How to Achieve Crazy Stupid Giant Goals with Steve Sims | The Power Move Podcast EP 62
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From the art of the deal to keeping it real. Keeping it real. Live from the Simply Vegas studios, it's The Power Move with Jon Gafford. Back again. Back again. You know what? Ah.

I want to hear about the mongoose. I've been saying that. You got the picture, right? I do. I've been saying that for... It's not hooked up, though. I can't do that. I've been saying that for one year, boys. One year today, back again, back again. Today is our one-year anniversary of the Power Move podcast. It is. It hasn't been canceled, though. It hasn't been canceled yet. We're still working on it. The day's not over, Colt. You've tried. We've tried. We've tried. We've tried.

With me to my left, my name is John Gafford. I'm your host as always. With me to my left is the Bulgarian mongoose, Colt Amadan. Did you see his Photoshop last night? It was a thing of beauty. It was magical. I didn't know he had the anthem going with it. I did. Oh, yeah. Beautiful. The Bulgarian anthem. I sent him a tear, a smiling tear with the Bulgarian flag.

In case you're wondering, Steve, no, he's not Bulgarian. It's just the best nickname we came up for him. He's not a mongoose either. And with us as always across the way, Chris the Counselor. Connell, how are you, Counselor? Living the dream. Living the dream and in the hot seat today. One of my...

One of my favorite friends, man. One of my nearest and dearest to me. My man Steve Sims in the studio today, who is the author of a brand new book. You know what? Multiple book author. Multiple book. The first book, Ivy, if you didn't read the first book, Blue Fishing, amazing book. I loved it. I gave away to a bunch of people that bought it. Steve's got a brand new book coming out called Go for Stupid. Yeah.

All right. The art of achieving ridiculous goals. I mean, this is, you know, this is like that, though. Yeah, I figured you would go for stupid. We're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about a lot of other things. But of course, you know, we've got to do our first couple of five minutes of nonsense. So speaking of nonsense, and I know it's great. We had a little festive debate here. Yeah, very good. All right. Which is it? Well, Steve. Hi, Steve.

It's a pleasure to be here. I gave you a great intro and then didn't even say hi to you. Glad you're here, buddy. See, I'm so used to seeing you, man. I'm just like, I just see you all the time. He's here, just there. Like you're here all the time, that's how it is. So, obviously today, big news out of Washington not to get too political, but Biden finally passed this deal where he's waiving $10,000 worth of student debt.

I think there's a great business lesson in here because, again, if you listen to this podcast or this is your first time, the purpose of our podcast is this. You know, I'll tell you what it is. Obviously, with Steve being here, people might be listening for the first time. There you go. So here's what it is. I'm not a guy that found great success in life until probably in my early 30s. I spent most of my young 20s doing a lot of cool jobs, but I wouldn't say that they made a lot of money.

And I got caught in what I like to call the drift. I was kind of stuck drifting through life. One cool job to the next without getting any real footing or having any knowledge about what I wanted. So if you're somebody that's out there that wants more out of your life, you feel like you're maybe a little stuck, that's what this podcast is for, man. I'm actually talking to myself.

My mid-20s self is who I'm talking to with this stuff. And we give life advice, business advice. And we like to hear stories from people that have overcome great things and turned into great people. And maybe at one time in their life, we're doing some of the same stuff that I did. Wear sunscreen. Which is great. Wear sunscreen. You have yourself. Which is good. But when you look at the $10,000 forgiveness that came out today, right?

My first thought, and I think anybody's first thought that owns a business or anything else, regardless of your party affiliation, is who the hell's paying for that?

And I think that should be the first thought that you have. Now, I love Chris because when I talked to Connell about this earlier. Connell, what was your opinion on this when I said who's paying for this? What was your opinion? Well, I said I'd rather be investing in education of our nation than dropping bombs on people a world away. I said we've had 250 military interventions since World War II, but nobody's crying about building brand new fighter jets, right? So my opinion is this.

I lean classically liberal and people have used that as a dog whistle to me and nine kinds of different things. But at the end of the day, I look at it and go, what is the greatest economic thing we can do for our country, for our people? First, I believe in taking care of Americans,

And I want an educated populace because a rising tide lifts all ships. If we're out there, you're trying to hire people, and if they're absolute numbnuts, go with stupid but in a different way. That doesn't help me as a business owner. I'm stuck in a quagmire of stupidity, which is not what I'm looking for. I want educated people.

And I'm not afraid of education. I don't think it's just this liberal think tank that produces people with arts degrees and blue hair. At the end of the day, there's a lot going on, critical thinking, philosophy, sciences, et cetera. So I say, well, if we're going to invest 10,000 people, backdate it in people's education for a greater population, I'm less concerned about that than I am about buying ordinance and firing weapons into the Middle East. And I think Colt had a great counterpoint to that about the fighter jets, which was what was a Colt?

Did you not see Top Gun? Shit. I will stipulate to how awesome Top Gun was. And, you know, I couldn't find the closest flag store fast enough after watching two and a half hours of some of my favorite propaganda ever. But my argument was this. Okay, so I don't have student loans. When I was younger, I paid through college. I worked as a busboy at the Hard Rock Cafe, living a life probably similar to John's.

you know, working in restaurants and hustling, hustling. I had no other means of getting any money quickly. So I would eat the food, the restaurant I was working at was going to throw out. That's how I made it through February. Cause by that time, the summer money I'd saved up to try to help me pay for college was all gone. So I made it though. I made it and I, but I don't begrudge other people's, you know, I don't have, um,

A lot of examples I want to use right now, but at the end of the day, I worry about me. A lot of people out there, and they'll be worried about, well, what about me? How does this hurt me? I go, I don't really care what you're doing. I'm going to be successful in spite of what you get, what's given to you, what forgiveness. Because if you're the kind of person that is struggling under student loan debt, then we're not in the same situation. Well, I think the issue I have is so many people cheered this up.

is a handout or whatever it might be or, you know, whatever. I mean, there's already people pulling it apart is being racist or whatever, because it's not getting up to the classes. But I think the point is like, man, you can't learn anything about running a business by watching the U S government. You just can't, you know, for example, I feel bad if you thought you could. Yeah. Well, no, no. But, but like, you know, you know, I was telling you earlier, like we had, you know, the president of our, of one of our companies wanted to implement some things at one of our companies. And I said, great.

Priced it all out. We had it all priced out. And I said, cool, go find the money. And he literally then it became the, okay, we're going to cut this. We're going to move this around. We're going to get this. And here's this. And okay, now we're balanced back to here. And it's like, okay, great. Okay, perfect. Great use of that capital. Great use of allocation.

But just being able to just go we're just going to buy everything but where but where in the federal government Do you ever see austerity in the military ask anybody who works in the military and say how are your budgets distributed? They say we have to go through and waste ammunition. So our budgets aren't cut next year See, I have a great question for Steve Sims based on that which is you've been on several podcasts today promoting the view book is he gonna use the word austerity yet today and

No. Is that a first for you? I don't know if anyone can spell it, let alone use it. Yeah, it's literally like it's a Scrabble extravaganza. We only know if he uses these right. We don't even know if they're real words, Steve. We just nod and act like we're doing them. In economics and politics, you often hear austerity measures, and what they mean is, right, it's being...

Fiscally responsible. John and I have talked about this all the time. There's certain people that go, I'm fiscally responsible, fiscally conservative, and socially liberal. And I don't think those are competing interests. I think everybody should be fiscally conservative, including a government, blue or red. Everybody should be fiscally conservative. What are we doing? We're wasting money. So what I said to John's point about, well, we're not going to hand it out. My solution was to make it dischargeable in bankruptcy.

I've talked on this show about my views on the legality and the ethics of bankruptcy, and I'm very for it. I believe we should harbor entrepreneurial spirit in this country. And you should have a thing. I'm going to take a shot. I made a mistake at 18, so it shouldn't carry on until I'm 55.

Right. Bankruptcy clarifies a lot. That is a good point. I agree with that. The quote was at 17, I was turned down for trying to get a limp biscuit tattoo. Three months later, they gave me $120,000 to pursue a social arts degree. And I love how, I love how the guy's argument was. I wasn't responsible enough to get a limp biscuit tattoo. Okay. Nobody is responsible enough to get a limp biscuit tattoo.

Let's be honest. But the point remains that we're going to give kids the value of a brand new home, right? And what are they going to do with it? Here's the thing. People go, what did you do with that money? Well, they lived on it. They fucked around. They partied. They blew it on booze. They learned half what their personality is today based on that money, right? And I would have done it too. Had I been given the opportunities, I would have been a fuck up as well. I just didn't have the opportunity. So I didn't go through it. Well,

Speaking of frivolous wastes of money for something that only half the country cares about, how was your birthday yesterday, Colt? All right. What did you guys do for the birthday? This is 39 yesterday. Yeah, 39. You're almost 40.

Got one more year going to figure out life. One more year. No more. No more candlelight vigils. Yeah, exactly. You have officially hit candlelight vigilville, which means you get to, you know, you get to a point when like if you hit an age where if you pass away, there's no candlelight vigil. It's just people look at you, they go middle-aged man died. Yeah, I can kind of see that better. I can see it happening.

Well, enough of this nonsense. I want to get to Steve. Steve's like, this is just, are we going to talk to me? I'm enjoying the rest, to be honest with you. It's been a busy day. Yeah, exactly. We put you on the bench for a minute to catch your breath. You got the oxygen machine. I appreciate it. And now it's game time, baby. Let's go. I'm still trying to work out what austerity means. Exactly. We all are. So, Steve, for those of you, and I don't imagine that anybody that's listening to this, neither, all three of them know who you are. And, uh,

I got to believe, but if you don't, Steve Sims has been called the real life wizard of Oz. He is makes, you know, in his days of having a high end luxury concierge business, he made amazing things happen for people. So his ability to make things happen and grow his network are second to none that they are.

but I want to go, you know, you've probably been talking about a lot of the same stuff today. And obviously you heard the kind of theme of our podcast as we go through and what we started out. So, you know, what, where did you start? I know you started out with some, from some humble beginnings in England. So talk about that a little bit. Humble. That makes you sounds very romanticized, doesn't it? Basically, peaky blinders. Yeah, I lived in a shitty end of East London, was scared to go out after 930 at night. And, um,

I had no money and I hated it. And like everyone, like everyone that doesn't have any money, you've got two choices.

You settle and go, well, this is the life that was given to me and I'm going to go through it and hopefully die smiling. Or you go, I've got to change this shit. I've got to be able to do something with it. So I went out to try and get an affluent job to hang around with people with money. And so I tried. How old were you at this point? I was 18. 18 years old. I was 18. So...

You picture it. I've got no hair because I was in a bar fight once and someone grabbed my hair and it hurt, you know? So I shaved my head to get over that problem. And so I'm rolling around on motorbikes, got no hair, big thick lump, trying to get a job as things like stockbroker and realtor in England and financial advisor, yacht charter broker. All of these kind of jobs are circled within affluence. And of course, I was getting fired all the time.

ended up working on a door. And I thought to myself, classic Sean Stevenson, how can I make this happen for me and not to me?

And funny enough, being a doorman, I suddenly got to see how people interacted. And we've all been to those parties where the guy thinks he's got money and pretends as though he's got money. And then there's the girl. Open your Instagram. And then there's girls that are trying to find the guys with money that end up with those douchebags. And it's funny. And then you see people with money and they walk differently. They talk differently. They interact differently. Yeah.

So I started looking after those people, you know, holding the club open late, you know, getting them into gala parties. And it went from getting them into nightclubs and getting them in the premieres to working with Sir Elton John, Elon Musk, Vince Branson. And it just blossomed. That's a pretty big jump. So let me ask you this. It took 20 years for that jump. Well, that's what I'm saying. But at some point, right, like...

For me, like it was cool. You're working in a bar. You're probably having fun. Life is good. You're doing this, but you weren't making a lot of money doing that. So at some point, at some point there was a shift in you that said like, man, I don't want to just the coolness of this job is wearing off. I've got to start making some real money.

Do you know, the funny thing was, it was never cool. No? And it wasn't fun. It was always a means to an end. It was always... I always say that it was a Trojan horse. You see, I don't like too much attention, okay? It's got, for me, and I think this is something that happens when you get older, it just magnifies. If it doesn't move the needle...

Why am I doing it? And so even when I was younger, I didn't want to walk the red carpet. I didn't want to go to galas. I didn't want to hang around with rich people and toffs. I wanted to get educated enough to make me wealthy. I wanted to get that. And of course, we came from a period...

pre-internet. So we didn't have Instagram to show us how inadequate our life was, but we also didn't have YouTube videos or podcasts or audio. We didn't have that information that's so readily available now. So for me, the only way to get it was to be able to find someone that I could do something for to be able to grab their attention for half an hour. I didn't like doing what, I openly will say this,

I didn't like doing what I was doing, but I was doing it because it would make me smart and I could leave that room with an edge. And that's why I was doing it. Yeah. So just change, you know, you will, but then I guess you realize changing the room.

More important than changing the job was important. That was the key. That was the key. Because I would end up going back to the bar. I've been working with like a couple... At the time, I'd be dealing with like a couple of millionaires. So I thought these guys were the richest people in the planet. Guys like Colt. And I was thinking, God, these guys have money. They paid off that car. And then I'd end up going back to the pub with my biker mates. And I'd look at the room and we could only afford two beers. Right.

And I would talk to him and go, oh, yeah, I met this guy today. And he was talking about this and kind of like, you know, passive income. And they would all go, what? What's that? What? Can you spell austerity? You know, it was that kind of crap. I was thinking to myself, I'm in the wrong room. I need to change my room. And again, before all the internet and stuff, I realized I was hanging around with the wrong people. And that had to be the toughest thing for me. As a young lad going, look,

I like riding with you. I like kind of like, you know. Did you have those tough conversations or did you just drift away? Well, I had those tough conversations with me. Yeah. Because I knew full well that if I wanted to get where I was going-

I needed to move away from these people. And it was a tough thing. Of course, you get, what do you get when you try to break away from your people? Crabs in a bucket. You think you're better than us. Have you seen Sims? Arrogant prick. Full of himself. Got his head up his ass. And of course, at that time, you're trying to live differently.

But your bank account's not there. Right. So they look at you and they go, oh, you're pretending to be... No, I'm demanding myself to be better. Ask as if... It was like when I lived in... I had to live in Detroit for a small amount of time, right? And I found the people that I met there, moving there, like...

You get married to your high school sweetheart. You buy a house within six blocks of your parents' house where you grew up. You go to the bar with the same guy. It's like you get a job at four. It's like if you're listening to this man, you're in a situation where your life is on repeat from what your parents did. I don't believe you're going to be truly happy on that hamster wheel. And I think you got to break away. But most people don't have the balls to do it.

So if you were somebody that's in that situation, what advice would you give them to break away? Like, how do you say? Move. Yeah. I mean, I'm going to have to go with it. Don't be frightened about moving away from your friends and be frightened about moving away from your village and your connections.

be fine to stay where you are. Yeah. That's the scary shit for me. And we, look, everyone in this room, let's be serious. We're not worrying about paying the mortgage. No. So we're in a good position now. But here's the thing. I don't want to be in this position in six months time. Yeah.

Every single one of my months, I want to try something new. I want to expand. I want to experience something. I want to fail and be educated. I want to grow. So the second I go, right, I'm good now, hey, that's when you die. I want to push myself. So don't be frightened of where you are.

Be frightened of staying there. Be happy where you are. You've got to keep moving. What was the best advice somebody gave to you at that point of your life when you were trying to get into that circle and try to move away? Did somebody give you some good advice and you kind of ran with it? God, the advices I've got throughout my years have continued. Funny enough, one of the best pieces of advice was my dad. Actually, no, I can even go better than that, my granddad.

Now, I wanted to move away from everything. And I remember working on the building site one day. There was my dad, my uncle, my cousins, and my granddad, all on the same scaffolding.

It was like my family future. You saw it. It was like the evolution of everything. You know, it was like a Sims. Oh, God. Yeah. And my cousins were like, I was 17, 18 at the time. My cousins were like 19 and 24. So they both were like, we're not teenagers. You know, you're a teen. We're adults now. So I saw the whole thing. And I saw my granddad.

And he never had a pension. He's in his 70s or 80s. Old, frail, but big, lumpy Irish lad. And I ran down and saw him at tea break time. And I said to him, and it's a good job I never got smacked in my ass for this. I ran up to him and I went, Grandad, did you ever think you'd be doing this at your age? And that was my question to him. He didn't even look at me. Didn't even look at me. Just blew into his tea to make it a bit cooler to drink. And he said, son, if you don't quit today, you'll be me tomorrow. Oh, wow. And I was like, what?

And I came out and I ran up to my dad. And I went, Dad, I've got to quit. I've got to go. And he was like, what? You know, we're short. Why are you going? And my granddad walked behind me. My granddad was massive. The real thump of a lad. And my dad looked at him. I never saw my granddad, but they both looked at each other. And then my dad looked at me and he went, you're done fighting. Now, here was the tough bit. I thought, whoa, okay, my family support me. They understand. You never piss off an Irish mum.

And when I got home and my dad said, he's leaving the business. He's going to go off and find his own footing. My mum never forgave me for that day. And I'll tell you, about three or four years later was the last time I ever spoke to her. Really? Really. Never spoken to my mum. I know where she lives. Never spoken to her since. Wow. Yeah, I know. And then I met my wife, Claire. And, you know, we said, we're going to make something. We're going to try something. We're going to get out there. We can't be unless we try. Right.

And she was like, straight away, like the guys in the pub, she was like, you think you're better than us? And I remember saying to her, no, I think I'm better than this. You know, not you, better than this. And my dad was behind it. But of course, my dad wanted to stay with his wife. So my dad was like, best of luck, son. You know, go and do your stuff. And I used to have conversations with him. But my mum was like, no, no, no. Is he on the phone? No, he's full of himself.

and it was tough wow so even even those closest to you could be the crabs you need to move away from yeah the crabs and pulling you down on the bus it's tough it's tough i mean that look i've heard a lot of people have come through here and talked about having to elevate and let go of past relationships man let go on the mom that's tough ah that was that's still tough that's still tough and i've got kids now and of course my my eldest is uh he's moved out and you know about time so

But he's out. So two of my three are out. My third one's coming. But of course, with your kids moving out, you suddenly think, you know, my mom. I haven't spoken to her for like 30 something years. And that's tough. What do you think that is, though? Like, I have two kids and there's basically nothing they could do where I wouldn't.

you know maintain that relationship i'm talking mass murder i would still maintain a relationship i should tell me i think it's a cultural deal i think it's i think it's generational i think it's generational i think it's cultural you know we we came from we came from the side of town where you knew your place you know and i actually wrote about this in in blue fishing there was a time that my mom and i couldn't understand why she did this because she was so against it we would go window shopping

in the central London on a Saturday afternoon to see how the other people lived. And here was the weird thing. She would look in the windows and there's a story in the book where we're on the other side of it. We're on Bond Street and we're looking at Gucci.

And she's straining to look at these handbags in the window. And I'm with her. She's tugged me along for the day. And I stepped off the curb to cross the street because I thought she wants to look at the handbags. As I stepped off the street, she yanked my arm back.

We don't belong there. No, she turned around and she said, we don't go there. That's for others. It's not for us. And I remember as we walked off straining to look to see what had scared her. What was terrifying her? How hard is that to, I mean, because dude, you know, people argue nature versus nurture so much.

So you've got your core value beliefs being pounded into you. Yeah by your parents Yeah, and in I mean man, how do you how do you reconcile that is? I mean, it's you know a lot of people I think I think for the most part, you know, their parents want to see them do well And they want to see them exceed what they've done. I think that that's a lot of that but man overcoming that is

I mean, that must have been a battle within yourself for years of, am I worthy of this? Yeah, and as I say, it still is.

I think now, because let's be serious, most people in this room remember the 80s and the 90s. And in the 90s, if you were an entrepreneur, that meant you couldn't get a real job and you were probably selling second-hand audio or something. Doors or vacuums. You would look down on if you were an entrepreneur in the 90s. Now we revere them like rock stars. Kids, what do you want to be when you grow up? I want to be an entrepreneur. Now we revere it. So I think that's changed.

I think my mom was terrified that I would actually make it. That's what I think. I think deep down inside, she was terrified that I would make it and she couldn't and she was going to miss out on what I would become. But wouldn't you think, though, that she would have to think that as you strove forward, you would reach back to pull?

So I went back. When I was doing what I was doing, I was actually in Hong Kong. So I had not only left my friends, I'd left my town, I'd left my country. And language base. Yeah, yeah. Well, Hong Kong was pretty much British. It is, but you still, I mean, the signs are old. Definitely different culture. Cantonese. Yeah, and I was there for...

doing all of this work with these people when I went back I then moved to Geneva when I was in Geneva I was working with Ferrari who one of the stipulations you're going to hate this one of the stipulations of Ferrari was when I traveled to a different country I had to go and get a Ferrari and use that car sounds terrible you know well it was terrible for me because I used to love

motorbikes you know still do so but you know so when I landed from Geneva into England I'd literally go to Agin which was the headquarters of Ferrari got myself a Ferrari then ran down to see my family and I remember sitting in my living room and

telling my parents, and this was one of, I think this may actually have been the last time I saw her. So this was 97. Okay. And so I went in there and I saw my dad and I was going, yeah, you know, I got this and doing this and I'm working here and now I'm flying over here and I'm living down on flying over to this guy. I was always flying. And a lot of the time it was like Russia and Asia and I was traveling a lot, you know? And so I was doing all this and my dad got up to go and get a beer from the garage.

And when he did that, my mom came over to me. She hadn't been part of the conversation. She was cooking. She was keeping herself busy. He went out to get a beer. She came over, sat down, and she went, are you selling drugs? I know, they just don't have it. She couldn't believe the stuff that I had been telling her. Yeah. There's just no way this could be accurate. It can't be real. You've got to be doing something. No way. That's my dad going through the Louis Vuitton store when he looks at something and goes, Chris. Chris.

Do you see this? I'm like, yeah, no, I know. I'm aware of what it costs. These are flip-flops. It's ridiculous. But I think that's a generation. Because bear in mind, those people came from just one generation from the war. After poverty. Yeah, so they had all of that. We, as entrepreneurs, we've been through recessions. We've been through depressions. We're looking at this thing coming at us. And we're like, bring it on, boy.

You know, we know what, you know, COVID. I don't know if you know this because I saw a report in the BBC. They said that there were over 5 million new millionaires registered during COVID. There's never been such an explosion of millionaires at any other two-year period in our life. Couldn't agree more. And I would venture to say after the NFT crash, there's never been anybody taking off. Yeah.

That's it, we'll take it off the list. Right hand, give it left hand, take it away. There's a couple going, yeah. Dealing with such high-end businesses and stuff throughout multiple different cultures, what was one, did you see a common theme between...

just how they ran their companies and different cultures. I know dealing with the Asian, going to different parts of Asia, sitting like Chris is, you're offending people, stuff like that. Oh, yeah, in Thailand. You're showing me the...

sole of your foot is massively insolent. I remember a friend of mine came over from England. You're ruining the podcast with your sole of your foot. Thanks, Chris. It's in Thailand, John. I want to see the metrics. You're ruining the podcast for Thailand. And if you touch someone's top of their head, you know, that is disgusting. That is a real... That's like giving someone the middle finger. I brought a friend of mine over from England and he saw this little kid and he went, yeah, like that.

I thought the parents were going to kill him. Oh, God. You know? Yeah, if someone does that to my kid, too, I'm probably not going to. Random touching of my children. I don't go for that. I don't go for the random touching of my children. There's a lot of cultural differences, but there's also, believe it or not, a lot of synchronization between them. The two things I found that were common, and the Asian and the Western communities and the Russian, there's a lot of differences. But the similarity fell down to two.

One, relationships. Very slow to build relationships you trust, but once you're there, nothing moves. It's a rock. And the second thing was they're more selfish with their time. They realize that, hey, we can make more money, but sadly, we can't get these minutes back. They travel more too. Open with travel. I love that. They're open with travel, but they really look at it. They go, hey, I'll spend money on this.

But I'm really going to consider whether or not I spend my time on it. Because if I buy a dope car, shit, I'll buy another car. But my time, I'm going to be selfish with that. That was the big thing. That's one of my favorite questions to ask people that come in and sit down and want to level up their game in real estate, want to level up their business, whatever they do, whatever we can help them with. And they'll always like to throw out dollar figures. Oh, I want to make a million dollars. I want to make $5 million. I want to do this, blah, blah, blah. It's always like, why? Yeah.

What do you want to do with the money? Because it was a study we talked about in here once. Your life doesn't exponentially get better after $80,000. That's like if you get to $80,000, I mean, yeah, you can do some cooler stuff and have some cooler cars, but your life doesn't really. But your happiness is incrementally decreases after that. Yeah, so small after 80. And most people can't answer that question. And I think.

one of the best things I will say about call it the entrepreneur wave, call it the podcast wave, call it the information wave that's coming out is most of the high dollar people that are doing this really preach about the value of time. Like money is useless. What you want is freedom. That's what you want is the freedom to be able to wake up and do whatever you want to do with your time because it's the only thing you can't get more of and you don't know when it's up. Yeah. So if you're out there again and you're striving trying on the come up,

Focus on time. Focus on getting time back. What's some of the stuff that you do, obviously, with scaling and everything? And I'm going to get to the book. I promise we're going to get to it. But Blue Fishing was such a great book. I kind of want to talk about that first because it was really – that book was really dedicated, I felt, to – and the theme was to networking and being memorable. It was really what it was in the idea of making –

great things happen through connecting the dots, which I love. I mean, that's, you know, I, nothing in this world gives me more pleasure than when I see somebody go, bing, who knows somebody here? And I'm like, aha. And I'm immediately like connecting the text. This is so-and-so, this is so-and-so have at it. You know, I love nothing makes me happier because I always want to be known as a guy that connects the dots. So what were, of all the lessons in blue fishing and how many copies of blue fishing sold now?

Oh, geez, I think it was something like about 80,000. Yeah, I mean, it's just ridiculous. And I only know that from about three months ago because I thought, oh, I've got to check up on stats because then I've got to have that as a benchmark as to how Go For Stupid does. And I've got to admit, I was turning it on thinking, right, it's going to be four, it's going to be 5,000, it's going to be like 7,000. But then I saw the first figure and the first figure was something like about 50-something thousand.

And I contacted them. I was like, that's really good. They're like, what are you looking at? And I'm looking at this page. And they're like, well, okay, have you looked at additional copies? And that is other companies that have bought subheadings and released those. And I was over 80,000. And it was ridiculous. For me, the big metrics is what I see in the airport. When it's in an airport, you're like, I mean, you made it. I think when you're in the Hudson News, I think you've officially made it officially when you're there.

But if you had to drill down from that book, from that book, and what are the best lessons you can say from that book that somebody should know? I think the easiest lesson in there is to go, while you're giving yourself excuses, look at an uneducated British bricklayer, and then you'll realize you're out of them.

And if he can be doing this with the Pope, Elon Musk, and Richard Branson, not based on education, not based just solely on my stunning good looks. I know. I was going to mention that. I know a lot of people say that. It's easy to talk about this, Steve. We'll have to pass by that. You know, if you can look at all of these things and go, well, hang on a minute, he's doing it by using simple methods.

almost in some ways, immature ways of connecting with people, then you really don't have an excuse. That was the thing that really came out of Bluefish. You know what the next book you're going to write is? The Simple Way.

I didn't want to forget that while I was gone. You know, we do have a neon sign up for the Simply Life. You can apply. There you go. You can apply. If we're doing puns today, there you go. There's that one. Are we ever not doing puns? We're all fathers. Yeah, there's puns. That's the whole point of being a dad. Just a dad joke. Steve, did you try to change who you were?

before and you know did you try to throw on I know a story's coming out I know a story's coming out I lost me I lost me I was doing before I got the Ferrari gig I'd been doing this for about six and a half years

And then I got this Ferrari gig, which was to do parties during that 50th anniversary of this little town called Monaco during the Formula One Grand Prix. So pretty much of a big gig. I've heard of it. Yeah, exactly. It was a great event.

But the funny thing was, I was still on a motorcycle. Now I had Triumphs. I had Ducatis. I was living in Switzerland. I was always on the bike. Then I got this Ferrari deal. The Ferrari, when we gave it back, I think I had like, in a year, I think I had like 800 miles on it.

Because I was always on the bike. You know, let's go out for dinner, Claire. Jump on the back of the bike. Here we go. We would always do that because that was us. But then we got to this gig and I still don't remember who did this to me. But someone once said to me, they went, oh, you're really looking forward to parties. And I was like, yeah, we got this yacht and, you know, we got Villa d'Este and we're doing this. And we got another Villa d'Este.

at the Hotel Duroc. We got all of these different places we've got. Everything's going to be good. And they turned around and they said, and what you wearing?

Now, of course, I'd always been known for being a guy in jeans and a black T-shirt, you know, because I don't have to think. You know, I got him a wardrobe. It's a uniform. And they say that actually a lot of very intelligent people pursue the uniform. And that was always me. But they threw this on it. And I don't know what happened, but I woke up the following day and I was like, shit, I'm actually going to go down to this party today.

People aren't going to take me seriously. Forget the fact that it's my party. I got the contract. You know, I'm rolling down to Maranello to do this stuff. You know, and I was even turning up at Maranello on a Ducati, you know, but, and they didn't mind because obviously Bologna is, you know, just down the road. But I got concerned. I went out and I bought suits.

And I actually went out and I thought, well, hang on, I've got a brand new Ferrari, but all rich, you know, knobs get rich Ferraris. I've got to be an aficionado. I bought a vintage Ferrari. I bought the 246 Dino. Okay. So now, you know, I'm there. I went out and I bought a...

Out of my PJ watch. Okay. I bought all of these. I had all the trinkets. Okay. And I wore them like they were a suit of armor. I was like really stiff in them. And I did the party. And there was a picture of me. I did this yacht party. And I had Antonio Banderas, Sylvester Stallone, and Arnold Schwarzenegger at the bar of this yacht. And there's me.

And I was getting all these photographs and I stood next to my car and I got a photograph. And we went back to Geneva and it was about two weeks later, you know, you throw the roll of film in an envelope and it goes off. And then three weeks later, you get your photographs back. It was that period of time. When selfies, nobody knew what they were doing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know, trying to turn the camera around and click at the same time. And I remember I got these, my wife, Claire, brought in these photographs and

And I went into my office, I sat him down, and I poured myself a little shot of whiskey, and I was like, this is it, I've made it, I'm with all the elite. And I started going through these pictures, and I realised I wasn't in any of them. This prick in the suit was, but not me. And I was stood there kind of like, oh, don't smile, you know, you got it. And it was terrible. And I realised I had sold out. I actually, truthfully...

Got badly drunk that night and carried it on. My friends actually came and got me out of the room. I fell quickly into depression and just drank myself stupid. I couldn't believe that me, strong as I am, I would set out. But would you... Okay, so I have different opinions on that. Because to me, I go, yeah, he's putting on a fucking uniform. When I go to... If I worked at Tim Hortons, I'd put on that uniform, right? And now you're so probably...

When you're confident certain level of success you go no no I'm wearing black jeans in a black shirt right that's what I'm wearing and everybody and nobody now Would think anything of it because we come from a culture of you know people are very I'm gonna do what they do right? I'm still stuck in an old suit mentality. I always have a jacket and blazer That's just me because it's just how that's the suit of armor as a lawyer people expect it whatever but I

Would that affect you now if you had to go do that? Would you just do it and not think about it? Well, see, here's the thing. I have got nice suits. Yeah. Okay? And I love donning on a nice suit. I saw your rant about people that don't dress up at restaurants. And...

Okay. No, no, no, no. Okay, stop. I'm in LA and you get people walking into Boa and stuff like that. The look is like they just freaking woke up and it pisses me off. They should not be allowed in there. But what I'm saying is, okay, it's you and Claire, right? It's you and Claire. It's the anniversary. Yeah. She's looking lovely. She does. We love Claire. Claire's looking lovely. Do you want to take her to a place where a guy next to you is wearing a Puma tracksuit?

No. No. No, you absolutely don't. And I'm with you. So the point is, I like to wear that stuff. But when it's your terms? But what was the bad thing was, I was doing it for somebody else's recognition. Yeah, not for you. That's when it's bad.

If you say to me, hey, we're going out to a party and it's my boy's wedding anniversary and I know what you like, I'm going to wear a jacket. I'm going to wear some slacks. I want to look a bit nice for the environment, but not because someone else told me to. And that was the bad thing. I sold out to try and look like... And the watch. I love Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshores. I love Audemars Piguet Royal Oak Offshores.

I had that watch. Who would wear such a thing? What kind of dickhead would wear one of those now? I absolutely love it. I love that watch. And I still see it and I still love it, but I can't buy it because it takes me back to that trigger. I...

I have the legacy. I have the big one. It's beautiful. 50th birthday. My wife gave it to me for my 50th birthday. I had the Royal Oak and I had the Royal Oak Offshore. And they were absolutely beautiful watches. But I didn't buy them because I liked them. I bought them because at the time everyone knew that when you were something, you had that watch. And that's what annoys me. John and I talk about this all the time.

About me. I want a Ferrari 430. Okay. It's just something I want. Okay. I've always wanted it. I wanted to. You want it for you or do you want it to impress? I want it for me. No, no, no, no, no. I drive a Ford F-150 truck that is 120,000 miles on it. And you also have a Bentley. I have a Bentley and a Porsche and whatever, but I don't, but I love cars. And so it's like, why don't you get the new 488? Why don't you get it? Because I don't want the 488. I want the 430.

Right. And it's way cheaper and it's whatever, but that's the one I want. It's for me. I'm happily married. I'm not trying to go pick up women. I just want that car. And it's, we've talked about it. I'm like, I don't,

You could give me a 488 or I'll take it. Because I want it for me. Yeah. Right. That's the key. And I think that's the key here. Living to your rules and to your guidelines and doing what you want to do for you. And I think that's also what comes down to wealth. Being able to make the decisions of how you show up. Well, and I think the problem is some of the stuff too, man. We talk about bimaterial stuff.

like the plane that I own part of. I bought it strictly as an investment. I don't need to be on Instagram, like look at this, blah, blah, blah. It was strictly an investment. And honestly, the investment has not been as good as it should have been or could have been for nobody's fault. It's just pilots are a bitch right now, whatever. And I'm actively looking to sell out of that thing because for me, I could care less. It's just an investment. I'd rather move the money to something that'll perform better. But dude, I got so much heat over...

And I've been very plain with it the entire time. Like, this is an investment. That's it. And I still got like, oh, this guy's playing. And I'm like, dude, I've only been on the thing like twice. That's it. I think I've been on them both times. I have been on Spirit Airlines more than I've been on that plane since I've owned it. Right? Now, granted, the big seat on Spirit. You don't know where you're going on Spirit, but you've been on Spirit. You're going somewhere. But yeah, but that's the point. And I think that's the issue is I think...

I think it's such a fine line when you're on the come up, especially that you see, like you said, like the guys, when they make it, they get the APs. That's what they get. And then you get it. And then, and then it amplifies the people that you're leaving behind. You're like, Oh, this hot shit. Now look at him. He's got this. And in some cases, like,

Like you're not even buying this shit because you're trying to impress anybody. It's really just a good investment like watches have been a phenomenal Investment over the last two years. Yes. Yeah, they're chipping down but still I mean, I don't care you still buy a Rolex or an AP your money's gonna be safe there It's not going as yeah, wait certain things. What did you guys just you brought that up? When did you guys figure out there's this old Pearl Jam song that says guy buys the Corvette to get the girl and ends up with the mechanic, right?

So how many times have you done something, right? John could probably opine. I'm sure Cole can. Where you go, you get... What was that word? Opine. Is that a hard... I've been opining all day. Where's the pen? Let's write these down. Is he using these words correctly?

But when you do these things and you don't know how to say no to people that are pressuring you into doing something outside of your economic comfort level, I have that happen to me all the time. Right. People will say, oh, we're going to go here and we're going to stay in this hotel. And I'm at the point now where I go, I'm not paying for that hotel for $700 because I'm comfortable in a hundred dollar night comfort in and I don't give a shit. It's just not where my, can I tell you the most uncomfortable conversations I've ever had? I,

I would get a phone call. I'd be sitting anywhere and I would get this phone call. John, here's what we're going to do. We're going to Italy. We're going to stay at Sting's private villa for seven days. He's going to play guitar in the last day and his private chefs are going to wine tastings every day. It's $85,000 a head. You in? I'd be like, uh,

I wanted to be connected when we first met the other concierge service. I want to be connected. But truth be told at that point, this is 12 years ago, whatever it was, I didn't have the money to do any of this shit. Everything he called me with, I'd be like,

oh man, what are the dates again? You know, the funny thing is, the funny thing, that's so, let's break that down for a second. The fact is, I wouldn't have paid 85 cents to do it. No.

But the beautiful thing, because I was selling it, I got to go. Yeah, of course. And so what I would do by selling something for 85 grand, you got a table of people that could throw 85 grand down and not wipe it. So you were doing that room. So it was a strange thing to actually be at a table where you were charging these people to be at the table that you wouldn't have paid for yourself. That's right. I'd be completely blumper. And that's why it goes back to the Trojan horse.

It was a weird time. A lot of the time, my head got messed with. Yeah. And I would be at something, and I would come out, and I'd be like, I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have done that. I wouldn't have been there, but I had to be there for that. There were some tough moments. It sounds funny to go, oh, yeah, you're flying across the other side of the planet. You're in the presidential suite. You're selling people 85 grand.

And you were having a hard time with it. No, no, no. That's 100%. Most things I've done is because I have friends that are very successful too. And so you get to be in that sphere, like you said. I've never owned a yacht, but I have been on a yacht multiple times. Yeah. Why? I don't know. I'm not even supposed to be here. Steve, let me ask you. Because that brings up an interesting question I'm going to ask you. So you're in these rooms at a time where you're just like slinging and hustling and blah, blah, blah. And you've been in some crazy rooms. Yeah.

You had to have dealt with imposter syndrome at some point. You had to have. Me? You had to have. Really? No? I never did. I never had the imposter syndrome. Really? Because two reasons. One, I wasn't trying to be them.

I was benefiting off of them. Okay. So I wasn't like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's talk about jets. The guy in the suit, the guy in the suit was, the guy in the suit was doing that. Yeah. But I was, I was stood there going, what's it like?

to have a jet what's it like to have this so i was this curious little kid that basically you were paying me to get into that table for me to interview you yeah you know i've often said that if podcasts existed back in the 90s i wouldn't have launched the concierge firm you know i'd have just done podcasts you know but i was able so i never had the imposter syndrome because i wasn't trying to be you that was the other thing the other thing was

you weren't getting on Sting's table without me. So I didn't have the imposter syndrome because, yeah, I know you can buy me and my town. But you can't buy that. But you can't get through that door without me. So I didn't have the imposter syndrome. I got the imposter syndrome when I sold out that time. And I really realized that. And I think you know the story. That picture of me leaning up against the Dino,

is still on my office wall as a point to never be that shit again. Yeah, absolutely still there. Let me ask you, how much money would it take to get Tom Hanks in a boxing ring? Jesus. So that some random person could box him. I don't think the Nevada Athletic Commission, by the way. Your sense. Let me back up. So for two days, I've been thinking Steve's going to come in. I'm going to tell Colt he can make anything happen. So it's either going to be...

How much would it cost me to hunt a human? To do something terrible to Tom Hanks? Or how much would it cost him to get him in the Olympics? I knew it was going to be one of those three questions. No, like the Olympics, relationships you can't buy your way into. We were just talking about that. I was thinking about Machiavelli. Have you read The Prince? The number one advice he gives to the Medici family is don't pay mercenaries to protect your city. Because the minute shit hits the fan, right?

People will not give up their life for money They'll give up their life for love of country love of brother love of family love of reputation love of all these things Reputational you'll die for your friend more than you'll die for a million dollars. What's not good to you right for a million dollars, right?

So when you're talking about you being the gatekeeper, it's all relationship-based and you can't pay for that. So there's no imposter syndrome going, no, that's my friend's thing, right? And it's an impossible thing. So in life, I think a lot of times people don't realize those people you think are around you that want your money, right? Those guys that are chasing the Instagram, the fake famous, the whatever, they don't realize the drop of a hat, those people won't be around you. Yeah. I remember like, you know, the classic is, oh, how much would it cost me to?

I remember, you know, obviously I'll name drop annoyingly here. I was with this fellow called Elton John and we were at this party and this guy walks up to him and he's doing all right. He's doing all right. Fair well taught. You're an up-and-coming piano player. So there's bad glasses. Bad glasses.

So this guy walks up to him and he's like, oh, you know, Sir Elton, Sir Elton. And he looks over and he'd interrupted our conversation. Okay, that's fine. Fair enough. It was a party for Elton. That's fair enough. So I'm stood there and the guy turns around and said, hey, I wanted to ask you, how much would it cost for you to do? And I forget what the next bit was.

But Elton literally turned around and said, I'd love to, but I'm busy then. I walked off. Now, the guy hadn't set a date, you know? And the guy was like, ah. And he walked off. The second you start the conversation with how much,

You prostituted the person. Fuck, I'm not a player. You're not my pimp. That dumb. Now, I remember- How should I frame that? I need to get in to fight Tom Hanks. Right. How do I frame that? How much money could I raise for a children's charity? To fight Tom Hanks? I had to deal with- Real quick, I think Hanks takes you, by the way.

By the way. Oh, yeah, my money's on Hank's. Get out of here. Are you guys serious? I'm going to work up our big game. I remember doing an event with Oprah Winfrey. Oh, my God. And I had a guy that wanted to actually meet Oprah Winfrey for breakfast.

Okay. And of course, you know, it couldn't be done, you know, no money. And I'm like, Hey, I'm not offering money. I'm trying to find out what we need to do to make this a win-win. Now she had some contract stuff going on at the time. She was still on primetime TV, but she was going up to Canada, right?

So she was out of contractual obligation for the U.S. syndicates. So we actually approached her and we went, hey, I know at the moment, this was at the time where she was doing a lot of building schools. We went, look, you're doing great work with building schools. How would you like it if every single child in every single one of those classes for the next five years, and then it will be renewed again, gets their own personal computer?

So he never paid her. But he paid them. He bought the school's computers for a 10-year lease contract. That gives me a great idea. Here it comes. And he had breakfast. Here's my idea. Here's an open challenge to the CEO of Chili's.

Three rounds in a boxing ring with me and you, buddy, and then you can take the $675 I had to get my car out of hock after you served me six margaritas in Salt Lake City and towed my car, and I'll donate it to the charity of your choice. I just want to beat you from limb to limb, from ring to ring post. There you go. He's like, I don't even know that. But no, I think that's really astute where you say how to get people to do what you want for their reasons.

And that's where we go back to the wealth again. If you look at the wealth, you get to a point where there's no dollar sign. I don't need your money. It's what impact can you generate that maybe I can't? Absolutely. Or what can you do to help a cause that I'm behind? When you start focusing on that, that's when it comes in. And all of the closing down of museums and sting and all,

if I'd have gone to any of those things and gone, Hey, how much would I guarantee none of it would have done? Can I tell you something without sounding like I'm sucking up, which is this based on the amount of impact I think you've had in the last four to five years that I've known you speaking on stages and the power of blue fishing and all of those things that they did. I now find all of those things that you did with sting and the music. I find that the least interesting shit you've done.

I appreciate it. I do. I really do. I think everybody that I know when you come off stage is so blown away by what you do is amazing. So speaking of blowing people away, Cole thought I was going to stop at blowing people. It was going to get interesting. No, here we go. No,

Let's talk about the new book, man. Let's talk about it. So what is the book? What should we expect here? Like, what's the purpose? What's the theme? Well, that's good. So let's start with the purpose and kind of how it was born. During COVID, I was enjoying our media company and business was going well, but I got very angry at how everybody was looking for an excuse to be pissed off. And we got into a massive...

You know, we got into a massive cancelled culture. We got into a massive gotcha society. You know, oh my God, do you see that he said this in 1973? We're going to cancel him from the show. The retard. You know, it was all that kind of stuff. Uh-oh. Oh, Dave. Oh, Dave. Thoughts and feelings of Steve Simpson. I'm upset all the girlies out there. So, you know...

We had that going on and we seemed to get into this laughable society. We actually wanted to point and stare and ridicule. We don't want to applaud people's success. We want to drag them down. Here's a prime example. Probably one of the gods of entrepreneurism at the moment, Elon Musk. Do you remember when he released the Cybertruck? Amazing. Amazing. What was similar on that truck to...

to any other truck outside of it having rubber wheels. Nothing. What was the headlines the following day? Windshield brakes. Bingo! We had a chance to laugh at the dick. You know, oh, it's bulletproof. If you're buying a truck because it's got bulletproof windows, you need to consider where you live, not what truck you're buying. So to your point, Steve, the whole thing about hurt people hurt people.

So you have people that are hurt. Now, again, being truly stoic or empathetic as a human being is where you – and that's been my answer to everything. I think if people had more empathy, you'd get away from that. I don't want to sit there and belittle somebody if I was empathetic. I go, there's something that happened in your – like you're telling about your mother. And you're being empathetic going, she's a product of her time. She had this as her experience. So that's how she felt. So you're even empathetic to that character in this situation.

Discussion right because you understand where she comes from you're not sitting there going. Oh, what a terrible person or this and that Oh, that's loud. You know, whatever what she didn't realize I was gonna be successful you're going no she had this in her life She was carrying her own baggage. She had these demons or whatever and that's her to carry But I'm not here to belittle her for it, right? That's the reality and to Elon and all these people they're mad at where they are They're hurt and hurt people hurt people like

people that are victims of molestation as kids end up being molesters. Like if what's happened to you, you project it onto others, right? And that's where the buck needs to stop. But I don't want to talk to them. No, that's the thing. And this book hasn't been, the book is not for them. It's for the people that are being repressed and held back by them.

You see, a lot of times today, we look at things and we go, hey, I want to do this and I want to scale. Like when we talk about business and we go, oh, I'm going to scale this and I'm going to do this and I'm going to get enjoyed and this is going to do. And I'm there to go, that's brilliant. You know, when you unveiled your car, I was one of the first people that went, this

should be celebrated. Someone, you remember that, don't you? I do, I do. You know, someone actually worked their tits off to get the thing. When you get your card, that should be celebrated. But what do we do? We hide it a little bit because we don't want to look all that and as though we're trying to impress anyone. I'm here to say no.

Stand up and go for stupid, ridiculous goals. If you want that car, God bless you, mate. Get it and then send me a picture when you do because I want to rejoice. Today we're in a gotcha society and it's repressing us. And everything I've ever done, I've gone for stupid. The whole name of the book came from 10 years ago when we would sit around the room during the concierge time and someone would go, right, we've got a request of someone wants to do this.

And we would go, okay, what's the stupidest thing we can do with that request? We wouldn't fill it. No, we'd never fill it. Someone comes in and says, hey, I want to meet the rock band Journey. Good for you. No, you don't. Now how can we make this stupid? How can we make it ridiculous? Yeah.

we ended up putting him on stage and he sang with the rock band journey so we wanted to always go for stupid go for a goal that was laughable risk failing and achieve something 20 times bigger than what the original request was you know i think john do you want to go on an archaeological dig in egypt yeah it's funny which was amazing this is what it's about yeah we touched mummies at this point i saw a stupid goal a tweet from a guy it's he's

He's nobody, but he's around a big service. No, he's not. He's somebody. He's a little ancient. Everybody's somebody, Colton. But he's around big, wealthy, 100 million plus people, right? And he goes, the common theme with everybody was...

They went for something that everybody thought they were crazy or laughed at them. It's in there. And that's why I love that about this. I actually list it. You see, this was based on conversations I was having during COVID. And then I thought to myself, and I was hoping, I was ridiculous and stupid myself. I was hoping this was going to be something that only lasted during COVID.

But we are still openly laughing and ridiculing anyone trying to go for someone. So I started digging. And I was talking to people, Peter Diamandis, Elton John, people like this, about how do you get over this? You know, people laugh.

What do you do about it? And I went through history and I saw that Henry Ford was boycotted. They actually tried protesting his invention of a car. And do you know why? They would say, because my horse can go through the woods. Cars can't. You know? So they wanted him not to build a car because the horse could go through the wood. They tried banning coffee. They tried banning the light bulb as a ridiculous idea. They laughed.

Now you imagine anyone that's doing anything brilliant, it doesn't have to be Elon, it's you guys in this room. You're not listening to the naysayers going, oh, you shouldn't be doing, you're going, hang on a minute, this is my standard.

This is where I go. And those people, it's white noise. It's the crabs. All of those people go, you couldn't do that. I can't hear them. Yeah. Well, here's, I think, listen, man, here's the gospel according to John, if you will. If you're listening to this and you see these people, you're around these people, somewhere along the lines of,

People decided it was the easiest way to have the tallest building was to tear all the other buildings down rather than build their own tall buildings. So if you hear people call them out on that shit, say, man, rather than trying to tear somebody else's building down, why don't you build yours taller? It is socially acceptable to do that, by the way. And what's interesting is I don't hear a lot of that because I don't hang out with anybody that does that. And that's a choice. And that's because you've changed. But how many people out there, and this is for the listeners now, and we've all been in that situation, which caused us to change.

But how many times did you sit there around the coffee table? You're in a bar. You're in a restaurant. You're talking to your mates. And you're talking about this idea. And you see your mates go, God, that's silly. What's Steve been drinking? Oh, my God. And what do we do? I know the answer to that. We literally sit there and we go...

I was just I don't know what I was thinking and you dilute yourself and you walk out of that room feeling cheated and I know I did the first time it happened to me I was like why the hell did I reverse on

On my goals and aspiration, just because Billy, who's now made it to the manager at Staples, thinks it's a silly idea. See, hang on a second. I'm going to counter that a little bit, just a little bit with one thing. It happened earlier today, right? My sister called me and said, I want to bounce something off you. I said, great. And I said, what is it? And she goes, I want to create an app that does this really complicated thing involving, I won't get into it, but it was a very complicated thing. And quite frankly, it dealt with an industry that she has no experience in.

Now, and I'm like, why do you want to do this? Well, you know, I'm trying to generate, you know. I know where this is going and I want you to be there. I want to generate a source of income. I'm going to do this. My sister just won the iHeartRadio Woman in Radio of the Year Award.

That's like the most prestigious award you can get for talk radio. And she just won that award. And I'm like, Andy, what, why would you want to go do this? That you know nothing fucking about. Why don't you, there's everybody's trying to start a podcast. Why don't you build something to teach people actually how to be a better broadcaster in whatever medium,

media they want to. And then that is a course that you are highly qualified to teach. You can do this in your sleep and people would actually pay you for the knowledge that you have rather than trying to chase something that you don't know anything about. So while I totally agree to go for big goals and she should go for the biggest goal, I also kind of believe that if you haven't completely expired your frame of expertise, stay in your lane. Yeah.

I'm going to kind of disagree with the way you perceive that. All right. Okay. I remember years ago, I had this idea. I can't even remember what it is. And I was at Jay Abraham's house. And so I'm sitting down with Jay and I'm going, Jay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to do this. It's going to be this. It's going to be this. It's going to be that. And he looked at me and he went, really? And I said, yes, it's going to be absolutely. And he had the exact same. He went, you're not qualified in that.

So someone else could come in that's more qualified and beat you out. But your unicorn's over here. So if you're looking for somewhere to put your energy and your unicorn, why don't you put it in here where you own that sandpit? Now, with your sister, and I think everyone will agree in this room,

You had no negativity with her. No. You weren't laughing at her aspirations. You weren't ridiculing her. You were challenging her to sharpen her sword and direct it. And that's what we need. The person that ridicules your goal and goes...

you thinking you're stupid yeah that's the person that's the crab what you were was a challenger and a supporter that's what you need to fill your table with yeah and well done for doing it by the way say hi to her but you should have people in your life that disagree with you a lot of times people are so insecure that they say hey have you considered this or hey i don't think this would be right for you because of this reason but that's not negative no not at all but that

People always see pushback as criticism, and that means you don't believe in me. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. I know you. I've heard you have 30 business ideas, and the problem is you get to part A, and then it's the end of the business idea. So I know you go from A to B, but then B to Z is never accomplished, right? I don't think that lasts long once you've been through it, because if I'm going to look about real estate...

I'm going to come to you guys. Yeah, but you're not a dreamer. What I mean by that is I have a pejorative use of that word, dreamer. I know. I know.

I know. I still haven't been able to fact check that because I can't spell it. Pejorative. But you'll always meet these people, right? I thought we were only speaking with words for the nose. Don't you meet those people out in the fake business world, the fake Instagram guys. I'm going to do this business. And they chase stuff in their dreamers, but they're not willing to put in the work.

Oh, all the time. And that's who I'm saying. All the time. So when that guy comes up and says, hey, I'm going to do that, and you're the sounding board, you say, hey, well, what other successful projects have you seen to completion or sale? Zero. Here's what I find. A lot of people that want to pivot like that

have only squeezed 15% out of what they're currently doing. Like, bro, you got 85% left in the jar over here. Let's go get this, and then let's figure out how the milk now becomes a milkshake and then becomes a batter for the cake and figures this. Let's not jump to going from milkshake to orange juice. I remember a story that Joe Polish actually told. He was, and everyone knows Joe Polish. He's a very successful marketer with Genius Network. And he was a carpet cleaner.

And he never had any money. And most people know this story. He actually ended up meeting a guy that was a very, very wealthy businessman in his area, and he wanted to get out of carpet cleaning because he had no money. So he spoke to this guy, and he went, look, I need to make money. What industry should I be in? And the guy said, what industry are you in now? And he said, I'm a carpet cleaner. He said, is anyone filthy rich in carpet cleaning? He said, well, yeah. He said, then the problem's not the industry. The problem's you. And that was it. That's...

But that's not negative. I think I'm totally agreeing with you. And that was a negative. It's not negative. He actually went on to own that industry. To reframe it. Reframe it in his mind and go, no, no, no, I'm not in the wrong industry. I just haven't done it well. You're just not good at it. So go back to the drawing board and figure out how to do it well. And the people that will be successful are the ones that put in the work. That's why I don't have a lot of sympathy for people that want to tear others down but don't go do anything. Yeah. Right, the critic. You know that whole man in the ring? Have you heard of that man in the ring? I'll share it with everybody here, but it's,

You get a pugilist, a boxer up there. Oh, look at that guy. What a pussy. He just got knocked out by Tyson. Do you know what it took for Trevor Burbeck to even be there for me to know his name? I think Trevor Burbeck is insanely respectable. I'm 30 years later. I'm dating myself now. Well, let's go current.

Let's go correct. Andrew Johnson. Ousmane. Anthony Johnson. Kamaru Ousmane. So the Kamaru Ousmanes of the world who just get absolute cold KO'd. He was winning that fight. He was out. He was winning that fight. The fact that he was in the ring means that he is immune from your criticism and your criticism. Look to that first. Say, okay, I'm going to enjoy this sport. I think it's amazing. As a lover of the art form, I'm going to say, I think he should have done this and this.

But critics don't mean shit ever. They don't do anything. Unless you are a practitioner that's a critic, then I'll accept your... But again, it's just that... Think of the man in the ring. That's the one that gets up and that's the one that works hard and that's the one that actually shows up. And they are the true champions of what's going on. Sadly, as people, we like train mix, though. We like to point and stare.

And you literally have to correct yourself to do that. Because it's so natural because it's not me. And the history of that is people would have public hangings, right? And not just as a way to deter, but to entertain. Oh, yeah. And so it's like, hey, look. Coliseum. Look at that. Coliseum was a public venue for exactly that. Come along and watch a guy get garroted. You know? That was what it was for. Watch a thousand tigers fight a hundred elephants. There you go. Who's winning that fight, Colt?

Tigers. Well, the elephants won, actually. And one of the first reporters in the Coliseum when he left, he heard one of the elephants scream out to the gods, how could you let this happen?

It's one of the most poignantly things about the brutality of man. When you look, even the elephants in their last screams of bloody gore that were going on said, look to the gods and said, how could you let this happen? Sometimes Tom Hanks goes on screen. That's it. I'm curious about this. Why'd you go with in your chapters one of them? No, that's from Blue Fishing. We're not going to talk about Tom Hanks anymore. He's very upset. One of the Blue Fishing things talked about the box of chocolates.

But I have a question because go for stupid, big, stupid goals and let's take business out of it. Right. Remove business. You're a guy who has done a lot of stuff. What's the bucket list item? What do you want to do? You haven't done. You know, the funny thing is I am the world's.

dullest guy. But you've got to have something. You're not going to like this. I'm remodeling my house at the moment and one of the things I'm remodeling is my garden and I'm looking for planters in my bloody garden. To me,

again the whole point of wealth i've got a beautiful piece of land i i'm with the the woman i love that for and we'll never ask her why but it's been with me forever you know i've got beautiful dogs i've got kids but i've got dogs um you know and i just want i just want to be able to do what i want to do when i want to do it but there's not one experience out there you're like i really love you know funny enough we were watching a movie because i used to go to florence

A ton. Yeah. Okay? The standing joke was that I was, you know, born in Firenza, but just no one told me, you know? I was always there. Absolutely loved it. Saw a program the other day, and it was in Florence. And Claire looked at me, and she said, do you want to go back? And I'm like, no, I want to be planters, you know? I don't know why, Steve. It's just when you're thinking, I'm like, it's people that have...

had all this stuff around them that want to find the beauty in something like a bonsai tree or a garden or planting the perfect thing, watching the actual process in your hand. And I never, here's the thing. I,

I never wanted to go, and I'll tell you a funny story about Journey in a second. I'll tell you a funnier one. I never wanted to do any of those things because I didn't care about the superstar aspect. I just wanted to see if I could achieve what other people said they couldn't achieve. And to give you the Journey thing, so the guy is a CNBC commentator. Last picture on my phone, by the way. Yeah.

I finally got my mother-in-law tongue planted in front of my doors yesterday. Finally, I got it. This is the last picture of my phone. So there you go. I got this. This guy wanted to meet Journey. I ended up getting him to sing on stage with Journey. I'm backstage and they're just doing some warmups. And this guy comes up and opens up this double case. And this double case had all these guitars.

Now, it was called at the time the Cricket Amphitheater in San Diego. Now, I've got no musical talent. I have trouble with like an iPod. So I saw all of these guitars and I'm like, I'm on stage. The crowd haven't turned up yet. There's a box of guitars everywhere.

Screw it. Here I go. I went and grabbed the guitar and I'm just like, and I'm just like messing around playing what is obviously going to be one of the lead guitarists, you know, guitars. And this guy comes over to me and he's like, what are you doing?

I said, look, I'm sorry, buddy. I said, but it was there. I couldn't resist it. I had to take it. For two seconds, I was a guitarist on stage. And he's like, well, can you put it back now? And I'm like, certainly. So I put it back. He was not impressed. So I put it back, and I went, look.

my name's Steve Sims, you know, you don't know who I am, I said, but I've arranged, the journey's going to come on and they're going to single my boy, we're going to do a sound check in a few moments. I said, but I, can you do me a favour? And he's looking at me, he's so pissed with me. And he's looking at me, and I said, can you do me a favour? I said, yeah.

I'm British. I don't know who journey is. I said, I've just organized this thing. So when they come on, because like the groupies and the roadies, they all look the same, you know? So I said, look, when they come on stage, I'll be over there with my boy. Just give me a little wave to let me know they're here. He's like, yeah, sure. Okay, then. So I went, oh, thank you very much. Thank you very much. And I actually shook his hand. He didn't want to be doing that at all. And then I walked off. And then all of a sudden he went, whoosh.

Hey, I turned around. He went, we're here. It was the lead guitarist of, of journey. I just told you how you do it. Yeah. So I'll tell you my journey story, which is, which is pretty funny. So a million years ago, before he met my wife, dated a guy that was for a very short period of time, the lead singer for journey, like, like, I mean, literally lasted like eight, nine shows, whatever it was before he got replaced.

And anyway, when we first met, my mother-in-law being the jipper person that she is, jipper, you know, Journey was coming to town. And this guy was still the lead singer of them for this period. And her mother, who was just basically trying to torture me, was like, oh, do you think this person could get us tickets to Journey? And Gidget's like, ah!

I mean, probably. And she looks at me, she goes, do you want to go? And I'm like, absolutely not. And she's like, why not? And I'm like, because of the look. And she goes, what's the look? And I go, the look is something that men love to give, but hate to get. That's when you run into somebody that's, you ran into a girl that's with, we all know what it is, John. Yeah, used to date,

And you get to look at him and be like, hey, hang on to her. She's a keeper. And that means he knows you should do weird things to her instantly, right? You love to give it. You hate to get it. And I'm like, this would be the ultimate look. Like I'm in the front row and this jackass walks by. I'm forever yours, faithfully. And I'm going to jail. That's the ultimate look. And so anyway, I told that story for years, right? And one of our dear friends, Scott, had heard it a million times.

And after about five years of this, he's talking to my wife one night at a bar. And he's like, can I ask you a question that's always bothered me? And she goes, yeah, my wife is very tall. And he goes, how did you date the lead singer for Journey? And she goes, well, no, he was in a band out here and I met him and we just dated and it was years ago and blah, blah, blah. And he's like, no, like logistically, because he's like four feet tall. She's like, not the little Filipino guy. She's like, not that guy. She's like, for years you thought I dated this little Filipino man? No.

No. There's nothing wrong with being a little Filipino man. No, no, stop. So who have we not upset on this show so far? Everybody, pretty much. Tom Hanks. Well, that's every week. Yeah, Filipinos. Chilis. Yeah. I think we've run the gamut. So anyway, I think it's a good place to wrap it up. You know who I hate? What is this coming out? The Dutch. The Dutch?

What is this coming out? It comes out on 18th of October. You can find it on stevedsims.com or just go on Amazon and it'll be there. If you jump on Steve D. Sims now, sign up for that little subscription thing and I'll send you an alert when the book comes out. Love it. Love it. Love it. Subscribe to Steve. And describe his newsletter too because he puts out good stuff.

It's great stuff to get every day. So anyways, man, Steve, always good to see you. You know I love you, man. Thanks for coming by, buddy. I've enjoyed it. Thanks, man. Yeah, it's been good. I told you it was not going to be your normal boring day today. It's been good. I've been happy. All right, guys. And remember, man, thanks for joining us. Make sure you like and subscribe. If you're watching this on YouTube, give us a comment, whatever you might want to do. Every little bit helps. And if you're going to move, man, keep moving forward. See you next time.

Hey, it's John Gafford. If you want to catch up more and see what we're doing, you can always go to thejohngafford.com where we'll share any links that we have things we talked about on the show, as well as links to the YouTube where you can watch us live. And if you want to catch up with me on Instagram, you can always follow me at thejohngafford. I'm here. Give me a shout.