of your existing job that will get you to that result it's just maybe you are being held back by thinking that that's not gonna you know that doesn't put you squarely within entrepreneurship or that doesn't make you build the type of company that you're going to sell it doesn't need to be all about the new AI thing and the new tech whatchera call it and that's something that's going to be sold to an investor well said by the way I give a round of applause I hope your audience are I you're like the uh cooler younger version of me all of you know that everything you just said i can i just want people to replay it if they could just because um it doesn't sink in if people don't understand the power of your imagination and do it if you're sitting there with no job in particular please don't give up because that's not your only avenue right and so i just want people to take control agency over their life a little bit like i did by luck by chance happened to me so i've seen the difference of having the right mindset and not being a victim.

27:58I could have been a victim and I was lucky. I don't know how I didn't end up a victim. But then I have control over my life. I realised that I can make my own luck.

28:07Grace Beverley: And along those lines, what would you say your big break was? Like when did you get that big break? Because you've gone from gardening to starting 19 companies and having some pretty whopping exits as well. Well, I think luck plays a huge part in life, but you can hack luck, it turns out. So you mentioned earlier having privilege. I've done a lot of research. I've actually done the world's largest human survey. I've been saying this. I'm getting away with it, so I'm going to keep saying it. I've done the world's largest human survey. I've asked over 10 ,000 people what their dream is all over the world.

28:39I've been from Hong Kong to LA to, of course, London. I've asked people this question, and I've kind of discovered something. I've discovered quite a few things, But one of the mind-blowing things is the people I find that are the happiest are often those paid the least, working the longest hours. And they're not necessarily entrepreneurs, by the way, because I think a lot of entrepreneurs are also doing it wrong because they're chasing the big exit statement or they're chasing the big valuation statement. I think not enough people are doing what I've seen the most happiest people do. And the most happiest people I've met in the world that often tell me when I also want their dream is, they tell me they're living it.

29:14and that is nurses and police and folks in the fiber grade those that are helping other people those that get up every day and they save a life get up every day and make a difference in someone's life because we're actually tribal we've kind of forgotten this in a slightly materialistic world it's about the house we've got and the car we've got we've forgotten actually it's each other we need it's very cheesy but the people i've seen that are the happiest are the ones that are serving other people including entrepreneurs the entrepreneurs that i meet that are just trying to be the next uber not that happy actually but the ones i see that are chasing solving a problem in the world like i'm trying to fix the education system like i am the happiest i've ever been in my

29:55Grace Beverley: life because i have a mission beyond me beyond making money we make money we make a lot of money but that's not my aim ironic i think you make more money when your aim is to bring value to the world right yeah no it's so true because i 100 % agree i i meet a lot of entrepreneurs who don't get me wrong far better at entrepreneurship than i am because they are looking at this big problem that's needed for a really niche tech space b2b like all of this and they think of an incredible solution and they build it and they are bringing it to market and they're going for that big exit i honestly do not think anything would make me more miserable like that's not where i get fulfillment because if the end goal is where the fulfillment comes from then I've never been fulfilled a day in my life because I've not exited a single business other than investments like I'm not you know all of that I think that even what you say I think that some people might listen to that and be like okay well I don't have an amazing not-for-profit idea or an incredible social enterprise or whatever it might be but even on a micro level like even none of my businesses are saving lives right when I talk to a Tala customer who's told me that they have never felt confident in their body until they've put our clothes on and walked out of that store feeling like a million bucks like that or someone who's been able to actually get their career on track through using the productivity method things like or actually being able to work as a creator full-time for the first time through retrograde like whatever it might be none of that is saving lives but it's still fulfillment because as you say being able to solve problems for other people whilst also not entirely selfishly solving a problem for yourself in terms of the type of life you want to have the type of work you want to have the type of company you want to build like there is so much joy in that and I think that in a world where we've tried to get rid of as much friction as possible from literally every area of our lives you have to get fulfillment from somewhere and usually that comes with a little bit of friction usually that comes with a bit of hard work and actually out like out the other end that is when you feel great about things i like listening to you talk thanks so much there's a podcast well tune in you have a new fan i am there's something about the way you describe things that it's so important first of all i think you are saving lives i i've actually met people that were inspired by your content that decided to carry on with their dream, with their life, with their hopes and wishes, right?

32:23So I wouldn't undervalue yourself for a second, all right? You have saved lives. Katie on my team, for example, has watched your content when she was going through a hard time and you helped her. Now, I'm telling you right now that what you're doing is more profound than you perhaps give it credit for. Now, however, I totally agree with you that people listening, you don't have to start there. I actually think charity-related businesses are a bit broken. So when I started out six years ago, my original thinking is maybe I'll get into politics. I'll go and fix the education system from inside the system.

32:52And then I realized something I know to be true. You can't put a fire out in a house unless you're outside the house. So I decided to fix the education system from outside it. When I first started making content, what I quickly realized was the first bucket I needed to fill was my own. So I wanted to help people. I wanted to feel useful and I wanted to be seen. My whole journey is a selfish one. I wasn't doing it to be philanthropic. I wasn't doing it to give back. I wanted to be useful. I'd sold my company and I fell into a kind of depression. I'm like, what am I here for? What's the point? I've done it now.

33:26I'm not poor anymore. I've got, it's not money I need, but I felt totally lost. And what's the point of being here? So I started my content series from a very selfish point of view. Like people were struggling online, being sold courses that were bullshit, that were just promising to get rich quick. So I jumped into tick tock where they were hearing this bullshit and said that's bullshit this is how you build a business and so it's very very selfish it wasn't I wanted to solve a big problem necessarily at the beginning I built into my mission but initially I just wanted to solve a problem I had which was I felt useless useless I didn't feel like I was doing any good in the world just sitting around playing golf driving a fancy car which I know the listener is going to be oh poor Simon that must have been hard it was not fun I had no point to my life so I think for profit for good by the way is a really healthy way to look at a business now going forward.

34:16Fill your own bucket. Make money for yourself. But then maybe, like we do, we take a large proportion of our profits and we give it to fund people's dreams. So we've given£426 ,000 away this year to people to help them with their dreams. We're not Dragon's Den. We haven't taken equity. We don't want anything back. And I'm so, like, I feel so happy about that. But it's filled my bucket first. I get to do something where I'm useful and I get to be seen. and then my second priority is like to bring value to those people and actually deliver on what I promise which is to help people with their dreams.

34:48You see what I mean? Like I think too many people think it has to be this brilliant idea. No, just start a gardening company, start cleaning. Whatever it is to get you going, it doesn't have to be this big meaningful thing. You've built into your big meaningful thing, right? It's a step by small little steps each day and part of it is just trying things, seeing what you like to do, right?

35:08Grace Beverley: Yeah, no, I totally agree with that And I want to dive into that a little bit because I think that lots of people listening to this will go, OK, great. I want to follow my dreams. I've got not a fucking clue what my dream is. I've always been that type of person. I've never once known what I want to do with my life. I've never had a career I wanted to follow. I've never had a subject I particularly wanted to do. I've never had like any inkling around like what my life looks like. And I think that that can be paralyzing at points. Like I think that that can keep you stuck. so how does someone listening to this who has no idea what their dream is even find that out and start setting on that right path yeah it's a important question because i ask people what their dream is and if you don't know the answer my eight-year-old doesn't know the answer i ask him every week right the 29 year old person sitting across for you yeah that's what i mean and you know what there's nothing wrong with not knowing but i think there is something wrong with not asking the question because in the school system and one of the reasons i'm really upset the school system, the first question they ask you, my son was four when they asked him this question.

36:11They asked him, what will you do when you grow up? I think that's very trapping. He looked at me at four years old. The teacher was asking him. Suddenly he has to make me happy. A doctor, a lawyer, what's going to make the teacher happy, the parent happy? Their brain is getting trapped into like a thing that's going to make us happy, not what's going to make them happy. It's the wrong question. I think the question we should be asking ourselves when we're young is what problem we'd like to solve. If we ask ourselves what problem we'd like to solve, the brain opens up a bit. And so it's opening up the brain is partly why I ask people what their dream is.

36:42Most people don't know what the answer is, unless they're American. Everybody in America is the answer.

36:47Grace Beverley: I know, what do they put in the water? I don't know. But everybody in America has a dream. Every single person. You know why? Because we wake up into the world of America, and the first thing is the American dream, what's yours? And it's so, America, in fairness, for all its flaws is one of the most forward-thinking entrepreneurial places in the world. And, you know, we as British people, I think we do admire America, but we don't get asked that question in Britain. We are literally, what job will you do when you grow up? We're not asking what your dream is. I think I've begun to change the narrative in this country because I think people are asking, oh God, I might bump into Simon Scrib.

37:22I wonder what my dream is. I hope Simon Scrib doesn't stop you. Yeah, exactly. And the thing is, the irony is that, you know, just asking the question is a good first step and there's nothing wrong it could be your whole life you spend your whole life discovering it and what i've seen is categories the first category is people that absolutely know what they want and there are a lot of your listeners that will know they know what they're meant to do they know what they're good at and they know that they could go out there in the world and do good with that thing they're good at but they're not doing it and i think that's because they need to take their their their want to do it and make it a need those people the second category is people that have an inkling but most of the time those people are caught in fight or flight they're so busy with their life and what they've been told to do rent a expensive flat in London get a fancy car they got trapped in this materialistic treadmill that they don't have time to activate the creative part of their brain that could give them a step-by-step guide to make their vague dream in their head a reality the third category is people that just have no idea and I don't think I think you're in the second category but let's put let's put you in the third category I would put me in the third category most of the time you're end purpose you'll connect the dots bone backwards.

38:26But most of the time, you're just solving a pain point for yourself that you have in life. So in other words, your purpose is in your pain, right? My purpose is in my pain. The 15-year-old me that asked for help, and the only way I could get help is with money. I didn't have money, and I desperately needed help. I'm never letting that happen again to another 15-year-old. Second thing is, no one told me about entrepreneurship at school. Like, this is painful for me. Why did I have to spend five, six, seven years failing at it when I could have been taught 13 years prior in school about it a little bit how to sell how to communicate i can be an introvert or extrovert you can sell right what money how money works no one told me so my pain has led me to at 52 years old to go on tiktok and not dance you know what i mean like it's led me to do things i probably should but back to your point you know like it's been painful i was very embarrassed going on TikTok at the beginning and all of my peers I'm part of a group of people that have all sold their company everyone's like what are you doing oh I'm buying real estate and renting it out and I'm buying buildings and converting them into this what are you doing Simon I'm on TikTok talking about business they're like what I was so embarrassed for so long doing it but I knew it was how I was going to reach young people in particular when school wouldn't let me go in and teach entrepreneurship I'll go to where the kids are learning naturally on YouTube on TikTok.

39:47Like it or not, I think social media is one of the most exciting opportunities for young people today to build a life they want, right? Everyone's so down on social media. I think it's liberating. I think it's one of the most amazing tools, along with AI and your phone and Wi-Fi. You can literally sit here right now after this podcast and you can start something. You can do one video that could go viral. I'm not saying it will. It could. It's not about how many followers you've got. It's about how good the hook is, how good the video is. You could get millions of views on a product ID you've got now, today, in this moment.

40:17Like there's never been a time in history like it. And you can get AI to help you organize everything in the back office. You don't need to hire a CFO anymore. I used to have to hire a CFO when I started a business. I used to have to get a proper manager of the business in. No, not anymore. You don't need those things. Like it's so liberating if people realize it. Everyone's too focused on the negative. Social media is addictive. Yep. Get control of addiction. Food's addictive. Yep. Get control of addiction be careful you don't get addicted to things people oh it's you know it's cost of living yes it's expensive so you have to fight don't you you don't just want it you need it so yeah go out there and make the world a better place you know what i mean like people need to take control instead of all the problems they realize that you've got social media at your fingertips you can reach millions of people today you've got ai to help you build a business you've got knowledge from you and me and other people like we never had so much free good knowledge available to go out there and follow your dreams at least ask yourself the question what is your dream even if you don't action it today just asking it might wake up that entrepreneur muscle in your brain and give you that bit between the teeth to go and do it or not but it's worth trying give yourself pain is probably my end conclusion i went and traveled the world and i saw things that were a problem i've got friends for example who built businesses they went to thailand they saw plastic in the water like that's not right and they go away and they build a business where water's soul without it being in plastic can of water josh my friend there so what i'm saying is like you go see pain in the world and you come back and you're annoyed at that pain and you fix it so anyone listening that doesn't have pain probably means they don't have a dream they

41:48Grace Beverley: should go give themselves some pain i really like the idea that you when you're not happy in your life a lot of people automatically think it's because their life is too hard and i i do not take that away from people, 100 % lots of people will be in that situation. I think a lot of the time now, modern life, reduced friction, massive convenience. I think a lot of people aren't happy because their life is too easy. And a lot of the things that actually make them fulfilled day to day or the things that they need to overcome to get to X, Y, Z, or to make their lunch or to get wherever or whatever is taking away the actual process, which is taking away the whole journey of living and it's not good for our heads like it is not good for our mental health to have that lack of friction and i love that you put that spin on your positioning of kind of like maybe you're too comfortable if you put yourself in a position where you have need you will do amazing things yeah business is booming but you know what really helped zero the accounting platform for small businesses.

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44:50Grace Beverley: And what about someone who's listening and they are in, let's say one example, they are in the corporate world. They know they don't want to be there. They know they want to do something else at some point, but they genuinely do not know how to get off that treadmill in a way that I'm not sure I would either in terms of security of salary, in terms of a mortgage they're paying or the rent they're paying or the kids they're looking after, whatever it might be. How do they start to formulate a plan or start to formulate some movement that helps them start to follow their dream? So I spent two years writing a book answering this question.

45:30So I wrote a book called What's Your Dream? And I put in there a step-by-step guide for exactly this demographic of people. And in a nutshell, so you don't need to buy the book, is...

45:40Grace Beverley: Buy the book, guys. Buy the book, link down below. But, you know, the basic crux of it is a combination of things. First of all, you need to build a bit of a boat for yourself, like six months, maybe even a year of savings. Get your costs down. because these things, even if you don't make the leap, just less pressure to have to have the job, the better. You don't ever want to be forced into having the job. So when people get big mortgages and they get big car loans and they get big credit card debt, what they're really doing is they're now working for those organisations, right? On top of the job, they're working in the job to then pay those organisations.

46:16So just get your cost down. In general, I think this is a good bit of advice, but then it will allow you to come out of fight or flight because a lot of people are in fight or flight. You've got big bills to pay. you need this job there's no questioning it because you need it second step I think the thing that I've seen work for most people is imagine you're 92 years old and you didn't try it you didn't do it you won't be able to go back to that 40 year old you it's too late you're 92 wondering what could have been you never want to live a regret you can you can live later in life quite poor. I was just in New Zealand, amazing facilities out there.

46:54If you're older and you're poor, you still have a pretty nice life. I was just there. So, you know, there are ways to live without lots of money in life. You've got people around you that love you and all these things. The point I'm making is like, you can't live with regret though. Like everything I've ever done, every idea I've ever had, I've done. I'm never going to sit there at 92 and say, I wonder if I'd done that, what would have happened? I'm about to want to drink, Brian. I'm pretty scared, but I know I can help millions of people if it works and I don't want to live a regret that I didn't try now it may fail and this Simon Squibb guru guy is going to be on the front page of the newspaper as a complete failure and that does worry me but I'm also okay with it because I don't want to live a regret even if it's a failure at least I have a good story and I won't be at 92 wondering what if so anyone listening don't be that 92 year old with regret forward now on your mind imagine close your eyes imagine you're 92 you had an idea and you didn't do it or you wonder what it was like to work as an entrepreneur try it for a year you can go back to the job the good thing about people that are listening now who have that job you're talking about they're probably okay to get the job again now it's people with no experience like these university grads i'm worried about them because they don't have experience and they don't know how to start a business but frankly if you've got an okay job right now you can take a year out and try it this crazy entrepreneurship thing walking dogs for a year worst is you do 20 000 steps a day you get a little bit more into shape and then you get the job again.

48:19Grace Beverley: My resting heart rate has never been better than when I was doing 20 ,000 sales. That's what I mean. Exactly, yeah. And apparently the meaning of life is getting your resting heart rate down. Well, exactly. I've heard that too. So that kind of makes sense to me, right? And so, you know, but I just think regret is such a big thing and people don't think about it enough. And people are planning their, you know, retirement and they're getting their pensions, but they're not thinking about their state of mind at that age. And I personally want to have tried everything I've ever thought of. Now, that does sometimes mean that I'm trying crazy things and I'll probably fail many, many more times.

48:51So what?

48:52Grace Beverley: But I think that is exactly the mindset that keeps you going and keeps you being at this position because I think that so many people see this view and I've absolutely come from this position originally, is seeing success as we talked about, like as an end goal. And so it's something that you get to. And I think so many people will have seen you, for example when you sold the first company you sold for a hell of a lot of money being at that point and being successful however there's nothing to say that your life would have continued to be enjoyable like yes it would have continued to be frictionless and probably pretty fucking easy and probably you know you wouldn't have to worry about a lot of the things that lots of people worry about but maybe it's exactly that mindset that that put you into entrepreneurship in the first place that is exactly why you are still doing this now and the reason I say that is because I always like one of my favorite traits about myself is I am clearly continuously happy to put myself out on a limb and do something that might maybe even wreck my career to a certain extent over and over like every single year since the start of my career I have started some sort of new venture or you know backed something or whatever it might be not all of them have worked out like whether this is new products within the companies themselves whether this is a new venture partnering with someone else whether this is and I'm very aware that all of these things are very specific to me as areas that I could go into but I think that had I 10, 9, 8 years ago in the first few years of starting my businesses had I been so happy with that kind of the what that had achieved that I'd just been like, great, okay, cool, must continue down this trajectory, I wouldn't have half the joy I have now, which I think comes from genuinely being happy to fail in public over and over and over again.

50:53Grace Beverley: Because sometimes I look at it 100%. How can we give that to people listening? How do we bottle that up? Yeah. I mean, I think first one of the main things is talking about it and showing it. Like when I first launched this podcast, it was the lowest engagement I would get on any content ever, every fucking week. Like over and over and over, I'd be posting it and I'd be like, God, this is so embarrassing. But I knew I wanted to do it and I knew that it made a difference to me. And I knew that it made a difference to people who wanted to start their businesses and wanted to improve their lives.

51:21Grace Beverley: And so like it genuinely took about two years for it to start being not embarrassing. Like I don't even mean like trajectory like this. I mean not embarrassing. And same with so many other things where it's kind of just like, OK, I could do this. It could fail. And by the way, my entire personal brand is linked to having successful businesses. So probably shouldn't be launching things that might fail. And yet every single year, I don't know what it is, but there is something inside me that clearly still wants to go out on a limb and try and do the things. I think the mindset is, OK, that might fail and that might be shit and that might really affect my personal brand because people would look at me and be like, oh, well, that business of hers did fail and she's meant to be this kind of business person.

52:05Grace Beverley: But it also could be your next massive thing that not only brings you success, but also brings you that joy of genuinely still feeling alive because you're still taking those risks. And I see so much of that in you. The fact that you were at a point where you never needed to work again and have continuously just been like, great, well, how can I still put risk into my life? I feel like that's probably where so much of the joy comes from. I agree. To your point, love the journey. You know, you've got to enjoy the process. I really want to give this to people though, if people take something from this podcast, it would be what you're talking about here.

52:40And I wonder if people understood, like my wife does kinesiology. It's kind of an amazing thing. I never really understood it, but it basically helps you understand what the body is telling you as opposed to what your mind is telling you. It's almost like what your heart says as opposed to what your mind says. And in the subconscious, in our early years, a lot of stuff gets pre-programmed into us. Our subconscious is why we don't remember anything often before the age of seven, because it's building up our subconscious belief systems. And one of the things in the school system that starts very early, I homeschool my son because of this.

53:11I took him out of school. Because in the school system, they'll tell you, sit down and do an exam on your own. And if you get an A, you're a success. If you get a D, we've got a serious problem. You're a failure. That's a problem. You're going to get into serious trouble. Don't get a D. And so in our subconscious, no one ever wants to get a D anymore. And so this is why I think this is a stat that I saw in someone else's books I don't know if it's true but 80 percent 80 percent of a students work for these students and I think it's probably true because I think about all the talented people that are working for someone else it's just crazy and it's because they don't want to fail and two things about that really upset me one is I've never built anything on my own without help if you sit me down and get me to do an exam I'm definitely getting a D but if you get all 48 people in my company together and we'd work something we'll all get we're definitely getting an A because we win in teams that that's not taught in school when we think we have to do it alone you can't do it alone you need to work in teams the second thing is a d is not failure a d is a lesson i got so many d's that i got comfortable with people calling me an idiot because i knew i wasn't but fine it's like you can't take anything from me when i'm already have nothing you see what i mean like i think people that get d's actually accept failure is like okay good now

54:27Grace Beverley: I think a lot of people listening are probably A students and they need to have a bit of failure in their life to get good at something. I literally went back to my old school for I did the like birthday assembly this year. And my one like the one takeaway I wanted for people to have, because a lot of it I knew I like I know the mentality of people in that school. It's very it was very academic. It was very focused on, as you say, like the A above everything. and I only joined that school for two years and I came from a completely different type of school where the reason I even changed was because they'd never got the grades that I would need to get to the university I wanted to get to and so I kind of had this completely different mindset and I was absolutely gobsmacked by how lots of people would not do things at all to avoid doing them badly where actually failure had been such a key part of everything I'd done up to that date Like genuinely, I think about the fact a lot that nothing I have that you would look at me and think is prestigious has come on the first try.

55:29Grace Beverley: I didn't get into Oxford on the first try. Literally like every single thing, my second business was like completely took off and I was flailing for a good amount of time. Like, yes, my first business had had success at the beginning, but being able to like evolve that and work out where that was even going took years and years and years. like every single thing that like I retook A-levels I retook GCSEs like every single thing that I thought was worth having I failed at the first time and I think that that when you give yourself permission to do that you stop looking at anything as a kind of oh shit well I've got to do this and I've got to do this well actually I don't know if I'm going to do it well so maybe I won't do it at all and actually it has to be turned on this head so so when I was giving that assembly my main thing was like I think people always say that fear of failure is holding you back I think that the most important thing is that this fear of failure is actually like stopping you from a whole life that you don't know you could have because I think particularly again with the increased convenience increased amount we see people succeed all of these different things we just are programmed now for convenience and success at the earliest opportunity and it's just not conducive to getting to where you want to get to i think people if they anybody listening now that has an idea just go try it if it fails so what okay make sure financially you're not in a serious situation but like i just think failure is is so cheesy but it's just a learning experience that really it's like when i build a business to me it's like a video game and i'm sometimes i'm figuring out along the way so i'm launching this drinks brand i went to see the perfect ted people yesterday they're inferior to my competition they're sharing all their knowledge how they did it they don't want me to make the same mistakes you know like it's so exciting to like not know something like i love entrepreneurship because i i never know it all there's always one more thing to learn like ai right now every entrepreneur is pretty excited about ai everybody working for someone else who's pretty scared of ai so what side do you want to sit on right if you're and if you own the business ai is a liberator you can grow your company faster you can do more if you're working for someone like wow that could replace me so i think that's why now like particularly now people should follow their dream more than ever because the job isn't safe like we were promised and you don't learn as much because often in companies they pigeonhole you into a particular thing you become a specialist at something you don't learn broadly even if your job is completely safe that social construct that if you worked hard and earned an average salary you'd be able to buy an average house or a house at all and have two and a half kids and be able to go on yeah it also doesn't exist so it's like yeah you're so right it's like the reframing of you've been promised this one thing in this job so if you're doing anything else you're taking a risk actually now both of those are risks so it's like which one are you going to do why is it the best thing for you what's best suited to you what's going to get you there faster all of that and i i think in this whole conversation around failure, which I think is incredibly important, it's easier to sit in hindsight and say, fear of failure is holding you back.

58:45Grace Beverley: Failure is one of the best things that can happen to you, all of this. What about in that moment? So like, what about someone listening to this who has just lost their job or they didn't get their dream job that they've been working for and believe they are highly qualified for, or they didn't get into the university they want to, or they just failed some school exams, whatever. That is a deep feeling, like being in that place and feeling that sense of failure. It's a lot harder than what we are feeling X amount of years on or whatever from whichever failure. So how do you actually in that moment feel that failure and utilise it in the right direction rather than holding you back?

59:28It is tough. I actually feel emotional when you talk about this because I meet these people who you just described. I meet them in the real world right now in the streets. And there's a lot of desperate people out there that feel totally underconfident. They went to university, they did everything they were told to do and no one will give them a job. And they're talented people. It is so, so sad. I don't know why, but it made me think of a bit of a name drop story. I'll drop a name here. Go on, I'll pick it up. I moved back from Hong Kong. when I sold my company Fluid to PricewaterhouseCoopers, I moved back to England.

1:00:02I was living in Hong Kong at the time. And I moved to North London. So I bought this house in North London, moved in. And it was the first time I owned a home. So it was totally my home. I was kind of excited to move in. I didn't do much due diligence on the home. I didn't know who my neighbours were. I didn't know anything. Anyway, my team are laughing because I mention this all the time. There's only one celebrity in the whole world that I like, really. I'm sorry, like. That's what I like. as in I'm a big fan there's only one celebrity in the whole of the whole of the world and it turned out my neighbor was this celebrity um Ricky Gervais so he's my neighbor and I try not to be a fan boy but I was definitely a fan boy I saw him every day pretty much for the next four years and try to not ask for a photo because we were neighbors so I was trying to play it cool um but the other side of me was a guy and his family who had become a lawyer.

1:00:57Now, funnily enough, this guy that became a lawyer, I actually known him decades before. And when he became a lawyer, it was kind of a big thing in our social thing that he'd become a lawyer. It was a very fancy thing to become a lawyer. I was a broke entrepreneur trying to make it. I couldn't get a job was the perception of entrepreneurship back then. Entrepreneurship was those that couldn't get a job, right? So I was an entrepreneur. And Ricky Gervais at that time, who I didn't know, was a struggling trying to be a singer guy, right? It was doing radio on the side, but he wanted to be a singer.

1:01:30People were laughing at him. People were laughing at me. In the time that I lived there, every single morning, the person who was now, we're now in our 40s, he's getting up at six o 'clock in the morning. He's going home at midnight. He doesn't see his family all day. and he's moaning to me he doesn't get to see his family on the Sunday afternoon when he's having a nap because he's so tired whereas me and Ricky Gervais are walking around Hampstead Heath we're having the laugh at the time of our life the point I'm getting to is like a lot of people listening what they should do if they're in a job they don't love or worse they they haven't got this job that they thought they wanted you know what go interview the people with that job I meet so many people that are studying something and they've never met the person who's doing the job that they're talking about you know what you might find it's lucky you can't get that job it's not me telling you this i don't want to say oh go start a business of your own go interview the very people you think you want to be because i tell people all the time only take advice from me if you want my life if you copy my advice you're going to get my life you're going to get i've been married 25 years i don't i don't know how to chat up women you you won't good luck i'm exactly but my point is like Like I'm not, you know, I work all the time.

1:02:36I just love work. I'm not allowed to say it probably legally, but the people in my team who I work for are my friends. You know, I work with people I actually like. You know, I don't have any work-life separation. Like my son is in my content. He's eight years old. He gave me feedback on the video we put on YouTube today. Like everything is integrated. Now, if you want that life, listen to me. If you really want work-life separation, work-life balance, don't listen to me. I'm eight kilos overweight don't listen to me about fitness you know what I mean like but but if you want to have a life that's fulfilling and you're willing to work then listen to me what I'm getting to is like a lot of people right now who think they haven't got the job they wanted I bet they didn't know what that life actually is yeah I think that's really really good practical

1:03:20Grace Beverley: advice on so many different levels I think that on the side you're saying absolutely you may well not even want that job and it may well just be a label that you see as the version of external validation that you need to complete your self-worth or whatever it might be you might also meet that person and realize you need to double down because that's exactly what you want but i think that it's so right particularly with social media now that actually it's very easy to see all these different versions of a life that you don't have and to automatically assume that you want the life of the ceo for example whilst actually only wanting 40 of the things in their life and that 40 % is the glitzy side you see on social media and I think that it's very hard to show that 100 % because even I can say that and still if I'm having a shit day I'm not going to be doing my job and posting on my stories like I'm just not because I need to do my job and I'm having a shit day so that's the last thing I want to do and I think that even just like practically from the point of view I think so many people have these ideas in their heads of like I want to do this or I want to be this or whatever it might be the actual execution of that it's going to take you so long to work out whether you actually want that and being able to put yourself close to someone who is doing that and learn as much as possible about the pros and cons and whether that suits you I think that I completely agree that both that's very important and also that there's that's something that the education system does not set us up well for

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1:05:52Grace Beverley: How would you say you know the difference and how do you find out the difference between failure that means that you should maybe try again and keep going and keep knocking down that door or failure where you should probably take the hint that that's actually not the right thing for you and go and do something differently it's a great question I think often but I failed so many times and every time I've had a failure I realized it had to happen so for example I invested in a company called Devashard it's a comic book business I lost a million US dollars and I couldn't afford it by the way this this was all the money I had I put into a comic book business it was a great idea I still love it which is like what if Superman landed in China It's funny how everyone instantly thinks he's evil.

1:06:39I don't know why. Or if Spider-Man was born in India, what would that look like? And the whole comic book series was around cultural awareness. It was really cool. And I fell in love with the whole idea. And I put all the money I had into it. And we built it up. And then it failed. And then one of the things that happened was, I don't even like saying his name, but someone very well known tried to get involved in the business. And it didn't work out. and it turns out that person that tried to get involved in the business was a very bad person it became out a bit later in the news that they were a very bad person and i just thought to myself thank god my comic book failed because otherwise i might have accidentally been in business with this person so everything kind of happens for a reason you're meant to experiment in life life is we said it already but a journey i don't think people realize it's really just one big experiment you know you can't take money with you so all the money i've already told my son i'm spending all the money I've made before I die you better make your own yeah kind of but I'm not doing my job as a parent if I don't give him the ability to like I'm going to give him a fishing rod not a fish if I tell him he's going to get all this money back to what we were saying earlier that won't give him the hardship he needs right don't get me wrong I buy him lego every single day right now he's eight so I'm doing right now I'm I'm I'm spoiling him I think there's up to

1:07:52Grace Beverley: 10 that's where all the money's going up to 10 pretty much I'm spending it on lego um but my point is that like i think for a lot of people you you should realize that it's the learning that's the fun bit even when it's a failure so i went to sandy yoga comic-con i met stan lee the creator of the hulk and spider-man i sat with nbc universal and they said they were going to turn it into a movie i've had all these incredible fun moments in the failure you know like the failure itself is the end result just like success hopefully is the end result but all the experiences in between are just the best thing ever.

1:08:25Like I did all these things, I would never have gone to San Diego Comic-Con and dressed up as a turtle if I hadn't had a comic book business. You know what I mean? Like it's the adventure of life that makes me want to keep trying these things too.

1:08:38Grace Beverley: And what would you say that kind of, on the other hand, for someone who maybe doesn't yet know whether something's a success or a failure, what does self-belief look like practically when you are trying something but it's not working out yet. Like it's not taking off, it's not providing for you. People just need to run the numbers. If you're scared of something, look at the maximum downside and can you take it? Because the maximum upside, humans, we find it very difficult to imagine the upside because we're scared to be too optimistic, which is a strange trait. Humans are the only animals that can think about the future.

1:09:13Most other animals can't prepare or plan the future, but sometimes we use it against ourselves. So we don't plan the upside enough and we plan the downside. I think as long as you can handle the worst case scenario, let's say all your savings are gone and you have to go back and get a job. Okay, that's the downside, right? You go back to where you are now, but you don't have any savings, but at least you have a story. I think run the numbers and then get comfortable with the downside. Good thing about a limited company, most business structures, there is a limited downside, right? Unless you do something illegal, which case there isn't.

1:09:44Grace Beverley: Personal guarantees. Personal guarantees. Well, be careful of those. but I think generally like in business my comic book business didn't go bankrupt I wound it down because it wasn't financially viable I always think it's quite healthy like I one of the things I'm most proud of is in 35 years I've met payroll every month I've never not paid someone and in part it's because my idea of a failure is when I've only got one month's money left and there's not any money coming in and I'm not going to raise money for this business anymore because I don't believe in it and I wind it down I've never gone bankrupt but I've had many businesses fail and I I think that's the way to plan it out a little bit.

1:10:16Maybe with your personal finances. I met someone outside the front here who wanted to launch a hat business. I told them, give me the sample because I'll give it to you, but they didn't have one. And so I said, they missed an opportunity. You should always have your hat in your hand if that's what you want to do. But I'm like, I don't have any money to make the hats. I'm like, how much money have you actually got? It's like, I've got 300 quid. I'm like, how many hats can that buy you? It's like, probably 40. I'm like, make 40, sell 40. Worst is you lose 300 quid, right? And you've got the whole cycle in your hand then.

1:10:42You know what marketing worked, what marketing didn't. You know, what people said about the hat afterwards. You know what I mean? Like, don't have to make a million and sell a million. You just need to make what you can afford. Downside is you've lost 300 quid, but you could probably have wasted that at the weekend going out. So that's your downside, right? And a bit of effort to make the content to try and promote the hats.

1:11:01Grace Beverley: I think the main thing there is that data generally makes you feel more comfortable because at least you have visibility. So, for example, as you just said, you're running the numbers. You're realising, oh, actually, the downside's a bit more than I can take. Like you make that decision at a point where you still have the upper hand. There's still a future. You maybe haven't gone through all your savings or, as you said, like you can wind it down, whatever it might be. I think that what can be really harmful is this kind of instead of that chasing your dream with a head in the sand kind of approach where you're not actually supporting yourself changing or chasing your dream because you are putting yourself constantly in a position where you don't even know what's going on.

1:11:42Grace Beverley: You don't even know how long the business can run for. You don't know the economics of the business, all of this. And all of this sounds very complex, but it's really not. It's just about working out how much money you have in your savings to be able to keep you going for six months, maybe if this didn't go out or didn't go right or whatever, and being able to have that visibility and then take the risk if you want to take the risk. Like I've had times in my business journey where I one time I clearly remember where I was trying to work out the downside because I was trying to work out if I should wind this business down.

1:12:12Grace Beverley: And I was thinking, God, you know, there are suppliers we've got things from there, all of this. And I was working out the downside and I was going, OK, well, right now, if everything stops and we stop it right now, I'm going to be two million in debt within the next few months. so whereas if i get to continue this for if i if i managed to you know we hit this number on this day and then this number on this day and this number on this day if i put like a few thousand more in then we could get to a point where we never hit that debt point because we never hit that cash flow issue and at that point i was like yeah i believe in this enough i'm gonna do it i'm gonna take the risk like potentially fuck everything up but i'm gonna take the risk i'm not gonna wind it down at that point you said something key there you believed in it that is actually important because i would take the hit on the two million if i didn't believe in it that's what happened with the comic book business yeah i actually didn't believe in it in the end it wasn't actually my dream it was someone else's idea someone else's dream i just took it on board i think that's key partly like downside you can get out of debt i don't want anyone to get into debt i hate debt by the way i've avoided debt my whole life i don't have any debt my house is owned outright my cars are owned outright i don't have any debt i hate it people always telling me to leverage Every financial advisor I meet tells me to leverage.

1:13:27I hate debt. But the key there is you can keep going because you believe in it. And you do need energy for these things. If it's taking your energy, you're going to get into more debt, to be honest. You can't. You'll just collapse. But if you believe in it, energy comes your way and you can push through. I think that is actually the key element.

1:13:45Grace Beverley: And I wish we could speak forever an hour because we have a lot to speak about. But very sadly, we have to wrap up for recording time. So can I ask you what the best piece of advice is that you've ever been given? I asked my wife this question this morning because this is the question you sent me in advance. Because I always had the same answer and I wanted to give something original. So I asked my wife what was the best advice she ever had. And then she didn't give me an answer. My normal thing is my wife actually has given me the best advice ever. She kind of, she reads a lot. I don't read at all.

1:14:19and she was talking about like, oh, you know, she read this quote, the purpose of life is a life of purpose. And I think it's so true. But when I asked her what she felt was the most important thing, advice-wise, that she'd ever heard, she said nothing. And I realized my wife is the best listener. You know, the whole thing, we've got one mouth and two ears, you know. Like I do actually, and I've been working on this consciously myself the last few years, is listening. Like listening to people, stopping in the street and hearing someone's dream, letting them completely finish it understanding what people out there are talking about politics wise and what's really going on like listening is such so my wife's advice if she'd said anything ironically would be listen more she listens to everybody and everything i was once in a meeting with her just to conclude i was once in a meeting with her a very very senior group of people in business and we were trying to do a big deal and i was pitching how brilliant my company was and how brilliant I was.

1:15:16And my wife, who was my business partner at the time, was sitting there. It was a two-hour meeting where I don't think I stopped talking for two hours the whole time. And at the end of the meeting, I said it was CNN we were meeting. And I was trying to win their work to do international marketing for them. And at the end of the meeting, the head of CNN marketing globally said, Simon, great presentation. Thanks very much. We know that Helen is the brain of this operation because she's just sat there and listened to a whole time. Helen, what do you think? And then Helen, who had listened to me and listened to them, watched their body language, everything, just said, I think the best thing for you to do is X, Y, and Z, which was a campaign idea.

1:15:55And I went, absolutely, let's do that, Helen, you're right. So basically, she listened for two hours, said one sentence and won the project. And so listening is so powerful. When Helen didn't even reply to me this morning, I know that's what she would have said. I think that's one of the, you know, purpose of life is a life of purpose, but sometimes just you know listen to yourself listen to your heart more than your head don't let logic get in the way of a good idea and listen to your family and friends but sometimes you know most importantly just kind of listen to what you feel you're meant to be doing not people have told you

1:16:26Grace Beverley: to do i love that well thank you so much thank you for sharing your wisdom um and yeah i mean we'll leave all of your info in the show notes but i'm sure people have seen you before and i'm sure they will be seeing you again sorry about that folks see you in the four you babe Thank you.

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1:17:45Grace Beverley: Now there's nothing on my skin, thanks to SkyRizzy. And that means everything. Ask your doctor about SkyRizzy, the number one dermatologist prescribed biologic and psoriasis. Visit SkyRizzy.com or call 1-866-SKYRizzy to learn more.

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