Gary Goldsmith: From Success to Survival – His Ultimate Turning Point

He had the money, the success, the status and the confidence. Then a near-death experience in Ibiza forced Gary Goldsmith to confront a question that changes everything: how do you want to spend the time you have left?

This episode explores far more than business success. It is a story about confidence, identity, resilience, and what happens when life suddenly reminds you that time is not guaranteed.

Gary Goldsmith built a reputation as a fearless entrepreneur, investor, and larger-than-life personality who never followed the crowd. From building serious wealth and backing bold ideas to challenging conventional thinking at every turn, Gary has always done things his own way. But after a near-fatal health crisis in Ibiza left him facing a 90% mortality risk, he was forced to confront a question many people spend their lives avoiding: what really matters?

In this raw and honest conversation, Gary shares the mindset that helped him build success from humble beginnings, why he believes most people underestimate themselves, his controversial views on confidence and imposter syndrome, and the lessons he learned when his health finally forced him to stop and take stock.

This is a conversation about refusing to live on autopilot. About taking ownership of your future before circumstances make the decision for you. About becoming the person capable of creating the life you want.

If you've ever felt stuck, held back by fear, or wondered whether it's too late to change direction, this episode is a powerful reminder that your next turning point may be only one decision away.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

And I says, What's going on here? He goes, But you want the truth? He goes, Well well when you uh came in, the number of five says a ninety percent mortality rate. So everyone expects you to die. And it's like okay, there's any reason why nobody told me that with for obvious reasons.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

Welcome to the turning point. Stories of resilience, reinvention, and the decisions that define us. Success, money, status, confidence. From the outside looking in, Gary Goldsmith appeared to have it all. A hugely successful businessman known for living life at full throttle and unapologetically doing things his own way. But last year, after becoming critically ill in Ibiza and believing he might even die, everything changed. This episode is about the reality behind success, the power of mindset, and what happens when a moment forces you to stop, reflect, and completely reassess your life. This is the turning point with Gary Goldsmith. Gary, welcome.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

Uh thank you very much. Do you do you like my front room?

SPEAKER_00 1:07

I I love your front room. It's very um uh very grand, I might say.

SPEAKER_02 1:12

Very regency, yeah. That's how my family rolled. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

Incredible. So you won't remember this, but we first met back in 2005 outside the pub near the S S3 training centre, because I was on Huxley Basic Training. You were kind of this mythical legendary character that people talked about, and you turned up in a uh a large Humvee, and I remember that the hubs continued spinning even after the car had stopped.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Yeah, yeah, I had a I had spinners. It also had blue neon lights, and then we it was basically a car for Ibiza, but I just had it in town for 10 minutes just for a laugh.

SPEAKER_00 1:47

Incredible. Well, that moment stuck with me. And I do recall talk about this with us. I'm still in touch with a few of the guys I used to work with, and and when you look at the people who've worked through S3, still do or have left on to go and do their own things, most of them are hugely successful. And I put a lot of that down to the training that they that they talk us closing, how to close people, the commerciality, how to have conversations with people. It's really was was was game changer for most of us.

SPEAKER_02 2:14

Well, thank you. Firstly, I think the training was brilliant. I do think the environment made a massive difference. It was it was the first time when somebody used the the phrase to me, it's cool to be good here. And that really mattered. So people would weren't trying to sit at the back of the bus, they're trying to sit at the front of the bus and learn more and show off. And it was all about I've done this and wanting praise, more like Labradors than rock violence. And it was um, it was brilliant. As a I think our culture, our culture's systems and processes were outstanding. So average people became very good, and good people became amazing, and amazing people ended up running part of the business. Yeah, so but process really helps. The training is it's it's always good when you put somebody who's got aptitude, ability, and the right mindset in a room full of people who are all at it and having a laugh being great, they will just want to be part of that gang. If you put them into a toxic environment where it's just like hitting people with hammers all day long, you're never going to get anywhere. So the best training in the world without the right environment doesn't work, but the right environment without the best training would still work, in my opinion.

SPEAKER_00 3:23

But yeah. Or or you or you put good people in with uh bad people and they they stoop to that level. But but in in the whole of the S3 group, um we well, certainly in Huxley, we only took people on as trainees. We wouldn't take people on at a senior level who had experience.

SPEAKER_02 3:39

Yeah, the day that we went through an IPO, there were a couple of people from accounts and uh lawyers who'd ever done their job that we were currently doing ever before, including us as CEOs, directors. It was it was bonkers, really. It was a room for the rookies who just made it up. And we weren't even trying that hard. Everyone hates it when I say that. Just imagine if we tried hard.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

You've always got go got a lot going on between businesses, investing, and the also the mentalist entrepreneur community, which I'm I'm pleased to be part of. So, what's keeping you busy recently? Where's most of your focus going?

SPEAKER_02 4:13

Well, thank you for giving me a platform. So um so the mentalist entrepreneur is um a sector agnostic group for like-minded people to come and ask questions, talk shop, and see if it's the board you can't afford, a way by which everyone can talk about what they're doing, but talk about their problems and get more than one brain to actually answer them. There's the RDRC, which is that for just the recruitment sector. So we were kind of a first mover in in that regard. We're kind of fussy about what we want to take on. The people in that room have to be really, really ambitious. So we don't care where you are on your journey, as long as you know you're on a journey and you're willing to open your kimono and and and be honest about what you're doing. The last thing is I I don't want to hang around with a group of recruiters, big dick swinging. So today, funnily enough, we're all talking about visas in the US. And yesterday it was something random as well. So there's there's always something. The other things I'm um doing, I'm part of uh double act, which is myself and Wendy Nickel. So we think there's the advisory space has kind of got stale where people will swan in, like they're David Essex, give some advice and then and then swan out. But actually, the real benefit is somebody to help them with execution. So the plan, innovation, and execution. So pie cubes made perfect sense for us. So it's the power of three, and that's that's just gone off. Really surprising that it's gone off so quickly. But people are having conversations with us. We can go in, do an audit of where the business is, and by just doing a few tweaks with low-hanging fruit issues, it's paying for itself instantly. So that's great. But the the big game changer, I think the thing that's probably will equal for me S3 money. Um, and it's funny that there was a few bits about this in uh the media today and yesterday. We're helping with recruiters place AI agents. So rather than always like reach for a human, educating customers to say, well, look, that human is going to cost you 65 grand, which is realistic for a software programmer these days, all on fully loaded costs of someone working S80. You want 10 of them, it's gonna cost you 800 grand, or my bot can do it, and it only costs you 30 grand. And I give half of that fee straight to the agency just for the lead. So they don't have any delivery costs, operational costs. It's just free money, effectively, for a lead that they're still working on anyway. So Kelsa Priz, I'm getting leads left, right, and centre, and we um we launched it on Friday and on Tuesday morning, our first full day of work in, we signed our first contract. So customers are are buying that. And we tried to launch it before we did anything. So we didn't have a website, didn't have logos, didn't have anything, which I've learned over time. Don't try and over prepare and don't give yourself excuses. Go out there and sell it. And if you can sell it, because sales cures all ills. If you can sell it, we'll work the rest out.

SPEAKER_00 7:17

Yeah, I love that mentality. It's uh so many people I know have started businesses and waited to get everything set up properly, and then they've run out of money before they just move.

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, it's full throat bridge, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah. All right, let's get into some some questions now. We we could talk for for ages on this, but I want to get into some topics really regarding your your turning point moment and some some of the points that are relevant for my listens as well. So you built serious wealth and success from what some might call a normal background. Uh, but when you look back at it now, how much of that was strategy and hard work, and how much of it was mindset and actually belief in yourself before you'd actually achieved anything?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

So um I worked for Gerald Ratner actually, randomly. My mum used to work in a jewelry shop, my cousin worked in the jewelry shop, and I had my Saturday job there, and I was good at it, really good at it. Um my my EQ is off the scale. So um I could get people to buy stuff and then bring their friends back, and you know, every shop in the world has got the ability for people on the shop floor to give you 10% off is whether you ask for it. Or I used to give it away, but people used to come straight back. And one of the uh managers came round and said, It's a really long answer to this, right? But I'll try and I'll try and get to a point on it. Manager came around and said, Within two years, you could have your own shock. Now, anybody who's a shop owner, uh, forgive me, but I said, Yeah, I wrote my notes out then and there, said, There's more to me than that, but thank you very much. Uh so then I got um I um worked for as a computer operator. My first salary was £7,666 that year. Um, I was there for 20 minutes and I happened to go for to Lou and I walked past what was the CEO of Thornir, my data self. So that was my shift leader's manager's manager's manager. And I went in and congratulated him for hiring me and asked what I needed to do to get my first promotion. And he was getting stuff out of a drawer and said, How long who are you? How long have you been there? I went, about 20 minutes. And then I came out and gave it to my shift leader. He said, How dare you? I went, you should be applauding that, right? I'm I'm really out for for making making this um making this work. Then um I wanted to work in recruitment, so I applied for a manager's joke. And um, so I think I think where I'm getting to on this is there's confidence and then there's me, right? I am totally fearless. And I kind of love that about myself. And my mum started that. I fell out with um Bali's bank once and instantly closed my account. I I was just I'm really stroppy about stuff, and if I didn't get my own way, my parents were called in at school because my headmaster said if Gary wants to go to that school, it's not worth the fight. So um I really I take instruction incredibly badly. I know my own mind, and I'd much prefer to be to live or die based on my decisions. So I think that's inherent. It I did start from mum and dad both having two jobs when Carol and I were very young. So my sister's got 10 years on me. And uh so just because we're for schooling and education, um, mum and dad used to dovetail who's looking after whom, and that was that was really important. So uh I learned hard work the hard way. If I'm gonna do a job, I don't care what the job is, I'm I want to do it really well. I know what I'm good at, I certainly know what I'm bad at. I can't fill out a form for love and money. So just don't even give me a form. It's just like my kryptonite, and I just die at the prospects, and I hate having to do things more than once. So once it's done, it's out of my head, it's gone. So having people around me to capture all these ideas, so people used to run around with virtual wheelbarrows and take the ideas and and then try to help deliver them. So I think there's there are there are certain people who lose confidence and want to be measured by themselves, and there are some people who just like to go with the flow. So if someone said go left, I'm 100% my brain is telling me to go right. And it's just because it's just inherently built in me to be I don't want to be that person that's contrarian, but if everyone's going left, I'm all I'm doing is following the wagon in front. And if I change lanes, then well, I can only overtake one or two at a time. But if I go, if I know where they're going, think of this like a wagon trail. If I can work out where they're all going, why don't I try and cut them off at the pass? So is there a quicker route there? And that's that sort of so what anybody says anything, I'm trying to break it and just find a different way of doing it.

SPEAKER_00 12:01

Where do you think that conf where do you think that confidence comes from, Gary?

SPEAKER_02 12:05

I think a very loving um um background. Mum mum and dad trusted me to um to make cool decisions. They they let me make decisions, which I think was um really, really useful. We tried to do it with my daughter now, that that when she everything in the when you're a kid, everything is so cons cons um is constructed for you. So the one thing that she could always do is choose her outfits at the weekend. Now I've been taking her to Manchester Trafford Centre in the middle of February when it's snowing and bitterly cold, she's dressed like a fairy. And that like she won't wear a coat because her wings are gonna get ruined. I look like a very bad parent, but actually, deep down, I think I'm being a great parent because I live with that. So it's I'm trying to do my best for people all the time. But I don't I don't know where that confidence comes from. It's um I've never not had it. If we're gonna be on uh a muming competition, of course I'm gonna be Simon's wrong, right?

SPEAKER_00 13:02

I like what you said about the uh the kids because I've got two daughters and I've always been the same. You make your own decisions. If you've forgotten something that I've told you to bring, do you need do you want your coat? No, I didn't need my coat. Okay, fine, go out. I'm cold. But you didn't bring your coat, did you? If you're always there behind them, that they're gonna grow up thinking you're always gonna be there. But as you say, it's that confidence thing when they finally have to do stuff on their own.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

Yeah, and I do think it was it's um obviously we we love our kids uh massively, but sometimes we can be a little bit overbearing.

SPEAKER_00 13:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

So my daughter has got more confidence than me. She she's uh her first job from university, she's got a directorship, book shares, and I should be really proud of her, but she's going faster than me, and I went really fast. I I literally could sit there sometimes, so what are you doing? You can't be better than me. So she's had to deal with a very competitive dad. I'm very competitive. I we played, I was a football agent for a while, and we had Alan Shearer and Rob Lee in my back garden once, round, dropping names. And um Alan had me against the fence and said, You're the most I'm the most competitive person he'd ever met. I mean, winner. Thank you. Really? Yeah, I mean, you've got some strong people. I was very, very, very drunk and annoying, but that was funny. By tennis hall, my back garden, Alan and Shira, shut up.

SPEAKER_00 14:22

You you mentioned, um, just continuing on the confidence thing, you mentioned when when we spoke recently about imposter syndrome and that you don't really believe in imposter syndrome. I mean, I find that interesting because so many high performers, you see them on LinkedIn or on their podcast, talk about feeling like frauds all the time. I mean, what's your take on this?

SPEAKER_02 14:40

Scared and lazy. Well, do you well well this is this is a chance to be properly honest about this. Uh a really good friend of mine, um Darren Ryan, says he calls it success syndrome. And I love this way of explaining it. Once somebody realizes what it takes to be successful, and the amount of effort that you have to apply, and the fact that there's no room to hide, and you're the last one to get paid, and people expect shit from you, and nobody is happy, and you don't get praise, the further up the food chain you get, people think, oh, it's easier life. Dear God, no, that could that it's it can be further from from from the truth. So once people realise what it what it takes to be successful, they're scared of committing. They could do it for a day and possibly a week, they don't answer it for a month. So what they're doing is building a glass ceiling above them and just say, This, no, this is this is high as I want to go. I don't want to go any further. They're um the leaders are saying, but you've got absolutely everything to do that job. The bottom line is they don't want to. They just don't want it. So when people say that they feel like they're frauds, yeah, they probably are, because they shouldn't, they're being lazy, they're not taking on the job. So, as a lot of people look at um CEOs and business founders and owners and think, especially in sales, I'm making all this money, I'm getting this little fraction here. They don't understand, I'm making sweeping statements, but many don't understand the on costs of that person. The fact that they're getting a salary, and we're paying and I pensions, uh, there's utilities that have gone through the roof, there's licenses, there's a whole load of things that go into that person. So what they're actually getting is a really fair crack after we've paid costs. And that whole third, third, third, don't buy that dumb book, because it's um the the way that the world's move now, it's really hard to employ, super expensive to run a business, and because we've got an absolutely rubbish government who've never actually done a proper day's work in their life, they don't understand that you can't just keep bleeding the people who are paying taxes dry to pay for everything else. So it's it's a really hard, hard situation to to be a business leader at the moment.

SPEAKER_00 17:07

I see that translating into some of the men who I coach in their uh health and fitness journeys. So a lot of people that I speak to, whether it's work or whether it's personal life or fitness, they they never fully back themselves. So they play small, they hesitate, they kind of wait for permission. Uh, in your experience, what do you think separates people who actually take big action in life from the people who stay stuck watching from the sidelines?

SPEAKER_02 17:31

Can you tell? I play tennis, so it's not so it's it's not a purely athletic. There's a skilly element to it. And I can spot on the tennis court someone who's doing better in life than somebody else. A mile off. They take bigger shots, they take bigger risks, they're having more fun doing it, and they don't care about the ones that miss. Even if it's a miss by an inch, it's like, I'm a god, right? They're praising themselves all the way through it. And I just I can spot that. If it's if it's a head down, like, I'm gonna do a marathon, I'm gonna run, I I just no, I I couldn't do that. Well, one, it's very difficult to get um acknowledgement all the way through it. I'd I want to be like, oh well, if I'm playing tennis for an hour, I want 15 moments when someone says unbelievable, well done. And if somebody else didn't do it, I'll praise myself. So I it's interesting. I w I wonder if you can spot it with the stuff you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 18:27

Definitely, and it's interesting that you say that. So in in business, if someone walks into a room and they are gener generally have the mindset of someone who is successful, they've got that kind of energy about them. You know, they may not be the most senior person in the room, but you can spot them. Uh I was other people who come in and they kind of have their shoulders rounded, their heads down, they sit in the meeting, remaining quiet, they're not gonna be successful. Uh and a lot of it does go down to the self-talk, you know, waking up in the morning and saying, I am actually awesome. I am gonna have the best day because I am awesome.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Oh, okay, if if we're gonna be weird.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

We can be weird on this podcast, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

Okay, well, so um if I wake up in where when I wake up in the morning, result, already winning, I go and do my abolitions and I sit in front of the mirror and I'm brushing my teeth, and I'm thinking to myself, well, first things first, I I get other two things hit me. One, oh, you lucky bastard, you get to be him again. Right? That's that's one of them. And it's like, oh, okay. Or the other one is, oh fuck's sake, he's exhausted. But but he ain't gonna change because it's I don't believe in um people who pret pretend to be somebody else at work because that work mask will fall off the minute there's any stress and pressure. And that that I mean you can you can see people who are more than one person, and you can sit in a day, you can see where their energy levels go at three o'clock, and insides that they normally they're really polite to people, and then they start being a bastard. I am cons consistently, consistently a dick. Right? So my level is never happy, always driven. If if someone had done their best ever month and they did 12k, it said, oh, you were three grand away from a well done. Try harder. Yeah, so do I get nothing for that? I went weekend off. What do you want? Pat on the back. Yeah, well, someone pat him, can't be asked. Right, it's but uh it but I'm but I'm always that person. So the thing is that I'm don't um my my mood swings don't flip-flop, and I choose. I I lay my clothes out the night before I always have. Saturday was uh for my personal paperwork day, Sunday's is prep day, and I'm still I'm not earning a million quid a year at the moment, so I'm in startup mode, and until I do, I'm working seven days a week. Right? It's just but that's my rule. So live by your rule. And I'm 61 and I've still got more energy than most people put together. And I guess I've got um there's so there's two things here. I've got a um a mental uh psycho, I've got a psychologist who I've been working with for a year now. As with any really great athletes, and I think we're athletes as CEOs and business owners, you think about the team they've got, so you've got nutrition, you've got health fitness, you've got some of the kind of your finances, your PA, your EA, your colouring in expert, right? You've got all these people around you, but we forget our heads. So I work quite hard on that. So if if I'm not getting enough wins, my Patrick will say, phone people and be Father Christmas, right? And that that's our secret code is my Mantoring life is to be over the five, not a fibre. So I'll phone people up just to ask how they are, what's going on, give them something, just an idea, and put the phone down, and that gives me my resources much. And that'll keep me going to get. Otherwise, 'cause I didn't I couldn't get a win quickly enough because everything's going so slow and it's out of my hands. So when I put my clothes up, I start thinking about the day ahead and when I'm so what what am I be tomorrow? What's my moods? Do I want to go, you know, properly dressed to the ninth? Am I going to be quite officious today? Um today's gonna be a hard one because the numbers aren't quite right. I'm gonna dress it down a little bit and then so I'm thinking about it and how I'm gonna turn up. And the minute my feet hit the ground, I'm choosing my mood, and then I check myself at the mirror and just see if I'm anywhere remotely close to where I need to be. And then I'll just sit there and I'll play a game on my phone where I'll just literally let my brain just r recalibrate, and then I'll go again. I won't step out of the bedroom until I'm absolutely on point of who I'm gonna be.

unknown 22:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

Really important to me. Yeah, it is very important, and it's what I say to a lot of the men that I coach with as well. That first hour of the day, you set your intentions for the day. What are you going to achieve today? Who do you need to be to achieve them? And yeah, don't start scrolling through TikTok or the news before you're you're ready for it. And when you are ready, that's when you then take yourself to the day and then you deliver.

SPEAKER_02 22:55

I read the well, I listen to the news. I read um the mail online would give me pretty much 90% of what I need for the day, my headlines. But we've always done that since I've been in sales. They there used to be copies of the FT and the Sun in every office. And you had to read the back pages to know what's happening in sport today and what weird headline there is. And then you had to read the FT about moves and shakes in marketplaces. Because I want everybody who's representing my business to be interested and interesting. Because if you can have a really great phone call and never talk about what we do, what the business does, or anything about that, we just make friends, winner. That for me is the best call in the world. Or treating people like they're your friend, and that isn't done on TikTok, or you know, I'm not gonna say, Did you see that cat playing? If someone said that, I'd literally to me see how far a phone can fly. That'd be pick a window, Dave, you're leaving. That is not happening.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Yeah, but building a rapport with people. So I I still do this with my team now. Before they go in on a first customer meeting, do research on the person, look them up, Google them, look them up on LinkedIn, look them up on Facebook if you have to, and see if you can find some sort of commonality or some threat that will start a conversation with them that's not how are you, how's business? Yes.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

Hello, yeah. Have you fallen out a better national tele?

unknown 24:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:18

I take every call, by the way. If people dare to call me, I'll I'll respond. If someone um I unfortunately I have to use Calendly for one of my businesses, so it's always there, and I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it. If someone is good, they just pick up the phone and phone me. That's really important to me. No one's well, my best friends don't schedule calls. So so why should my customers have to jump through an extra level or hoop to have a conversation? But just pick up your phone, call me. Uh somebody asked me the other day, you're very opinionating. A lot of people got, you know, very definitive opinions of you. Don't you hate just like people not liking you? It's like, well, if if I've ever upset anyone, they phone me or they text me. Like a fool they said, or if they haven't got your phone number. It's like, then I don't care.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Then you don't care.

SPEAKER_02 25:09

Because they're not my people. And I don't want to be liked by everybody to know.

SPEAKER_00 25:15

No.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

I'm not a nice group salesman.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

And that's what I try and uh that's the mentality I try and instill in my daughters as well. Be a nice person, do what's right for you, and don't care if other people don't like you. Right. Let's let's move on now, Gary, to something a bit more serious. So um when we uh chatted last week, you were discussing last year in Ibiza, so things took a serious turn and you became critically unwell. So can you take us back to that moment and actually just explain? You know, I've never talked about this. Would you rather I didn't would you rather I didn't put this out?

SPEAKER_02 25:45

No, no, no, I know I think it's important. I think it's important to put it out there. So um, and um it's worse than people think, I guess, because I underplay everything. Uh it'd be my 60th birthday, and I'd I'd um I was far from ragging it. I'd had um Mark Heath who was out with yesterday. He'd been over in Ibiza with me, my family had been there, my daughter was over, and then everyone had left, and I'm there just tying up some stuff with the villa before I'm coming home. And I started to feel really, really, really unwell. And then I started vomiting blood. And then it was projectile, it was litres of of blood. Um, so Gino's sort of the estate manager there spotted me and said, okay, this isn't right. I said, I know I'll walk it off. Anyways, phone my missus, and they've had, they've just gone mad, anyways. Basically forced me into a car and take me to uh AE and I'm being sick with blood all the way. I've got to say, unbelievably, there's a private doctor's there, and within from get getting in and going through triage, I was on an operating table within 12 minutes.

SPEAKER_00 27:00

12 minutes, incredible.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

Unbelievable. And then they put you in ICU. So I had some banding done, and then they wanted to test me, and I started to feel better, but it's an ICU unit, bedridden, wouldn't let you out of your beds, two to one nurses to patient. I just did, I and I just did not want to be there. And I tripped myself out. I mean, much to much to everybody's people were begging and crying, and I was saying, oh no, I'm not having this. Anyway, my daughter and wife came straight over, and that was it. Basically dragged by the colour and put on a plane, sent home, straight to UCLH, and out of the blue, I think it was just for a long time of not looking after myself and body battering, my liver'd uh give it up, and it was it was just not working quite quite right. So then you you if you think of your liver as it's like a filter, but when it's not, and some of it gets really shit and old, and um there's some cirrhosis and all sorts, it basically blocks up all the blood. So then you start filling up with blood and and water, you get asites and all these things. Um so they rechanged me, my doctor, to um a specialist hep team. And Lula was there with with me as we're seeing this guy and we're deciding what we do what we're gonna do. And I said, So what's going on here? He goes, would you want the truth? He goes, Well, when you uh came in, the no one far says 90% mortality rate. So everyone expects you to die. And it's like okay, is there any reason why nobody told me that? I went for obvious reasons. Um so then it was quite intense for a bit, and then all the meds you do for that, so my liver's fine now, but my then my kidneys have been playing up more recently because the meds you're taking for that hurts that, so I've been clean and serene for over a year. Um, and it just is a chance to have a retake and just have a little think about stuff. So um, and it's it's the whole sort of socializing part of what we did was massive. So it's different now, right? So the kids don't drink so much and and people don't want it. So everything's kind of changed. So I like to say that I've just changed a generation, but it's probably not me. But see, it's in my head, that's my confidence thinking it's all down to me. But no, it wasn't.

SPEAKER_00 29:34

Well, that that's an incredible story. Um, and I mean I can relate to a little bit of that, not not the nearly dying. So when I had to go in for brain surgery during August 2020, which was uh COVID, uh, you know, when you're lying there post-surgery feeling awful in the hospital bed, it kind of when everything's stripped away, money, status, everything else, it really does kind of hit home what's important to you in life, doesn't it?

SPEAKER_02 29:58

Um I don't think I I ever had that epiphany, if I'm honest. I just it was another thing to beat. Right. Remember, I've been through some some pretty big battles with press and all sorts. So it was just another one of those things for me. So as I do with most things, I just basically try to distract myself rather than face my demons about it. I mean, since afterwards I've um I spoke to my psychologist about it. And it was it, I think it it was scary. And I don't like being out of control, right? I'm I'm the archetypal control freak. This stuff doesn't mean I have to do everything, it just means I need to be in control of everything. And I couldn't be in control of this. So I wanted to know what was going on and what did that mean, and and trying to get behind that, and then my daughter was brilliant, just researching stuff, choosing what she told me. I'm sure my daughters could get a medical degree right now, so she's probably up on it. So it's I don't think it changed my priorities so much. It made me just need need to look after myself to be able to be I I didn't want to change me. Well, I was desperately not trying to change me. I just wanted to change my circumstance and behave differently for I think the right reasons. It was I didn't want to be there again. That's not good. Yeah. And and also what I I did find, and one of the things that um really wound me up, you pay a lot into healthcare, and then the minute you need it, they cancel the policy. Really naughty, really naughty. And I'll I'll spread that. That was AXA. Absolute bastards. Absolute bastards for that. Now, in truth, it hasn't hurt me, and I'm getting really brilliant treatment. Um, man's man marks, got doctors' phone numbers and all sorts, right? Stuff that you wouldn't think you normally have. But they're um they're absolutely brilliant. But yeah, so I I'd do everything in my power and never didn't have to go back into a hospital.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

No, I can relate to that and agree. And we we unfortunately we lost my mother-in-law during COVID. It wasn't COVID, she broke an ankle, but because she was in hospital and and no one was in there to fight her corner, question the decisions the medical staff were making, she just deteriorated and uh passed away with sepsis, unfortunately. So hospitals, you want to go in them, get fixed as quick as you can and get out.

SPEAKER_02 32:30

That's horrific.

SPEAKER_00 32:31

Yeah. Yeah, it was a tough, tough time. Just keep it light. Just keep it keep it light. So you when we spoke, you you referred to that as your turning point moment. Do you think the turning point was actually finding out that you had nearly died? Or that you just didn't want to live that way anymore?

SPEAKER_02 32:50

Um I the latter.

SPEAKER_00 32:52

The latter.

SPEAKER_02 32:53

Um I still doesn't compete with my head. Maybe I'm not smart enough to actually just get my head around it. Um, or I've got some sort of block. But for me, it's it the my big driver is um I still want to walk my daughter down the aisle, right? So that's I've got things I'd like to have some grandkids and see them. So it's um it's it's important to me that I'm I'm the best version of me. And I've got to say, it's one of those that people are saying, so when you're not drinking or um you're trying to look after yourself, do you feel better? No. It's really weird, right? So I don't I don't want to oversell this. The first three weeks, it's really cool. Never waking up with a hangover, never missing a day, always being on time, being super shharp. It's um it's really good. Then you just get used to it. So that's my new norm. And it's it just means I churn more work. So everyone around me is you know, I feel sorry for because I I'm a bit of a machine, so I come up with ideas and and just throw them out all the time. So non-stop. I think I had three absolute crackers yesterday. My whole thing in in uh when I was running S3, because it ran itself. I created business freedom very early, was all about doing one thing brilliantly every day. That's that was that's what I had to do. And I used to be able to do that. People used to say, um, you're getting in late. I say, I'm doing chairman hours. I was doing 10 to 4. The issues started happening when that was the time I was actually getting in, 10 to 4. So yeah. But it didn't take me as long to come up with a brilliant idea than it did most people. Haggled my way through that for a couple of years, but yeah, then it all blew up. But it's I like being this version of me. Um, I'm I'm I'm good at the best of times. I'm scary good now. Just need more confidence.

SPEAKER_00 34:43

It's the um, so the I I gave up booze September 2024. Um, and again, it that it's just my normal now, but I don't have any off days, so I can come into work when everyone else has been out the night before, and I can be that person that's like, come on, guys, let's crack on what's happening here, rather than at that level. And and and now with the amount of of work and stuff that I do outside of work, I don't have the time to have a hangover for a day or two days like I used to get in the past.

SPEAKER_02 35:09

Did you notice that hangovers no when they start to get like you go on a bender and it's three days, you're still feeling rough. Yeah, I know. That's a week gone. Um, yeah, it's it's it's not great. And also, and and you know what? I don't think it's a good look on as a 56-year-old man to be absolutely battered.

SPEAKER_00 35:30

No, I I I did have a moment, a discussion with myself once. I've been out with all my friends in Manchester, we've been out to uh an event, and when I was vomiting in the hotel toilet telling the cleaners to go away at 11 in the morning, I was like, what are you doing? You're a dad, your late 40s. Why this is not cool.

SPEAKER_02 35:50

Yeah, I've got no stories like that at all. I've never done anything like that. Yeah, no, it's um I just think it's it's not not a thing these days. But I talk about my daughter a lot. She's we we talk about this whole drinking culture, it's just gone. Now I do feel sorry for pub culture, and I do hope that they're all making money now the sun's out, and they people are treating themselves to a glass of wine and and having some fun. But it's um just just chasing them and and shots, yeah, there's no need for any of that. It's um it's it's never if you're gonna get pissed, do drink water, match drink for water, and what what's the point of doing a shot and trying to get there faster? It's there's you want to get there as slow as you possibly can. So, yeah, interesting.

SPEAKER_00 36:41

Good advice. So I I talk to a lot of people in their late 40s, 50s, and early 60s who they quietly know that they're heading down an unhealthy path, but they keep avoiding having that conversation with yourself. Why do you think that us men in particular are so reluctant to confront health and lifestyle, honestly?

SPEAKER_02 36:58

I don't think it's positioned right. I I genuinely don't think it's positioned in a way that people would buy it. It's it's done as a matter of fact thing where where's the feature benefit? It was it's like, well, you'll live longer and work to the pensions aren't going to pay for me, so what they have to work longer. So what where's my win? Might as well go early. If it's about you're probably, if if you can look at somebody and come up with a way to give them a score of what they're performing how they're performing. I've got an idea on that, by the way. But this is where you are, this is what you're performing like today, without thinking about how good and effective you are home. But I I don't think there's such a thing as work-life balance. I think if you're working brilliantly, you get reward recognition, your purpose is being being fed, you take that mood home and you're in the best mood, and you give everyone the best version of you. Yeah, it's better to be that person, the one that gets home twice a week to watch loose women or something. And working from home or from anywhere is not good for the soul. We are we're a pack animals, we need to be together, so that's really important. Um, so if you give yourself a score and just say, this is where you are today, would you would you know what operating at this level might look like? So if you could be at that level, so that's more effective, more efficient, more dangerous, do more things, um, would you would you like that? And then see if people would like that as a way of doing doing something.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Yeah. I mean you said something very important there, which is giving the best version of yourself to those that you love. So many people I speak to say, Oh, my family, my kids are the most important person in my life, but then they completely track trash their own body, you know, coke during the week, booze and everything else. It's and then they're not giving the best version of themselves to their family. So for for someone who's listening to this right now who knows that they they need something to change in their life, uh, but they keep on delaying it, what would you say to them before life basically forces that decision upon them?

SPEAKER_02 38:56

I'm at it from a a mentalist entrepreneur angle.

unknown 39:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 39:01

So I'm I'm massively into Elon Musk. Love him or hate him, I just think he's brilliant. And his um his love for the hitchhiker's guide is his uh his major source of inspiration for philosophy, just tickles my fancy. He just says we are asking the wrong questions. So if you want to change something, give people motivation to change it, because change itself is just not inspiring. So if there's something in your life that is an itch that you can't scratch, did you want to start your own business? Do you want to do a side hustle? Is there, do you want to get to that role? Do you want to get to that pension state? Do you want, do you want something? Do you want to have a holiday home before it's too late? Do you want a thing? Okay, would this version of you get you there? Or would a better version of you get you there so much quicker?

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 39:51

Now, what would that look like? So there's an a number for how how good I think people are. So I've got there's some there's some score cards. So if anybody wants it, there are five questions, each worth 10 points. And this is my mentalist entrepreneur score. So EQ. So your ability to read people, read situations, and get them to want to work for you. And just it's in start with start with a body language book, by the way. It's just dead easy to get into that whole psyche by doing that. So plus IQ. You don't need to be intellectual, but you do need to be smart. Now, intellectual is just the per the difference is one reads loads of books, the other one is sharp as attack, and can see an opportunity from a mile off. Russell Clements, my partner at S3, was one of the most intellectual people I've ever met. So well read. So times your your smartness, and there's some scores on that. Um, plus your curiosity score. So, do you know how things work? Do you know why that's happening? Times your ability to take action. So, not having everything lined, the fact that I'm trying to sell um a product when I haven't even got a bank account. Right. So I I'm I'm very actionary. I'm not overly bothered about um getting all my ducks lined up. I'll go out there, I'll start swinging and see what happens. You can only get it wrong, can't you? And then you can change it. So the the you know, the best the best plan in the world or best budget and forecast in the world is wrong the minute you write it. It's never the one you end up with, so why sit there for days and days and days? I once got um an approval from S3 just before we got the IPO, the first sale away when we did the hedge with Barkfiz. And it was titled The Shortest Business Plan in the World, and it was one paragraph, and I said, Go on him. Now, my stock was very high in the business at the time, my shit didn't stink, and I was making money for fun. So if I said I want to do this, just I'll just whatever go, off you go. So it was um it was a different time, we couldn't do that now. But that's you know, just having that. So that gives me my ME score. And when someone people always do it twice, which is really weird. The first time they just try and game the system, the second time they do it for real. What they think what the real answer would be once you've got that, a smarter, better, cleaner version of them would be the person who can give them that dream that they want.

SPEAKER_00 42:19

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 42:19

So I'd probably line it up like that, is how I'd work with with somebody to do this. But everywhere now is talking to me about health and fitness, but not one person I think has positioned it in a way that I would even remotely buy it. So if I just slank your marketing strategy off.

SPEAKER_00 42:35

No, you haven't. No, it's fine. Don't worry. So I can I can edit it out. Well done. But I think in any um whatever you're trying to do, whether you're trying to get a promotion, start a business, get fit, if you're not taking stock of who you are now and where you are now and all the assets of your life, your relationship, your finances, your family, your fitness, everything, you're not going to be able to get to a point where you're you actually succeed in that. So it's do the MOT on yourself now. Set your goal and say, where do these scores need to be to achieve that goal?

SPEAKER_02 43:08

That's brilliant. I'd say that's the that's the stuff I I um I buy into that. But it's there, there are there are some elements of that that um my daughter works for HapStar, so that's a business that helps individuals work out how happy they are. And it's pretty much the same thing. And it helps organizations just consider their structures and what they're doing, and is that right, or should we be monitoring this? And uh, once people build trust with it, then it it changes the dynamic within them. The people actually just being focused on what is actually making me happy. Because a lot of people just think it's their work. Right. I'm not happy, so it must be work. They change job and realise, oh now it's got the pressures of a new job on top of all that shit. So so sometimes just things, but I think people can just think about how they do these things. So a way to I've I Need a reward at the end of it. If I'm gonna do anything, there's gotta be a reward.

SPEAKER_00 44:04

Alright, Gary, I've absolutely loved the conversation and I've really enjoyed it. We've covered a lot, so let's end it there. The goal isn't motivation, the goal is becoming the person who does what needs to be done. Thanks for listening to the turning point. Remember, your next turning point might only be one decision away.