Rob Moore - Entrepreneur, Investor, Mentor & Best-Selling Author | Know More, Make More, Give More

Welcome to Success Story. I'm your host, Scott Clary. The Success Story podcast is part of the HubSpot podcast network. HubSpot has been a huge supporter of the show. They have so many tools that can help your business. The one that I want to just mention today, so you go check it out, is their new AI chatbot. It's called campaign assistant. HubSpot's campaign assistant is a game changer for creating marketing campaigns at scale. It turns your key selling points into a cohesive pitch, which helps you deliver knockout emails, ads and landing pages in minutes. Just choose your content type, input a few keywords, key points, pick a tone like friendly or witty, and let the AI robots handle the rest. You can copy and paste the content to whatever channel you'd like or even convert it directly into publishable campaigns without leaving your HubSpot interface. So let campaign assistant take care of the campaigns so you can get back to growing your business, work smarter, not harder, at HubSpot.com slash campaign-assistant. So December the 15th, 2005, I was working in my dad's pub, his bar, in my hometown. I was 25 years and 11 months old, and something happened in that bar that definitely changed the course of both my financial life, but also my mindset around life. And to put you in the picture really quick, my dad had pretty much raised me to be an entrepreneur from age six. He got me working in his pubs, bars and clubs, age six, taking money off the customers, emptying the pool tables, the slot machines, restocking up the beer kegs and the drinks cabinets at age six. And he'd pay me a pound a week, and I'd go down to the local sort of everything store before Amazon, and I'd buy a picture of a Ferrari, a picture of a Lamborghini, a picture of a, I love the Mustang or the Corvette, and every week I'd buy a supercar picture from a pound, and I put them up all on my wall. And I just loved the fact that my dad seemed to have this freedom, yet I've always had a big lump of cash in his pocket, and back then the paper notes were so big, I know I was small, but the paper notes were so big, and I just loved working, I loved working more than I love going to school. And I had to go to school, unfortunately, and I did my exams and did quite well, and then all of a sudden I'm at university. And I'm on the last day of university, and I'm getting a degree in something I'm not interested in at all, which is architecture, and I've built up all this debt, and I have no idea what I want to do with my life. So my mum phones me up literally the day I graduated, and she said, can you come and work at the pub for a month or two, because that's not very well and I'm a bit worried about him, and then you can figure out what you want to do with your life. And three years later, I'm still there, and it brings me to December the 15th 2005, and now I'm 50,000 pounds, which I guess is about $70,000 now. In debt, living in my mum and dad's pub with them age 26, I mean, that's quite sad. I'm uncouchable, I'm skeptical, I've got a chip on my shoulder, I hate life, I'm scared, but it comes across as arrogance. And then I'm pulling beers in the pub at one o'clock, really busy December the 15th, freezing cold in the UK in December. And my dad just has his massive nervous breakdown in the pub in front of all the customers who started eyes rolling around the back of his head, convulsing and shouting and screaming and squealing, it was all gibberish. I managed to get him out of the front of the pub. I've got him to the the front, hopefully trying to hold him against the wall, but all the customers had come out to watch. The police had got called and two policemen got out of a small van, one looked about 19 years old and they beat him up and they got batons out and they smashed him around the back, around the back of the legs, the knees, they tied him up, they put him in the van, they arrested him, they sectioned him and they diagnosed him with bipolar disorder and that was almost 16 years ago. And in that moment, see my mum crying her eyes out, my sister crying her eyes out, all the customers watching. I felt intense shame, but I was frozen scared to do anything. I actually had, I was about a brown belt in martial arts at that point. It's probably smart that I didn't go and fight the police, but I just didn't have the courage to do anything. And, you know, I wouldn't say that was the one moment, you know, if I'm pins everything on the one moment, it wasn't like that for me, it was like for weeks, I hated myself and I felt so shame. My dad had paid for school, paid for university, paid for my first house, giving me a job. I'm supposed to be an entrepreneur and I'm nothing and I hated myself. But in those few weeks of self-loathing, I started to take opportunities that were always there, but I didn't know Scott. So, you know, I went to a property meeting for the first time, even though I hated, hated Yuppies and I hated entrepreneurs, you know, I hated anyone in a suit. I like to rage against the machine and I was like, I hate all this, Yuppies. But I didn't hate that. It was just my own fears projecting out and so I forced myself to this networking event. And at the end of that networking event, I met someone and we're still business partners today, 16 years on. And I'll keep the story really short Scott, because this is the CV bit. But I got myself out of the 50 grams worth of debt in my first year selling property deals for a company that this guy had helped me get a job in. I made nearly a hundred grand clear in that year and bought myself, I got out of debt paid, all my debts off, even bought myself a Nissan 350Z boarded for cash. The next year and we bought 20 properties in that year on the side, the next year about 30 properties and we set up my company progressive. Fast forward now we have 1540 tenants across hundreds of properties, we've just finished a 99 apartment, 159 tenant block, which made 14 million 377 pounds net profit in November 21. We've done hundreds of millions in education revenue. I brought the world record for the longest public speech, not once but twice over 18 books, I've got 1000 podcasts episodes often, you know, top in business and entrepreneurship raised hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions for my foundations, the rob more foundation. And you know, these are the bits and bombs I've done along the way. I'm probably the most proud of retiring my dad and mum. Only three years after I bought my house, I bought my car and I retired them and that's probably for me a more proud moment than all the business accolades. But really, I feel like I've just started, we were just talking off air before about how we're all comparing ourselves to someone and Joe Rogan's got a bigger podcast than me, so I feel like I've got a lot more work to do, but this all was because I got motivated and I had this event that happened to me that shocked me back into chasing my dream and overcoming my fears, I suppose. Do you feel that the best entrepreneurs have to hit that rock bottom before they are successful? Do you feel like everybody who is successful has had that kind of point in their life? Is that a prerequisite? No, I think it helps. But there's two ways to have a low, the rock bottom you mentioned, essentially it's motivation, isn't it? It is pain. It's pain that causes motivation and accountability. So there's two ways to get that Scott number one is you wait until your dad has a nervous breakdown and gets beaten up in front of everyone or you create your own pain accountability and motivation. So you either artificially create in yourselves or life created it for you, but I do think that's a driver. So there are a lot of people are misinformed about success because they say things are well, that person successful because they're a rich family, that person successful because they were born in the in the middle class, that person successful because you know they they're able to live in the American dream. But actually you look at successful people, they're abused, Oprah Winfrey, you look at successful people, they're immigrants Arnold Schwarzenegger Gary V. So actually this pain is often the motivator. But I suppose the reason I tell the story, I don't want people to wait until they hit rock bottom to finally follow the dreams. I want people to create accountability, pain and motivation within themselves now, so they don't have to hit rock bottom, they're almost forcing their own hunger. Now when you jump into all these different business ventures, it's over the years you've built up all that you've built up property business, you've built up a podcast, you've written multiple books, you get some awards, but what motivated you to go in one path or the other day one and also how are you successful at so many things when so many entrepreneurs to come to shiny objects and fail at multiple. Okay, I'll answer the second one and then ask me the first one again and so I've battled with that Scott for much of my entrepreneurial life. Am I doing too many things if I just focused on one thing would I be more successful after all everyone tells you that focus stands for follow one course until successful. But I think you've got to honor who you are and really know who you are and I love variety is a high value of mine and I need it being an entrepreneur and by definition of an entrepreneur what's the difference between an entrepreneur and a small business owner. Well entrepreneurs probably take more risk and entrepreneurs probably do more ventures like you probably wouldn't call one small business owner entrepreneur, but you would call an entrepreneur entrepreneur if they were had multiple companies, you know Steve Jobs have multiple companies, even though he's famous for Apple. Many of the other entrepreneurs on multiple things so you list them all they'll do multiple things so. So the variety is a high need of mine it's a high human need, but it's a high need of mine so I'd say variety is a high need for yours, be honest about it and try and balance two or three different models or streams, but know when you're spreading yourself to thin and be self aware about that. Because I've got a few things that for me are a warning sign that I'm spreading myself to thin, like maybe I'm overwhelmed or maybe there's too much of a diary or sometimes Scott I sit down and I go I'm doing a lot of things but I'm not doing any of them very well and then I just have to say no and push a few things back and delay a few things. Not enough things not enough variety too much things dilution of skills and focus and results and we've all got our own sweet spot it is wrong to say you should do one thing is wrong to say you should do 10 things. It depends on you, but you probably shouldn't do 10 things straight away and you probably shouldn't do one thing forever one thing forever is a risk 10 things straight away is too thin. You got to find your ideal balance and for me it's probably running three different ventures at the same time so at the moment i'm running my training organizations but on a strategic level i'm doing my personal brand and content and then little side projects like my NFT launch and you know sort of part writing books and things like that so. Yeah, I like to sort of divide my time up about 70% in my main thing 20% in my secondary thing and then 10% in all other things and that works for me. But we've all got to find our own slight balance. Now what's your what's your mental process for deciding where to invest your energy what's the highest leverage opportunity and how do you identify that. I don't think i've got a model i think i've got more intuition on it Scott so just feeling that intuition i've got to love it. Like surely that is people always say to me Rob what's the best business opportunity right now i'm like one year love. Because you know what crypto but what if you don't like it what if you're not into the technicalities of it only fans is a pretty good business model but not for me you know so. What what you love like 30 years ago there wasn't such a thing as merging your passion profession vocation vacation but there is now. And I would say the best business model is what you love so because I take risk in the hope of profit and you know make a lot of sacrifices to be an entrepreneur i'm not going to spend half the day doing shit I hate. So criteria number one for me on how do I choose a business model is do I love it number two. Is it opportune like nfts for me i'm just about to launch my nft series is opportune like is early enough but not too early in five years it'd be too late last year it would have been too early so it's the timing right now by the way for me with timing i'm not one of those guys that jumps in on a fad so opportune for me is when. I only really like to go into something if I think I can leverage it for 10 years plus otherwise what's the point because you put a lot of time and energy and resource to push the bolder up the hill so passion opportune are you good at it could you get good at it because there's plenty of things I love that i'm not very good at. There's plenty of things i'm not bad at but I don't actually really enjoy and they're actually different so are you good at it and then do you want it to be a business you know do you want to go through all the rig moral of setting up a company and hiring staff and taking a risk and all of that and can you make a good fair margin out of it you know so many people they have loves but there's not enough margin in their passion. So you need to also you know so you could say purpose. Profit. Definitely those two. Passion. And yeah maybe. A timing that begins with P I was going to say you got to think of something. I'm trying to make up a model for you on the spot because you said if I got a model what's it listen it's not bad on the spot i'm not going to lie that's that's it's pretty good framework that's it like yeah there's always a framework somewhere even if it's not. At a surface level if you dig deep enough into like what you do and what's made you successful there's something under there that that can be taught out can be pulled out can be repeatable to some extent. 100% the only thing is as soon as you get a model the world changes. That's also true so you know with a platform is definitely up if I was teaching business and I was trying to make everything start with P platform would be in it. And I just actually got a 90 day ban from YouTube so I've had an emergency meeting with my team today to work out what other platform should we be on and some of them are more underground. You know like rumble and bit shoot and then my head of brown is like we shouldn't be on bit shoot do you know. It's happening to a lot of people now yeah. Oh yeah it happened to me because my guest said covid has been hard for some more business and it was the bot shut us down for misinformation that's not misinformation that can happen to anyone. So you've got to be on multi platform and you've got to have a business model that you can leverage on platform you know some people say to me at the moment Rob should I want to start a gym and I'm like that's not great timing. You're better off doing something online and leveraging online platforms right now because that's where the opportunity is right now. You've interviewed a ton of incredible entrepreneurs you've interviewed billionaires you've interviewed like very very notable names. So between them and also yourself what are what are the best skill sets or my or entrepreneurial lessons that you would teach over if somebody wanted to start something what is the number one thing does somebody would have to keep top of mind. Well I've actually distilled about 21 habits and traits of. Yeah how much time do we have so I won't cover them all and I've written a book called money which has a lot of the traits in them and I have a podcast called money so if anyone wants to do any further research fine. So I'm just going to pick out a few random ones every billionaire of me is intensely curious. And zero is think they know it all and they have this ego chip on their shoulder and they're talking more than listening. A billionaire is curious to learn from everyone not not every billionaire because there's always exceptions to rules of course isn't there. Billionaires tend to be intensely curious you know voracious learners if you like and they have mass distribution. So that's not a personality trait but it's a you know it's a business trait so you know Google probably have distribution of two million two billion people Amazon of global distribution Netflix have 205 million users. So the more distribution you have the more scale you have the more reaching to revenue you have so certainly distribution is one of them and I like to talk about fair exchange so there's a lot of people in this world that think the world isn't fair. But the world is fair based on reward for merit so the world will not give you anything for nothing and you know communism and socialism I think has been proven not to work very well because it's this incentive and it's reversed merit. Bill Gates said if you're born poor it's not your fault but if you die poor is your fault and you also said you don't get what you deserve you get what you negotiate. So traits of billionaires are that they are fully and personally responsible for everything that they do even if it's not their fault they make it their fault their full ownership no blame all accountability. That is a definite trait of all entrepreneurs I know and they've learned the rules of entrepreneurship you know some of us are it's not fair how billionaires get around all this tax what they learned how to get around the tax with fair loopholes that were created by Donald Trump in his tax code. So what are you going to do it's not fair that a billionaire learned the rules of the game of course it's fair they learn the rules of the game it's not the billionaires fault it's the governments fault and who voted in the government the people so it's the people's fault not the billionaires fault and they don't get this paradox. So you know people who've become millionaires they've learned about value and service production and profit and loss and balance sheet and you know how to make something for 10 pounds and sell it for 20 pounds they've learned the fundamentals of money and business and how it works in fair exchange. So a habit and trait of billionaires is understanding what money is and learning the rules of money and business so this quick break from this podcast to recommend another podcast the app to check out it's called the product boss is hosted by Jacqueline and Mina it's part of the HubSpot podcast network. If you have a physical product this podcast is hyper tailored to you it's going to help you take your business to the next level in a recent episode for example you spoke about the power of TikTok or product businesses and how to use it to drive sales and somebody who is a little new to TikTok I really learned some great tips for creating content that actually converts viewers into customers they have a workshop style format that makes it really easy to follow along to take your business to the next level. So if you sell physical products subscribe to the product boss wherever you get your podcast to unlock social media marketing and business strategies that create your dream business and then your dream life was a great. I want to ask a couple of mindset questions because you have a couple points you speak about often I thought are really interesting. So to take away from mindset and you can choose which one you want to go into first but I want to cover both so relationship with money and then mindset of a broke person versus successful or rich person I think that both of those are interesting and you have opinions on those so I'd like to go into those and just to talk about your experience as with relationship with money as a mindset as an entrepreneur. Wow you know I could speak for a week on this straight so money is simply a tool created by man to create a universal fair exchange to increase the speed and reduce the friction of interpersonal transactions that's what money is. But the Bible says that the love of money is the root of all evil so many people who have religious beliefs are indoctrinated with a negative mindset around money and you know in some religions lending money and charging interest is you know a sin if you like it's. It's even I think illegal is certainly immoral in some religions and cultures. So the Bible I can't say the Bible was wrong because I don't know the context in which it was written but what I can say is the love of money being the root of all evil that is wrong. What is evil is humanity because money isn't conscious and money doesn't have emotion so money can't be evil. They imagine someone committed murder with a hammer you wouldn't try the hammer for murder and put the hammer on trial in front of a judge and jury because the hammer is a tool and we all know that the hammer is a tool and none of us debate it we don't go that hammer is evil. And when we put a hammer get a hammer and it nails in a piece of wood we don't go this hammer is virtuous is a hammer but money is no different to a hammer a hammer is a great tool of leverage that humanity created. Money is a great tool of leverage that humanity created money is one of the greatest inventions that humanity has created because it universalized value and it removed friction for exchange. And it allowed it allowed us to trade from little villages to globally. It's a brilliant invention but money never murdered anyone money was never greedy money was never powerful money was never evil it was human beings. Now some people will say but money made them that way no it didn't money can't money doesn't change you it makes you more of who you already are. So all money can do is exaggerate your traits if you took a billion and gave it to a philanthropist. They're giving that money away if you took a billion and gave it to a drug lord or you gave it to you know find a war a gambler and addict then that's where it's going. So the love of money is not the root of all evil money is a tool that can be used for evil and good based on the values of the individual. So if you want to get really good at making money you separate emotions and money just like you're not emotional about a hammer you just know what it does and you use it well for what it does because you can turn a hammer on the other way and you can pull a nail out. So you can use a hammer in a few different ways and money is the same it's a brilliant tool it's a brilliant tool I can store value from something I bought or sold that energy can be stored in money and then I can buy or sell something to you across the world and transfer that energy from me to you. So when you know that money is a moral a emotional and a conscious and it's a great tool for universal exchange and you learn how to use the tool really well just like nunchucks. You can use it to learn how to use nunchucks really well or not then you transcend all emotional and moral and judgment around money and you just use the tool well and if you want to change the world get really good at making money and then do good things with that money. Is that the now how does that dovetail maybe it doesn't correct me if I'm wrong but how does that relate to to mindset is that is that the difference between a poor person's mindset and a successful person's mindset it's a relationship the healthy relationship with money as a tool versus something that is something that is evil and people have too much of it and you can't you shouldn't base your whole life on pursuing it is that the difference. Yeah so a few definitions to clarify so if you are developing world poor or you have never had your education because you have lack of resources then you don't have the same equal opportunity as someone who's just broke whereby they're raised in America or England or Australia and they've got access to the internet and libraries and podcasts but they're still broke. So let's go on broke rather than poor because poor isn't your fault because you could have been born into it no nothing no no different but most people who we talk to are probably if they haven't got any money they're probably broke over poor. So the mindset of broke is quite complicated but to simplify it it is allowing your emotions to control your spending and not having a knowledge and wisdom of how you leverage money and value properly. So a broke person will always spend more than they earn but a fundamental law of money if you want to appreciate it is to never spend more than you earn. A broke person will buy depreciating liabilities with money a wealthy person will invest in appreciating assets with money. A broke person will use money to alleviate their volatile emotions they feel really good they celebrate I've had a really good month we're going to go on holiday they feel really bad they spend emotionally spend a lot of money to try and make themselves feel better whereas wealthy people can separate the emotions and they can go right this is the budget this is the forecast this is the investment this is the saving these are the projections and they can remove emotions away. Emotions away from money so in a way I would say a more profound conversation to have around money is not the mindset of money is the emotions of money and what emotions are they're a level deeper than mindset because mindset is what you think emotions is what you feel but I think most people feel before they think i.e. they're triggered I think when you're talking about money. I think when you're triggered you feel before you think. And so I think impulsiveness is to be triggered triggered by society triggered by media triggered by how our parents raised us triggered by how we perceive corporations and billionaires et cetera we become triggered we're hijacked with emotion and then we make a decision and we don't it's not mindset. mindset is a thought process to understand why we're triggered why did I hate rich people because I was broken I hated myself I wanted to be rich and I'd solve myself out and that was embarrassing to admit but it was easier to hate the very person that I wanted to be because it made me feel more comfortable in my own misery. But that's a very difficult thing to be self aware about and to admit the reason i'm triggered by this person is because it's a mirror and picks a scab of all the disowned parts of myself that's a fucking hard thing to admit but that is that's not just mindset mastery that's emotional mastery and that's mastery of your upbringing and your background and not blaming your parents and all these things so. You know that if you want to make it simple the difference between the broken the rich is they're able to control their emotions around money and make more balanced financial decisions in an untriggered neutral emotional state, whereas broke people are always spending emotionally. That would be actually the binary thing if you were to put a gun to my head rob I need one the transcends them all the difference between the broken the rich that's it and I don't think anyone tells you that because everyone's using the word mindset. But if you upset me and trigger me i'm not thinking straight i'm just riddled with anger and emotion and shame and then vengeance and all these other bubbly and that's when you're the least clear. There we have a very special sponsor for today's episode foundation source they are all about helping people and companies make the world a better place through giving they are the biggest name out there when it comes to managing foundations and charitable donations through foundations. What's great about foundation source is they literally know everything there is to know about charity about giving but how to do it right about the benefits to come with it they use incredible technology to make giving easier for foundation for individuals for companies and they've put together an incredible guide called the guide to tax strategies for private foundations. 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I thought it was interesting that you put out a podcast called money you wrote a book called money because all the entrepreneurial things that you speak about you hear those you hear the curiosity you hear the nasty the great the perseverance the one thing that I think a lot of people don't speak about enough is the importance of having that healthy relationship mindset end of motion with money if you're going to build anything because if not it's going to fuck you up down the line whether or not it's going to be a great deal. It's figuring out where to budget figuring out what to do with investment figuring out anything it's going to fuck you up but I've never really heard somebody speak about it until you and you sort of straddle that you live in the entrepreneurship world but you you made a point to build out assets that exclusively focus on that on that concept on a topic I thought it was really interesting. I want to yeah for real rock on okay I want to I want to do a couple rapid fire because honestly man like you're a smart dude we can go for a long time but I want to I want to respect your time maybe do an in person sometimes to whatever it is but I want to do rapid fire most importantly though before I pivot to close this out where do people reach out to you where do they get all your content your best socials your website. So robmore.com it's my website you can find me rob more or rob more progressive on all media social media except only fans. Not yet my podcast I've actually got two podcasts let's just focus on the money one for now you'll find my other one when you find that and yeah more over Amazon got loads of books on money and business and personal development mindset and all that kind of stuff. Awesome okay let's do a couple rapid fire biggest challenge in your life what was it how did you overcome it. I would say the biggest challenge in my life is government interference and overcome that. A whole can of worms I mean we're talking capitalism since way back when I know I said I had a hard stop at half past but I give us an extra sort of five to 10 here so basically when COVID happened. The government intervened and locked us down now I'm not saying if that's right or wrong because actually we won't know for many years if it's right or wrong and if it was really wrong it'll probably get covered up and the rightness of it will probably be. You know amplified until there's a new government in so look it might be right might be wrong this upside down sides but the reality to my business that was running eight hundred and fifty training days live per year was the overnight we could run zero. And you know Mark and I built up a few million in liquid as well as all of our assets so we had some cash that we could burn through but going from you know we had overheads of seven eight nine hundred grand a month one of one of our months the overhead was one point one million so you know we're like holy shit if we're a year or two in lockdown. You know we might burn five to ten million a year holy shit that doesn't sound good so that was intervention number one by government that really disrupted the business the next one is taxation so that is added on to my products which make them 20% more expensive for people. Then corp tax comes off which is going up from 18 to 25% in the UK and then income tax of 45% then dividend taxes going up and nationally assurance went up and then everything I bias got increased tax on and inflation is really huge and they're printing money left right and center so basically my pound is going down at 10 to 15% a year at the moment and I'm taxed about 70% in that pound and that's all through government intervention. So you know how do you deal with that sorry how do you deal with that the second part of the question was how do you how do you overcome it I don't see that's not an easy thing to overcome. No well I mean obviously we're only not even two years away from it so I've navigated lockdowns we're now open again we do live events as well as online events actually you know we had a really good January in fact we had a brilliant August September October November December January how did I deal with that. Because I hustled like I've probably never hustled before in the mind and in the graft you know I've been more about craft and leverage over the last few years but I put the graft in as well as the craft and figured out how to adapt and evolve. So that's how I dealt with the COVID and now I'm ready for anything because I know that it could happen again in the winter and you know so I guess I really my metal was tested as an entrepreneur you know the buildings site there's 130,000 square foot with I think we had 80 contractors on it and that could have just been shut down a 20 million pound 30 million dollar project so this was very frickin real. In terms of the tax well that's probably not for a discussion on a podcast mate I'm just going to go through all my accounts and make sure that absolutely every single thing I can offset I am. So for example we don't always yeah you should anyway but there's a lot of things that you can offset that you don't know because you haven't learned it or you haven't got advice or we haven't taught yourself so for example you can offset R and D spend and we haven't we haven't ever done that and we've got tech and we've got a lot of things that you can offset that you don't know. And we haven't been we haven't ever done that and we've got tech and we've got tech that external users use because you can't offset R and D spend on tech you build for yourself i'm talking in the UK everyone else got to get your own advice but in the UK you can offset R and D spend on tech that you sell. So and we've got three pieces of tech and we've been doing it for 15 years and we haven't offset any of the R and D tax so we're doing that right now so you know I basically have to make sure that i'm running my company in a responsible way and i'm offsetting all the costs that I can. Now this is what the main mainstream masses get pissed off about but bring someone in here who's pissed off with apple going to Ireland and Amazon going to Ireland to reduce their corp tax and put them in a position where they've got to start their business they've got to take risk they've got to put their mortgage on the line they've got to put their family on the line they've got shareholders and they've got five usually responsibility to maximize the profit and then tell me they wouldn't freaking do the same. Because if it's legal why wouldn't you so don't you shoot in the messenger by taking pot shots at Bill Gates and Elon Musk it's not them and it's actually the middle class and the small business that gets hurt the most. So they don't have it they don't know they don't know they can't do that they don't have the the knowledge of the skills. So i will tell you this though and this has been a very well all my content is candid so you always get stuff from me that other people probably don't have the balls to say. But if they put the tax up too much i'm out of here i'm not paying 85% tax so i'm it in the UK tax got to 83% right now my tax 83 yeah 83 dude i'm nice that's why i'm an idiot i'm an idiot yeah that's that that's worse than me yeah so. Wow and at the moment all in but net net net net my taxes 70% if I can work out a few legitimate expenses I might be able to get that down a bit. I could probably digest 50 I mean it feels a bit unfair working half your week for the government but you know I want to pay my dues and you know we've got a school system and we've got an education and a health care system i'm grateful for that so i'll pay half. But i won't pay 75% you know. I might be moving if it gets too but a lot of there's a lot of beautiful places in the world that don't take 75% and it was going to put a Rico now aren't they that's where they're all at the moment they are all the people they've been money in crypto or i'll go on the Puerto Rico yeah but right now it's it's got to be i'm got to be equitable here's the thing right i was listening to name Chomsky i really want to get name Chomsky on my podcast and you know he's obviously he's he's sort of very knowledgeable on propaganda. And it's a bit of a cult hero in many ways but he was talking about how corporations have it away because you know this the bailout economy and governments bailout corporations and they get all of this these tax havens and I thought for someone who's so smart that was a stupid thing to say. Here's why because there's only a few massive corporations that get bailout protection from the government and get all these tax havens there's literally well let me put into perspective is seven million small businesses in the UK that are corporations that don't get any of that. And people like known Chomsky very smart people and people who are anti capitalism and anti billionaires they're looking at seven companies and how they're able to manipulate and reduce tax and trying to smash that nut with a sledgehammer which will kill all the small businesses they have no fucking idea. And the small businesses generate 90% of the economy the politicians right so there was this politician that called Elon Musk or grifter and by the way she doesn't even know her words because grifter is petty and Elon Musk is not small so she got that one wrong she basically said that you know the man of the year is evading tax and they want to slam that book shut. Which is actually totally incorrect it's totally correct. All of the wages and a taxi she says i'm paying my taxes now he's paying a wages because the private sector pays the public sector and he paid a ton of tax to. He paid so he paid a ton of tax he was paying he was paying like what people are supposed to pay he was paying like 50 60% He never said he yeah, I know I know I saw that it was just it was just it was just upsetting because it was just it was ignorant it was super ignorant on her behalf to say that for somebody that's that's done such incredible incredible stuff with his life and these these politicians run in our country. And they don't have a freaking clue about how capitalism works and the economy works and they don't have a they don't have an understanding of how money moves around or trickles down or who finances what. Yeah, where's all the political donations from billionaires is that fucking iron on a on a crazy level. I don't know it seems like it seems like it's more with with musk in particular it seemed like it was just it was a it was like a trend to hop on you know it was like the flavor of the day was to hate on Elon Musk not paying taxes regardless of whether or not that's a correct your statement like let me ask you this question Scott. If if I gave you 11 billion option A give it to your government to invest wisely option B give it to Elon Musk to invest wisely. Who do you think is going to use 11 billion of capital better for the furtherment of humanity. A hundred of the government Elon Musk 11 at a 10 times like not even not even a question and I think even many socialists and communists would agree. So how does taking money off Elon Musk and giving it to the government solve the problem. I tell you what the real problem here is Scott is everyone worrying about Elon Musk instead of worrying about themselves. Because all the people are attacking Elon Musk if you started a meaningful enterprise that made a difference in this world and you started building products and services that people value and you started building wealth. Then you could contribute to the economy instead of like I interviewed Peter Schiff and he said governments way too bloated is so too many people in government so a lot of our taxes are immediately just going on a bloated government on a wage bill. I think I would I've had this conversation many times I think the only solution is to find a way to bring smarter people in the government right now it's not an attractive option for smart people and that's the issue well why would it not want to be in government that's exactly the issue it's not an attractive option so when you don't have an attractive option you you have brain drain you have you have the smartest people don't want to work in government why would they but that's an issue that's a major issue that would solve a lot of problems. If you figure out how to solve for that is it is it mandatory retirements at a certain age is it maybe upping that base salary I don't know what it is but there's something wrong with it because you don't have the best and brightest going to government ever in any country now I asked I am interviewed Nigel Farage who's quite big in politics in the UK such quite big in America as well he's good friends with Trump and I said why the disdain for small business why the lack of support and he said well you know in the UK there's a private school called Eaton which is where many of the politicians go and essentially the talent pool for many politicians in the UK are these private schools and they look down their nose on small business it's just they just don't value them paradoxically the small businesses paying their wages the hairdressers that they shut is paying their wages the gyms the pubs the bars the clubs the restaurants the local shops that they shut are paying their wages and then what do they do tax them more to pay their wages again it's fundamentally wrong but anyway this is supposed to be quick fire I'll do the rest really quick listen man it's a good conversation to have and it's not an easy solution at all I think a lot of people are thinking the same thing over the past I think it's been more prominent over the past two years more people have been cognizant of how fucked up shit really is over the past two years all right let's do these so I just had one more super quick thing then yeah I think the main solution out of COVID is production so why is QE high and why is QE high and why is inflation high because it's an under supply of production why a price is high because there's an under supply of production and across the world we've got this oh but I need to work from home now and oh you know well mental health you know really being affected by the way people have got genuine mental health fair enough I definitely do not look down on that don't forget my dad has bipolar but a lot of people are saying their mental health is affected when they're just tired or they've just had a couple of bad days I need to work from home and I need work life balance and I yaddi yaddi yaddi yaddi well look if we're in booming economic times of prosperity then all of that shit and a four day work we can all of that let's put it on the table but when you are if there was a war when people were going oh well I need to do a four day week in this war because my mental health is affected no pick up your freaking gun and go and fight and the way we get out of this shit I think if people knew how shit the economy could be for a decade they would take no it's production you build up production you build up supply chains and production is work so basically everyone needs to get back to work and work hard and build and produce and solve this is the way out of it but there's this counter mindset if I will I'm tired and I'm offended and I'm fuck man come on wake up and build shit and make shit and get the production up that's what you need to do look I'm an entrepreneur so I guess I'm a little bit biased but I know with my staff you know if they just do their job well I'm going to keep them and I know if they do their job 20% better than before covid I'm going to pay them more but what a lot of people do I want to do for a four day work week and you know I want to bring my problems to work and all this stuff and this is by the way I'm not even it's not even on the people it's on society it's on government it's on media you know that guy fired 900 people on zoom and he got a massive lambasting for it if that company is in financial trouble and firing 900 people means that that company survives that entrepreneur is brave and tell me anyone else who would have had the balls to do that and he got a load of shit for it a load of shit by a load of people getting paid in civil service who got furloughed in lockdown fuck come on people I see a couple of sore points a couple of sore points that have been fucking ruminating in your head man well you know you know an entrepreneur is usually built differently usually you look at stuff that's happening and you just get but like the answer is you can't just get mad you got to figure out a solution that's the issue you got to figure out a solution evangelize a solution because you can get pissed off as you want but it's not going to change the fact that people do want to for our work you so what's what's the fix what's the fix what's the fix production production but how do you change how do you change a mindset how do you change the mindset of society how do you do that I don't know how to do that that's a different I work I work non stop I'm cool with it I we're on the same wavelength but I don't know how to get somebody who wants a four hour week to not want a four hour work we are four hour four day I think you've got yeah I think you've got to teach that well Tim Ferris needs to you know I bet he's worked five hours Tim Ferris so I think you teach them really how the world works from a younger age because they don't get it like proper education from people who want to work less they want to do less because they think that's going to make them happier but actually life is the opposite you feel the best when you produce and you get reward and you overcome challenge so basically we have to build and produce and overcome challenge and do hard things and when we do those things we get those feelings of fulfillment which are far deeper and more meaningful than those transient feelings of oh good now that's work to on Friday so it's about teaching people actually understand what feeling good is and what reward really is yeah I agree with that I agree with that okay that's let's keep going I feel like we could do more on this let's keep going alright couple other lessons to pull out from from your life who's the biggest influence in your life you had many many people that have influenced you who was the biggest influence and why or how do they influence you my dad when I was young as I said because you know I wanted to be him John Demartini probably in terms of mentoring and wisdom and education on understanding and spirituality and the balance of life and how every upside has a downside and in every stressing hides a blessing and you know a lot of understanding of polarity and how human being separate things so you know battery wouldn't work if it didn't have a positive and a negative in an atom I think you have a positive and a negative you know you have a male and female in terms of sex but also plugs to male and female a screw has a hole in a screw so basically everything has this polarity which creates neutrality but what human beings do is we create extreme so you know in factuation and fantasy is perceiving only upside depression and anxiety is perceiving only downside John Demartini taught me that actually everything has both and there is neutrality and everything has equal upside and downside and for me that's true wisdom and you know COVID was hard but there been plenty of upsides and you know I've never met anyone who can I remember hearing John Demartini talk about 100 upsides of 9-11 and I was like wow wow and he often talks about the upsides of his wife dying and I say often he's talked to me about it a couple of times I don't know how much he publicizes it but wisdom is understanding what is not what you feel and what you feel is I feel good what does feeling good mean it means thinking everything is good i.e. not seeing the things that are not good what does feeling bad mean seeing everything that's bad and not seeing everything that's good so for me I mean it takes a little bit of while to truly get your head around but for me that's the ultimate form of wisdom is polarity and neutrality and balance if you could tell your 20 year old self one thing what would that be? stop drinking and chasing women very good advice and last question what does success mean to you? doing meaningful and useful things to as many people as possible