#23 - Starting a Coaching Business with No Experience
Adam, what's up, man? How you doing?
Adam:I'm doing well, mate. Yeah. It's been a interesting start to the day. But, yeah, other than that, mate, I'm doing good.
Dean:Good. Good. You got all your Christmas shopping done?
Adam:Nope.
Dean:The stereotype lives on.
Adam:Yeah. I said to myself in mid November, this is the year. This is the year that I finally get my shit together, and I get everything organized with nice labels and oh, no. To be honest with you, mate, I love Christmas with the family and time spent together and all that good stuff, but this whole notion of what do you want, then they buy you it, then they have to wrap it, and then you open. I just yeah.
Adam:I'm not a big fan of that anymore. So I love it for the kids. Like, I don't have kids, but, I mean, like, my nephew and my niece and all that's amazing. It's beautiful. But, yeah, for me and my partner, for example, are just gonna go on holiday.
Adam:I think we're gonna go to New York in March, and we're like, why spend each other why spend money on a on a, yeah, futile gift that we can just get for ourselves and same with the parents. Just get them a voucher for a hotel, somewhere that they actually want to go and want to do because to buy for my dad is impossible and all
Dean:that stuff.
Adam:So, yeah, it's spoiling the kids, rotten, all that good stuff. But Yes. Yeah. Just just mainly vouchers and experiences is what I value as opposed to things now.
Dean:There's only so much socks you can buy for someone.
Adam:Yeah. Lynx Africa.
Dean:Lynx Africa is still going strong though, isn't it?
Adam:That's right. Yeah. I mean, fair play to the branding because every Christmas it comes out in its droves, and for some reason, it's a, yeah, it's a it's a good one to go to. I don't know why.
Dean:I'd still wear it. Yeah. I'd still, yeah, happily wear Lynx Africa. Yeah, man. I, I've had all my presents.
Dean:I'm trying to do them like deliveries lately where I because I've come home from London to to Dublin where I am now as you can see by my cool background in my house. But I try and get them, like, ordered online now because, you know, I don't really like doing the physical shopping anymore. It's just stressful, and it just bothers me.
Adam:Yeah. It's people everywhere, isn't it? And stress and yeah. It's it's way more convenient for the, Amazon driver just to drop the presents off, isn't it?
Dean:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, yeah, man. I'm I'm keen to get into your business, get into your, like, how you got into it because I think it's very useful, for people to understand how you get into something and, like, I also love understanding, like, why as well.
Dean:So I'm keen to, like, explore, where we go with this, but it'd be good to just open it up by if you wanna talk a little bit about a game, your business, and maybe, like, who you serve with that and, yeah, we can kinda see where we go with that.
Adam:Sure. Yeah. So COVID was the best thing that's ever happened to me. I know it was a really difficult period for a lot of people, so I don't say that in, like, a, you know, braggy way or, you know, things like that. It's I had my fair share of shit about 3 years before about where my life was just an absolute mess, but that's a separate story.
Adam:But when COVID hit and lockdown was there, I was like, this is a time to reset. I was in hospitality. I've been in that industry for nearly 15 years, and it's a young man's game, especially in late night bars and cocktail bars. Is
Dean:that where you were working? Bars?
Adam:Yeah. So I was in restaurants. I was in, you know, senior management teams and what have you. But towards the end of my career, you know, I'd I'd fallen off a bit of a proverbial wagon as it were. I just lost my way, and I just went back into late nights and, you know, the one night stands and the fucking getting drunk every night and trying to hang on to something from my twenties until I met my partner, which changed a lot of things for me, and then just made some bad career choices and was working till, like, 6 o'clock in the morning, mate, at the age of 32.
Adam:So that's pretty rough.
Dean:Hospitality's brutal, man.
Adam:It is, mate. Yeah. I mean, don't get me wrong. This is the the far end of the spectrum. Right?
Adam:But, you know, hotels and stuff can be 6 AM starts. I was getting Sure. 6 AM. So it just depends. Right?
Adam:But drinking till the early hours, eating junk food, it just destroyed me. I ballooned in weight. My my life was just a complete mess, and then we, we just said, right. It's time to reset. My partner's a corporate lawyer.
Adam:She's got a great career, very successful. And I thought, what are you doing with me? That moment. Because, again, my life was a bit of a mess, but I guess I got by on charm. So who knows?
Adam:But, yeah, the, we we moved out to her parents' house, which is where I'm at now, actually. It's a beautiful house in, in North Yorkshire in a place called Boston Spa. Got a big garden. They got a gym in the house, all that good stuff. We're very fortunate.
Dean:Just got
Adam:a new dog. But, like, this is a great opportunity to get out of Leeds City Centre and to hit the pause button. So I started training, eating healthier, etcetera, etcetera, getting up at 6, and I thought, this is the life I used to live. I can't go back to the 6 AM finish times when I've been getting up at 6. Then lockdown got extended, then it got extended again.
Adam:And then when the government said, right, we're gonna open on the 4th July, I was like, no. I can't do it to myself. I'm not going back. So What year was this? 2021?
Adam:2020. Yeah. When I when the when the first lockdown was happening, but then they opened really temporarily on July 4th, July 4th weekend. And I was like, there's no chance. Absolutely no chance, Anyway, I started looking online in, like, the April, May time.
Adam:So I used to be a personal trainer. I thought maybe I'll go back to that. Maybe I do life coaching. So I love helping people, and I've studied the likes of Tony Robbins and Les Brown from the age of, like, 18. I used to have the tapes, then I had the CDs, and then YouTube started to become a thing.
Adam:So I've been obsessed with, like, self development and people for a very long time, and I manage thousands of people in hospitality. You deal with thousands of people because people come through the doors. So, yeah, human behavior, love it. All for it. So maybe I do football coaching.
Adam:I don't know, but I'm just gonna start looking on the Internet. So I started typing in courses and life coaching courses and all this stuff, and something came up, and I won't say the name of it. It wasn't very good at all, to put it politely. And it was just all, like, Excel spreadsheets and all it just didn't play to my skill sets. It's essentially selling your knowledge online, and I thought I'll do it around hospitality because I know that industry.
Adam:That led me to, more stuff on Tony Robbins, though, on YouTube, and there was a a course that came up called Knowledge Broker, Blueprint, which was KBB, which is dangerously close to KGB. And I looked into it, and I was like, this looks amazing. So it's basically how to set up any business within, like, the knowledge space as it were, I. E, you know, if you were teaching people how to do pottery to if you wanted to become a coach. It was every single step of the way of how to set up and monetize an online business.
Adam:Marketing, emails, salesmanship, writing copy, how to how to get your price point right, how to package it up, you name it. And it was like a 6 month program, as the timeline that it said, but I had nothing to do. So I was just doing, like, 15 hour days, and I got it done in, like, 3 months, something like that. And then, yeah, it got to around the July time, and it was becoming more apparent we were going back to work. And my employer at the time was brilliant in terms of paying furlough and looking after me, and I was very open with him, and he was very honest with me.
Adam:Said, look. You really helped us in those few months before COVID, so I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna pay you furlough as long as we can, and I appreciate that you don't wanna come back. So I burnt the boat. I was like, I need to just do this.
Adam:I need to go all in, And I'll I'll get to the my, you know, very pragmatic approach to this in a second. But I started just posting online about my own transformation. I'd lost about 30 kilograms. In the space of literally 4 or 5 months, I went hard at it, and I had a lot of weight to lose. So the weight was off me.
Adam:I was feeling great, looking better. And I got, like, 3 or 4 clients in my 1st, week of business. I had no idea what I was doing. I just had insurance. I had terms and conditions roughly put together by my partner.
Adam:I had a rough idea of how it's gonna help people. I had a Word document to send out to new clients. It wasn't very official at all. But I saw good results still when I first set up, and I called it Big Raw Coaching because that's what my nephew used to call me because I used to scare him all the time. Call me big raw.
Adam:So I was like, I'll call it big raw coaching. It's quite a, you know, primal thing around the raw as well. Right? So, anyway, the the first few months were challenging because there was the inconsistency. You know, it was the sort of feast and famine kind of approach to to business.
Adam:The month 1 was really good, and I earned more money than ever in my 1st month. But then 2nd month, I didn't get a single customer. The 3rd month, it was okay. 4th month, I did really well. And I was just like, I didn't think it'd be like this.
Adam:I didn't know what to, you know, what to expect, to be honest with you, but I certainly didn't expect this amount of stress because I was more stressed and more anxious than ever now. And I was coaching 2 guys who also were called Adam. I've known them both for a long time for different reasons. One was a nutritional therapist, newly qualified. He wanted to set up his own business.
Adam:And then the other Adam was a personal trainer, and he came to us for some challenges around his partner and around his identity and what have you. But I just love talking to these 2. I didn't have favorites, but I really look forward to these calls. And I said to my partner, I'm really lonely. Like, I miss being part of a team.
Adam:I've always worked as part of a team. I'm just gonna approach them both and see if they wanna go in together. So I was doing mindset and life coaching. The other Adam could be a nutritional therapist. Your one could be a PT.
Adam:I don't see many businesses offering this, so I see a bit of a gap in the market. And I rang them up thinking this is gonna be quite a difficult conversation. I'm gonna have to try convince them, and I couldn't even finish my sentence. He's like, yeah. I'm in.
Adam:Let's do it. And I rang the other Adam. He's like, yep. Let's do it. I was like, right.
Adam:That was easy. So they
Dean:What did you think they would be a good fit? Like, what did you actually want from that partnership with them?
Adam:So I'll be honest. I saw a gap with their expertise in the sort of day to day air quote of running of the business, but I also saw their expertise on the outside. So I'm good at selling, I'm good at writing copy and I'm good with people but I'm terrible with tech. Adam Mayhew, who's still my business partner to this day, has a 15 year tech background and is amazing at all things automation and systems and just getting shit done. And the other Adam was really good at social media.
Adam:So I thought, right, well, again, pair those three skillsets together. We've got something going here. So I looked for good values. What did they stand for as men? What were their visions for their own businesses?
Adam:Ultimately, we all shared the same one, which is to help people because we'd all had our go through.
Dean:Yeah. So you, like, you saw that you had some areas that you were kind of maybe somewhat lacking, and they could fill that gap for you. And you were like, right. Great. That together, we make a perfect human being.
Adam:Correct. Yeah. Because I thought well, then the Adam Mayhew was, not very good at selling, you know, a writing copy. The other Adam, you know, he had his own challenges with different things, and we complemented each other really well. So we're like, right.
Adam:Well, let's just go all in and let's see what happens. And then, because I've met someone on the Tony Robbins course, so I've done that first one. Then I've signed up for a separate one, which was kinda like the you know, basically promising you that Tony's gonna come around to your house and cook you dinner for you, you know, to sort of hook you in, and you don't see him at all through the program. You saw him online on the program because he's
Dean:being recorded.
Adam:How
Dean:much is he and what's he charging for?
Adam:That was $10,000
Dean:Yeah. That'll do it.
Adam:A year. So it worked out at 24 hours worth of coaching, plus all this other stuff. So the first 8 months of it were incredible. Like, I'll be honest. Without it, we wouldn't be where we are today.
Adam:But the last sort of few months, you just felt like it was all getting pieced together. There was problems with him and his business partner, Dean Grassiosi, at the time. There's problems with the coaching team underneath that, getting pulled in different directions and non competes and all sorts of shit, mate. But that's a and, again, separate conversation. But either way, it was a very successful period for us, and I met a coach on there.
Adam:I got a call Chaz that I got on really well with. And I said to the 2 Adams, look, we'd have the first clue of what we're gonna do here, but the approach that they were teaching at the time was Facebook Groups. So you go into Facebook Groups. So I would type in, men over 40 into the search bar. I'd go into that group, and I'd just add value.
Adam:I wouldn't try to sell anyone anything, but add members from there to my own Facebook group. And all 3 of us did this in a variety of different groups. Then we'd set up a free mastermind. So we set up these 3 free masterminds, to attract clients and to show them huge value in what we do. We got our group up to about 400 people.
Adam:On the first mastermind, we had about 80 people. Then the second one, we had maybe 45, and then the third one, we had 30. And we said on the 3rd call, if you'd like to book a call to find out how you can work with us, then, click this link here to book your free call. 15 people booked calls, and we landed 15 clients. But it's not because we're sales masters 101.
Adam:It's because the prices were so low.
Dean:Right.
Adam:So now we've got all these people who are like, fuck. What do we do now? Yeah. Yeah. That was, an interesting challenge, but, you know, we we monetized instantly.
Adam:We've made, like, 7 or 8 k in our 1st month just by using that method. So it it was worth it from the beginning.
Dean:Okay. And when I so much things I wanted to, like, call out there, but one of the things I love is that you identified that you had no knowledge or sorry. Maybe a gap in knowledge and bought a course. Right? That's something I'm big on is if you don't believe you have certain skills that will help you, like, you can just acquire them with money.
Dean:Bingo. You've got new skills. Another thing that I love that what you did there is also identified your own areas that you were somewhat weak in and plugged the gap with a business partner. And, you know, caveat there is be careful with a business partner because, you know, it's it's a lot of it's it's a lot of pressure on the 2 of you and you've got to get that right. But it sounds like you have done so good job on that.
Dean:And then as you're coming through to this point of your business now where you've got your first clients, like, just just to be crystal clear here, like, what is it that you give them? Like, what do you what do you what if I was to sign up with you tomorrow, what do I get?
Adam:Oh, yeah. I mean, from from then to now is
Dean:Changes. Right? Yeah.
Adam:Stuck. Yeah. We were charging £500 for 6 coaching sessions over like, it was, like, a 6 week program that we did. We had no continuation plan after they finished the 6 weeks. We're just like, right.
Adam:They'll get 2 sessions with me as a mindset, 2 sessions with the nutritional therapist, 2 sessions with the PT slash physio. What quickly, became apparent was that everyone wanted to work with me because they didn't know the value of nutritional therapy. They didn't really wanna be doing mobility exercises and whatever because the gym was gyms were closed. So
Dean:They just saw you in the videos saying preaching the message, and they're like, I want a bit of Adam.
Adam:Yeah. So it wasn't because well, it might have been because of my expertise and how I am. I don't know. But I think it was more the the problem that I was associated to fixing was you know? So it put a lot of pressure on me very early on.
Adam:And then, so to answer your question, mate, I'll go to the present day. What essentially we do now is we work with, C suite executives, CEOs, CFOs, etcetera, business owners, founders. Just really, to be honest with you, mate, any high performer wants to better themselves. We work with professional athletes, work with organizations and corporate businesses like Amazon. We've worked with Dell, Diageo, Team GB.
Adam:We've worked with some really high caliber people, but really, it's a a health transformation, mindset transformation program all under one roof. So it's a 4 or 6 or, in some cases, 12 month program. We've had a few people sign up to the 12 month one. And it's a holistic overview as to what your life is today and what you want it to become and what's holding you back. So in the the the boring nitty gritty of what you receive is you get one to one coaching time, you get a functional test.
Adam:So if it's a blood test, we send the nurse to the comfort of your own home. They take the blood. It's sent off to a lab they were in collaboration with. We get all the results back. We monitor all the biomarkers, and then we can establish what is going on underneath the hood, what is going on in your insides.
Adam:Because most people say to me, my nutrition's fine. And you're like, respectfully, you don't know yet, and you don't know your cholesterol levels, you don't know your vitamin d levels, you don't know your vitamin b levels, etcetera, etcetera. So, the biomarkers show that because most people go to the doctor, they just go, oh, blood test. Doctor goes, yeah, you're fine. Oh, nothing to worry about with no more information.
Adam:So we try to rectify it through diet first and then we'll look at supplementation second. So we assess everything from sleep quality, bowel movements, you name it from the nutritional side. From the mindset side, it could be a surface level as goals and habits and routine or it could be as deep as the inner beliefs that you have from being the age of 7 onwards that mom or dad said you weren't this or a teacher said you're that, and it's a label that you've carried around with you for as long as you can remember. So I need to understand that and unpack it. We do online courses.
Adam:We do community work. We do meet ups. Like I said, the men's retreats that we host are incredible. We do, 1, sometimes 2 a year. So, yeah, in terms of the business now, it's completely transformed.
Adam:But results people typically see, they have more understanding of themselves, build self esteem, build confidence, take a break from alcohol, become healthier, become more present at home with their families. The most common thing that we hear from partners after the programs is that I feel like I've got an upgrade. You've transformed my husband's life. You know? And I feel like I've got an upgrade on what I had before, which is just amazing.
Adam:So to put it simply, we change lives, mate. That's how we do it.
Dean:That's what I really like about that is that you go to the length of bloods and, like, checking what is actually under the hood. And it's something that I've been thinking a lot more about lately because I think, you know, we can be guilty of probably eating things that we deem as healthy, but when you actually look a little bit closer for example, right, the other day I walked into Tesco, and I, I hate this Tesco, by the way. It's a shitty, small, annoying little Tesco beside my gaffe. But I went in and saw the sushi in the fridge, and I was like, okay. Gonna get some sushi.
Dean:You know, nothing wrong with that. But, you know, as I said, I'm somewhat thinking about what's going into my body a little bit more than I had had done in previous years. I just for you know, just quickly just wanted to look on the back because I was like, in order for that sushi to get to that fridge, you know, and be on that shelf, it it's probably come from some sort of industrial machine to get to there. Probably wasn't some fella in his, you know, little shop put together some sushi. Looked on the back, and it had all this fucking shit inside it.
Dean:And I was like, I just felt so differently about it after, you know. And then, funny enough, didn't even I felt really sluggish and shitty after it. So it it does just go to show that, you know, even though we think what might appear as good food, it it it really can be, you know, not the case.
Adam:Well, that's it, mate. And when people say, you know, oh, is this food good or bad? A lot of the time, it just depends. There's no such thing as a bad food. There's a bad diet.
Adam:And, you know, people talk about moderation all the time. They do it with alcohol as well. Equally, people kid themselves, and they don't necessarily measure what it is they're actually consuming. So people, unfortunately, associate, things like chocolate and cheese as bad, and they go avocados and whatever is good. And, you know, if you can have, you know, a nice balanced diet of, like, an 80% of healthy, nutritious foods where you're prioritizing protein and fibers and what have you, it's not the carbohydrates of the devil.
Adam:It's just that if weight loss is the goal, they're more calorie dense. Fats are more calorie dense. So, you know, for example, we're working with a pro athlete and, that plays for Leeds Rhinos, and they have quite a few night games in the Super League. And he said, night games? I'm just performing terribly, and I can't understand why.
Adam:When we looked at his DNA, it actually, made us realize that he was more of a early bird as opposed to a night owl. And his energy levels and his cortisol levels and everything were so different in the morning than they were in an evening. So it wasn't that he was just bad at night games. It was that he wasn't consuming the right foods. And because the nutritionist there gives out generic plans to everyone, they all have to follow the same diet.
Adam:Right? It's pasta before the game, etcetera. But he might have had a problem with pasta, so his response to pasta is extremely sluggish, whereas someone else might be more energized. So if you're giving out a cookie cutter approach to these pro athletes, in some cases, it's like putting a diesel in a petrol. You're expecting them to go, and they're not.
Adam:They're not doing they're not performing to the level that they need to be. So you you're just fueling these unbelievable, well tuned machines with the wrong thing, and you didn't know. It might be that, equally, when you dive into, like, the athlete, for example, they might not be performing because they're anxious. They're anxious because they're arguing with the partner. They're arguing with the partner because they can't conceive and that that you're really frustrated.
Adam:So it's not just a case of looking at just the diet. It's every aspect of them as a person. And, you know, how can we optimize this for peak performance as opposed to just, I wanna eat well, well or I eat okay. Well, why is eating okay the goal? Or why is eating okay the standard?
Adam:Oh, sorry, mate. My connection looks like it's Sorry, man. I'm not sure what happened there.
Dean:Yeah. No worries. I think you got cut off. But yeah. But
Adam:but yeah. It's supposed to be my Internet, but I don't know why it's got I've got full WiFi. It's very confusing. Where did I get to? Sorry, mate.
Adam:One sec. Where did I get to before?
Dean:I don't know. It keeps cutting out, but I think I think Riverside will have, kept it in. So, we can just yeah. We'll just crack on. Like, the the thing that I I just love that you've and this is bringing it back to your sort of origin story here is you're doing things now.
Dean:Right? You're offering a service now that Adam, who was in hospitality, could never have offered, and you've done that through just simply acquiring knowledge. And my story is actually virtually identical, just with a different vehicle. So my story is I was in a 9 to 5. I was in sales.
Dean:It was alluring for a different reason. It wasn't quite like the nights out, and I mean, it was to a degree, but it was just very high paying and very easy relative to the money I was receiving. And now I have a bit a property management business that I, you know, learned how to run, learned how to build. My sales skills, like you had, fed into it. And now I've got this business that sustains me, and I like doing it.
Dean:And I can choose to grow it or not grow it. I can afford to spend time on a podcast that I think is worthwhile to help people. You know? And I'm just big on acquiring knowledge, and I love that you've done that because offering I I I just wasn't quite expecting the degree of offering that you actually have to to help people. It it's really, really cool.
Dean:And I saw you've done I saw your post yesterday. You've done, like, a1000000 in turnover in, like, 4 years.
Adam:Yeah. It's been it's been really good, mate. You know, we're we're close to it. I think we're by the by mid January from our projected sales, we will have done that. So we started trading in 2021, technically.
Adam:So, yeah, the by about 4 years, it'll be about that. And, you know, I appreciate the kind words as well, by the way, mate. It's very kind of you. Yeah. I I had a lot of transferable skills from hospitality like you said.
Adam:It was the salesmanship. It was the understanding people. It was the marketing. It was the retention of guests. You know?
Adam:How can you make today's customer tomorrow as regular? You know? I have that ethos in my current business. How can I make these people fall in love with our brand as quickly as possible? And people will never remember what you said, but they'll always remember how you made them feel.
Adam:So I always had to make people feel good. They won't remember the great cocktail that I made. They'll remember that I made it especially for them because it was their birthday, for example. So I took that methodology into coaching. How can I ensure that I over deliver, that I go above and beyond?
Adam:And that's what hospitality taught me to do for my, for my customers and my clients. And, you know, the the to the knowledge piece, I acquired knowledge, but knowledge without action is useless. You know? Otherwise, it's just knowledge. It's just information.
Adam:How you apply it becomes useful. And if you don't take that action, then you're just sort of mentally masturbating by listening to podcasts and books. And, you know, we say all the time that talk doesn't cook rice. You know? You have to just get in there and and make sure.
Adam:You know? And, but, yeah, year 1 Yeah. Challenging. Year 2, we doubled year 1. Year 3, we doubled year 2.
Adam:And this year, we're just gonna beat year 3 because we've we're focusing on other projects and growing the business in a different way. So we've almost withdrawn slightly to propel enormously for year 5. Well, that's the vision anyway.
Dean:So how many people do you coach at any one time?
Adam:It could be anywhere up to about 50. But it's not just me. Obviously, we've got a team of people as well that support us. So we have, contracted coaches. The reason why that works so well is because we still get to, run the business.
Adam:We still get to have our proverbial toes in the water while coaching people. And if a client really excites me, I'll work with them 1 to 1. You know? But we charge higher ticket. If you wanna work with me and my business partner, it's more high ticket, but we are it's also like a slightly different product.
Adam:It's kinda like the the unspoken product that we don't talk about. And, you know
Dean:It's like tiers of access. You know? Like, there's, like, maybe a lower ticket offer, a mid ticket, a high ticket. You know? This is the kinda model you see quite a lot, especially with, like, content businesses is that to get to to sort of the the the head honcho, if you like, is just a different tier.
Dean:It happened to me with the course that I bought. There was a mentorship, and then there was, like, an elite mentorship where you get direct access to that person. And it's just, like, different levels of access. So yeah. Yeah.
Dean:Absolutely.
Adam:That, mate. That's it. So we still make sure we have a touch point or we have weekly lives, then our community that myself and Adam will host are still gaining access to us. Because the difference is with coaching, it's so personal that if someone's followed me for 6 months and then they get on a sales call with me and one of my team, and then I say, hey. You're gonna work with Phil or Rich or Amanda, some of our coaches.
Adam:You know, I've had one person say, well, I wanted Ed Sheeran, and then passengers just turned up. And I was like, well
Dean:And clients can be clients can be, like, real demanding as well. Yeah. You know, they they come with these expectations, man, and it's it's a a lot of it is a game of tempering expectations right from the offset.
Adam:Yeah. It makes sense as well. Right? Because it's with what we offer, it's so intimate that when people do follow your content for so long, they feel like they know you, so they have an attachment to that. So we have introduced part of our service whereby we might do the onboarding call with them or they might gain access, like I said, to the lives and the the q and a's with us, etcetera, because we can't become the commodity within the business.
Adam:Because otherwise, you don't own a business. You own a job. And that's the Correct. You know, that's the the dangerous precedent to set. Now don't get me wrong.
Adam:I don't buy into this. You can't exchange time for money nonsense. Well, Ed Sheeran does it, and he makes a shitload of money doing it. So you can once you get more leverage. However, he also has many other facets to his his brand.
Adam:Right? He has the albums. He has this. He has that. But by and large, when he does a stadium tour, he can't get Ted Sheeran to do it, can he?
Adam:So No. He has, you know, he has to go and deliver. So but he just happens to get 100 of 1,000,000 of pounds for it. That's the difference.
Dean:Man, that, like, what you just said there is perfect because some people might, like, start a business and they've heard about how you can't exchange your time for money and therefore, you you know, they come in with these expectations that they can probably just have a automated business after the 1st 3 months. No. Like, it takes time. You lit you just have to put in the yards, get it to a point where you are exchanging your time for money probably to a large degree. You probably do have a job, and then you can delegate, and then you can hire, and then you can bring people in.
Adam:That's exactly it, mate. It is a process. And with our model, we a a large percentage of our monthly recurring revenue will be from corporate businesses, and we also have a retainer model. So once they do finish on the higher ticket, they still receive a same high level of service but for a much lesser price, which means that we have a consistent flow of cash. Because if I'm just hoping to land 5 k ticket, 5 k ticket, 5 k ticket all the time, again, you can fall into the feast and famine.
Adam:It can be seasonal. It might be that you go on holiday. It might be that, you know, some of your team are away, whatever, because we are still a small start up. You know? Like I said, there's only 2 of us now that own the business.
Adam:We bought the other round about, a year and a half into the business. But, we're still building. We're still in our infancy. But to have generated the money that we do within a coaching business with what is essentially 2 men and their laptops, we're very proud of that. And we haven't had any backing.
Adam:We haven't had any VC money. We haven't had any investment. Everything's been bootstrapped, and everything's been reinvested back into the business. So we are very proud of that. But Sure.
Adam:Your appointment, yeah, it does take time. You're gonna see all these wantrepreneurs peddling these courses as they rent a fucking Lamborghini for the day, and then they park it outside someone's house that they don't even know is is there. And they go, hey. If you wanna earn 7 figures like me, buy my course for $97 or $497 and all this nonsense. And they haven't actually set up a business of their own.
Adam:They've just told you they can help you set up your business.
Dean:Yeah. There's this, like, sort of wave of people I've noticed on Instagram, like, with for example, these faceless accounts where their whole objective is to get you to buy a course. And in that course, they will teach you how to be a faceless account and sell that same course. It's like it's just the definition of a pyramid scheme. Right?
Dean:And and that it it just yeah. The thing about it is is, right, it preys on a big problem. You if you're in a job and you hate that job, you're desperate. You are desperate for a change. You are desperate to change what you do every day.
Dean:You're desperate to rid yourself of that feeling that you are just in the wrong place and that your life can be so much more than what it is now. And and it preys on that fact. It preys on that problem. It preys on that deep, deep pain that so many people are suffering with. And I'm myself, I'm in this I'm walking this tight rope.
Dean:I'm like, right. Okay. I have people who watch this content. I have people who watch my Instagram, who message me on LinkedIn. And immediately, so many people want to change that, but they just don't know what to do.
Dean:They're like, right. I wanna do it. Give me the prob give me the not the problem, but just give me the solution now. I want it now. And I'm trying to figure out how I can give them that without, like I don't wanna, like, shove a certain strategy down someone's throat because, like, I'd like for somebody to organically figure out what matters to them.
Dean:You know, you've figured out something that's important to you. I went down the route of property. I don't necessarily love property. It was just that I hated sales. That was what was the driver.
Dean:I just didn't wanna do sales my whole life and I could see how I would definitely get caught in that rabbit hole of doing it. So I chose I just did property. I was like, alright. Fuck it. I'm just gonna do this.
Dean:Get myself out of my 9 to 5. But I feel like people just need something. And that's why those people selling courses, they probably just do so well, man. They do so so well. Greetings, friend.
Dean:Hope you're enjoying this episode so far. Before I send you back in for the remainder of this episode, I want you to just focus in on what Adam has done here. He has from nothing with no skills and a dreadful situation where he hated what he was doing, turned it around, acquired new skills, put the work in, and now he's in a place where he is free. He loves his life. He's doing what he wants to do.
Dean:He's earning he wants to earn. Of course, he still has goals and aspirations to make things bigger, better, and more wonderful. But he has gotten himself away from the place that he didn't like. So just remember that this is entirely accessible to you no matter what your skill set, background, or current knowledge is. Before I send you back in for the remainder of this lovely conversation with Adam, I do have one favour to ask you.
Dean:And you probably know what it is if you've ever listened to a podcast, people will ask you to rate it and review it and subscribe. And I'm no different. The reason is that it is a free way that you can help support me in return. I put quite a good deal of time into preparing for these episodes, into obviously recording it, then producing it, distributing it, marketing it. And it takes a lot of my time, energy, and effort and, you know, I'm doing it for free.
Dean:It actually cost me money. So if you appreciate the effort, if you appreciate the product that we're putting out here, please do help me in return. Pop up on Spotify. Rate the show. Give it a little 5 star rate, please.
Dean:And do the same on YouTube. If you're on YouTube, subscribing is a huge way to help me know that what I'm doing is being well received and also just to say thanks. And that, my friend, is all I have to ask of you. I hope you're enjoying the episode. If you want to hear more about guests, more about what I am learning on my quest to share this type of information, you can subscribe to the newsletter as well.
Dean:That's in my Instagram bio. If you don't follow me, it's in the show notes. Feel free to sign up. And I look forward to seeing you on the next one. I'm gonna pass you back into the interview now.
Dean:Much love. Appreciate you. Chat to you soon.
Adam:Kill it. The the you know, it's you see it on LinkedIn. I've I've literally blocked about 6 people. So there's one guy at the top of the proverbial pyramid who is killing it. I help founders sign more clients on LinkedIn.
Adam:So then he gets someone else as his new client, and then he becomes one of his salesmen. I can help you sign more clients on LinkedIn. So then he helps the next person sign more clients on LinkedIn. Like, who's actually doing any fucking work? Who's actually signing any client?
Adam:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Each other how to show each other how to show each other. And the person at the top's laughing his head off, and the people below are just peppering people with messages constantly over and over and over again.
Adam:And, you know, we have done well, we still are doing business coaching, but only for a hand select group of people. And we say to them, listen Sure. This is not a cookie cutter approach. This isn't a follow my 8 step plan for financial freedom. This is look.
Adam:You've just become a new qualified coach. This is another problem as well, mate, by the way. People go, my job's shit. I wanna set up a coaching business. So what they do is they set up a coaching business.
Adam:They might pay $5 to get qualified, you know, through positive psychology, through life coaching courses, whatever. Amazing. Fine. But then what? Most of these courses don't show you jack shit on how to monetize and how to market and how to sell yourself, how to write copy, how to acquire customers, how to retain customers, how to get referrals to other customers, how to get corporate work, how do
Dean:you pitch yourself to those businesses. So How to do your fucking accounts.
Adam:How to do your accounts. What, insurance do you need? Do you have terms and conditions signed up? Have you got your website idea signed up? You know?
Adam:Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And the answer to most of the things, have you thought about, like, creating a client avatar? You know? Give them a name. Give them an occupation.
Adam:Give them an amount of money that they earn because then you're writing to that problem. So rather than just saying, hey. Are you looking at stopping drinking? It's, are you a man in their forties? It's really frustrating their career right now.
Adam:Are you really struggling to balance your life with your children and your wife? Are you overcompensating at work for another struggle that you're having in your pre in your personal life? So then when the reader is looking at their phone, they're going, this is me, As opposed to just posting out generic shite and cookie cutter advice, you're not gonna attract anyone. So I see loads of really good people that are really good coaches, but don't know how to market and don't know how to monetise. So then they give it 6 months, and then they start getting fear and go, oh, shit.
Adam:I'm gonna go back to the job that I hate now. So the the approach I took was I was like, right. I was 32, I had about 40 grand in savings, my outgoings were around, at the time, again, because of COVID and what have you, we weren't going out much on holidays. My outgoings were around £1200 a month. So I thought, right, let's look at this logically.
Adam:Because I say to people all the time, follow the fact, don't follow your feelings. It's not that you wanna invalidate your feelings, but your feelings can be, you know, somewhat, temperamental and stupid. So we wanna follow the actual hard data. What does that figure say in your account? Oh, it says 20,000.
Adam:What are your outgoings? 2,000. Right. So you've got the worst scenario, the worst scenario. I'll I'll just go back to my in fact.
Adam:I had $40, and it my out going to 1200. So I thought, right, I could not get a single client for 18 months, and I'll still be more than okay. I could not have a single client for 3 years nearly. And if I lived like a monk, then I'd still be okay. And then if all that money ran out, I just go back to hospitality and be a general manager earning 40, $50 a year again.
Dean:I love it. I love it.
Adam:Worst scenario. But worse than that, I could go work at fucking Amazon and be a delivery driver, part time perhaps and do 30 hours a week and get £15 an hour to build up cash to do coaching again because now I've learned from a new experience.
Dean:I love this and I'm gonna tell you a quick story here that I think just ties into this perfectly. Right? Is well, on the one hand, what you've just said there highlights that there is no real immediate risk to trying, to just trying. Just trying. Okay.
Dean:Right. And what is my worst, worst, worst, worst, worst, worst case? That I think that's great. But what also ties into this. Right?
Dean:A friend of mine actually was a guy who I went on a podcast myself with as a guest recently. He was talking about how he looks for financial freedom and security like all of us. Right? And he went to fucking hypnotherapy. And when he was doing the hypnotherapy, they touched on that subject.
Dean:And what the hypnotherapist actually helped him realize was that what wasn't that he actually wanted financial freedom and security. What he actually wanted was to it was actually a void rather of him believing that he had the resilience and the resourcefulness to handle any challenging financial time that came his way. And I was like, oh my god. That's like such a that what a reframe that is. And it kinda ties into what you're saying there, which is worst case, I could figure this out.
Dean:And best case, my life has changed forever.
Adam:That's exactly it, mate. And I see so many people almost crippled by this paralysis of fear. And the thing is, we're only born with 2 fears, which is the fear of loud noises and the fear of heights. And as we develop as adults, typically, the 2 fears that we have are fears of not being good enough and the fear of loss of love. So the fear of not being good enough tends to stem back in between that period of time, between the ages of 47.
Adam:And Rory Sutherland is a fantastic, you know, wonderful mind, especially in the marketing space. And his book, Alchemy, is, a great read for anybody, by the way. But he said, why do we get annoyed when we're in, standing up on a train? And he, you know, asked a few different people, and one person said, well, you know, I've paid money for this. Okay.
Adam:So you feel like you've got an injustice. That's number one reason. Number 2 person might say, oh, well, other people get to sit down, and I don't. Alright. Okay.
Adam:So you think it's like a superiority thing? Yeah. Someone else said it's more tiring, so I have to hand hold on to the banister. Somebody else said it's because I want my hands free so I can play on my phone. You know?
Adam:So there's so many different reasons. But when you start to unpack things and pull it back layer by layer, you start to understand what's really going on. So, for example, I was in London the other day filming on a different podcast, and there was someone walking at 1 mile an hour in front of me, and I was running a little bit behind. I was running a little bit behind because the of my own disorganization. So I wasn't annoyed at the person that was walking slowly on reflection.
Adam:I have enough self awareness now to go, right. What's really happening here, Adam? They're walking slower. They might have a injured leg. They might be lost.
Adam:They might just be really relaxed, and they're fine.
Dean:Yeah. They might be just chill out. Yeah. They might be
Adam:just chilled. And I'm I'm running around like all the other idiots on King's Cross fucking tube station. So I'm like, right. What's really happening here is I'm an irritator myself for doing this. And when I feel annoyed at myself because I'm disorganized, I feel like a 15 year old again when I was at school.
Adam:So I used to get shouted at for leaving PE kit or not remembering stuff. So, really, in this moment, I'm feeling like a vulnerable 14 or 15 teenage boy, when in reality,
Dean:I'm a
Adam:36 year old man. So when we have fears about things and we say, I'm gonna fail, right, what does that mean, 1st and foremost? I have to establish what failure means. Well, do you mean losing money? Yeah.
Adam:Okay. Where did that belief stem from around losing money equals being a loser or being a failure? Well, I don't know, really, but mom and dad didn't really have anything as a kid. I didn't have anything as a kid because mom and dad had, like, really rubbish jobs. Right.
Adam:So if we were to unpack this further, he felt probably quite ostracized at school because you didn't have. It's the have nots at schools, isn't it? And he's like, yeah. Especially as a kid, you wanna you wanna fit in. You wanna be normal.
Adam:Long story short, mate, within about 5 minutes, we'd unpacked. It wasn't actually about the fear of loss of money. It was the fear of feeling like he was a 6 year old in the schoolyard getting laughed at because he had holes in his shoes. So I can get people to that
Dean:And you could even you could you could even go, like, a day or deeper then and be like, well, why is getting laughed at in the schoolyard even bad? It's like, well, because then I'll be alone and nobody will like me and nobody will love me. And why is why is that why is that bad? Yeah. Well, then I'll die.
Dean:I'll be alone on the savannah and I will die.
Adam:Yeah. Mad. It's it's mental. And the the there's an exercise I do with clients called 7 levels deep. So it's to truly understand what your why is.
Adam:Because most people go, well, I wanna be financially successful so my family can have a nice life. Okay. Why is that important to you? Well, because, you know, I don't wanna have the stresses around money, you know, because, I guess I had some as a kid. Okay.
Adam:And how did that impact you? Well, it made me feel lonely. It made me feel ostracized. And da da da da da. And you get back to it and you're like, holy shit.
Adam:So, you know, it's so interesting, the the human mind, as to why people do what they do and why they don't do what they do. And once you do understand what's really going on, you can talk to that pain. And there's a an exercise that Alex Hormosey recommended a while ago, which was, name them. A lot of people don't set up their own business because they're insecure of what their friends from school will say if they fail. So they don't set up in the 1st place.
Adam:I'll stay mediocre. I'll stay in a job that I fucking hate forever, just because. And they go name them. Not, oh, people will laugh. No.
Adam:What are their names? What are the names of the people that you're terrified of looking like an idiot in front of? And just be honest, because it will set you free. You might judge yourself and shame yourself and go, I'm an adult. Why am I so insecure?
Adam:Well, because you haven't fucking sorted out your challenges from childhood, mate. So maybe it's Mark, Steve, Dave, and Michael. Name them. Get to the fucking point of the people that you really
Dean:Check those guys.
Adam:Yeah. Exactly. That you're trying to embarrass yourself in front of. It's likely a schoolyard tactic. It's likely that, you know, again, you might fear losing the love of Dave, Mark, Steve, and Michael as well, right, if you outgrow them.
Adam:I got heavily criticized when I started my business. I'd go I'd start my I'd start my own Instagram page. Right? There's a group of lads from my hometown. I've gone travelling with some of these guys.
Adam:I've known since I was 5 years old. I'd post on social media, and I'd say, who's looking to lose weight and get their mindset better? Or something like that, really generic. They'd go on to my Instagram page, 8 or 9 of them, and vote no. And, obviously, when you're first starting out, you're not getting anyone fucking vote anyway apart from you and your mom and your friend.
Adam:So when you got 9 people or 10 people saying no, I'm like, oh, for fuck's sake. And these are all 30 plus year old men with children and their own businesses.
Dean:Wow. Because That's so
Adam:it's mental, mate. They were friends with me when I was on the same air quote level as them or perceived to be lower than them because they had better jobs than me. Because hospitality, although you learn loads of skills, the pay is shit. When I'm a general manager of a large organisation, taking a 100 grand a week in revenue, you're getting paid, like, 35, 40 k a year. Right?
Adam:The numbers just don't fucking add up. I'm getting tickled by these people because I'd elevated myself as a coach now, and I'm turning my life around. They don't like that. I'm gonna pull him back down by criticizing him.
Dean:It's kinda like if you think back to what you said about that person who was walking in front of you, who is, like, chilled. Like, if you go into the mind of the person who's saying something like that, you can very quickly move past your own feelings, like you said, and get to the actual facts of what's happening, which is why would somebody say that? Why would somebody go onto your Instagram page and vote no? It's because it's coming from a place of insecurity and jealousy and, why aren't I doing something like that? I cannot bear to see Adam do this and to do well.
Dean:What if it works out really well for him? Then I'm gonna feel really shit. Let me just put a fucking pin in this before it gets any good. And I know these little japes that I make will just chip away at Adam, and eventually he might stop and that will make me feel good. Yep.
Dean:And they're not like they're not like they're not object like, not objectively but they're not consciously saying this. They know they know deep down if they were to look inwards, they would know that they were doing that for that reason. They would. But it's not like a conversation they're having. It's just why they're doing it.
Dean:Yeah.
Adam:And it's a pack mentality as well. So, mate, I I had one girl who I don't know why she rang me. I mean, I I knew her pretty well, but not, like, really well, but she'd obviously seen what I've been posting online. She called me from the motorway, and I could hear, and the cars were flying past her, you know, god knows what miles an hour. It was really windy.
Adam:I could hardly hear her. I said, look. I said, where are you? She goes, I'm stood on the motorway. I said, why?
Adam:She's, I wanna throw myself in front of a car. I was like, woah. What the fuck? I said, get in your car a second. It's not safe to do so.
Adam:I said, well, just get somewhere I can actually hear you. Long story short, her partner had cheated on her. She felt like a piece of shit. She'd just been made redundant. Her head had fallen off.
Adam:And she was telling me she was gonna throw herself in front of her car. Now I talked her down. We calmed her down, focused on the breath, focused on a more helpful thought, bring in a different belief system. Let's just get you safe. Call your sister.
Adam:Get to come pick you up or drive to the nearest petrol station, whatever. Just get off the motorway, please. So she did. 2 days later, I used to post on my Instagram stories. I'd do, like, it'd be a picture of my breakfast with the song, don't worry.
Adam:Be happy, playing in the background and a motivational quote. It might have been done some people, but I did it consistently, and people really liked it. Each day, I changed the quote. She sent me my own picture, which she must have screenshotted trying to ridicule me, sending it to a friend, and said, Look at his fucking porridge today. He's obviously made so much effort over this.
Adam:How pathetic. And I can't tell you the level of frustration and sadness that I felt in that moment. But on reflection now, I know exactly why she did that because if she's so so insecure and what have you, and she's obviously trying to get a rise out of someone else. But
Dean:she's saying it so her friend responds and then says something, You're really funny. So therefore, she gets a laugh and feels good about herself for a moment. But she doesn't realize that negative comments like that can actually potentially you know, if you weren't thick skinned, they might actually land where where she might want them to.
Adam:Yeah. And she didn't realize she sent it to me. I said, oh, dear. You didn't mean to send this to me, did you? And she just goes, no.
Adam:I did. Oh,
Dean:Imagine the fucking fear she experienced in that moment when she realized it went to you. Oh my.
Adam:Right. 5 minutes later, I was blocked on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my mobile. She had everything afterwards. So Wow. Now I have empathy for that girl.
Adam:I'll be honest.
Dean:At the time For sure. Yeah. For sure.
Adam:At the time, I definitely didn't. I was pretty pissed off.
Dean:Because you can't help but take something like that personally. That is personal.
Adam:Yeah. Especially given that she rang me out of everybody. She's got a
Dean:Of all.
Adam:Very close relationship with me. She had close friends. But she called me in that moment of need, which makes it even stranger. But the point is, mate, that I've got Reddit pages Oh, well, LinkedIn Lunatics. There's a Reddit page.
Adam:I'm featured on that about 20 times, people ridiculing me. TikTok, I've been told to kill myself. I've been told, you know, you're a worthless piece of shit. You name it. You've just gotta keep going.
Adam:You've just gotta keep doing it because I've got a bigger purpose. I've got people to serve. I've got lives to change. And that's the trade off of putting yourself out there. That is what courage is.
Adam:It's putting yourself out there knowing that you're gonna get hit. It's knowing that you're gonna take the proverbial punches and the blows and the abuse. And what I talk about online isn't always sexy. It is the challenges that men face. It is about removing alcohol from your life.
Adam:It's not all sunshines and rainbows, what I talk about. I know you're gonna get criticized. And I don't expect an echo chamber, by the way, either. I don't expect people to go bow down to me and go, oh my god. Adam Smith's the saviour.
Adam:However, you know, it can be challenging. We have to disassociate from that. Remember your vision. Remember your why. And go, I'm doing this for a bigger purpose, and it's way bigger than me.
Adam:What is your way? To live life on my own terms.
Dean:Why? It's really simple.
Adam:I've seen I I love my dad dearly, and he's such a fucking hard worker, and he's still working physically. He's got a plumbing and heating business, still working physically hard at the age of 68.
Dean:Wow.
Adam:And that scares the shit out of me. Yeah. Because I see the challenges that it presents to him, and I see the stress that he can be under sometimes. So I admire that man so much, and he is my idol in so many ways. And it's not about him.
Adam:It's about what it represents. I don't wanna be doing the hard work, air quote, when I'm that age. So I want to be able to create a life that I can live life on my own terms because for so long in my life, I felt like I haven't. Having undiagnosed dyspraxia and ADHD made the school days feel impossible. You know?
Adam:Being misunderstood most of my life, it's been exhausting for the most part. Grafting and scratching and clawing to get what I've got, I don't wanna let that go. And that's what drives me every day is to be the man that my father is without the level of stress and anxiety that he can sometimes have. So those days where I feel like I can't be arsed, I just think, what would my dad do in the sense of who he is as a man? He'd do it because he's got the right standard.
Adam:He's got the right values. But and, again, it's not to discredit him. He loves what he does, you know, by and large.
Dean:Probably now is no different at this point as well.
Adam:I don't think you know?
Dean:The idea of an online business to him is probably alien. He might as well be speaking.
Adam:He loves it, but you know? And he supports me, and he tells me he's proud of me, which was, you know, when your dad says I'm proud of you, it's like, oh. You know? Yeah. Yeah.
Adam:Say it again. Say it again. Yeah. Yeah. Because, you know, you just don't hear it from that generation of men, typically.
Adam:I don't wanna stereotype here, but for most people I know or coach, it's it's it's a challenge. And, yeah, for so long, mate, I felt like I haven't had control over my life and getting told what to wear, getting told when to turn up, when I can go on holiday, and all that stuff. I graft my ass off now to make sure I can have a 3 o'clock nap with my doc if I so wish without someone telling me what I can
Dean:and can't do. Bro, this is the like, it's so it doesn't sound like something that's, like, immediately that alluring. But my goodness, like, the the fact that and it seems like you and I are the same here. Like, I can choose to wake up tomorrow, and I can work if I so wish. Equally, I cannot.
Dean:That that decision is not made for me. Mhmm. I make it myself every week, and I like the work I do now. I like doing what I do on a Monday, on a Tuesday. Like, it's not a chore to me.
Dean:Like, I take joy in doing it. Yes. Like, I think I'm guilty of allowing pressure to seep in and be self induced sometimes. Like, I'm not, like, free of negative emotions. This hasn't solved every problem in my life, but it certainly solved the problem of being told what to do and being told when I can and can't do certain things.
Dean:And to me, that is worth all the graft in the world.
Adam:Yeah. And I yeah. I said to my coach, I was like, you know, because what was the real challenges that you had at school when we opened it up? I said, I think it's a problem with authority, you know, and employment as well. He's like, authority.
Adam:He's like, if a policeman told you to stop speeding, would you? I said absolutely. He says it's not a problem with authority, Adam. You have a problem with being disrespected. And I was like Fuck.
Adam:Mind blown. Because Fuck. I, mate, I got invited on a podcast about 4 months ago, and it's a pretty fucking big podcast, I'll be honest. And the host was 35 minutes late, and he talked over me the entire time. And he was a complete dick, to be honest, for most of it.
Adam:And then, we got towards, the end, and his editor forgot to press record. And if you knew which podcast this was, you'd be like, are you fucking joking? Because of You
Dean:can tell me off camera.
Adam:How reputable it is. Yeah. I will. Now they said, oh, we'll just record it again. Then I said, I haven't got time.
Adam:What? You haven't got the time? And I was like, no. And he lit he he nearly said, do you know who I am? Wasn't far off.
Adam:He said, do you know how big this podcast is? And I said, I appreciate that, mate. But I was waiting for half an hour for you with no acknowledgement, like, you were very gracious to me when I was ironically late today. A different situation with a friend of mine. Right?
Adam:But he had no acknowledgement, didn't apologize, nothing. Equally, there's another very, very reputable, entrepreneur. I'll tell you that story afterwards as well. Very, very well known. And he put this thing on LinkedIn.
Adam:He said, I've got my calendar open, and you can book a 20 minute slot, and you can ask me anything about entrepreneurship. I was like, amazing. What a great opportunity. It took 3 and a half months to get booked in for this 20 minute slot, and it was, again, he was 15 minutes late. His camera was off.
Adam:I couldn't really hear him, and he was just so he was going, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, well, basically, mate, yeah.
Adam:Just I'll just keep doing what you're doing then. I thought, you wanker. Like, I've waited all this time. You were late. There was no apology.
Adam:You didn't even have the, you know, the decency to turn your camera on. And then the next day, he's posting on LinkedIn about how he feels so honored to give back and to be of service. And I looked at this person and the other person. They're both multi multimillionaires. And I don't know if it's a problem that I have within me to to you know?
Adam:Because some people would be like, oh my god. Thank you so much. Oh, gracious one. I'm just not that I'm just not wired that way, mate. At the end of the day, if I cut you, you still bleed.
Adam:So I'm not gonna be disrespected by anyone even if it is the detriment short term of my finances. I'm not gonna do it. If you speak to me like a piece of shit, I'm gonna match the energy, or I'm gonna remove myself from it.
Dean:Yeah. It's just common courtesy. You know, it's respect. It's the it's it's it's acknowledging someone else as a human being that's equal to you. That's it.
Dean:And and it goes a long way, man. When when you don't receive it, it's it's very noticed. And when you do, you're just like, yeah. Great. You're a fucking sound.
Dean:That's it. I'm not like, oh my god. What an amazing person. I'm just like, right. He's he's just not a dick.
Dean:You know? But, man, I I love honestly, I love the way your story starts with you being distressed like so many people. You then went and realized, I want to get away from this. You acquired knowledge. You didn't have shitty expectations.
Dean:You realized it takes a long time. You put the graft in, and you were very thoughtful about it. And you removed negativity from your life where it needed to be removed. You identified people who were holding you back and maybe who weren't in your corner, truly in your corner. And you are where you are now, man.
Dean:It's incredible. And, yeah, it's, it's it's great to see another success story like this, you know. It's I'm just yeah. I'm always, I'm always pumped.
Adam:No. I appreciate it, mate. Honestly, I look at business like I look at having a kid. Again, I haven't had a kid, but I see friends that have had
Dean:kids,
Adam:meaning that the first the first year is all you. It's hands on deck. You don't know what the fuck you're doing. It's so stressful. It's chaos.
Adam:The stuff happening that you didn't even think was possible. Year 2. Okay. It's starting to get it a little bit. It's starting to move around a bit more now, and it's the parts are just sort of falling into place, kind of.
Adam:Year 3, you're like, oh shit. This is getting really real now. And this is running faster. And it's moving quicker. And it's, you know, having a little bit of independence there.
Adam:And then year 4, it does the same, and so on and so forth. And I say to people that, you know, some of the guys I'm coaching around the business stuff, they're, like, 6 weeks in. Oh, god. I can't believe it's not working. I was like, would you expect your kid to be up and running after 6 weeks?
Adam:Fucking hell. Give it a bit of time. You know? And year 4 is so early in business. Going into year 5 is so early in business.
Adam:And, you know, yeah, the 5 year old can become more self sufficient now and, you know, can start to do things for itself, but you still need to oversee it. If I get to year 15 in whatever it is I'm expecting to do, still you can have an eye on it because you care about it. But it is fully functioning now, and it is doing everything on its own and what have you. So it might be a bit of a strange metaphor or analogy for people, but I think that, ultimately, the the long and short of it is that so many people overestimate what they can do in a year, and they underestimate what they can do in a decade. And if you gave yourself that time and that grace period, you can achieve amazing things, but just keep progressing day by day.
Adam:Get the wins. Celebrate the wins. Celebrate the fuck out of the wins. But remember, nothing's ever that good, and nothing's ever that bad. It just is.
Dean:Yeah. Fuck yeah, man. Well, if somebody's listening and they wanna work with you and they're a coach or sorry, not a coach, but they wanna get coached and they're maybe in a, a business owner themselves, where should they go?
Adam:Don't type in Adam Smith on Google because you'll get The Economist from back in the day. It's the most common name in the UK is Adam Smith. LinkedIn, if you type in Adam Smith coach, it should come up. YouTube, we're on a game consultancy. TikTok, we're on there.
Adam:We've got a podcast which is called A Game Unfiltered. Instagram, Adam Smith, I think it's alcohol free coach. I think that's my handle on there now. I can't honestly remember to be fair, mate. But, yeah, I can send you all the links and what have you, mate.
Adam:But, yeah, link LinkedIn is where I'm most prominent, and, and YouTube are getting a big push at that next year.
Dean:Nice. Well, I will endeavor to leave all those in the show notes. And, Yeah, man. It's been a great conversation. It's been great having you on, man.
Adam:Yeah. Appreciate it. Thanks, Dean.
