Bust and Beyond
Failure is a part of life and business, and I experienced the failure of a business in 2015 that my father had started in 1969. The effect it had on me emotionally was huge, yet the outside world knew nothing. I kept it to myself. I learnt so much from that failure, and it made me determined to support other business owners in the construction industry to avoid failure and flourish.
As I started to speak to business owners about failure, I learnt just how many had suffered from mental health issues and harmful thoughts. This drove me to start my podcast to educate and let people know how to avoid failure and know if they are going through failure, they are not alone, but more importantly, there is life and success after the failure of your business.
Bust and Beyond
E36 Exploring Change with Sid Mohasseb
Sid Mohasseb, a dynamic entrepreneur, educator, and investor, joins me for an enlightening conversation on Bustin' Beyond. Through Sid's journey, we unravel the myth of effortless success and underscore the powerful lessons failure teaches in the world of entrepreneurship. From the undervalued potential in industries like construction to the deceptive allure of quick wins, we explore how true business success requires motivation, self-awareness, and a willingness to embrace change.
Together, Sid and I explore the transformative effects of change and motivation as drivers of personal and societal growth. We consider the dual nature of AI—its disruptive potential and capacity for innovation—and argue that embracing periods of chaos can lead to incredible growth. Our dialogue extends to the role of fear in leadership, revealing it as a crucial alert system rather than a weakness. We also examine the impacts of social media on mental health, advocating for personal fulfilment over societal validation.
As we reflect on modern capitalism's pitfalls, Sid and I critique its shift away from the classic risk-and-reward model. We discuss the need for change in healthcare systems, pointing out inefficiencies and advocating for state-provided healthcare as a basic right. Throughout the episode, we highlight stories of seizing opportunities with discernment, the importance of patience, and a balanced approach to societal support. Join us as we dissect these complex themes, offering insights that challenge conventional narratives and inspire thoughtful reflection.
Hello and welcome to Bustin' Beyond with your host, robin Hayhurst. In this podcast, robin will introduce guests that have known failure and want to share their story about how they got through it and what happened next. This will make you learn how to see things from a new perspective and avoid making the same mistakes. Please welcome Robin Hayhurst.
Speaker 2:Hello everybody and welcome to bust and beyond. Uh, today I'm joined by sid mohazab, is that right? That is exactly right, yeah, hey, not bad um, and I'll let him introduce himself, because he has done a lot, basically. So, sid, what? What have you done and what? What would you say you do?
Speaker 3:as uh as we were talking. As I said, it's hard to say what I do. It's a lot of stuff and the core of it is this idea of building, creating and changing and evolving, and I started my first company when I was in college. Then I was partner of a consulting firm for a number of years. I started about five companies. Some worked, some didn't. I've been the president of the largest angel investment entity in the US, making early stage entities have had a venture fund, which entities have had a venture fund? And also at one point I was the national lead for strategic innovation at KPMG, which is a large organization.
Speaker 3:Now I do really four things. One is I teach at university. I teach at University of Southern California, usc, both in engineering and business school. I do some writing, I'm an author, I have a couple of books and I do a lot of articles. I guess I'm old and opinionated and do some speaking, public speaking stuff. So that's the second piece. The third is I still am involved in early stage companies. I sit on boards, some earlier, some later. I'm launching, hopefully, the academy, anabasis Academy, which is all about provoking people to discover their entrepreneurial talent and provoke to evolve and discover their next best version. So that's what I do now those four things.
Speaker 2:So I mean you talked about, um, starting some companies up and failing a few times. You know now you're kind of angel investing. I bet that experience has really made a big difference to how you see other businesses absolutely so.
Speaker 3:You see a lot of folks that are I don't know. They've they've made a lot of money, they invest or they're real estate investors or they're doctors or they're you know. They play around by putting some money and hoping that it would be the next Airbnb or Google or whatever. But when you get into professional angel investors, there is this notion that you understand failure. You have to make, in the average, about 20 to 25 investments for one or two to really work. Now, that's not you're intending to fail. Every one of these you evaluate and so forth. I always joke around. You know 50, of uh of marriages, uh fail. People get divorced, but nobody gets into and says I want to f up my, my life and get married. They all look at it, they all evaluate it, but but something doesn't work. So that odds are even worse when it comes to early stage investing yeah, I think early stage companies are really interesting.
Speaker 2:I mean, I coach myself only construction. So one of the things about construction companies is they don't always see themselves as entrepreneurs. They don't get that they're builders, which is a shame because what they do is very entrepreneurial and quite difficult. And you tend to see that the smaller companies they either don't understand the potential and how quickly they grow, or do the opposite. They think the potential is huge and they've got no substance to their growth.
Speaker 3:They've just got no idea how to do it. Well, you can fool yourself many ways, Robert.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:You know there's all this stuff about, and I've been fascinated for the past three or four days about this notion of providing what they call practical advice. I was asked to do a keynote for about 1,000 people and they said, sid, could you provide some practical advice? So here's what I've been thinking. You know, practical really depends on the audience. I can say, do one, two, three, but that's for me, that's not for you. I mean, is it practical? I say, hey, you don't want to have, you want to control your diabetes, or you want to control your weight, or you want to control whatever. Eat like this, do like this, go run like this. But those are all very practical. You can eat well, it's very practical. But for me it may not be practical. For you you love sweets. So practicality is a matter of choice and decision. It's not a matter of outlining something.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I totally get that. I mean the biggest, the best advice, the best advice I could give anyone in business is be consistent. That's the thing where people it must be the same in America, In the UK people generally try and sell. A lot of coaches sell the lifestyle. You know, all this money and no work, that kind of thing and they look at people oh yeah, you know they've got this money and they don't look like they. Oh yeah, you know they've got this money and they don't look like they work. God, they work together. They really really put it in that you know the reason they were successful other people weren't was because they, those successful people, really worked hard so.
Speaker 3:So the whole thing about I told you about this academy that I'm putting together, which is at the core is it's the same idea. I am kind of fed up with people getting on these social media stuff do this and this and this, you're going to be a trillionaire, do this and this and this, you're going to be a millionaire or shallow motivational stuff. Nobody can motivate you except you. All I can do is provoke you to see the talents and the capabilities of you, but you have to be realistic. This notion that I'm not going to work and I'm going to become a millionaire and I'm going to become a this and that and oh, you see, so and so did it, but you're not them. The question, or the core element is can you be realistic? Consistency, I agree, but if you're consistently doing the wrong thing, you're not going to get the results. If I consistently believe that I am Elon Musk, I'm consistently wrong.
Speaker 2:Yeah, no, I get that, I get that. I think generally with me and you touched on it motivation, motivation. I mean I love what I do now. I absolutely love it. I've had all kinds of jobs in my time, mostly in the construction industry, but as a kind of young lad trying to earn some extra money, I remember around working at a engineering company and I had to sit in front of a wheel that was spinning with a kind of brush on it and polish uh screws the whole day because, know, I thought my teeth were out. That's the whole day, the whole week, and I mean it was like God that motivated me to do something else. That was huge motivation and it was really interesting because I found ways of getting through it. So I bought some cheap headphones and in those days it was a tape deck, you know, listen to music. I did other things.
Speaker 3:What motivated you more doing that, polishing or watching a video that some guy who has one leg and is running up the mountain Everest motivated you. You motivated yourself, you found a way.
Speaker 2:Motivation. You know, when you get yourself in a situation, I think it's the greatest motivation. So you know, it's really important.
Speaker 3:It's very key, robert, this is very key what you say, but you've got to get into situations to be provoked, to find things, to be motivated to get to the next stage and evolve and change. If you don't get into the ball game, you will never hit. Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah. Just as simple as that yeah, I totally agree.
Speaker 2:I mean, if you look at politics at the moment, right, if you look at donald trump, he was very, he was very motivated to get back into power. Otherwise it wasn't looking good for him and perhaps that's the secret source that he had the thing that kind of got in there. He was very motivated.
Speaker 3:He was motivated. He crafted the message that resonated with some people who had been ignored. I mean, you've got to give the guy credit.
Speaker 2:Oh, I do. I have a huge disdain for him as well, for what he's trying to do. But you know he came back from almost going to prison to become president. I mean, what he's done in his first few days as president just does my head in. But you know, I understand. You know I think politically at the moment we're in a very strange place in the world and I think there's not lots of countries that are very happy with the political situation in their country.
Speaker 3:I agree we're in a strange place, robin, in a number of different ways Politically, it's one. The other one that's we're in a strange place is the rise of AI. Yeah, it's both. Hey, lots of jobs. Last number I saw a few years ago, and this is kind of getting more and more 800 million jobs would be eliminated from the world. 800 million out of 5 billion jobs that are out there. So that's a lot, it is. It is, and we're trying to, as humans, we're trying to push back against our comfort zone, thinking that, hey, we were built to work and do this stuff that are mundane and taxing our brain. Maybe there is a better way to do this. Maybe we have to be more creative, innovative, build things, create things, as opposed to sitting at a desk and polishing screws because somebody still does that, and then we solved that, and then we got machines to do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have machines to do it. But yeah, I agree.
Speaker 3:So there is, and that's going to be disturbing to a lot of people.
Speaker 2:Yeah, AI is terrifying.
Speaker 3:But at the same time, you know, terrifying could be. There are two areas that are, you know, generally pregnant with opportunities. One is chaos, one is the undiscovered, and here we have both. So we've got a tremendous amount of again as humanity. But you know, call me optimistic, call me nonpractical, call me whatever you want, but I see that it is at these times that we truly, truly evolve, truly find new things, and we do it one individual at a time. It's not hey, somebody comes in and gives us all these things as to A, b, c and D. It's not one individual, it's collectively. We decide to move in one direction or another direction, and some would not fall, you know, like you'll see a lot of people pushing back against ai. And pushing is it bad? Yeah, it's very dangerous in some areas, absolutely.
Speaker 2:but so is a knife, it could kill people and as we, as we know in the uk, so is a gun. But you know it's, it's opportunity. Yeah, if I just finished a LinkedIn post which I always get AI to help me because I'm dyslexic, so I kind of tell AI what I want to say and it just puts it better but I've just finished a LinkedIn post basically saying look, you know, everyone's unhappy government's going the wrong way. The government really don't know what they're doing. There's so many signs in the UK the government have lost their way and they've only just started what they're doing in. There's so many signs in the uk the governments have lost their way and they've only just started.
Speaker 2:And then trump coming into it. You know he's, he's definitely divisive and uh, yeah, there's loads of things you could describe him. But that is going to bring opportunity. All of that is going to bring opportunity because there'll be a lot of people that are concentrating concentrating on their environment and not getting on with the opportunity. And to me, change is good. Change is an opportunity to do something better, to get some benefit.
Speaker 3:So, robin, I don't know if you've seen my TED Talks or read any of my work or books, but change is at the core of what I always preach. Let me give you an imaginary situation. Imagine it's spring. It's 70 degrees outside, 20 degrees from your siliceous ways. It's absolutely pretty. The birds are chirping, the flowers are blooming, everything is hunky-dory and you're doing.
Speaker 3:You want to be a Nobel Prize winner. You're a Nobel Prize winner. You want to be the best carpenter. You've built the tallest building in the world. As a construction guy, you are who you exactly want to be. You're married to the best person you can. You have two kids. One is five, one is seven. They're best kids. Now imagine the world remains exactly the same Forever. Imagine the world remains exactly the same forever. You had a mcdonald's. That's what you're gonna have forever. Your kid, the five-year-old, will always remain five-year-old. You will never see him grow up, never see him go to school, never see him go to college, never see him get married. You will never, ever see your grandkids and you're doing exactly the same thing. There's no change. Change is our best friend, robin. It's the only friend that gives us options to choose from. And if we don't have options to choose from. There's no prosperity, there's no evolution, there's no next us, there's no progress. Change is the best thing that could happen to us.
Speaker 2:I think that puts it really well. Actually, I haven't heard it said like that. I mean, I always say I joined my family company so I went out into industry and learned about building houses and structures and then I think it was 1999 I came back to the family business. My one regret and I can come up with loads of excuses why is that we didn't change? I just thought, well, my father's been running the business, he's very successful, he's going to stay successful. We've got to kind of defend it, we've got to not change anything. And looking back, I think how wrong was I? I mean, how wrong was I If I had turned on his head and said look, we need to have other income streams.
Speaker 2:We could go into, buy to let, we could go into there's all other things we could do at the same time. We could have retained a house on every site. We could have funded ourselves differently, we could have so much stuff. But we just did everything the same and I did change things. I changed. Oh, we got a new Excel spreadsheet I designed. You know, I changed very little.
Speaker 3:That's the problem of our comfort zone. You know, I call our comfort zone our dead zone. It's where we go to die Our mind, our opportunities die in our comfort zone because it's the same we feel comfortable. It's when we decide that better is no good. We accept what is as better, we accept what is as what is better. And that's not in our nature. And you know, human beings are designed not only to survive but to thrive. We look for that better. We look for that because it's in our so when we begin to not look for it, when we accept sameness, when we get used to being used to it, well, you're making your world bigger, aren't you?
Speaker 2:I mean, you know you've done ted talks. Doing a ted talks talk would scare the living daylights out of me. But then getting up and running a workshop would have. Four or five years ago I could sit down for strange enough, and do a site meeting for 20 people, but standing up I always found really difficult, and friends of mine knew that. In fact, I remember running an event and I was meant to stand up and do a speech and I was just about to stand up and I was terrified. My best mate stood up in my place and gave a speech. He did it ad hoc because he was a brilliant speaker and he's used to doing it. Vase speech he did it ad hoc because he was a brilliant speaker and he's used to doing it Mostly 15 years ago.
Speaker 2:I'm slowly moving towards talking on stage, running workshops. I've run quite a few workshops now and that thing that was so outside my comfort zone is becoming more and more normal being on a podcast. I started my own podcast, all this kind of stuff and maybe one day a TED Talk, who knows. But I live outside my comfort zone and it's a great place to live. It's a great place to live because it makes your world a very large place.
Speaker 3:And it gets larger. That's the great thing about it. So if you're playing in this sandbox and then you push the limits, then the sandbox gets bigger and you have a much bigger arena to play in because you're pushing the limits. The comfort zone is not a fixed zone. It's a growing zone if you decide to make it grow.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally, and I can tell you it's not easy. I remember standing up in front of I think it was only about 15 people, I was giving a bit of a talk around some construction, something like that, and I had a momentary feeling of I want to run away. Just it was just a flash moment. It mostly lasts about three seconds. Nobody noticed apart from me. I just thought I can't do this now. I turned back the board. I saw everything I'd written down and I went back into my flow and you know, and got back on with it. So it's not easy.
Speaker 3:People come to see people do things that look easy you know, I, I was talking to, I'm on an advisory, I'm on a board of a uh, of a large company. I was talking to the ceo the other night. He says, oh, this operations stuff, there's so much stuff all these people are, it's a global company with a lot of challenges. I said, oh, it's hard, it's hard, it's hard. I said, well, you know, when you have a baby, the baby also, you have to change the diapers, yeah, and sometimes it swells. That is the nature of a thing. You don't want to have a baby, you don't want to have it grow, you don't have it, okay. But when you have a baby, it all goes shit. It's an international thing, things go wrong. So is it hard?
Speaker 2:Of course, Like you, I've sat on some boards and one of them was a large housing association, probably 100 million, not billions or trillions or anything like that. I remember my first meeting and thinking, oh, they're going to find out I don't know anything, they're going to suss me, I'm going to. They all look really, really intelligent. I can't be that intelligent and I think within 10 minutes I realized I didn't have a clue about how to build houses and they kind of they knew their stuff but not my stuff. I was there for a reason that happens a lot at the moment, that you kind of have that fear, you get on with it and you realize that actually my life has been quite long so far and I've learned a lot in it.
Speaker 3:So you mentioned a couple of things that I think it's worth and I don't know if this is where you wanted to take this, but let's go there.
Speaker 2:I think it's just an interesting conversation. Sid, I think you know it's about having an interesting conversation.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so let's talk about fear Now. I am dead against this notion of you have to be a fearless leader. It's nonsense. If you don't fear things, that means you're ignorant. I have a Scorpio on my shoulder. Oh, I shouldn't be fearless. I should be not. Well, I'm going to die. Yes, things happen out there. Being fearless is stupid. Fear is like an alert system. What matters is not for you being fearless. Don't be planless. Yeah, don't think the thing is okay. This is a situation which hasn't happened yet. Fear is about something that hasn't happened yet. Yeah, you said you're gonna go into that word meeting thinking that you're gonna look stupid, but it hasn't happened yet. You don't look stupid. You're not stupid. So if you have a plan for it, then hey, totally get that, totally get that.
Speaker 3:This notion of fearless or being. You know having a fear. It's normal, it's good to be fearful. The question is, what do you do with it? This is an alert system. It's like driving your car. It says you're running out of gas. Well, you can have no fear and just continue to drive and run out of gas. Okay, that's fine, that's a choice. Or you reduce the fear by increasing the probability of success and having plans. Things happen, things happen.
Speaker 3:The other thing is nervousness. You know people say, oh, I'm nervous doing this. You know, when you're nervous is when you're pushing your limit. That's when you get nervous. Nervous and fear are two different things. Nervousness and fear are two different things. When you're nervous, that means that you are at the limit of being better. You're doing something that you hadn't done before. A, you want to do it better or you haven't done it before. So if you realize and learn the art of being I'm nervous, okay, let me realize I'm nervous. Why am I nervous? I want to do this better. I'm pushing my limit. Okay, let's go get prepared, let's read this book, let's do that thing, let's practice a little more, whatever it is, and that way you push the limit. And every time you push the limit.
Speaker 2:Guess what your comfort zone got a little bigger, your arena where you play got a little bigger. Yeah, it's like anxiety, isn't it? Anxiety and stress, they can be really useful feelings. They can get you kind of up and going and moving.
Speaker 3:You know, anxiety and phobia. Those are different kinds of fears but they're a little different. They're a little bit of a. They have a little bit of a mental disorder attached to them. Nervousness is different than anxiety because, you know, because of your childhood you got stuck in an elevator, so you have anxiety of smaller places, of phobia of darkness.
Speaker 2:Those have a little bit of a psychological I get that with a phobia, definitely, but anxiety is something which lots and lots of people identify with now yeah, so many more than used to. I mean anxiety can come from social media. I blame social media for a lot of anxiety, because people see everyone on social media with perfect lives and they've got perfect faces and they've got perfect skin and they've got perfect clothes and they've got perfect, which they haven't you know. So there's that kind of feeling inadequate and that creates anxiety, and I see a lot of anxiety in particularly younger people. It's, you know, when me and you were growing up we didn't have the internet, did we? We didn't have social media. Facebook wasn't invented.
Speaker 3:We're perfectly fine with our incompetence and imperfection.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we were fine about it and though we had news, it wasn't really the girl next door who looked fantastic or the person down the street, it was people we looked up to stars and you know and stuff like that. So I do feel sorry for the generation coming up now with social media, because social media is amazing and terrible. So anxiety, I think, is talked about a lot more. Being anxious about something kind of means you care to a point, but as long as it's about the right thing, it's quite a positive thing. You know, I always say to uh, I've got two girls, very proud of my two girls. They're uh, 26 and just kind of 30.
Speaker 2:They will say, oh, so-and-so has been horrible to me. Or you know, this person said that very, not very nice things about me and I say, well, why? Why do you think they're saying that? And I said you know because because most of the time if people are not nice to you, they're jealous or envious of you in some way or form. Doesn't have to be true. Could be that they think you're better looking they are, you know. There could be that they think you're more intelligent they are. It could be that they think you're richer than they are doesn't have to be true at all, but often that isn't. If you think about the people that have a go at you in life and kind of you know are mean on purpose, that's often the root cause. That's the root reason that they're like that the key is that.
Speaker 3:The key is you're. You're right. There are people who judge based on some what I would call success measures that the society has defined Prettiness oh a wealthy, oh a doctor, wow A lawyer, wow An influencer, wow. So you have these external measures that define success. Okay, success in the way you look, success with the way you've done Success. But at the end of the day, it's the satisfaction that matters, not success. Success is when you leave yourself to be judged by others. Satisfaction is when you are satisfied internally. Unfortunately, a lot of people in our society, in a lot of cases, we drive for success and not satisfaction, and the measures could be different. One may be in kilograms and pounds, in terms of unit of measure, and the other one is in meters and inches. You know you could be satisfied but not measure the successful external.
Speaker 2:Well, the best competition to have really is, you know, to me and it took me a while to understand this the really best competition to have is with the person you see in the mirror.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know. So that really does get you going.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this is where you know people say that I know the competition. It's not a competition. It's how do I, if I'm the art and the artist, if I'm making my own life, if I'm building my own, if I'm the sculptor and the sculptor, then I just want to build my next best version, my next best version, and this is not a competition. I'm an artist that wants a masterpiece and I'm building it. And yeah, this one was a little bit crooked on the side, it's okay. And hey, I think yellow looks better than the red over here. That's okay. Those are choices we make in life. It's not a competition, it's a progression. When we look at it as a competition with ourselves, then that creates stress too. Did I do better than yesterday? Am I? Am I progressing? Am I? You see the competition? Uh, by by.
Speaker 2:I get your point, but it drives conflict I think, I think your language is better than mine. Uh, so yeah, around that, I think that's definitely true and I just think that, uh, I, I am always building something, I'm building a company. I mean, I'd be bored, I'd be absolutely bored, if I wasn't involved in my businesses, whatever they are Good for you.
Speaker 2:They're my hobbies. They literally are my hobbies and I love them and it gives me passion for it and I get excited about doing things. And I've got friends who have lived and worked in the corporate world their whole life and retirement is their aim. And to me retirement just does not really factor in anything I do because I love what I do. Retirement would be like a jail cell. That's just not for me.
Speaker 3:So let's talk about that. Why do you think that they feel retirement is the goal?
Speaker 2:They're very successful people. By what?
Speaker 3:measure.
Speaker 3:So let's see financially successful and family, social success parameters they've accomplished, but they were forced to do that in order to achieve that success. Now, retirement is my choice. I say I'm going to retire and then I have a choice to go on a trip or stay at home. They're looking. They're looking so that they gain back control over the decisions of their life, because up to that point they were fitting themselves within those activities. That accomplishes what defines success. Now, if we begin to love what we do even if, wherever we are, love what we do, love what we do, whatever we do then we don't wait until later to enjoy it. Let's enjoy it now. I haven't enjoyed it for 67 years and then I want to do it for the last two. Well, whatever, let's begin enjoying it. Love is a choice. Oh yes, definitely it. Love is a choice. Oh yes, definitely, love is a choice. Love is not. It doesn't come from you know the heavens. Love is not it. Love is a choice. You choose to love something.
Speaker 2:Love your work, love what you do I've always done that, apart from less polishing screws and um, you know, I think having a passion for what you do and I've worked for large companies, I've done produce management and site management and I've worked for dysfunctional companies and all of that has made me what I am now and I think I couldn't give the advice I give now. I couldn't go out and help people I do now, without failure, without also challenges, without doing things wrong and doing things right and everything that's brought me to this point. And I'm proud of that, you know, and that's why I started the podcast. And yeah, it's Bust and Beyond, but it's just about life. It's about how failure factors in that, but also anything that can help you visualize a better life for yourself and just move towards it. And listening to my podcast is not going to change a lot of people's lives, but it might have an influence and sometimes you do that. And this is a great story I might have told it on the podcast before, but I'll tell it again where I had a lad write in to me when I was running the company and it just said you know, have you got any plumbing jobs? I'd like to be a plumber. And I went no, you know. I wrote back and said no, we don't do plumbing jobs. He'd sent me a CV and he was going to get some quite good qualifications and stuff like that. I made a point because when I was a young lad looking for a job and when we didn't have email, I wrote a hundred letters. I got two replies, which I think was really bad. Not even to say no, thank, you just didn't bother reply. Uh, to loads of house builders and um anyway. So I wrote a letter back and I said you know, look, try these two plumbing companies, but with those kind of qualifications. Have you thought about going to university doing degree in surveying or something, so that you can approach the industry from a different angle? That might be good for you, because that really is to get those kind of qualifications. That's really good.
Speaker 2:About two years later we had a postman come in to the office. It wasn't a normal postman. I thought Well, that's a build. And he said I'm looking for Robin Hayhurst. I thought oh God, what's happening here? Am I being served with something? He came over and he said yeah, robin, I'd just like to thank you. You wrote to my son. He then went to university. He's done a degree and he's just been given a job, a really good job, in a surveying practice and he's loving it. So, practice, and he's loving it, so something that was just a my new little thing that I did, you know it was nothing to me, had an impact on someone's life.
Speaker 3:So, robin, there's, there's messages for us we can if we listen. There's a lot that we can learn from a lot of people. And it could be the postman, or it could be the teller at the bank, or it could be your mom, or it could be. If we listen, we can learn a lot. And this is the thing that was by.
Speaker 3:Somebody may have said oh, that's not a practical advice because I have to pay for my this and I have, uh and. And robin is saying go to school, but what about my life? And I have a kid or I, whatever. They could have a thousand reasons. So was that practical for him? It became practical and he took that advice and he made something out of it. It was a choice to make it practical. It was a choice.
Speaker 3:The problem is we've decided, we've built this system of how-tos. Everybody is looking for a pamphlet, like we're going to Ikea and we're building bookcases. In our life, we're all different. So when you take that and we're looking at this booklet, how do I make it as a millionaire? How do I make it as this? How do I make? Yeah, there are certain things You've got to know accounting.
Speaker 3:If you want to run a business, you've got to know debits and credits. Okay, you've got to know marketing, but those are the tools. It's like if you were a chef, robin, and I give you the best pots and pans and I give you an oven and I give you spatulas. That doesn't make you a chef. Having a marketing course or an accounting course or this or that doesn't make you an entrepreneur. It doesn't make you successful in life. It doesn't make you a chef. But making a decision like this lad did, he took an advice and he had some challenges. I'm sure he had to go to his postman dad and get a little bit of money, go to his credit card, somehow figure out the life in between to get where he wanted.
Speaker 2:Well, luckily in the UK education is funded to the most part Degrees. You kind of borrow the money off the government. There's still a bit of a sticky wicket around that. But yeah, I mean I think I read some I forget who said it but it's to do with we all basically see the same opportunities, but because some of us aren't looking for them, they don't see them as opportunities and so they don't grab them. So go past. I'm always looking for opportunity and I think you know. You see, any conversation can lead to an opportunity. So I'm now.
Speaker 2:I'm not just training construction companies, I'm training people to go into development and build houses, and I was always going to do that at some stage. But I happened to be introduced to someone who was involved in the funding side of that and we just got on really well, really well. I just went well, I'm thinking about doing this thing, I don't know when I'm going to do it. And he went yeah, me too. I said just work with contractors who want to become developers. He said, yeah, I had the same idea. And so we ran our first event just before Christmas. Our second event is the end of this month. It took weeks. We've gone so well. We had the same vision. It took weeks to put it together. It was an opportunity. I could have gone. Oh yeah, I've got that idea. That's great. We'll have a chat in a couple of years' time. But that's not how I saw it. I grabbed it and that's really kind of going quite strong at the moment. So you know, it's about that, it's about grabbing opportunities.
Speaker 3:But, as you said, see, I say, hey, somebody, you're in the development business now. You know, you and I drive on the same road. I see the same piece of property. You see the same piece of property. I drive there every day. And you drive there once and you see, oh, that's a great piece of property, and you go figure it out and find the funding and do whatever right, and then you become a millionaire, you make it, and I say, you know that? I mean they got lucky. No, they didn't get lucky.
Speaker 3:I saw the same thing every day. I just but the thing is not all opportunities are good for everybody either.
Speaker 2:Oh, okay, I agree yeah.
Speaker 3:So we see, the opportunities are equally available but they're not equally attractive, attainable and executable for all of us. And the art of picking the right opportunity, based on who we are, what capabilities we have, and do this incrementally, is the tough thing. Because somebody, as you, said, hey, I want to become a millionaire overnight. Well, it doesn't happen overnight. But then I think about it every day. I want to build this thing that nobody has ever done. I want to change the universe, this thing that nobody has ever done. I want to change the universe. You know, I talk to these early stage people a lot. I say, hey, you want to be the sun and heat up the universe, that's perfectly fine, but first can you heat up this room? You know, heat up this room, and if you could do it, then we'll take you to the house and then you could have a you know building and then, fine, we'll do a city and then we'll do a country.
Speaker 2:But there's an old English thing. It's called there's a Hole in my Bucket. It's a song. I don't know if you've got it in America, but it starts with there's a hole in my bucket and it goes through kind of how to fix that and how to use the bucket and everything, and then at the end of the day they need some water to help them sharpen the axe to fix the hole. But there's a hole in the bucket. So it comes back to that point and I think you know, going back to the point of the podcast, you know failure, picking the wrong opportunities is how you learn to pick the right ones. You know you don't just sit there and pick all the right opportunities. So by picking the wrong opportunities, the ones that don't suit you as an individual, that's how you have to be careful.
Speaker 3:I was in a board of a company called actually scored number of years ago and there were these three young kids and every time we go to the board meeting they would say oh, this didn't work, we failed fast. Or we, you know, we we you know failed often and failed fast. Failure, failure should not be an objective. Failure should not be an objective. Learning should, but failure should not be an objective. Oh, let me pick the wrong thing so I can fail and I can learn. No, I can learn by looking at Sid and how he failed. Learn from that guy who failed.
Speaker 2:I get that. But I also think that it's a much more powerful lesson when you fail yourself absolutely, and you shouldn't be and you shouldn't be looking for things to fail like you're absolutely right. But not being scared of failure means you'll try things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, uh and I think, um, these young lads were confusing that how, when we say, hey, you learn from learning, you, you know, fail fast, and then the objective had become failing. So they would pick things that, without really thinking through it, how the experiment? Oh, we're gonna. Well, no, it's stupid thing to do, it doesn't make common sense. You, you don't have a plan. Oh, but we failed fast.
Speaker 2:I think Richard Branson actually came up with a really good saying, which is an ethos or an approach. He said so many people give up just when they're about to break through and it's a bit like social media. So I've done a lot of social media, a lot of in my time. I've been advertising on social media and it's like filling up a dam where you can't see over the top of the dam. So you're filling up with water and for you know, the dam is filling up beautifully but you can't see it and it's just an inch from the top and all the water is about to spill over the van, the, the dam and kind of. You're going to get the benefit of all that water and you're an inch from the top. It's going to be another 10 minutes of filling it up before it kind of spills over the top and you go. This isn't working and people so often people do that and I get.
Speaker 2:A part of what I do is I show people how to get leads and you know, on places like LinkedIn and social media, and I'll do it for two or three weeks and go. That didn't work. But you know you don't do it for two or three weeks. That's not how it works.
Speaker 3:We are in an area, we are in a world that we want immediate satisfaction. Yeah, yeah, we're in a fast food, you know, success, looking environment. Oh, I'm going to go to mcdonald's and pick up the thing and my hunger is gone and, god bless, I'm not going to cook, I'm not going to go to the grocery. You see, now people don't even want to go to grocery stores. I don't know how it is in london or in england, here you know what is. So, you know, complicated for you to damn go to the grocery store and pick up some things and meet somebody.
Speaker 2:I think it's even worse If you go to what I love about Europe and I know the UK is in Europe technically but if you go to Spain or France or Italy, they still go down to the market and they still pick up their tomatoes and sniff them. They still understand what good food is. You know, england is an island nation. We know nothing about fresh fish. They still pick up their tomatoes and sniff them. They still understand what good food is. England is an island nation. We know nothing about fresh fish. We wouldn't know how fresh a fish is.
Speaker 2:We go to the supermarket and we see what they call fresh fish and it's most probably about five days old. Now if you go to Portugal and you walk into a restaurant and it's a Sunday where they haven't fished, that day, no Portuguese will eat fish, they'll have a steak or something else. But the English walk in there and go oh yeah, look at that big fish counter, we'll have all that fresh fish, but it's a day old, it's not. You know we don't understand food and I think that's happening a lot, and I know from actually TikTok. Actually, strange enough, a lot of Americans talk about the quality of the produce in the US isn't as good as it is in the UK and the policy actually of the produce in the UK isn't as good as it is in Italy, and you know. You go to a supermarket in Italy and most of the seafood is still alive.
Speaker 3:The grass is always greener on the other side, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that. And oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get that, and it is what you compare it to. I always joke around and say, hey, am I a tall person or a short person? It depends. It depends what you compare me with. You compare me with a two-year-old I'm pretty tall. You compare me with LeBron James or Magic Johnson or some tall fellow no, I'm pretty, I'm short.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it depends on what you compare yourself to, but we've actually got to that point where we just get delivered. So we're not even doing quality control by kind of walking around and picking what we're having it's. You know, I think we kind of I mean, that's a whole new subject, but I mean it does worry me. You know that people like Amazon and the big boys they're so corporate, they're so big, they and the big boys, they're so corporate, they're so big they're forcing a lot of the small shops out. And one day we're going to kind of look out the window and go there's no small shops we can buy from Amazon, amazon or Amazon. And then what we're going to do? We're going to blame Amazon, but we're the ones that stopped using the small shops.
Speaker 3:That's exactly right. It's the argument I use. You know, in America a lot of people blame the Chinese for taking the jobs away. Now, I don't think anybody put a gun to the CEO of General Motors or Ford and say, hey, send your jobs to China. No, they wanted to make money, their stock was going up and they were getting a bonus for cutting the cars. So they took the jobs and they say, hey, you guys come do it. And they said, sure, we'll come.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, but you don't need to worry about that, Sid.
Speaker 3:We gave it to them.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but, sid, you don't have to worry about that, because when Trump puts the tariffs on, that'll be the end of that then, won't it? Yeah?
Speaker 3:And he invades canada. I mean, that's the other thing. And greenland so it's uh, you know, greenland is actually an interesting I.
Speaker 2:I don't know what you know about the uh, the suez canal and the well, the suez canal was built by the, by the Brits, so we know about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, but the Arctic, see, there's about so I digress there's about 22,000 ships go to the Suez Canal every year. About 13,000 or 14,000 go through the Panama Canal and most oil and gas stuff goes through the Panama Canal. And then there is about 2,000 that go through the Arctic. Okay, very little because of the ice and because of the. You know all that. But, lo and behold, we don't trust and we don't believe in this. You know global warming stuff, but hey, you know, by 2035, the ice is melting slowly by 2035, the Arctic Channel would be open and it is about 40%, 40% shorter than the Suez Canal. So you cut about 10 or 12 days from your travel. Can you imagine, if the ships can cut 10 or 12 days, what the advantage of that would be, how much cost they save, how much fuel they save?
Speaker 2:The world would be flooded by then, wouldn't it?
Speaker 3:So that's the Greenland argument. It's all about who's going to say that. You know, it's all about money. Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:I mean at the end of the day Trump's going to say that you know it's all about money. Yeah, it is. I mean, at the end of the day, trump's going to be in for four years. The Labour government that we've got at the moment is going to be in for four years and I think the population will learn some lessons. And the population of the UK will learn some lessons in the situation they've got and hopefully we'll move on to being a bit wiser. You know the world's changed. We've seen that communism doesn't work. It just doesn't work.
Speaker 3:Unfortunately, we're humans, so it just doesn't work and we know that we don't have to, but you see what we've done, robin, and this is again one of those pet peeves of mine about capitalism. Capitalism is good, but what we are practising today is not capitalism.
Speaker 2:No.
Speaker 3:It's elitism. Yeah, what we're practicing today is, you know your audience is is is, maybe, uh, somebody who has, uh, you know, six workers and does a plumbing thing, or a developer who does houses or whatever. He takes a risk, he goes and buys this property or he gets a job. He figures out how much it would cost him. Sometimes he makes a mistake, sometimes the material goes up, sometimes the guy doesn't pay in time. He has work you know cash flow problems. He takes a risk and if it doesn't work, he has to go into his savings and save himself or he would go broke. And if he takes the risk and he wins, then he's successful. That is capitalism, I think what is not capitalism.
Speaker 3:What is not capitalism, which is what we're practicing, is the big boys. Delta airlines doesn't work. We go, we go, give him some money yeah somebody gets uh two billion dollars of uh. That doesn't work, that's not capital.
Speaker 3:No, no, I don't take the risk that is not the risk and the return, the ceos of these companies. If you're a shareholder, that means you're part owner of that company. If that company doesn't do well, why is it that you sold your stuff and your hunky dory, you know, sitting on beach and I have to pay for the failures of those people, for you not doing your job.
Speaker 2:Well, politics is a circle in real life. So if you look at far left or far right, it ends up as one form or other of a dictatorship. And I see, actually America at the moment is moving towards dictatorship Not hugely, but they are moving towards that. And then you look at Russia, communist country, that's dictatorship. So it is problematic, but I do think a blend where I believe people should be supported when they need it. But only when they need it.
Speaker 3:But see, the problem is people think that capitalism says people shouldn't be supported. That's not the case.
Speaker 2:No, no, no, that's not the case.
Speaker 3:It's an illusion that people have created. That's not the case.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree, but I think people should be supported and I think, definitely, health care should be free. I really don't get that. That should be a basic human right and I think that's really important. Take the money out of it. You know we all pay taxes for it. It's not free-free, but it should be provided by the state and if people can't afford good healthcare, then there's a problem.
Speaker 3:And Robin, if the healthcare folks and the insurance companies can make so much money $20 billion a quarter in profit I mean outrageous number. Why is it that the government can't? Oh, the government is inefficient, so make it efficient.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, You've got me there.
Speaker 3:So make it efficient. So let us make $20 billion of profit. Why should us make $20 billion of profit? Why should they make $20 billion of profit every quarter? If I get all of them together, can you imagine how much profit we could make?
Speaker 2:I was listening to a guy on social media say that he was just explaining what America's like to get things done. He cut his finger and he was insured. He went in to have it stitched up. So he's part of the payment for getting his fingers stitched up. Just a local anesthetic and a bit of a stitcher was $2,000. That's his part of the payment and then if he wanted the stitches taken out, it was $2,000 again. That's just someone going. I can charge you a lot of money for this I'm going to. There's no value in it. There's no value in the skills or anything like that, whereas in the UK you might be waiting a little while but you go in and it's shut up for free. That's what happens. They wouldn't ask for a penny. You'd even get a cup of tea, most probably, while it's being done.
Speaker 3:But I think I agree with you.
Speaker 2:But I think that long wait can also be fixed. Oh, I agree, I agree, and but?
Speaker 3:that that needs to be fixed. That's inefficiency and there's lots of. I've been very government is inefficient, so let's make it efficient.
Speaker 2:yeah, I, I agree, but it's a bit like turning a super tanker, you know, in the sea, you know you don't do it instantly and there has to be a will, but you've got to start somewhere.
Speaker 2:You do. But the problem we've got with our political system and yours actually, to be honest, we have a four-year term right To do something meaningful with something like the National Health Service. You know our National Health Service or with your healthcare system, it's going to take longer than four years because it's turning that tanker in the sea and you know it's going to take a long time and there's not the political will to do it. But I deal with the NHS a lot. I've got a sister who's very ill. We go to accident and emergency.
Speaker 2:You know I think it was something like 25 visits last year, sometimes in an ambulance. I mean I'd hate to think what would be happening if it was in the US, because I think an ambulance is three grand but it's all free. But you realize the staff are overworked. They are very inefficient. Some staff are amazing and they really have their empathy. Some staff have no empathy for anyone and people get so lost in the system. If you don't shout you don't get sorted out and, like almost everyone that goes in the hospital in the uk should have someone an advocate with them saying, oh, don't forget this person, don't forget this person. But the positive is the care is actually very good generally and it's free, so that's a huge positive.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, there's. You know, if you pick it up from every direction, there are things that could be fixed. The problem is the lobbyist. The problem is money is in the middle of politics and hey, if I'm the insurance company, I'm going to push it this way. I'm the drug delivery company, I'm going to push it this way. I don't know if you heard this, but a while ago this thing got released after somebody killed the CEO of that insurance company.
Speaker 2:United.
Speaker 3:Healthcare. This got released about another insurance company. This is phenomenal. This is fascinating. So they had this thing that if you are in a for certain procedures, if you have to go under the payment for the anesthesia and the doctor that does that procedure is only good for an hour and a half. So you're under, the doctor is cutting you up and the hour is an hour and a half. After that hour and a half, they either have to wake you up regardless or you start to have to pay it for yourself.
Speaker 2:It's a nonsense, isn't it? It's absolute nonsense.
Speaker 3:Who thought about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I think you know America is a good example of capitalism gone wrong. You know so, it's not true capitalism and as you say, it's elitism. You know so, it's not true capitalism and as you say, it's a elitism, and it's. It's really interesting to see where people can't afford insulin. We know, you know, you can buy insulin in the uk, it's not that expensive. But then you see, someone is capitalizing on that cost and people are dying because of it.
Speaker 2:I expect so the cost of a human life and there always must be a cost on a human life I get that. But the cost of a human life is very low when people are willing to profit on the basis that people will lose their lives. And I think you know, when you look at some countries, that's where we are, and in some ways the UK as well. There are elements of that. But it's a shame, isn't it, that the world has got to that point and we've kind of lost our empathy. We've lost our, our willingness to help each other. Uh, we're driven by greed and money so.
Speaker 3:So that's again going back to what I mean you. We started by saying so what do you do now? That's that's why I've started this academy, which, at the core of it is, is this thing that I want to provoke people to see that they can be more, they can get more and they deserve more, but they have to be provoked to see it, and it's not somebody giving them a one, two, three. Do this and you're going to be and, and and. Here's the thing. I think if you make a better version of yourself and I make a better version of myself, then we'll have a better world.
Speaker 2:We will. I mean, there's two things around that, two points I'd like to make before we close out. But one is one of my passions is a win-win deal right? A win-win deal is sustainable, it's repeatable. It's everyone kind of walks away happy, it's brilliant, and so many people kind of go for a win-lose deal. Yeah, and that's just that's bad business. To me that's bad business, and sooner or later they'll find that out some sooner than later. So that that's really, really important the way people do it. But also just looking after people, you know, caring about people. It kind of seems to have disappeared and you know every person. There's a great story about a guy who he was in an airport toilet and another guy walked in behind him and he was just finishing off and he sponged all the surfaces down and cleaned them all off and made sure that it all looked spotless. He said why are you doing that? There's people who do that. He said because if you leave everywhere just a little bit better than you came into it, the world would be a better place.
Speaker 3:That's simple, and it is simple and it works.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:It is simple and it works. But again, we're caught up with this notion of competing with each other, with this measured by nonsensical success and, frankly, a lot of times. Why is it that a basketball player should make so much money? What is it that they're doing? Well, they're entertaining us, if they love what they're doing. Why is it that? Because the TV has to make money and the disco has to make money, and the bigger that we make it, the bigger. What is the big deal? And why is it that you follow what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, yeah, I do.
Speaker 3:Success just mixed up and messed up.
Speaker 2:Success is measured by money and that it shouldn't be, and real success isn't. You know, there's the old saying that you know, a man who dies with two good friends dies a very rich man. And you know, I totally believe that. But, we could literally talk all day, I reckon, but we've actually gone over time already, so that was really interesting. Maybe we'll have to do round two, if you're up for it at some stage.
Speaker 3:Sure, sure, anytime, my friend. I enjoyed the conversation. I hope your audience wouldn't say, well, who's this old guy dishing out advice? And they would take some nugget of it and see if it's worthwhile considering and being provoked by it.
Speaker 2:It's a wise sage, I would say, rather than an old guy. Thank you very much, Sid.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Bustin' Beyond with Robin Hayhurst. Be sure to tune in next time and visit his website at robinhayhurstcom.