Series 2, Episode 5 - Terry Hamill, Entrepreneur, 'Connector' and National Director of BNI Portugal

In Series 2, Episode #5 we are delighted to be joined by Terry Hamill - serial entrepreneur, connector of people and National Director of BNI, Portugal, who shares with us his powerful journey and how a childhood experience has made him the person he is today.

Website:
http://www.bni.pt

LinkedIn profile:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/terryhamill/

In this episode we cover:
- how a tragic experience as a child has now led Terry to want to help millions of people around the world.
- How showing vulnerability is so important in helping others to speak out.
- How as leaders its vital to understand the personalities and strengths of your team so that you can get the best out of them.

I really enjoyed recording this episode - I'm sure you will gain so much from it! 

Host:  Biraj Nakarja
Co Hosts: Tijana Momirov & Stewart Noakes

#neverstoplearning #followyourdreams #tribe

See more about Canopy events and Membership at : https://linktr.ee/CanopyCommunity

Damia Group Portugal
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Portugal Ventures
Growing global

Boardroom Advisors
Real world advisors for scale-ups and SMEs

#TRIBE
The friends of Canopy membership group

Idea Spaces and Co Working
coworking space • experience business community

#TRIBE
The friends of Canopy membership group

Portugal Ventures
Growing global

Boardroom Advisors
Real world advisors for scale-ups and SMEs

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Transcript

UNKNOWN: 0:00

Music.

SPEAKER_04: 0:05

Welcome to Canopy Community's Founder Friday, the podcast series that brings real-life experiences and inspirational stories from founders and innovators across the globe. My name's Biraj Nekarja, and together with my co-hosts Tiana Momrov and Pedro Guimérez, we bring you a diverse group of founders from varying industries who've been kind enough to share with us their journeys and what makes them tick. We really hope you enjoy this episode, and so without further ado, let's dive in and get ready to learn. Welcome guys to another episode of the Canopy Community Founder Friday podcast. We're delighted this episode to have Terry Hamill join us. I think Terry, the best way I can describe you is a chief connector maybe is probably a nice way to put that. Your LinkedIn profile is fantastic and there's so many different kind of things you've been doing. I struggled to kind of pick one specific term as such, but I think chief connector is probably a good one specifically because of the work that you've been doing with connecting people and connecting businesses, which I'm sure we'll hear more about. But thank you, Terry, so much for joining us today. As always, welcome, Tiana. And we have a special guest to join us today also in Stuart Noakes. Those that have been listening to the first episode or first season, sorry, of Founder Friday will certainly know Stuart is the main man in Canopy. And it's fantastic to have you join us today as well, Stuart. So welcome, guys.

SPEAKER_00: 1:37

Thanks for letting me join today. No

SPEAKER_04: 1:40

problems at all. No problems. So I'm really looking forward to this episode. Terry's career has and is fantastic in terms of the things that he's been doing. The work specifically with Business Networking International is something close to my heart as I'm a member of BNI myself. And I really can see the benefits that it's had to me and my business. And Terry's taken that to many, many, many levels ahead in terms of setting up BNI in Portugal and other places as well so I'm really looking forward to hearing that but also Terry I know today you're very keen to share with us your story and by that I mean your sort of your path from where you started in terms of your career but what's happened throughout that journey that's led you to the person you are today and the businesses and the great work that you do for so many people so really keen to to to hear your story and be able to share that with everyone. So Terry, over to you. Tell us a little bit about yourself and please go ahead and introduce yourself.

SPEAKER_02: 2:47

Super. Well, you're very kind. I mean, you're very kind to say these lovely words. I'm not sure where you got that information from. And thank you, Stuart, for inviting me. And Tiana, nice to meet you. And so that, because we talked a little bit about before about how I kind of got to where I, what I am now. And I think the story, the story itself is interesting, but it's a story that I never realized there was a story, you know, like Simon Sinek come up with all this why stuff the last few years. And I was like, yeah, okay. I kind of get that, but I could never really connect the dots. And yeah, Something really strange happened to me as a young boy, but I could never understand what had happened. And it was the strangest thing. I mean, I, so I, as you can probably tell from my accent, I'm Scottish. I'm a little bit softer than Scottish. When I go back to Scotland, they call me English because I don't speak proper Scottish. You know, it's not

SPEAKER_03: 3:48

like, that's pretty harsh.

SPEAKER_02: 3:52

You've got all English down there, you know, and probably because I talked to so many different international people that, you know, I sometimes have to slow down and things, things like that. So I, I grew up in Scotland. I grew up in Glasgow, which is pretty much like a working class town. My mother was amazing. She was a force of nature I found out actually at her funeral that she won three tribunals against injustice and injustice is a little bit about what I'll talk about today is that she we didn't know this as kids it's just your mother, it's just a mother and she worked her socks off she'd come in she'd obviously beat us around the head as we were because we were three tearoys my sister, my middle brother and myself And my father was in the military, and he was almost like a controller, a dictator. And at a very early age, when I was five, I remember them fighting. And he would be in the military. In fact, we lived in Singapore. I was born in Singapore. And we came home and this military side of him was very aggressive. And I remember one day very vividly sitting at the top of the stairs and hearing him scream and her scream and things like, oh my God, what's happening? And my father was my hero. Because when you're five, right, and someone arrives in a military suit, you've got these toy soldiers, you go, that's my hero, that's my hero. And he beat my mother every day. Like he beat her, he beat her. And one story she told me after, because when you're old, you know, when you're young, if you have a great mother like my mother, she would never say a bad word about my father because your father is your father and that's it. But when I had met him for the first time when I was 16, I decided I would never ever see him again because he's just the kind of guy I would never want in my life. And she told me about, he was insanely jealous of her. because she loved dancing. She was a very extrovert person like me. And he was very jealous one night in Singapore and literally dragged her and beat her right across the whole dance floor and the barracks. Because he was the sergeant major, nobody got involved. She was screaming and no one got involved. And I didn't know that that happened to my mum. And my mum, she actually had two jobs. She was working hard. I mean, she was just doing her best. And I was a toe rag. I was a nightmare as a child. I mean, so I thought I was happy, you know, like... My mother had kicked my father out when I was about five or six, and she threw everything that he owned into the garden and set a light to it. So I love barbecues. I'm a big barbecue fan. I love the smell of burning stuff, right? And that was like, he's gone, new life, and mum kind of settled us all down. And so we were pretty happy because he was gone. And then at seven, something changed. And I didn't understand it at the time. And no child understands this at the time. It's something profoundly happened where I was, I became angry. I became aggressive. I became destructive in school. By the way, school hated me and I hated them. It was like, they were just like, get your heads out of the clouds and, you know, do your work. And I was just a nightmare. And my mother put me into a boxing club at the age of 11. So I was a boxer for five years. I know what you're thinking. I didn't take many punches. I'm not a bad looking guy, but I was fast. You know what I mean? I was fast. And I was running one day. There was not many kids at school that were running at five o'clock in the morning. And I was running and running and running. And there was a bridge over the side next to the motorway that my mum lived in Renfrew. It's a beautiful little place. And I stood on top of the bridge. the railings of the bridge and was ready to jump off the bridge. And I remember it like it was yesterday, but I had no idea how I got to that point where I was like, jump, jump. And then, of course, I didn't jump. But this whole turmoil was going through my mind and I didn't see any connection or understand anything that was going on. And when I connect the dots, you'll see, we spoke a little bit about this when we had this pre-interview sort of thing. Yeah, sure. Is that when something so dramatic happens to you, your subconscious mind takes over and it doesn't allow you to know certain things. So short story is that when I was 28, I had some time with an amazing friend of mine who I still speak to every couple of days. And he said to me, there's things that you're saying and the things that you're doing that don't quite fit with who you are. There's something not quite right. It's like, I don't know what you mean. And it was about a year before that, that I had found out that something happened to my sister. She was about 12 and I was seven. And we were both abused by a family friend. allegedly a family friend, right? It was actually a friend of my father's. And my mother had kept in contact with this mother, this lady. They went out for a night out and their husband had abused myself and my sister. But it was so shocking to me that I didn't remember anything about it. This is what I can't comprehend, that something like that shuts the body down and says, this kid at seven years cannot handle this tragedy. Now, you'll notice that I'm very comfortable talking about it. I don't have any problem talking about it. And people say, oh, it's very courageous. And it was very, very difficult to talk about it. In fact, when I found out it happened, I made a phone call and I said, what happened to us as kids? And she said, yeah, we were both abused. And she had held that for all of our life. She remembers it every single day. I don't remember anything. So that... that one thing that happened to me changed my path. So when I was about 43, I was doing the whole Simon Sinek thing. Why? Why am I connected to the projects that I'm doing? And I was flying over from San Francisco and I said, you know what? I don't want children to go through that stuff. I want to try and inspire as many young people as possible. In fact, one of my visuals on the wall here is, my goal is 2025 is to inspire inspired 10,000 students at Nova University because I work with the master's students now and teach them how to be good to themselves, understand others, make good connections and make deep relationships and things like that, all based on love. Because when something like that happens to you, they rip love from you, from your insides. All I ever wanted to do was people to like me, you know, and I'm charming. I became a hairdresser, by the way, because the only bloody job I could get was hairdressing because I was no qualifications. I was a dropout. And I just became really good at talking to people. And I used to love... I don't know what it is. I mean, my wife laughs at me every time we meet an older lady. I'm a charmer. I used to take care, shampoo and look after old ladies in the salon. And then I progressed and did men's hair as well. But I think I just wanted to care for people. You know, I wanted to... to be that person that I wanted. It was almost like a kind of mirror thing. So I did my hairdressing career for 15 years, loved it. What a party time I had. I mean, my wedding was hilarious. We had 300 people there. Most of the men were gay. So I decided I would never wear a kilt at my wedding because you never know what's going to happen. So I had these tartan trousers and it was actually, it was the happiest time of my life because it was after I had discovered that I was abused that I went to therapy. And the therapist came to my wedding. I still talk to him today. He's an amazing guy. And he said to me something really profound. He said, should you feel the way you feel? And I said, I don't know. He said, you should feel the way you feel right now because you're ready to change. But I will guarantee what we will do, we will not go back in the past. You do not need to know anything about the past. I'm going to take you the minute after it and we're going to work forward. And I was literally in tears, crying. It was the most incredible time because I was running hairdressing salons. I was enjoying myself, the extrovert. And then this happened to me. And in six weeks, he said, you'll be fine in six weeks. I'm like, okay. I believed him. On the sixth week, I sat in the chair in Liverpool opposite the cathedral. The guy called Eamon O'Brien is the most amazing man. And he bargained with my subconscious mind. And he said to me, because he put me in hypnotherapy, it wasn't regression, it was hypnotherapy. And he said, which part of your subconscious mind is holding you back? Sexuality. And I shouted sexuality. And he said, thank you so much for coming forward. You now realize that you have protected Terry up until he's 28. Are you prepared to let it go? No.

UNKNOWN: 13:36

No.

SPEAKER_02: 13:38

And he said it in a different way. And he said, are you prepared to let it go? Thank you for protecting him all of his life. And I said, yes. And I've partied. I've enjoyed myself. This was like a hundred times than any drink or anything. My body erupted because it was the first time that my subconscious mind had stopped the suppression of this thing and just exploded. I married my wife. We went to a 21 years anniversary last week. I opened the business. We were insanely successful. We opened regions and then other BNI regions, then countries and stuff like that. And then we live in the beautiful life of Portugal. So the importance of taking care of people, no matter where they are in their life, it could be a seven-year-old, 12-year-old, 45-year-old. I think that's where my... relationship building stuff comes in because I care more about the others sometimes than they care about themselves. Sure. And in a networking world, because networking has a little bit of a, sometimes a cheap name, it's about relationships. It's building relationships. So because of that empathy, I think empathy is a big, big thing in business. Yeah. You got that and you genuinely care for people and you're honest and transparent. I think you'll do well. And I got involved in this BNI thing and it was like, It was funny because the company said, can you become the business networker for the company? I'm like, how does that work? This was 1999. There was no real BNI wasn't that active then. I mean, it was two countries. There was America, Canada. It just started in the UK. How does it work? And I basically was the tart of the company to go out and talk to everybody. I got one bit of business. from a lady who bought furniture worth about 26 000 pounds she said to me what are you doing next week i said anything you want in my first sale and she invited me to a bni meeting right she said great i said what time is it seven o'clock great i'll come after coronation street she said no no it's seven o'clock in the morning in the morning like hold on there is no seven o'clocks in the morning i don't you know i was a part i was a party guy hairdresser I woke up at half past eight, went to do the salad, and that was it. And I walked into BNI in Altrincham in Manchester, fell in love with the whole concept of it, and I've been a member and a director and a national director for 22 years, 21 years, because it was the first place in a business context that people in the room were genuinely interested in helping each other. Helping, yeah. Oh, my God. For me, it was like... I felt at home and I was a rubbish member. I was terrible. I was the worst member ever because I didn't understand how it worked. What I would do is like, you'd say, you know, I want to talk to an architect. I go on my laptop and go search for architects. Yeah, I know. There you go. And it's not a referral, right? It's like leads, leads, leads. And I would give like 20 leads a week and they go, yeah, you're amazing. And then, and then the committee said to me, you need to be careful because you're about to get kicked out of the group because your referrals are rubbish. You need to change your presentation. And I thought I was doing well. I was like, yeah, what do you mean? They said, stop selling to the room. Man, no one cares about your furniture. You need to think about the right strategic alliances. I'm like, what are you talking about? He said, architects, specifiers, bars, clubs would want to buy our stuff because our stuff was really funky. We made, Cream was a nightclub in Liverpool. They made a leather chair of Cream. The Cream logo was amazing. And I said, I don't understand. What do you mean? He said, architects are your best connection. I said, do you know anybody? Do you know anybody? He said, yeah. I was the chief architect for all the breweries for 20 years. This guy who I knew in the meeting, we talked with each other every week. He had his best clients in his pocket. And I said, why didn't you give me that client? He said, you never asked. Yeah. You never asked. You know that's about the B&I story, right? Absolutely. So you've got him. be specific so I started to be specific we did really well and then I took that disaster learning and started my first groups in Liverpool and I said to the members my job is to help you make more money I screwed it up this is the story this is how we're going to do it and we became the fastest growing region in the UK and I bought five other regions and then They told me I had too much power. I couldn't have any more regions. Like, okay, how do you start a country? I started Portugal, then Brazil. I was the founder of Brazil back in 2006. We took it to Brazil. It was really interesting because they were expecting a 10% commission. And I said, there's no commissions in BNI. No, no, wait a minute. Everybody pays commissions. There wasn't. So I think Brazil has something like 10,000 members now. I'm out of Brazil. I chose not to spend my life there. Lovely people, but not for me. And I live the good life here. And that story comes from this uneducated nutcase who, that was lucky to meet some really, really lovely people in the way that put their arm around me and said, you know, and had confidence in me. So I'm giving it back. So Tim and I, Tim Vieira is a partner and I run an entrepreneurs club for young kids between 11 and 17 to give them hope, to give them techniques, to be brave. It's called the brave generation. And just before the pandemic, the, university and the local cash cow's camera here wanted us to deliver it into all the schools and the Portugal schools because they don't get that right. Nobody gives young people that. So we had already COVID started and the whole thing was on pause. But we'll maybe restart that. Tim is now doing a school called Bridge Generation Academy, which is a different hybrid and things like that. And everything I do now has a purpose about inspiring young people. And I think we're all children, by the way. Yeah, Stuart's still a child. I mean, I'm not sure if he's eight or nine or 10, but we're all kids. I'm reaching

SPEAKER_00: 19:43

for 11.

SPEAKER_02: 19:43

I'm reaching for 11. And if you can connect with people at the child level, because I do strangely believe that my, so when I talk, I talk for Singularity University, which is the most amazing opportunity. And the first slide I put up is called seven, because I said to my therapist, I have a real challenge. The more successful I get, the more I sabotage myself. A lot of people sabotage themselves in life and business. And he said, stop not talking about him. Bring him into the conversation. And I thought about it. So every time I speak there, I have this slide that says seven. And I tell my story. So I'm respecting him as he was when he was seven. So it's the strangest thing. So when I meet people, our kids are connecting. Yes. And that is something that when I work with young people, I get a lot of great energy from them. Like they give me energy, I give it back and it's playful. So it's enjoyable. It's not, doesn't come from any kind of control issues and things like that. And I said, my wife said to me the other week, when you come back from Nova, it's almost like you are a child again. It's like, it's like I've got that energy. So my future is doing that, but my BNI platform is the one that gets me to do that. So anyway, of course that's my, that's my, kind of story in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_04: 21:10

Yeah. Well, I mean, firstly, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. It's amazing to see how you've, I don't know if the right word is embrace or accept or whatever. I'm not quite sure what the right word there is, but you've turned something that is, you know, clearly a really tough moment in your life, regardless of whether you remember it or not, but you've really kind of flip that on its head and done good with that but that can't have been easy and yes you've had you know professional help there but at what moment did you kind of think right okay do you know what this this is now going to make me the person that I am

SPEAKER_02: 21:55

you know I hate injustice I hate injustice when I see injustice in the world it's a trigger for me so I've tried to surround myself with people who are abundant thinkers, positive thinkers, great people, and try to almost get rid of the people that are the poison. So as part of that journey of learning, like all of us go through learning, right? We're all like, I'll do this seminar, that seminar. I went to San Francisco, it was actually in LA. I did this course in LA, first of all. And they had this thing called the ECC and it's Emotionally Charged Connection. What's your emotionally charged connection? And I couldn't quite, I didn't like it. I really was uncomfortable because I was 43, 42, 43. And I was like, I don't want to talk about what happened as a kid. And they said, no, no, no, no, no, no. You need to talk about it. I said, no, I don't have to talk about it. And I was really upset with the whole thing. I said, no, that's very private to me. I don't want to talk about it. And then when I talked about it for the very first time, everybody in the audience was incredibly connected on an emotional level, but not on a sympathy level. I'm not, I don't do it for sympathy, but they were like, wow, because it gave them the opportunity to say stuff that maybe they were thinking about that was almost like opens the door. There was no conscious decision of I'll talk about this, but the ECC thing was really important for me because it then became my story and And I use it every time. Like, I'm grateful to be here. And if you hear me speak, the first thing I talk about is my story. Because I think it's interesting for people to understand me. Because once you understand me, it's like, okay, this is going to be fun. It's going to be safe. No agenda. Let's go. And I think that as a speaker... And as a recruiter, right? Because we're all recruiting teams. Yes. Business, life, friendships, partners. We want to bring the right people into life. So if people understand the story, then they'll make that connection. And, you know, Stuart knows Tim. Tim, Vieira and I are like brothers. We actually look a bit like each other with the glasses. But I told him that story when I first had a... one-to-one with Tim. Tim Vieira is like an entrepreneur, right, Stuart? I don't know how you would explain, how would you summarise Tim

SPEAKER_00: 24:22

in your world? Extraordinary person. definitely extraordinary and particularly because i mean people know him in portugal particularly for the shark tank things and and the investments and things he does but in general i think what people maybe don't always see is he's 100 a relationship person yeah and he values and people can say oh i value people and i value connections but the true test is what happens when there's difficulty and with tim the difficulty is always i'm still working on the relationship so people doing things which are maybe disruptive to him or his business He's still working on the relationship. People being abusive of him with language, whatever. He's still working on the relationship. He's trying to make that stuff work. And it's a really impressive trait. But so many people across Portugal know who he is. I mean, how did you meet him for the first time?

SPEAKER_02: 25:09

It's a really interesting story because there was a lady called Mafalda Flores, who was a PR lady who had arranged for me to be on a panel. And I'm really uncomfortable because I speak Portuguese. For that Portuguese, 39%. Remember, Portuguese sucks, right? And I'm on a panel, supposed to be on a panel, and people are fielding questions in Portuguese. Luckily, I got vertigo. I couldn't go. I literally was falling over for two weeks. I couldn't go. So I sent a video in place of me being there. And I said, Tim, I'm sorry, I couldn't be there. So Tim was on the panel of that. And there's a place called Quinta de Santana, which is about 40 minutes from here. It's beautiful. It's in the countryside. And they have about 3,000 people that come there and basically get drunk for the day. Okay, you pay 20 quid and you drink as much of their wine as possible. And they have this barrel of wine called the Aguape, which is basically the pre-wine. It's the dodgy wine that you don't put in bottles. I seen Tim taking a drink out of it. I was like, I'll have a drink of that. And I said, oh, Tim. He said, oh, Terry. Oh, we kind of know you. So clearly the wine was flowing, right? It was like easy stuff. And he said to me, what are you doing? I said, well, I'm doing this curry club thing. He's like, what's the curry club? Well, the Curry Club has three rules. Number one, drink beer. Two, drink wine. Three, eat curry. No more rules. He said, I'm in. And how many people are? I said, there's 22 of us. Bring them to my garage. I'm like, Tim, that's weird. Why would we bring people to your garage? No, no, no, you haven't seen my garage. Okay, so anyway, about 18 of us rock into Tim's garage. You walk down the ramp, and it's a man cave. It's got Porsches, Maseratis, Ferraris, Rolls Royces. beer, Muhammad Ali boxing gloves, spike shirt. It's just the most amazing place, right? Arcade games and all sorts of things, yeah. Just

SPEAKER_03: 27:08

like a

SPEAKER_02: 27:09

den. So the Curry Club went from 22 to 620 members because we just sparked it off. But the story was interesting because at the very early days of getting to know Tim, I said, I'd like to come and meet you. So we went to Brave Generation, which was the offices, and I told my story. I said, this is what happened to me when I was a kid. And this is what I'm doing now. And this is what I'm doing. And he said, oh my God. Oh my God. I just made a film called Carga. Carga was a film that he launched, which was featuring the trauma of trafficking of young people in the north of Portugal. So this feature film, I was like, oh my God. So at that moment, We just bonded, you know, we just like, because the story is going to, even though Tim is amazing, he never had the abuse of me, but he is empathetic when he cares about people. So we just had this bond. And then loads of stuff happened because of that, because of that one story. So if you have a story, have the courage to say it, but it doesn't have to come from a negative. It can also come from a positive because people care about you. where you came from because it inspires to where you're going. So that's what I'm teaching. I'm teaching story creation. Like I'm doing a thing at Nova called Connect, Communicate, Network Up. But the first is, what's your story? And we work with hours and hours with people to try and get their essence of the story. So the ECC was the first thing. I was uncomfortable talking about it. Then I started talking about it more and more and more in big audiences, like 5,000 people. And people would be crying at the bottom of the stage going... Like I was bullied at school, I was abused and just became that bond. And by the way, other people like, nah, it's not an interesting talk for me. And I'm okay with that because you don't want anybody in your life anyway. Those people I still talk to today. So I think if you've got to say something and I want, I go back to that injustice thing, right? I hate injustice. I hate, by the way, there's half a billion children being abused right now in the world. Half a billion. Every single day, mentally, physically, sexually. Half a billion. It has 15,000% increase since 2000. So this stuff isn't going away. So if I can inspire and talk and help people, if I can save... a thousand young people by inspiring them then so be it and I can't save the world but the more I talk about it like this I'm like who knows who listens to this and might say yeah you know what maybe I'll have the courage to say something so and that's where that connects the dots a long story but the Tim meeting thing has been one of the most exciting parts of my life And he has taught me to be a better person, to open more, to love more and to be free. He's an absolute diamond. I spoke to him today before the call.

SPEAKER_04: 30:09

It's amazing in terms of kind of the coincidence in terms of how you met. But then, as you say, the thing that connected you was the story and was his story. reception to that story as well so he didn't then look at you in a particular way or or sympathize with you like you're saying or whatever he kind of took you for who you were and it I really resonate with what you're saying around that showing vulnerability um and being okay with being vulnerable because um and Stu and Tiana know this but um in the first lockdown um I myself, but lots of friends of mine as well, were kind of going through things and we were just not opening up and talking about this. And it just really struck a chord with me that men in particular don't talk about things. And so I created this private Facebook group called the Man Draw Discussions. And it's brilliant because it's, It exceeded my expectations in how many people we grew to. Within the first month or two, we were at 400 members. But what was amazing about that, it wasn't the 400 members. If it was four members, 400, 4,000, 4 million, it doesn't matter. If we could make even just one person have some positive impact off the back of that, then it served its purpose. But what's brilliant is that as soon as one person shows some vulnerability guys i'm not feeling okay today or i'm going through this has anyone else been through that all of a sudden everyone else also feels comfortable to talk about that and you know we now have this community where you know only recently someone popped on uh onto the onto the group and said um i'm going through a really messy divorce right now has anyone been through something similar and can maybe help and i kid you not within minutes were like 10 people replying back saying yeah you know what i'm going through the same right now or i've done this and this is what helped me and if you need a chat then pick up the phone these people don't even know each other but like you know pick up the phone and have a chat and it's just like wow like you know you're right people people do want to give and i think it's this kind of um there's two ways of looking at things and uh i I really advocate around not fixating on what we don't have or looking at the negatives of things, but actually focus on what we do have and take the positives out of everything. And obviously, you know, in your circumstances, difficult for someone to even comprehend how, how can that be a positive? Like what positive can I take from being abused as a child? But if we look at where you are now, um, in some strange way. You've turned that into something really powerful that is now having a profound impact across so many lives. It's admirable. I

SPEAKER_02: 33:06

mean, I love you for that because we talked about that when we first met.

SPEAKER_03: 33:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:11

And that's where you have these... 10 minute conversations. And, you know, if I'm, if I'm going to open out, you will also open up. So you told me about that thing and I love you for that because you're saving people's lives.

UNKNOWN: 33:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 33:25

I mean, I was, I did a session with a Glasgow masterclass and I just, this young girl come up on the screen and she's running a mental health thing. And she's worried about her personal brand. I said, talk about it. Talk about it. If people see that you're at least helping in that field, it can only be good. So feel great the fact that you made that impact. I feel great for the small things like the kids that I've been with who I know have had troubled times. I believe in them more than they believe in themselves. And I tell them that. And I say, I believe you more than you will ever believe in yourself. So I've got your back. And they're like, really? Yeah. And like OIRIS International School is a school here that they bring me in to mentor students 15, 16. They still have my number. I'm thinking about doing this. Yeah, no problem. But I always make sure the parents are included in the conversations. But one of the guys has launched two companies at the age of 17. because I give them the courage to do it, you know, so you're making a difference every day. That's a wonderful story.

SPEAKER_01: 34:34

I have a question. Actually, I have tons of questions, but I have to start somewhere. You mentioned You mentioned how important these connections, connecting with people on every level is, professional, emotional, etc. But you also mentioned a couple of times there are people that you simply don't want in your life. They're toxic. They cause injustice. So are these people broken in production beyond repair? Or you think that maybe some of those people can also, with extensive care shown to them, somehow be fixed at some point so that they can also contribute to the other people's lives?

SPEAKER_02: 35:08

Yeah, it's a great question because I've kissed four frogs in my life. Three of them are Portuguese. One of them have been the UK. When I talk about four frogs, bad business decisions. And it was only after the case. And by the way, my wife, if she ever listens to this, she's 100% right all the time when it comes to choosing people. She told me about all of those people. No, no, they're lovely people. They're amazing people. But there's just people out there that want to step on you to get where they want, but they act like a different person. So when I talk about understanding those people, I don't agree with their values. And their values are selfish, greed, control, dictatorship. There's no place in the world for me for those people. So what I do is I exit. I exit myself from those people and I disconnect from those people and I block them. I don't want them in my social feeds. I don't want them in my LinkedIn feeds. I block them because I've got plenty of good stuff to do. And what happens? You spend 80% of your time dealing with these idiots where you could be spending the time dealing with the people that really love and care you. Do I think there's an opportunity for them to change? Definitely. Am I going to do it for them? No. Because I can only work with people that really want help. And if they came to me and said, I've been an asshole to you. I'm really sorry. And I treated you and opened up. I'd love help. I'd help them. I'd help anybody. But there's an element of people. It's a very, very small percentage that travel around the world and they are energy suckers. They walk into the room and they suck everything out of it because they're selfish. And I don't know what's happened to them. I don't know what the background story is, but I'm not a professional therapist and I'm not in a position to help them. But we know an element of those people. They're a little bit crazy. I just don't have the time. You know why? Because my most important people in my life is my wife, my 18-year-old daughter, who's now studying in the UK, and my 15-year-old son. That's my priority right now. So anything that distracts drama from them, nah. I don't want to do it. And by the way, I'm 50. When you get to 50, you get less tolerant of these people. You know, when you're 30, it's like, oh, give them a chance. No, they're not. But the good news is there's not many of them. But if you see someone like that, there was one thing that I worked for Weller Hairdressing, Weller, you know, the shampoo company, right? And there was a lady that interviewed me there. called Denise Gibbs. I wonder where she is today. And she said, if you don't tell somebody something, you're being unhelpful with their consent. So if you don't tell someone something, if it comes from a good place, you're being unhelpful with their consent. And I have throughout my life said to people, do you mind if I give you feedback? because you have to get it back they won't take it by the way but do you mind if I say something to you and it's always a private conversation it's never a public thing and I say I think you're doing that and that wrong and I'm concerned about it I'm just telling you because I tell them it because I care not because I'm trying to be a smart arse I think people say it because they're trying to be a smart arse and those relationships have been changed from troubled people to become some of my best friends. One of my best friends is a hairdresser in the UK who I told them off at a seminar. I said, you should pay attention. This speaker's amazing. Why don't you buck up and pay attention? He's like, what? No one's ever told me that before. I said, well, you're disrespecting the speaker. And we became friends. So I think if you have the chance to say it, say it. But there is some people, Tiana, that just, they roll the earth and cause problems. I would rather not be with them.

SPEAKER_01: 39:07

In the end, it's like a black hole. It's a lose-lose situation. You keep racing your efforts and it's just not getting better, not for them, not for you. And these efforts could be maybe focused on something else.

SPEAKER_00: 39:19

I loved when you said about your wife being right about them because I've kissed a few frogs as well and my wife was right about all of them too. It's something about the intuition, right? But I developed a tool for me, which was a really simple one, which was when I meet people for the first time, as I walk away from the first meeting, I just think in my own mind, in my gut really, would I leave my kids with them and not worry? And as I walk away, if the answer is just instantly yes, then everything's fine. If the answer is no, then I don't block them as such, but it's just there's not for me the energy to invest there. And it's just a pure intuition thing. I don't think I've kissed any frogs since I made that intuitional leap, but she was right about all the ones that I got wrong before that. There must be a school of life's I wanted to

SPEAKER_01: 40:08

ask Viraj, how often in your male community you get these kind of situations when men said, my wife told me and she was right?

SPEAKER_04: 40:16

Obviously, we've definitely not had the kissing frogs and wife being right in the community for sure. But intuition is really important and it's a really interesting kind of topic here because I think as much as people think with their heads, thinking with your heart is always the right way, I think. And, you know, we all have that intuition and we'll all know pretty quickly whether you're going to like someone or you're not going to like someone, you like this particular situation or this environment. And it all comes back to a lot of the other work that I do around innate talents and strengths. We all have these innate talents. And the thing is, they are so innate that Sometimes we don't even know about them. And as you say, Terry, sometimes just pointing that out to someone to say, oh, did you know that you were doing this? And, you know, I really respect that. Or did you know you're doing this? And I think there's a better way of doing that, regardless of whether they decided to listen to you or not. I think there's a power in doing that and doing that in a way that is respectful and constructive, of course. But there was definitely a power in that. But I don't think... many people are as receptive to that. And I don't know, in your experience, do you think that's changing? Do you think people are now like, you know, you're comfortable to tell someone, but do you think people are comfortable to receive it?

SPEAKER_02: 41:43

Yeah, I think there certainly is a movement of people are looking for more connection and more authenticity and more honesty. So people are more receptive to that. And I can definitely see the leaders that are not there. They're losing space. They're losing their focus. I mean, they might make a lot of money. Yeah. Because it's not about money for me. Like, I'm not a rich guy. I'm rich in choices. I'm not rich in money.

SPEAKER_03: 42:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 42:10

And I'm okay with that because I have some rich friends and they're living in paranoia because they might lose it tomorrow. So I'm okay. We do all right. If we sold everything, that would be okay. But I've never focused on making money. Yeah. When you're only focused on making money, you'll stand on everybody you can to get to that point. they're not receptive. And the profile of that person is they're in control. It's almost like the bravado thing. I totally get where you are. That's fine. It's not for me. But I think it's how you frame it, isn't it? It's how you say it. If I had honest feedback for anybody that I met, I would do the formula. I suppose I shouldn't say this in a podcast, but we call it the shit sandwich. where you say, you're amazing. This is what you're really good at. I'm so grateful that you do this. Are you open for a tiny bit of feedback? Yeah. Which is the burger. Yeah. And then you give that feedback and say, I hope you don't mind me saying that, but it's just a little bit that I think could be great for you. And then I end with a massive bun of happiness. Yeah. Like, you know, aside from that, You're amazing. You're one of the best connectors and things like that. So I do that all the time. I also do it in a business context. So I have 150 BNI groups in Portugal. We recently bought six franchise regions back. And every day I'm in a BNI meeting every day. I had 26 meetings last week. And my job is to go there and find the good, not to find the bad. And many people go and find the bad. What's going wrong? No, no, no, no, no. What's going right? I champion them. And I do a shit sandwich. I go, this is amazing. That's brilliant. Now, there's one thing. If you don't mind, I give you a feedback because that's going to help the members make more money. Yeah, that's fine. Great. It's just that, that, and that. and leave it. Any more than three, you're a pain in the ass. Just give them three things and then end up with, this is really, really, really, really great. And then champion them. I did that yesterday and I received an email back from one of our directors. It's so refreshing to have a leader that cares about us. So I think... if you're building a brand and you're building relationships, make sure your bun is really huge and you have a tiny bit of Parma ham feedback. They don't care about you, by the way, unless you, they don't care about you because you have that relationship with them yet. Yes. But if I know, like my best friend in the UK, he can tell me whatever he wants because he knows that sometimes I sabotage myself, but I love him. Yeah. So, you know, it's all a balance, isn't it? Like if you get to know someone where you can be that honest, that's where your five friends are. I think you're the average of the five people you hang about with. Yeah. So are they lifting you up or are they dragging you down? And I decided about five years ago to be in uncomfortable rooms, to be in rooms that people are way smarter than me. Yes. Because if you're the most... important if you're the smartest person in the room you're in the wrong room yeah you know what I mean you've got to defend yourself there's a friend that lives here I won't mention his name he's just incredible his brain is just incredible and I'll bring him I'll bring someone to meet him for lunch and have no idea what they're talking about but it's a learning for me of how they do it so yeah I

SPEAKER_01: 45:42

think this is a good move regarding those rooms where we are trying not to be the smartest person because it's not so productive for us but there is this person who is in fact the smartest person in the room what's the incentive for them to stay there how do you do this in your networking efforts how do you incentivize these people who definitely are the ones giving away and maybe not getting so much back because they are the smartest one in the room and they know more than the others. How do you incentivize them, apart from them feeling like it's rewarding emotionally, but how do you incentivize them to stay in the room when they are the smartest ones and give something to the others?

SPEAKER_02: 46:18

You give them a different attention. So I would say probably 10% of our members make that click of, oh, I really get BNI. I know how to work it. I can build bigger businesses. You've seen this in your group, right? Yeah. So what will happen is if those people don't get support from the main crowd, they will leave BNI. So as the owner of the business, my job is to try and look for the champions that give so much, give so much and give so much and try and pick them up and help them because I can't help all the 3000 members all the time. But what I can do, because we have statistics, for example, on my phone, I gave 2.4 million euros of business in the last two years. I know where all the members that are giving business by statistics. So I can pick out, we have a thing called the millionaire givers. So I can pick out those people and make a phone call with them and just say the beautiful words. How are you? And then shut up. Because nobody does that anymore. Yeah. How are you? I just wanted to say thank you for so much business you've given to the members. How are things working? And then sometimes they say it's not working. All right, let me fix it for you. Let me help you with it. So I think if you care for your top performers, then they will cascade that love down to everybody. You've seen this as a B&I dynamic, right? But if they're happy... they'll be happy to motivate the others and then you'll have a more rounded group. Or like I'm doing right now is, in fact, we're just about to sign an agreement for Corporate Connections. So Corporate Connections is you have to turn over$5 million to become a member. So it might be that they move into that phase, that they need to be around people that have got bigger businesses or bigger thinking. So I facilitate that. The Curry Club was very much like that at the beginning. It was a very social thing, but big thinking. Then we just become too big.

SPEAKER_01: 48:25

Would you say that those people who I perceive as super successful don't really get very often those, how are you? Are you struggling with something? Maybe they are the ones who are actually desperate to hear that.

SPEAKER_02: 48:37

Of course they are. Of course they are. And it's always the way, particularly in the BNI world, is that the members assume that they're doing well, but they're not. They're just insanely great givers. And if somebody actually said to them, how are you? How really are you? Tell me how is it going with you in BNI? Then they'll crumble. They'll tell you. Because people perceive me to be successful, but they've no idea that I will never be happy. I'll never be happy. That's a crazy thing to think about. I'm in love with my wife. I'm in love with my kids. I like my business, but I know I'll never be happy because I'm never good enough. And I sabotage myself every single day. So when people see you as this thing... They have no idea. Sorry. No, no, no. Take your time. Take your time. They have no idea because they just make this assumption that you are successful. You're successful because of the way I act, the way I'm positive all the time. And it's only my close friends that know that I go through shitty days because it's not important for my 3000 members to know that. because I'm a leader and I want to lead and do it, but they know my story. So I tell them that I come from nothing. So they are connected with me, but I open out from time to time. And I think so many successful people are dealing with such a massive amount of stress on their heads. that it just crumbles. And that's why they sabotage themselves. They drink, they drugs, whatever. They just go crazy because they can't cope with that thing. So

SPEAKER_01: 50:21

I think we have to look after the good people. I already realized this, that people who are usually positive and they are always in control of their life and caring about others and all of that, they actually don't receive any care and attention because everybody just thinks they don't need it. And in the end, very often they feel that they are either lonely or like missing these how-are-you's that are actually simple but really powerful. It's a really good point.

SPEAKER_02: 50:47

The other parallel with that, Tiana, is that when you are hanging around with people that are smarter, bigger businesses and things, they've all been through the same crap as you. You just didn't realize it. You know, I think that they're also insanely successful. But then when we have a couple of bottles of wine, they go, by the way, I almost lost my marriage last month or this. Oh, really? So you're not as successful because it's not about being successful. It's about coping with the world. And, you know, you get this all the time. You probably got insanely perceived successful men, right? that don't want to show that vulnerability because it's a sign of weakness and stuff. But I don't believe it is. I think it's a sign of strength.

SPEAKER_00: 51:31

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 51:31

And I'm sorry for crying, but it is

SPEAKER_00: 51:33

who I am. So it's just one of those things. Nothing to apologise for at all.

SPEAKER_04: 51:37

No. And you're absolutely right. I think... And you don't have to be that kind of... the person that's always kind of the life of the room, the talker, the networker, to be... What am I trying to say here? I think sometimes there's almost this kind of facade almost that, okay, right, yeah, because this person is so confident and this person is so chatty and great with networking and his business is flying that, yeah, do you know, life is good for them. But as you say, you just don't know. And, you know, those words, how are you, by adding one more word to that, but how are you really? Because how often do we all say, oh, how are you? And the default answer is, yeah, fine. It's just like, yeah, fine. But it's like, no, but really, how are you? And I think that's where, and you see other people, you see people are on the periphery watching in And there'll be, you know, you'll be at a talk, Terry, and you'll be sharing your story and there'll be people that are asking you questions that are learning from you, but it's the ones that are not asking the questions that are learning even more. They're listening to your story, but they're also listening to other people's questions and other people's stories as well. And, you know, what I found in my community was it was, I was getting messages from people that have never even posted on the group saying, thank you. for that thread or for that conversation, because that's really helped me in what I'm going through in my life right now. And they've not even like posted, because you get your active members and everyone knows the people that are posting more often and replying more often, but it's the ones that are not posting that seem to be benefiting the most. And it's because other people have shown their vulnerability that it's allowed these people to benefit. So it's almost like kind of this, it's a really fascinating kind of situation. And I thank people for being open and being vulnerable. And, you know, and I thank you, Terry, for sharing your story today, because again, if this podcast can go on to help even one other person in whatever's going on in their life right now, then, you know, we've done a great thing through this podcast. you're doing this millions and millions of times over, and hopefully this podcast can also get to that same level. But there is a huge power in being open and being vulnerable. It's just a tough thing for people to sometimes kind of get over.

SPEAKER_02: 54:18

There's one connection there that I think helped me a lot when I was 28 and I met Eamon O'Brien. Eamon O'Brien was my initial therapist for the change of my life. And he... taught me Myers-Briggs, the MBTI personality profile. And myself and my wife studied it together when we were both, before we got married. So I would say to my wife, so I booked a table for seven o'clock. She's like, oh my God, there's no way, there's no way. 7 o'clock when? Next month? How ungrateful, I put the table for 7 o'clock and we would have this conflict so she's an ISTJ I'm an ENFP, it's the almost opposites and I use a platform called 16 Personalities it's so amazing and I do it with all my classes and they do it live and I don't do it because of just them understanding themselves, I do it because I'm very interested in the other 15 people So when I'm doing a seminar, the last seminar we did at Nova was a hundred students there in the, in the room. And I, when we do the, I want them to do it live because I know the people that take longer doing it are the more detailed and more introverts and they want to get it exact. So the, so the ones that let me, you know, I've done it in five minutes. Okay. Shut up and let the other guys do it. Okay. Silence. And I see them, I see the different dynamics. So I try to, tailor the conversations to make sure that, for example, when I'm dealing with an ISTJ, ISTJs are always right. I'm not sure your wife is an ISTJ, Stuart, because they're always right. But they always know the answer because they do a lot of calculations, but they might not give you the fastest answer.

SPEAKER_04: 56:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02: 56:03

So when you're asking a question, because I'm an ENFP, I want the answer right away. Yeah. So I said, please think about this answer for a minute, this question for a minute. In your perception, what do you think that is? And no one's going to put their hand up, but I'm interested in you, Sophia, and what your perspective was. I'm going to give you a minute to think about that. She's going through turmoil because she's a detailed person, but when she gives the answer, it's mind-blowing. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that, I think, is leadership. 100%. Leadership is understanding the others and being empathetic, handling the crazies like me, Let them shine, but then shut up every now and again because you've got the brilliant people in the corner. That is leadership. And if you're not studying personality profiles in your business, you're failing. A hundred percent. This

SPEAKER_04: 56:59

is music to my ears because this is the sole reason I set up my coaching business. So I'm certified in something called Gallup Strengths. I've come across Gallup Terry, similar sort of thing, but it's all about helping people to understand their natural talents and strengths And like you say, leaders need to understand their team's strengths and they need them to empower those people to be able to run with their strengths. Don't be obsessed with what that person can't do. Be obsessed with what that person can do and give them more opportunity to to do that, because that's where you're gonna get the biggest kind of bang for your buck, so to speak. But also that's where they are gonna feel their highest motivation. They're gonna feel their highest engagement. They're gonna feel their highest level of happiness, which is then gonna start to have a ripple effect, not just within your business, but within their personal lives and their relationships and just all elements of life. And I cannot advocate it more Play to your strengths. We live in a world where we are fixated on our weaknesses and other people's weaknesses. And it's just a bad place to be. Like we all have. something to give. We all have value that we can bring to the table. We should teach this in school. We have to unleash this. We have to.

SPEAKER_02: 58:23

It's great work. I mean, it's amazing work. And even now, like I work with the executives, they're 40, 50 years of age. They're blown away by it because they might have had it in their career. But the career thing is about getting a job and fitting a box. Leadership It's about understanding you, where you fit, how you can be, how great flow, but being empathetic with the others. We should teach this at school and economics and management. And that's the first basis is if you can do that, like I'm not the smartest guy in the room and everybody knows that, but I'm really smart at finding people. Yeah. I've got really smart people around me. And they're better than me, by the way. And I don't have any ego problem because they love stuff that I hate. And I can't do it. Accounts, finance, planning. Oh, my God. I'll start a party. You ask me to finish it, no chance. It's just a thing. I'm glad we talked a little bit about that when we chatted. Yeah, absolutely. It's such an

SPEAKER_00: 59:23

important thing. It's interesting, right? Because a lot of our listeners will be British or Portuguese to this particular podcast. And these are very anti-stereotypical things we're saying. Like if we're British and Portuguese, you do dwell on the negative. You do look at what didn't happen much more than you do what did happen. But when we talk about this in Canopy Entrepreneurship, we call this the builder mindset. And it's almost the opposite to the engineering mindset. And it's quite a difficult thing, particularly for technical leaders to say, look at the top two things you're doing right, rather than fix the top six things that are annoying you, because actually you create a gap, a momentum. In marketing terms, it's actually the whole mentality behind NPS and Net Promoter Score. I don't know if you've ever worked through that stuff, but you positively commit to doing things for the nines and tens, the promoters, You cut or shed the detractors as quickly as you can because they're holding back the progress. And you look at that eights and sevens fine. So you say, what's the one thing? What's the one thing I can do to get you to a nine? Because if I can get you to a nine, you're one of the ones taking everything forward. But for an engineer, and I see this as a physicist. For an engineer to take this on, it is a quantum leap of faith. It's a massive place from where you are trained, you are experienced, you are educated, you are perpetually reinforced to just look at what's the things that are wrong. Let's fix those.

SPEAKER_04: 1:00:51

Yeah, it's a societal problem. And, you know, this goes right back to childhood. You know, you go, you think about parents evening and typically the teacher is talking about, do you know, Johnny's not really good at maths. And I think we need to give him a little bit more maths work, or he might need to come and do an extra maths lesson or some extra homework, whatever it may be, but never do you hear Johnny's really good at English and, We're going to give him more English work so he becomes the best at English and known for his English. It just doesn't happen. And that makes its way all the way through into the working life where you go into a performance review and you talk about, Stuart, you're not very good at this. We need to send you on this course or that course to fill that gap. As opposed to, Stuart, you know what? You're really good when it comes to communication. We're going to get you- Let's double down. Yeah. We're going to get you to do all of the company presentations going forward. It just doesn't-

SPEAKER_02: 1:01:43

I'm laughing at that whole subject, right? Because parents' evening was nondescript for me. I told my mother, we were already sorted, don't worry, don't come. And our kids have been through St. Julian's here, which is one of the top schools in the country. And we go to parents' evening, right? And I'm I'm like, I don't do the whole education stuff like that. And I used to say to my daughter, which subject is this teacher next? Dad, it's mathematics. Great. And I'd talk to the teacher and he'd go, you know, mathematics is one of my favourite subjects. Tell me how Lottie's doing in mathematics. Then I'd say, who's the next teacher? Geography. Okay. Geography is one of my favourite subjects. Tell me how Lottie's doing. She said, Dad, you're not allowed to come to parents' evening anymore. You're making a fool of me. Because I just want it to be a more positive experience. Because they're looking for the stuff they're not doing. It's like, come on. Our kids are amazing. Let them shine, you know. And it's Max is doing really well. He's 15 going on 16 next week, six foot two, body of Adonis, used to be that me, but anyway, nevermind. And then he's like top in his year. He's really, really working hard. And he drove into one of his tests last week. And I said, I just want to let you know, by the way, I don't have any education and I'm paying for your education. So don't worry about your tests because you've got your dad to support. He's like, yeah, that's a good point. but I'll probably do better than you dad because I'm smart and I've got your network and stuff is that okay cool yeah absolutely

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:20

absolutely absolutely but it's it's uh like I say it's it's societal I believe and um it's it's a different mindset altogether and you know I advocate this now but I've been a a kind of I've been guilty of it myself you know I kind of you know force

SPEAKER_00: 1:03:37

my children. You're a tester, right? Looking for faults.

SPEAKER_04: 1:03:40

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. But also just, you know, a simple thing like, you know, I'm a huge football fan and therefore I expected my two boys to be huge football fans. And yes, actually they like football, but they don't love football like I do. But my oldest son, he's really artistic. And so now it's like, right, let him embrace the artistic side of his talents and let him enjoy playing the football. He doesn't have to. That's why you've got a drum kit in the back of your room now. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. But that's the kind of things he's into. He loves art. He loves playing the drums. You know, that's what his kind of passions and talents are. And so not to mention the empathy that he has, the communication that he has, the way that he's able to pick things out so quickly that it would take me much longer to be able to find out. These are actually the natural talents. His ability to play the drums isn't a talent, that's a skill. But his ability to be able to pinpoint certain things quickly is a talent that I need to be embracing now and helping him to flourish with. And so it's a fascinating conversation we're having here because it's just... Like I said, it's music to my ears because it's what I'm really trying to push as a message. And I'm glad that it's coming through in so many different conversations here. So it's a real

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:06

pleasure. Thank you. It's so nice to have these chats. And it's very private. It's very personal. And it's weird because a lot of people are asking me about my story right now. My wife's saying, where are you going? Well, I've been interviewed for this and do that. Because there must be, it's like a movement where people are looking for that kind of stuff. right so it fits with the box yeah so it's the mental health it's the stress it's the things like that you know so and I said look while people are interested in it let's do it because there'll be a phase where maybe people won't want to do that and I've got 10 years left of my hard craft

SPEAKER_03: 1:05:43

yeah

SPEAKER_02: 1:05:44

And then, like, you know the fisherman story, the Greek fisherman story, do you? I don't know. So a billionaire goes to Greece and says, oh, my God, this is amazing. And he sees Yorgo on his little boat like this coming out and fishes. And he fishes and he gets four fish. Like, wow, that's interesting. He sat there with his champagne watching this Yorgo, the fisherman. And he watched them for a few days. And this guy takes two fish, sells it to the restaurant, and then goes at the top of the hill and barbecues the other two fish every day. And the billionaire's going, well, there's a better way of doing that. So he goes to the guy and says, listen, I've been watching for a few days. You should get two boats. And then the two of you go out and get eight fish. And then you can supply all the restaurants here. And then you can go and do your things. And then when you make enough money, you'll get another boat. And you can have a fleet of boats. You can supply the whole island. And he said, yeah, and imagine what you would do when you have all that money. And the great fisherman said, yeah, I'd get out my boat in the morning. I'd do it on my time. I'd row out, catch two fish from my mate, eat two fish and enjoy the bloody sunshine. Absolutely. Too many times, including me, have been looking for the sunshine thing and realized I'm already in it. Yeah. I'm already in it. So the choice of living here is brilliant. Portugal is the most amazing place to do it. It's a good spot. Definitely. It's great. But I'm actually going back to the UK a bit more because my daughter's studying there. Max might go to Holland. And I'm more interested to do more business in the UK because I think it's good for both Portugal as well. So my phase is to enjoy a bit of the UK and enjoy here. Because I think sometimes when you live here full-time, Stuart, it's only when people come here, my friends come here, they go... oh my God, where do you live? I'm like, it's on the cascades. No, no, no, this is a paradise. So you kind of take it for granted. So going to the snow and the rain. Thank you. Every now and again would be good to come back. Definitely, definitely.

SPEAKER_00: 1:07:42

Terry, I wanted to thank you for two really important things which came out of today. And it's sort of, you know, we've talked about some of this stuff in the past, but it really reinforced two things for me today. And it was, you talked about telling your story, right? And I think for a lot of people and myself included, Sometimes you feel like telling your story limits you and you've actually shown really clearly today that telling your story doesn't limit you at all. In fact, it helps you create and extend yourself. And the other thing that you said really clearly throughout this is that asking for help helps. And I think that's a lesson for everybody. And actually, you know, using you as an example, just to see what difference it would have been in your life if you hadn't asked for help and that the people who helped you didn't help. You know, and when you ask, there's always this, this fear or this apprehension that you'll ask and you just won't receive, that people just won't be there to help. I think it's quite privileged that you met some of the people that you met. But I really took those two things strongly away from today and I just wanted to thank you for them.

SPEAKER_02: 1:08:41

Thank you. Thank you. And I'm not afraid of asking for advice. I love it, actually, because I think it's a good extension of if I can mimic what other people have done just by asking, like, how did you get my... I mean, How to Win Friends and Influence People is the book for

SPEAKER_00: 1:08:59

young people. Max has got it. He's got it in his room. Dale Carnegie has not talked about that much, right?

SPEAKER_02: 1:09:03

Oh, my God. I mean, it's so great. 1938, Napoleon Hill, Think and Grow Rich. This stuff is fundamental. And it's being nice to people. and ask for feedback, welcome feedback, things like that. I think the older you get, the more you are searching for different things. But Stuart, it goes back to the thing. I've been around some insanely mad people in the last five years and insanely successful and insane failures. So if you can learn from all of those three pillars, then you've got to be a better life. And by the way, when I go back home, I tell my wife, she said, I told you that two years ago. That's brilliant.

SPEAKER_04: 1:09:48

That's brilliant. Terry, I just wanted to end the podcast today, maybe with one piece of advice that you could give to our listeners. You've had so many experiences in many different aspects, both personally and professionally. You're in this position now where networking and connecting people is what you do, and you're making huge impacts across so many people's lives. What is the one piece of advice that maybe you would give your younger self?

SPEAKER_02: 1:10:19

I would probably say, because I didn't get education, that I actually didn't read a book until I was 28. Okay. Because my teacher told me I was stupid in school at 12 while I was going through my turmoil. So I believed her. So I thought I actually, I associated reading with stupidity. It was a crazy thing because the therapist actually got me to flip it. You know, he's what's from my subconscious mind. And, um, When I read now, I don't read an audio book or a video. I missed out so many years. I mean, so I was 28 when I read my first book, which was called The E-Myth by Michael Gerber, which is working on the business, not in the business. So I've set my businesses up that way for life. I would say the more that you can educate yourself in different fields, the more you become a better rounded person. And don't jump at every opportunity that comes. You have to assess it sometimes because what looks like a bright, shiny object is actually a disaster in your life. So as Stuart says, step back, assess the situation. And we don't do that when we're young and we're furious and we're ferocious and we're winners. We go in and just do it. And I think I've lost quite a bit of money on stupid decisions. And I've lost a lot of time on stupid decisions. And what I do now is I have a board of three friends. And if I think about doing something, I call them individually and I ask them, and they're three different dynamic people, almost like mentors. I'm friends with them, but I see them as my mentors. I say, what do you think? And they always give me brilliant answers that I never thought about. It's like, oh my God, that would have been a disaster. Thank you. So maybe find mentors and choose wisely your mentors. Because if you get a good mentor and you ask them for help and they give you it, they're the right mentor. If you've got an asshole as a mentor, they don't care about you. So they're the wrong mentor. So a good mentor will always help someone. And if somebody called me up and said, I'd like some help, I'd always give them the time. If they ask me in a polite way, And they said, you know, I need your help. I'd always do it. And I think that's something I didn't have in my early years. I didn't have mentors. I had the occasional brilliant person. And now living in this amazing bubble here is the talent phenomenal. So plug into the talent and network up. Start hanging around with crazy successful people and ask them questions. One, how did you get to where you were? What advice would you have for me? Yeah, amazing. Then shut up and listen. Don't say anything else. You might learn something. Yeah, yeah. So I think that's about it. And be brave, by the way. I know you guys are like founders and startups and entrepreneurs. There's going to be horrendous times where you'll never believe in yourself. Get over it. It's going to be fine. Even the darkest days will be fine because you've got people that have got your back. And that means you've got the courage to go forward. That's the one piece of advice I would have said to myself because I never had that courage because no one was pushing me. I was always the one that was pushing others. Yeah. I think that would be the wrap up of that.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13:45

Amazing. Amazing. Thank you, Terry, so much for today. I've learned so much from the conversation. I'm sure other people will. And as I say, you know, if what you shared today can inspire even one person listening to this, then that's amazing. I'm almost certain it's going to impact so many more than just that one as well. So thank you again, Terry, for the openness, the transparency, the vulnerability as well, as we've mentioned on many occasions in this episode. And thank you, Stuart, and I know for co-hosting today as well. Guys, I hope you enjoyed that episode. Terry, what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? If they want to reach out, what's the

SPEAKER_02: 1:14:25

best way? I'm on LinkedIn. My funny story is on LinkedIn. So it's Terry Hamill at LinkedIn. Fantastic. I tend to wear these wacky glasses everywhere I go. My politician said, you need a new pair of glasses. I said, no, no, these glasses have become my signature. That's who I am. Absolutely. They'll fall off my head before I give them away. Absolutely. Terry Hamill on

SPEAKER_04: 1:14:44

LinkedIn. And if anybody wants to connect, then that'd be fantastic. And we'll put your LinkedIn handle on the show notes as well. So guys, if you enjoyed today's episode, please feel free to share and like and comment and leave us a review. And we look forward to seeing you all on the next episode. If you'd like to join the tribe or have any recommendations for amazing founders or innovators for future episodes, please visit our website at www.canopy So all that's left to say is a huge thank you from me for listening in and obrigado yet de breve from Tiana and Pedro. We really look forward to you joining us on the next episode.