When you lay out the uncertainties, all of a sudden it turns out to be this massive invitation to teamwork.
Welcome to builder nuggets, hosted by Duane Johns and Dave young. Hey, our mission is simple. Build freedom, where a couple of entrepreneurs turn business coaches who have dedicated ourselves to helping our builder remodel. Our clients create the most rewarding businesses in the industry. My co-host Duane has been a successful builder and remodeler for over 30 years. He's seen the highs and the lows from the beginning though. Dwayne has been on a quest to find a better way to run a contracting business in 2016, he found that better way. That's how I met Dave, a lifelong entrepreneur and visionary who measures his success by the success of those around him. He reached out one day with a formula on how to transform my business. And the rest is history. Since then, we've teamed up to help hundreds of contractors like you build better businesses and better lives. And now we've decided to open up our network and share our secrets so we can start moving the needle with you. It's collaboration over competition. Each week we bring together industry peers and experts who share their stories so that we can all build freedom together.
(00:59): Our guests today has spent 25 plus years as the Mr. Fix it to some of the richest people in the world. He's put them on the rec of the Titanic. He's closed an entire museum in Florence for a private dinner party, with a serenade by Andrea Belli. He's worked with and partnered with some top events in the world, including sir Elton John's famous Oscar party through all of this. He's learned how to make things happen. Good things, big things. Forbes magazine called him a real life wizard of Oz, but he is definitely not from Kansas before he reached the illustrious Heights. Dwayne just told us about our guest was a brick layer in London, England. When it comes to influence, he says that if he can do it, you can do it. Now. He's an author, coach, and podcaster. Today. You're going to be inspired to make things happen. Please welcome the very authentic Steve Sims. We're glad to have you here, man. This is gonna be fun. That's a hell of a lead in. Thank you very much. I gotta live up to that now.
(02:06): I'm pretty sure that you, that you can, I'm, I'm pretty sure that you can, from our chats before. I mean, we have no idea where this is gonna go and that is half the fun of it. You've done so many different interesting things in your life and have a really amazing story as well. And most of our audience love the idea of working with discerning high end clients. But you seem to have mastered it. You are known for creating the world's leading experiential concierge firm that makes once in a lifetime events happen for their rich and famous and builders and, and contractors, they try and deliver a, an amazing experience as well, but completely different from what you cut your teeth on. What's the craziest thing you've seen at one of your events that you're allowed to tell us about anyway, Oh, cheapest craziest things. So we've done guitar lessons was Z top drum lessons with guns and Moses you've already said that we sent people down to see the record, the Titanic on the seabed. I've had them walk the white carpet, Elton John, his Oscar party walk on rolls in, in major movies. I had a client that wanted to have the ultimate dining experience in Florence, Italy. So I actually closed down an entire museum, set up a table of six at the feet of Michael Angelo's, David. And then while they were eating their pastor at nine o'clock at night, in their completely own museum I had on Andrea Belli coming and seven of them as their dinnertime music. So I dunno, what is the most amazing, you know, cherry pick from any of those things? You know, I've done, I've done many things, but I wanna bring it back to your statement at the beginning.
(03:49): When you said that, you know, we all wanna work for discerning affluent clients and I'm gonna call bullshit on that. OK. Because we all sit there, we all sit there and we go, oh, I want rich clients. I want, you know, clients, the money's got no object. And then we go and market to poor people. You know, it's when, when I started working, I was a dormant of a nightclub and I had no money. So I knew what poor people were like, because I was that person and let's be blunt. It stinks. So why would I mark it to me? I couldn't afford shit, but that's what a lot of people do. So I made a point of not accepting a conversation with anyone less than a discerning client. I had a standard. If you were, you know, had a little bit of money, didn't wanna talk to you. If you had, you know, a few hundred thousand dollars not interested, if you were multimillionaire, billionaire, I'm gonna get into your, so I had a standard and a lack of acceptance for anything else. A lot of people go, oh, I'd like a certain clients. I would like super affluent, but Hey, I'm gonna deal with Mickey. This got his car on finance. You know, I just didn't accept it. And the funny thing is when you have a certain standard and you don't accept less than that standard, you get that standard or you die. And then when you get that standard, it becomes the new level. It becomes the new playing field. And the good thing about super affluent people is who do they hang around with your target market? So, you know, the bottom line of it is I ne the, the first thing we'll probably go through how I get 'em.
(05:33): But the first thing is, don't settle. If you've got a client and you are talking to them, this is what always makes me laugh. And I'm sorry for digression, but you've built your service. You've built your product, you've built your website, you built your solution. And then the next thing you build is a payment plan. The first way to notice that someone can't can't afford you is to give them a payment plan. You know, don't give 'em a payment plan. Look at the clients you'll attract. You'll attract clients where the money is not the question your value is exactly. Well, I'm, I'm glad that's where you got, because that's where, that's where we wanted to get to as well. And, and you probably weren't always there, like how the heck does a brick layer from London come up with this discovery or develop this mindset? It, it, it probably just did it happen in, in the snap of the fingers or a blink of an eye. Was there an event? How did you develop this mindset? There was many events. First of all, I knew from a very young age that, you know, as a brick layer from east London, I needed to change the room I was in. And of course, how many of us have ever been to a networking event? And you think, oh, everyone in this room is super, super successful. And you end up having a conversation with a guy that's not, but he's there trying to be, you know, we all end up kinda like, oh my God, I think this guy's gonna make me rich. Only to find out that he's as poor as you are. So you learn, you learn the tells. It's like the guy that's got the watch and he's showing it off and he's got his sleeve pulled up so everyone can see his watch yet. The guy that's truly affluent is covering the watch cuz he doesn't care about your validation.
(07:20): He just loves the watch. And I've a member as a doorman. And I, when I got my job as a doorman, I thought of myself, I'd left a world of being a brick layer, which is a noble profession. You know, brick layers, plumbers, electricians. These are professions that you need skilled craftsmen. And I left a skilled craft to a job description, which was basically punched that person. You know, I thought I was a real low in my life, but then I started utilizing that as a pedestal to see human interaction and to hone my skills on how I recognize people with money, with pedigree, with standards, call it whatever you like. And I started playing games with him, the guy that would pull up in front of my night club in a fancy car and then get outta the car and almost in slow motion, put on his jacket just to make sure everyone could see it.
(08:17): That was the guy that I realized needed the car. And I would say to people, I'd be like, ah, Hey, I love your car. You know, why'd you get that car? And they would say to me, oh, that car is $450,000. And they would quote the price tag at me. How many times have you spoken to someone to go, Hey, I love your watch. And they go, yeah, this is 11,000. I didn't ask for the price tag, you know, but you are so shallow. You're so trying to impress me that you are gonna gimme the price tag. Yeah. I'd say to some people, Hey, I love you car and they'll turn around and they go, you know, it's, it's, it's really nice, but it's got this problem and it's got that. And I really only got it. Cause I ID always wanted that car and I got it. Or, you know, I always said that when I hit this part, I would get that you then realize that those people are in control of their destiny and they don't need the car. And so I started asking these questions to really just try and get through people's bullshit and to actually get to those people of the standard that I wanted to be.
(09:20): That's cool. And I, and I'm under the table taking my watch off so I don't get in trouble. And I actually think we almost have the same watch. I saw, I saw a picture of what, of yours tucked under a sleeve. And I'm like, I think we almost have the same watch, but we'll talk about that. Yeah. Don't tell us on what you're paid for. I won't, I won't, no, we, we're not gonna talk about that at all. Or cars. Every that that's off limits, we're going, we're going mindset and I don't have a car haven't had, I haven't had a car for 12 years. I just ride motorcycles all the time and you know what, I'm gonna call bullshit on something you said, because I know some doorman who say that there's a craft to what they do as well. And so you gave up a craft and you went to, you know, the job description was punch people, but there's a lot that goes into managing people, understanding what's happening in different situations. And the, the people that I know that have done this worked very, very hard to protect other people and to protect themselves and to make sure that they weren't putting themselves in situations that had undue risk or uncertain consequences, very much like a business or how you would want to treat people in a certain environment as well. So there, there are some similarities,
(10:31): Oh, there's a ton of similarities. And I use that story, very disrespectful of people on the, on the door. But it's the typical kind of like, are you getting a paycheck? Are you assuming a responsibility? And there's always those people that do whatever they do just to get the money and they have no regard of anything else. And then there's those other people that take pride in what they do. And when you take pride in what you do, that's when you can actually get the benefits of it. For me, I saw the silver lining and I went for it. And even today I'll openly say that had I not been a doorman, I wouldn't be the person I am today. You know, I, I realized very early on that I needed to protect my front door. You know, I needed to make sure the right people were coming through the club. I remember once that I always used to, to, to speak to people before they came through the door and just make sure they were smiling. You know, because if everyone that walks through your front door is smiling, what does that do to the room inside? You know? And so even today, when I throw coaching, when I throw events, I protect my front door. You know, even today I use the same principles that I learn from being on the door of a nightclub.
(11:43): It, it sounds like you, you learned how to read people instantly or quickly. What was the discoveries of, of having that experience, reading these people, having some of these conversations, actually being a bit of a gatekeeper at times and deciding who's, who's getting in and who's not, obviously you've yeah. Applied some of that to your business. How do you go from that? What, what was the migration or the journey that you went on to, to get to where you are now? Well, it's the same journey as everybody else. I did it badly. First. You see, every time we do anything, it's shit. The first time you guys did a podcast, I guarantee it was abysmal. And you're probably scared of listening to it because we've all gotta start where we've got. We've all gotta start somewhere. A friend of mine are wel says, get going then get good. But the first time you do anything it know to be shit. It was shit too. I looked back. Yeah. The first time we do is shit. We were reading. It was everything had to be like, prewritten scripted. It sucked my, my, my family members asked me why I was so nervous. I'm like, you're you're. I was, and we were talking to somebody we knew. And if we were still nervous because it's your first time you're you're you don't know it. It takes don't know. It takes confidence and courage mix together to have the guts, to go and embark on something something new, so big and
(13:00): A, and a little bit of ignorance and stupidity and blind hope. And you mix all of that. And that is a hell of a cocktail. You tried something, you were crap at it and you honed your craft by sticking with it. Yeah. And so, you know, I, and let's face it most of the times where our, where our worst critics anyway. So, you know, we hear something and we go, man, I sounded like, shit. That was horrible. I don't, I don't ever wanna do that again. Always do I, I have a, I have a speaking coach for the amount of speeches I do. And I do a, I do a lot of speeches. I get paid very well for doing keynotes and I've been doing it for like eight years and still this morning, I got a video of a keynote I did for a very high end mastermind group called war room. And I got that and I'm like, oh my God, did I really did I really walk? Did I put, oh my God, get your hand outta your pocket, Steve. And even now you still criticized. Now a lot of people go, oh, that's that. But again, we criticize because we want to improve our standard. And that's what makes all of us, no matter what business we're in, it all comes down to that standard. What will you settle for? Where is your standard? And will you lower yours to meet somebody else? And if you do that, that's, that's route you shouldn't take.
(14:20): So Steve, maybe you back up just a little bit for our listeners. I mean, you, obviously you do speaking engagements, you set up events for folk, you just, you know, entertainer coaching consulting, maybe just give the listeners a little bit. What, what is it that you do kind of, what's your, what's your gig? What's your kind of daily routine. So they, they know where, where you're coming from, including an author. . So for 25 years, I literally was the guy behind the curtain that just made very, very rich people, more interesting by doing all of these incredible experiences. As someone said to me, once that I was like the, make a wish foundation for people with really large checkbooks, five years ago, wrote the book bluefish in the yard of making things happen, really just for shits and giggles. I met someone in a club or in a restaurant and they, they, they were listening to my story and it turned out, they seemed, they were one of the heads of Simon and Schuster. One of the biggest publishing houses in America, they went, Hey, you should write a book. And I was like, yeah, shut up a week later, I got a contract and we wrote the book. Now I didn't expect you to be anything, but it turned out to be a best seller in all different countries, translated into like Vietnamese, Korean, Mandarin, Polish, winning a Russia two years ago.
(15:33): It just went all over the planet did really well. And that got me into coaching a mindset. And I say, what I do now, whether it be speaking, I'm writing my second book. Now go for stupid. That's gonna be out later this year. And anything I do now is really to disrupt what you do think and perceive. So whether it be by coaching, whether it be my speakeasy events, whether it be the books, my whole idea now is to get you out of what you think you have to be doing to attract those that you want to, but are not getting. And it sounds a bit weird, but as you said, quite openly at the beginning, most of the problems are initiated and fueled by us. You know, we look at things that we go, oh, we can't do that. Who says, you know, right. I've had people moan at me and we, we have a company Sims media, we do a lot of personal branding. I actually get attacked for being on LinkedIn and on my profile picture, having an old fashioned, you know, I've got a glass of whiskey in my hand, it's an old fashioned culture. And I have people go, you can't do that. You can't have a glass of alcohol on your business profile. I don't have a business profile. I have a me profile and I'm in business. So I can't believe that today, most people perpetuate and grow and build confusion within the people that are trying to attract. When you see me, when you hear me, when you, when you read me, I'm me and so many people today are fine of being them.
(17:15): Yeah. And it's something that we, we work on a lot through coaching consulting and, and find it to be inherent, not just in our industry, but a cost industry, especially as business owners, whenever there's some sort of roadblock or I can't get to this next level, or when you dig deeper in it, you find out it's business owner, that's in the way mm-hmm, in their own damn way. And it's usually head trash. So I totally get where you're coming from. Yeah. And that's what I do today. So I'm quite openly I'm a disruptor and I'll use any, any, any medium that I can, whether it be social. We got an entrepreneur's advantage Facebook page where we disrupt just over four and a half thousand members. Now it's fair charge. So there's nothing in it. There's no upsell, but I'm just there to disrupt people. I'm I'm 56 years old and ugly. And I just wanna like get people to do things differently. Well, let's go for stupid right now. What's the, what, what are the biggest blockers that people have in their head? What are, what are the stupidest things that they tell themselves that you see over and over again? Where, where they get in their way?
(18:15): So the first thing let's frame that, Okay. I was in name, drop alert. I was in SpaceX with Elon Musk and we were doing a event there and I had got Elon and we were walking through SpaceX and it was really cool to be able to walk through his factory fuselage of rockets. And I had two clients with me and one of these clients would not shut up, was really trying to get Elon to engage in the conversation. And Elon doesn't, he's not a chitchatting guy. And this guy, I was like looking at him, thinking I'm gonna have to slap my client to shut him up. And my client turned around and said, oh, how do you feel about NASA? And this was before NASA partnered with SpaceX. At the time NASA actually had a team that would rebutt anything Elon said by things like, well, there's no place in space for, for, for, you know, privateers.
(19:07): And this isn't an amateur game. And they were really dissing anything that Elon said, you know? And Elon just turned around to this guy that said about this NASA social team. And he said, you know, they'll always laugh for you before they applaud. And that was it. And I realized that I had always gone for things by never recognizing them as this word. Impossible. How many times do you hear people go, oh, I'm gonna go for the impossible. I'm gonna make the impossible possible. You know, the second you've said it, you've validated that it exists. Now, everything I've ever done, I don't give a shit. If you laugh at me, I'm gonna go for something stupid. I'm gonna go for something ridiculous. And nine times out of 10, I'm gonna fail and I'm gonna end up at something amazing. You see how many people out there go, Hey, I wanna make a million dollars.
(20:02): If you wanna make a million dollars, go for 10 and fail at five. So I've always gone for the ridiculous I've taken where I wanna be. And I've suddenly envisaged a ridiculous goal around it and I've gone for it and then failed and ended up with something miraculous. So, as we were saying earlier, you know, it is people's roadblocks. It's people that have come up some reason with some assumption and then concrete, that assumption that they can't get past that, you know, oh my God, I could never do that. Who said you can't do that? Who sent your car duty? Look at Elon Musk. He's not qualified in anything that he has done. Not in banking, not in space, travel, not in solar panels, not in high loops, not in automotive. He's not qualifying in any of those things yet. He's a market disruptor in every single one of them. He makes it happen. He makes it happen because he went for stupid. He's gone. Okay. How can I do this? That's where I wanna be. That's my ridiculous goal. Now let's go for it. And he's never worried about people laughing at him now. And here's the, the dumbest thing people today, aren't scared of failing. They're scared of being seen to fail and being laughed at because today we're in a world where we love to go, oh, you, you tried that. And he I'll give you a perfect example. And I'm talking to your listeners now, but I think you guys will be able to validate this. How many times have we sat in a bar club, restaurant coffee shop? And we're chatting to people. Well, oh yeah. Well, what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna, I'm gonna build this and then I'm gonna scale it. And I'll probably end up franchising it. And you know, then I'll, then I'll sell it on my ex strategy. It'll be, you know, 20 times, you know, ETO and you, and you get these people just gloss over and they start looking at you like you an alien. And then what do you do? You go, oh, I'm just kidding. That that could never, and you dumb down your goals to meet the audience you're sitting with.
(22:05): I just say, mom and dad, I got a goal. You know, you know, it's like that though, isn't it? You know, sometimes the circle that we are in is a sandpit is, is a mud pit that is holding you back. You see, I make sure that the people I'm around now laugh at my goals and aspirations because, and I was talking with, and again, name drop alert, J Abraham. And I was talking to Jay and I went, Jay, I wanna do this, this, this, this, and this. And he looked at me and he went, is that it? And I went, what do you mean? Is that it, you know, I've got this. He was like, no, no, no. You're gonna put all of this effort and energy. And that's your end goal. What's causing you to stop short. And he's laughing at me because I'm not thinking big enough. And those are the people you gotta be hanging around with. Well, that's what, what, that's, what I was about to ask you is you talked about the, the naysayers to start. I know what you're gonna, I think I know what you're gonna say about being in the right room. And you're around those people who are saying, no, you can't do it. Or they're glazing over. And, or they're too polite to tell you that you're full of it or that you're dreaming or that you, you don't possess the skills or the experience to make it happen. And then you meet somebody else like Jay Abraham, who says, now, you're not thinking big enough. How inspiring is that? Do you feel like you're in the right room? How do you determine who you're listening to and who you're not
(23:26): Wanna level up, connect with us to share your stories, ideas, challenges, and successes. The builder nuggets community is built on your experiences. It takes less than a minute to connect with us@buildingongoods.com, Facebook or Instagram, Want access to the resources that can take you and your team to the next level. One call could change everything. The one that creates impact from it, aggravation as entrepreneurs. Everyone's got a different story. Everyone's got a different name, drop moment. Everyone's got their different aha moments. But as entrepreneurs, we're all exactly the same. We're pissed off. We're aggravated. We don't wanna set. Absolutely. Every single entrepreneur is exactly the same we're aggravated until we solve. And then when we know how to solve, we sell that solution to someone else. Who's got the same problem. You know, ego Musk openly said, I can't believe it takes five days to get my money from one us bank account to another us bank account. It's not like someone turns up at five o'clock at night, picks it up in a brown paper bag and then drives across the country. Just, it's nothing more than a sequence of numbers. I E an email. So why does it take five days?
(24:38): And he created PayPal to answer his aggravation. We are aggravated, and we need again to those. It's always down to those standards. We need to be aggravated enough to demand the people that we are conversing with. Share the same aggravation may not be in the same industry, but we need challenges. We need people to stand around and we can like us three. We could sit around a table and design a disruption industry in an hour. Okay. And then we could go forward. We need to make sure that we are in a room of people that excite and aggravate us to be better. And when you're in a room and you leave it and you go, huh, then you gotta make sure that you never go back in that room again. When you leave a room and you go, oh my God, I, I can't wait to get outta this room to implement the information I've just been given. Just kind of by, by just by resource impact. My family, my kids, those people that I work with. That's the room you want to get more with. So today, pick your circle, pick your room.
(25:47): Yeah. Cause I gotta agree. There's nothing more aggravating than being a room full of people that, that are just fine with the way everything is, you run away. But I actually, one of, one of my little things and I'm terrible at this, I love speaking at events because I also like to see the audience and meet the audience. I like to, to, to, to feed off the audience. But I sit at a table and if the table bores me within two minutes, if it makes it that long, I'm up and I'm gone, I will literally stand up and I go, Hey, thanks. You enjoy the event. I'm finding a different table. And I've had people go, oh, I met Steve and, and I met him at an event and he just got up and walked off. I'm 55. I'm never gonna see 54 again or 53. I'm not getting any younger. Sure. Shit. Not gonna waste my life, pouring out where you're born ass. So I will just go and I will get stabbed for it, but I have to have my standards. I need to get on the table. And I go, what are you doing? I'm gonna do this. I'm actually working on this. This is what I current. This is a table I wanna be at. This is my table. It's inspiring invigorates doesn't
(26:58): And the bigger their problem, the more fun it is or their challenge, the more fun it is to work on and collaborate with them and realize you're gonna take things away from their experience just by giving to it that you're gonna implement in your own. And you get these amazing collaborations. I bet you've gone into these rooms and heard about business ideas where you're like, wow, I wanna be a part of that. How do I, yeah. Yeah. How do I add value first? And if they invite you back to it yeah. You then get to work on something amazing. Even if there's nothing in it for you, for the pure joy of creating these entrepreneurial shortcuts, which are the entrepreneur's currency is finding ways, finding shortcuts, because time is everything. So find more shortcuts that work, Hey, you got more time to, to, to create more greatness. You were a brick layer by, sorry, know, you have an appreciation for, you know, the trades, the industry, which is leads to a lot of the mindset that a lot of our builder remodeler business owners have and something that well frustrates us. And, and we hear it a lot. It's almost a reflex reaction to a lot of folks when you challenge 'em. But you know, the responses will be like, oh, I don't have time for that. Or, well, that won't work in my market or hell, you know, I just, I can't depend on anybody else. I have to just do it all myself. How do you break people? Or maybe get people to get out of that? You know? How do you challenge them to get out of that mindset? Get unstuck.
(28:22): Well, there's a lot of people that turn around and go, you know, that's okay for you because you're not in my industry. You know that that's the common one. They try to distance me as a solution to their problem. Okay? If you are a plumber and you are not making a lot of money, ask yourself, first of all, are there other plumbers making a lot of money? If there are then the problem's not the industry, the problem's you, that's the first thing a lot of people like to think, oh, I can't do it because he's not done that way. Now the biggest problem we all have, whether or not you are that again, plumber or whether you are Elon. Musk is time. Now you are right. You turn around and you go, oh my God, if I've gotta teach you how to do it, it's gonna take me three times as long. I'll just do it myself. But you don't realize that if you teach someone how to do it, you never have to do it again. So you save yourself that time. If it takes an hour for you to do it, or it takes you three hours to teach it, then you'll save yourself. All those future hours. You've got to learn, what can I delegate? What can I step out of? What can I regain money from? And then how can I position myself as the solution to your problem?
(29:37): We talk about that a lot. And the first thing you, the first word you use when you were talking that, that scenario before you talked about delegating it before you talked about the get, getting, the time back was teaching them. And yeah, Dwayne and I are big believers in this as well in EOS speak its delegate and elevate. And we flip it in our, in our model, you have to elevate the person first. You cannot delegate something to them to just get it off your plate. You have to teach them first. You have to make them successful at it. Otherwise they won't wanna do it again. And you're gonna have to come back and babysit it constantly. So love where you went there, teach them first and then free yourself. Plus you've created an amazing opportunity for them. You've expanded their role and you've elevated them as well. So for a start, a lot of people think, and I have, I've actually heard this terminology. I need to delegate it. I need to pass it downstream or I need to pass it down the ladder. It's not down. That's the first thing that's wrong. Your attitude is wrong. You need to get, and this is the exercise I do with a lot of my coaching clients. I'm giving this to all of your people. Now do three interlocking circles, okay? Vertically, each circle, interlocks with the circle below it, three in the top circle, put everything that is your unicorn. Everything you are absolutely incredible with design customer service implementation the work that you are doing, whatever you are, absolutely top notch, a list, you know, MVP, no one can touch me. This is my circle in the next circle. Put all the stuff that you can do that you are good at.
(31:22): Okay? And then in the final circle, everything that you do, but you try to avoid that's usually when it becomes things like invoicing, maybe design, maybe putting it into spreadsheets, what marketing, put it in there and then what you do. And this is important. Delegate up. That's the key delegate up circle number two and three to people that is their unicorn. Now I am shit at finance. I see a load of money in my bank account. And I'm just like, how many motorbikes can I buy with that? You know, I am crap with money. So I delegated it to people who money is their unicorn, how to create stability for me, how to create good reserves, how to create good recession proof. You know, I've delegated marketing to people that are superior automation to people that are superior, stick to what you are good at and delegate up to what they are doing as brilliant as what your unicorn is.
(32:31): What do you think the biggest blockage for that is? It's so simple. Fear. It's fear. People are scared of what they don't know. And they're scared as entrepreneurs. We have something called ugly baby syndrome. You know, we don't wanna let it go. No, one's gonna love it as much as we do. And we end up suffocating that baby. Yeah. Okay. In order for you to grow, you have to be replaceable. Now I'm not saying be replaced. I'm saying be replaceable, be in a position where your business can continue when you are on holiday. When you decide to have breakfast with your family and not go to work. When you are doing, you know, a training camp, when you are listening to this podcast and you bus, there are people out there that don't have the time to listen to this podcast, cuz they think that business is gonna fall apart. That's the downside. You need to make sure that you are strong and you are never strong by standing as one. You are strong when you are an army. When you are a tribe, when you are a community and that's what you need to focus on, teach 'em well, teach 'em once and be replaceable.
(33:44): That's the fundamental problems they haven't made the right investment in the people to, to elevate them. And so they're approaching everything from fear instead of confidence. They're afraid that nobody's like you said, nobody's gonna love the baby. So yep. Oh and it's absolute fear. It's to your point. I, I see it all the time. It's folks that they don't have the right mindset. Like you said, they're not, they're not passing it or delegating it up. They're thinking of just getting shit off their plate. And what they do is when they're thinking about getting shit off their plate, they hand somebody, a pile of shit. They don't teach 'em they don't give 'em the resources to do it. And then two weeks later it comes back to them in their lap as an even bigger pile of shit. so, so then they're scared and they don't ever wanna do it again. They go back to that. We'll all just do it myself every
(34:25): Time. Yeah. The baby was easier. So you've got, you've got another book coming up. You told us earlier that you know, you you're always going for stuff. What's what's, you know, book number two. Awesome. What's the next big thing. What else? Whether it's events, something else that you're working on, what are you excited about? What, what, you know, and it could be something in your, in your program right now, but I have a feeling, you got stuff, new stuff, cooking in there that you're like, I want to take a shot at something outrageous again so that you can end up with just miraculous. Yeah. And, and it's really getting people disrupted. I really like that you see in the past I lived vicariously through other people's checkbooks. And so my old job was how to make you more interested by getting people to spend time with you and that benefited you and your cocktail stories. Now, what I like to do is I like to disrupt entrepreneurs. So I run these speakeasy events. My next one's in LA later on this year, the book go for stupid. I've got a community SIM distillery. This isn't an ad for me. It's a, a, a cause to get people to just do things. Now I don't care if you join my speakeasy or, or listen to my podcast or, or watch my YouTube or any of the other free stuff out there. I want you to go hang on a minute. If everyone's turning, right, let me turn left.
(35:50): If everyone's doing this, I'm gonna do that. Everyone's focusing on Facebook adverts at the moment and, and how, oh my God. You know, when, what the end of tracking is coming now because apple asks, yeah. Will you accept cookies? Will you accept tracking? What about sending someone a letter mail and mail programs have never been cheaper? And how many people don't open up a letter? As long as it's kind of got some kind of hand signature on the front, send out a hand, a hundred envelopes, you'll get 90% hit rates, send out 5,000 emails. We want a 7% open rate. So do stuff that other people aren't doing. And so for me, I've often thought that, you know, I'm in, I'm in a good place. You know, I've got gas in the tanks. I've got whiskey at home. Family are happy, mortgages covered. You know, I'm happy, but I don't wanna be in the exact same position in six months time, I wanna try different things.
(36:46): I want growth. If you're not focused on growth, you end upstanding still. And when you still, you become stagnant, stink and die. And I don't want that. I wanna constantly try things that force me to be different. And so like the other day I started focusing on Snapchat. Okay. Who the hell focuses on Snapchat? Everyone says that's for kids. That's did do you know, they have 300 million active users a day. And last year was the fourth biggest download as an app. The fourth TikTok was above that. Whatsapp was above that, but Snapchat, this dying little social feed that no one cares about 300 million users a day. And here's the thing while you are ready to discard it. And this is what really makes me laugh. People don't mind spending $500 on Facebook ads, but they won't post things for free on a market of 300 million. That to me makes no sense. So I'm constantly trying good things. Hey, do I suck at Snapchat? As we've already said, I'm probably shit. It's terrible. I don't know how to post things. I don't know what I'm doing, but I've started and now I'll get good I'm crap today. But in a month, Snapchat, king
(38:11): maybe that's the title of our episode. Snapchat king oh gosh. It took me about half an hour to bloody build the avatar. So I'm, I'm pretty useless, but it's gonna take me five minutes to teach someone else to build an avatar. So, you know, you learn these things. Sometimes you just need to ask a kid when it comes to something that, that like, there's something I'm working on that will involve TikTok and, and I'm gonna get my daughters to help me sort it out like a year ago. Absolutely. They would say, Hey dad, I'm making a TikTok. You wanna get on? I'm like, no way. You know, you're like uncomfortable. What is this thing? I don't, who's it going to, does it get erased right away? Does it live forever? What am I gonna look like? And then you just realize doesn't matter. I'm just being me with my kid. It's fine. Yeah. It's fun be you. I'm on, I'm on so many social platforms that don't even exist. Now I'm on me. We parlor trier. I'm on so many social platforms, but every time a social platform comes along and this is a really important point for any business owners out here, please pay attention to this next point. Any social platform out there, grab your real estate, grab your name. I don't give a shit what you do with it. If your name's, you know, bill Barry plumbing, grab it on Snapchat on TikTok, on trier on me. We who gives a crap. It's free of charge. You don't pay for it, but grab it. And then if it suddenly takes off, then you've got your name. But what if someone else grabs your name? If I wanted to steal your business? The first thing I would do was I would look at, do you have your U URL on go, daddy?
(39:59): Do you have your name? Do you have it across all social platforms? Nope. You don't have it on Facebook. I'm gonna have it because if you become really successful and people start looking for you on Facebook and I've got your domain, I've now got your client's attention. So don't be a Pilcher. Grab the domains on any social or any URL you ever, ever can. And if you've got a product, a service go and do the same. I'm often doing creative disruption. And I've often classed my people as creative disruptors as of today. And it's not even the name of my podcast, but I grabbed creative disruptor podcast. It's not even the name of my podcast. I'm not even gonna promote it. But I grabbed like about 12 creative disruptor.com, net loads of different creative disruptor magazine. I don't even have a magazine GoDaddy. They do these 1 99 offers. I grab 50 URLs for $79. But if anyone ever goes well, he is always using the word creative disruptor. I'm gonna take him. I'm sure there's a URL. I haven't grabbed creative disruptor hairstyles, but you know, I've got most of them. And if nothing else, you got lots of places to post cat videos.
(41:17): There you go. Cat playing pianos always does. Well, There you go. You gotta replace the old fashioned with Siese or something like that. Maybe, maybe you'll get, maybe you'll get a different audience, but not, not the one you want. I'm I'm I'm sure, but you've got a lot of passion about the, the things that you're doing. You got a lot of energy. You're, you're giving a lot of your, of yourself. You have a confidence that comes from just being yourself and being happy and comfortable. Are there ever situations today, given the, the, what you've learned, where you find yourself intimidated or flat footed by somebody? And if so, like, I I'd be interested to hear if you, if every once in a while you find yourself in a situation where you're like, whew, I don't really know how I wanna respond to this situation.
(42:02): Yeah. So you actually brought up how I wanna respond flatfooted and intimidated and they kind of all are different things. So let's work on it. Flatfoot I often get hired, you know, I've just finished a speaking gig. I did a speaking gig with Gary V in Puerto Rico. And then I flew from Puerto Rico that night to Tahoe opened up for a big mortgage convention and then flew back to Los Angeles. I was done, you know, I'm actually an introvert. I move with purpose. I'm very selfish. I won't do anything unless it benefits me. And that can be by a great conversation, a beneficial hasn't always gotta be monetary. If I can go to an event and I can impact 20 people in that room and they go out and they just disrupt the shit out, our industry, I benefit from it. Okay. So I'm very selfish. And I always ask myself, will this move the needle? You know, I always do that, but I get overly tired. And my wife yells at me for sometimes taking things on too much. So sometimes the wind goes outta my sail. And usually I find just sitting in my garden with my dogs, counting my motorbikes, drinking my coffee, all this is why I'm doing it. This is why. And just take a day or two for me and I'm back up. Okay. So that's one thing you said about, you know, do I ever get times about how I don't know how to respond to it? Yeah. You know, but that's, that's the challenge. That's the challenge I get. Sometimes people will go, can you do this? And I'll be like, oh, I don't know. Let's try and find out. And I think it leads to that intimidation.
(43:35): Do you know why I never get intimidate by anything? And any position is because my bigger emotion over intimidation is curiosity your kids, your three year old, four year old kids, they don't get scared about meeting Elon. Musker Richard Branson. Cuz they're curious, can this person gimme a lollipop? Can this person face this person got a good joke? You know that, that demanding, can this person entertain me? They're not intimidated to Elon Musk. They're curious, what do you give me? That's gonna excite me. You know, that's me. Whenever I get into a situation I'm with Gary VOR, I'm with Richard bra I'm with Elon or Jean or, or any of the other people or billionaires in the planet that you don't know about. The literally I've been flowing around the planet meeting. I don't get intimidated, literally pulling up to their castle on a motorbike, getting a pat down to make sure I've got no guns before I go in and meet them. I'm not intimidated. I'm like, how did he get this castle? How did he get this? How come these people are in his sandpit intimidate hand pit intimidated by him. I'm the, I'm the little kid with the King's clothes. You know the emperor's clothes, you know, he's he's naked because only the intelligent people can sit. I'm cur I'm the little kid that goes, Nope, you're butt naked. You know, I'm the C kid. So always hold on a curiosity, curiosity, breeds creativity. And all of that creates disruption,
(45:12): Peter pan with some piercings and a go fun. It's fun. I've never changed me because I don't care. You're not gonna date me, but I'm your solution. And when I become the solution to your problem, you don't care what I look like. So for folks that are listening out here, how can they learn a little bit more about you find everything they wanna know. Again, I'm very easy to find. I am Steve D Sims D for dashing. And there's only one in Sims, anywhere that you consume your media. So if you wanna go to Steve D sims.com, you'll find out all about my events. Am I coaching? And the book, if you want to go to Steve D Sims on Instagram or TikTok or anything like that, I'm Steve D Sims everywhere. So I'm, I'm really easy to find, but I've also got a free Facebook group called an entrepreneur's advantage with guess who Steve Sims and I post loads of free shit in there to get you to do things differently. You've probably even got an old MySpace page out there don't you? I have, but I haven't, you know, I couldn't the thing is because no one's managing my space. I can't reset. My password is the only bloody social. I would love to bring back some passion to MySpace, but I have pinch rest and everything.
(46:22): Dwayne, we gotta call somebody over there, see if it's expired and if we can get it, There you go. I wouldn't mind some of your, I wouldn't mind some of your clients that that's for sure. And, and you know what? I encourage everybody to go check out your stuff because you know, this has been a super fun interview. The website is fun. Like the most unreal book reviews you've ever imagined from the gala party where his, his friends, his clients, you know, people in his inner circle are picking the book up and saying, I'm never gonna read this, but it sure looks like it. It's sure. It's sure nice. Or, you know, you can tell you're just hanging around real people, having a good time and not taking yourself too seriously. And that just allows you to to inspire other people, to be comfortable. What, what you're with, what you're doing, never an awkward moment for you. But if other people are not there yet, there's gonna be awkward moments for them and their interactions, like where, where you talked about, you know, you're leaving the table and the people are take taken aback by that.
(47:25): But what if it was, you know, they were okay with it because they were comfortable with themselves. So there's a lot to be taken from this about how you get comfortable with your, with yourself. You know, when we talk about different freedoms, freedom of time, freedom of purpose, freedom of money, and freedom of relationship. Dwayne has heard me say this a whole bunch of times, but getting that freedom of a relationship with yourself is an awesome spot to be. And you are clearly somebody who has done that very, very well, and it it'll be inspiring for others to, to do that. And I, we encourage everybody go check this stuff out. It's a different level out there, a different, you know, if you wanna level up, this is a, this is a great way to go and challenge yourself and put yourself in, in some amazing rooms with other amazing people. And you could tell from those groups that those are people that wanna lift the rest of the group up too. Nobody is there to show off or, or there's no ego in there. They're, they're all there to elevate each other. So that's pretty cool. And, and the
(48:21): Cool thing too, Dave is we've, you know, we've noticed that even over the last several, I think several months here, just one theme that we, we, we hit on is I I'm thinking of the word authentic, you know, I mean, Steve is definitely delivering just authenticity and that freedom that we talk about. I mean, I think that you've got to be authentic with yourself and what you want before you're ever gonna get that. So great stuff, Steve man, thanks for joining us today. It's been a lot of fun. You guys have been great fun. You've just been, we should be doing this with whiskey, but it's been a, it is been cool. I appreciate you guys. Thank you for having me and thank you very much for putting it out there to get people, to do things differently. You're part of the room that people need to be in. Thanks. And next time we do this, we'll have some whiskey. We'll do it upright. We'll get kicked off of LinkedIn together and oh yeah. And we'll have to come check out a speakeasy too. It looks it I'm dying to learn more about that stuff. So yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Thanks for sharing this time with us. And now we look forward to seeing what happens next. When you go for something stupid, big and stupid that's, you know, go for it, everybody go for it.
Hey, thanks for listening, Duane and I love hearing from you. Your stories are inspiring and your challenges can be overcome. Got a cool tip idea for a show problem that you haven't been able to solve, or maybe just struggling to figure out what you need next and where to get it. We can help hit us up@buildernuggets.com and start building freedom.
