Mic Drop #11: Don't Give Your Kids a Business, Give Them This Instead | Matt Haycox

In these ‘Mic Drops,’ I’ll be spotlighting my favourite, most impactful moments from past episodes of No Bollocks with Matt Haycox. These are the moments that hit hardest, offer the most value, and deserve to be heard again.

Matt Haycox is an entrepreneur who went bankrupt at 27 - with a wife, a one-year-old, and the safety net he'd quietly assumed was underneath him already gone. Now 45 with three daughters, he's determined they'll learn about money from him rather than from a collapse of their own.

In this Mic Drop, Matt breaks down where real risk tolerance comes from, why he set up a company for his 18-year-old daughter, and the boring £250-a-month habit he pushes on her instead of pushing her into business.

Because your kid doesn't need to run a company to end up wealthy.

Chapters
0:00 - Intro
0:05 - Bankruptcy, Resilience and the Safety Net That Disappeared
3:30 - Setting Kids Up to Win

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Connect with Matt Haycox, No BS Business Podcast Host & 8-Figure Entrepreneur.

I’m Matt Haycox, entrepreneur, investor, and your straight-talking guide to building a business that actually works. I’ve raised over £750M, built (and rebuilt) 8-figure companies, and learned the hard way what it really takes to win.

On No Bollocks with Matt Haycox, I cut through the bollocks to bring you raw conversations with 7–8 figure founders, investors, and experts who’ve been there, done it, and got the scars to prove it. No hype, no theory, just actionable strategies you can use today to start, grow, and scale your business.

Whether you’re stuck in your 9–5, building your side hustle, or trying to hit your first £100k month, this is your go-to podcast for entrepreneur tips, startup growth strategies, raising capital, building a personal brand, and avoiding the costly mistakes most founders make.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Grip, resilience, all the ups, all the downs, the the you being willing to shift your perspective and everything. As things in school helped you out? Was it experiences of school with people? Is there incidences, or is it something you've learned somewhere else? And like what do you think are the key ingredients before we go into like where your kids are at now?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

I mean, look, I think I think ultimately you're a product of everything, aren't you? Yeah. Um, and it's interesting because you know, obviously, when I was younger, starting my businesses at 18, 9, 20, whatever, I mean my father was very wealthy back then. I mean, he'd been okay till he sold the business, and when he sold the business, he he he got good money. So, whilst I very much wanted to go make my own money, uh, and he certainly didn't write me checks to set my businesses up or anything like that. I think I'd be lying if I didn't probably internally have some kind of safety net that it was like, Oh, my dad's got a few quids, so I'm never gonna be homeless. I mean, yeah, I I never thought like that actively, but consciously, but subconsciously, it must have been inside me. But then my dad got on to a basically a systematic set of failures, and by the time I was about 22, he was almost bankrupt. Oh wow. Which, you know, another story in itself, it's something he's never really you know recovered from. He's not bankrupt, but he's he's he's he's 90 years. He's 95% down and where he was 20 years ago, and he's and he's lost it, lost the motivation to to go in. So by the time I was really starting to need money and want to take risks and stuff, I didn't have that, I didn't have that safety net anymore. And then when I had my first massive failure and went bankrupt when I was 27, 28. Um, I guess uh I all all I had going for me was the fact that I wasn't prepared to stay down, you know. I'm not necessarily even saying I had the skills, I thought I knew I had the skills to get back up again when I thought I'm 27, I've got a wife, I've got a one-year-old kid. You know, I was saying I was never born to be poor. So I had no choice but to to to find find ways, and and and you know, whenever people talk to me about the bankruptcy, and they say, Wow, you know, how did you pick yourself up? It's such a hard time, I was like, I haven't got a great story for you. My answer answer was simply I didn't say I had a choice. I've got a mortgage that needs paying, a kid that needs looking after, so I've got to go and do whatever it takes to get it to get it done. But then as time's gone on, obviously every day I learn more skills. Every time I have a problem, I find a solution. So at 45 years old now, I have an attitude to risk which is considerably more than most, but I would say that's because I know I've got the skills to pick back to pick back up again. Uh, if not, you know, if if I because I'm ultimately when it comes to building a business, it comes out an idea, an offer, an ability to market, you know, an ability to deliver these or a network to be you know to be able to raise some camera from whatever it may be. And I've got all of those things anyway. Yes, it would be easier with a few million quid in the bank, but I can also do it without any of that as well. So that's I guess that's what that's what gives me my confidence in the same way that I don't know if I was a a famous if I was Elton John and I lost everything tomorrow, well, I could go on stage that night, tinker around on the piano, and someone's gonna pay me a 250 grand check. So I guess it gives you it gives you a level of c a level of confidence and uh and risk tolerance.

SPEAKER_00 3:30

So so knowing all of that, and I think that whether you see it as well as as from the inside, but I definitely see it from the outside, that uh your dad didn't it might it might have given you a bit of a safety net, like you say, subconsciously, but it hadn't flourished you with money and you did have to go and earn it, and that was something we talk to you. How do you now, and I know you you've done stuff in business with your with your eldest, um how do how does now how do you set your your kids up to to to win and to be prepared and you know with everything you've now got because you're someone who's learned from experience a lot.

SPEAKER_01 4:02

So, my my eldest, she's 19 now. Uh, I mean I put it at the time I had her, I probably anticipated she'd be my only child, uh child then. I never imagined I'd come to Dubai, start chasing young girls and and forget that I didn't have the snip. But uh but I so so so she was um what it is, my my pride and joy, yeah. Um, but I thought that um I was never with her, I wasn't with her mum, but I always had a good relationship with her mum. But her mum and I are very different.

SPEAKER_00 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

And I always wanted to push entrepreneurialism and business, etc., on her. Her mum never wanted to because her mum was it's not so much that her mum's the educator, she's not in that respect, but her mum is her mum worries what other people think. Gotcha. So many decisions that were made.

SPEAKER_00 4:58

She wants to sort of conform to society and yeah, or the other mums. Now, to be clear, you're you're complete opposites, aren't you?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Well, well, and I don't say any of this that's say as a as a dis disrespect on her, she was an amazing, was and is an amazing mum, and uh, you know, I I've got m so much time for her. But we would pull in different directions because, for example, I'd be saying, we talk about I used to get money for doing things, so I I'd say to my 12-year-old, all right, read this business book, and I'll and I'll give you 50 quid or whatever it may be. And she she's got no interest in reading it, and then I I'd be saying to her mum, she read these books, and the answer would end up being, well, she doesn't like them. I've got of course she doesn't like them because she's 12. Yeah, well, so where where are we gonna go with here? Or I'd be saying, right, you know, she've turned 18 and I got her a company set up in her name. I wanted to try and help her buy a property and do various things. Her mum went apoplectic with me, absolutely apoplectic, because she's saying, you know, her friends are 18, 18, and they haven't got companies and they're not directors, just let her be a child. And I can try and get into the ins and outs of saying, hang on a minute, this is going to take 45 minutes a month of her time to have a property and and to to build some financial security, etc. But I'm banging my head against a brick wall because again, the nicest possible way to her mum, her mum doesn't have this knowledge or her mum doesn't have these skills, therefore, she doesn't understand, understand what I'm trying to do to her. And I ended up when I say gave up, um, I don't mean given a bad way, but you know, my daughter, she's on a massive education path. She's done phenomenal at school, you know, pretty much all A stars across the board at A level at GCSEs, A's across the board at A levels. She's now doing aerospace engineering at Durham University. She's doing very, very well. That stuff, she doesn't want business, she absolutely doesn't want business. So when you ask what do I do with her and how do I spoil her or not spoil her or whatever now, I don't try and push any business on her because she's got no interest. We're talking business, but what about like resilience and grid and what but what I do try and educate is is is financial uh is financial literacy. Yes, because you know, and and that I do push hard on. Like when I used to push on business and I get the push back to me, I gave up. But now I will always try, I always push very hard on financial literacy and and investment in education because I say to listen, I'm not trying to change the career path you're on. You want to be an engineer, happy days, but you don't want to be a skint engineer, and and and the the things I'm trying to show you, the things I'm trying to tell you are going to take none of your time, by the way, and you're gonna wake up at 40 years old just by boring simple things by putting this 250 quid a month away that becomes 500 quid a month that goes in a tracker fund or that gets an 8% instead of a 6%. These very boring things that 99% of the world don't understand will mean that when you're 40 years old, for example, you might have a couple of million quid in your bank for doing nothing, by the way, but you know, for doing literally nothing, and you can still be your engineer, but imagine being an engineer with a couple of million quid in the bank. So when you don't fancy being an engineer, you can take a year off, or when you want to invest in something or or or or whatever it may be. So that side of things I do, I do do push hard on. You know, my three-year-old, she's three, so we haven't we haven't we haven't got that far now, but her mum is very well depends what kind of a mood she's in with me, but when she's not at war with me, her mum is very much of the attitude that I will defer to Matt's better judgment for education and finances. And I say I, we have always agreed that we'll homeschool her, right? And not because I have some pathological hatred of the of the of the school system, yeah, but I just know that the things I want to take her on. And when you say what's your curriculum going to be, as well right now, I can't tell you exactly what the curriculum's gonna be, but I know that the things that are important to me are multiple languages, yeah, financial literacy, things that might not even look like education, but if she had a brain, a nice network, spoke three languages, and could play the piano, the violin, and the guitar, I'd but I'd be much happier with that, by the way, than it than if she could recite geography backwards or something like that. So so I want to kind of go go down that route with her. And then when it comes to spoiling them, it's always a fine line because I want to I want to do the best, I do want to do the best for them, and you know, I'm sure I'll give them more, I'll give them what other people consider spoiling them. But actually, I think to me, spoiling isn't an amount of money, spoiling is is the attitude that somebody has, and you could give someone a hundred quid and they could be a total spoiled twat, or you could give someone a million quid and they could be the most humble, respectful person in the world. And I'm very you know, I'm very fortunate. I mean, I've done things like with my eldest 90. If you look back, she had so much opportunity to be a spoilt brat, she'd have a 20 grand birthday party at seven years old and and and those kind of things. But I kind of hit it with hit it with both angles, if you like. I would never, you know, I'd never tolerate rudeness or disrespect or misbehaviour. You know, even now, if you know, with again the three-year-old, if if no matter how much I hate her mom or we're at war with a mum, I will never tolerate the you know disrespect from from from the baby, that from the baby to the mummy and things. So I think ultimately, you know, it's like when you say alcohol alcohol makes them a bad person. No, it doesn't. Alcohol just shows what a bad person, that person they already are. And it's it's the same with money, you know. You can write someone write someone a blank check, but if they're a good person, they'll just be a good person with a you know with it with a blank check.