He Made Everyone Proud Except Himself - Sol Hyde | The Grateful Podcast Ep. 129

The Grateful Podcast with Jack Wagoner episode 129
Guesting  ⁨@solhyde⁩  

He made everyone proud. His parents. His friends. Everyone who told him that corporate consulting job was incredible. Then he sat in the chair and realized the only person he hadn't made proud was himself. 

Sol Hyde quit that job, moved to the other side of the world, and built a six-figure-per-month online coaching business in under a year. But this conversation isn't about the money. It's about the moment he heard one sentence from a colleague on his first day and knew he was surrounded by people engineering their escape from life, while the people he'd met in Bali were building lives they never wanted to leave.

We go deep on why the first three hours of his corporate job told him everything, why he chose Cape Town over Dubai when every entrepreneur he knew was going the other direction, why going viral is the worst strategy for making real money online, and the solo trip ritual he does every year that most people are too afraid to try. If you've ever felt trapped in something you worked hard to get into, this one's for you.

⏱️ Chapters: 0:00 — Introduction 
01:18 — "I made everyone proud apart from me" 
02:53 — The promise he made at his lowest moment 
04:16 — How long it took him to actually leave 
05:46 — The sentence that changed everything (three hours in) 
07:00 — "Why do you want time to go faster?" 
09:13 — The trap most online entrepreneurs fall into 
10:17 — Why he refused to move to Dubai 
11:22 — The solo trip that rewired his priorities 
14:27 — Working ON your life vs. IN your life 
15:59 — Seasons and chapters, not grind forever 
18:01 — How he built an offer with no plan 
20:01 — The post that blew up and started everything 
22:24 — Can you coach people more successful than you? 
26:05 — The invisible expert problem 
28:53 — "You're doing people a disservice by not posting" 
30:43 — Why virality doesn't make money 
32:27 — Trust is the real sales system 
36:16 — "Results pay for a lifetime. Sales pay for dinner." 
38:01 — Why conviction comes from product, not mindset 
40:41 — How to build belief when you're starting from zero
42:51 — His 10,000-person mission 
45:27 — You can change your life in a year

🔗 Follow Sol:
► Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sol.hyde/
► LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sol-hyde/
► Free Thinkers Club: https://freethinkersclub.net/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today's guest was playing the game of life by society's rules but felt absolutely miserable. Just one year ago, Soul Hyde left his fancy corporate consulting job to start an online business, and everyone that he knew doubted him. Less than a year later, he is making over six figures per month, and he now feels happier than he ever had before. But it's not about the money or the things that come with it. It's about the fact that he took the leap. Today I want to dive into how Sol became who he is today, and how he was able to face the fear of the unknown and take that step that so many of us want to but are afraid to do. Sol, welcome to the Grateful Podcast.

SPEAKER_00 0:39

Thank you so much, Jack, for a kind introduction. And uh yeah, let's get into it. I'm gonna get all too.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

So we're very similar because at a young age, both of us realized that we weren't going to achieve our way to happiness by doing things that society told us to do. When I started this podcast, I had realized that I'd followed the society's script. I was a great student, a great athlete as you were, but I felt empty. I felt like no matter how much I achieved, no matter what I did, I wasn't going to feel the way that I was told I was supposed to feel. I mean, I had all the things that people told me would make me happy, and I didn't feel that way. So for you, you felt you had a similar realization when you had this corporate consulting job, you're working in London, you've worked your life for this, but you realize that this isn't going to give you the feeling that you want to have. So walk me through this, what was it like for you when you started to realize that you couldn't achieve your way to success?

SPEAKER_00 1:36

I appreciate that, Jack, because it's it's true, isn't it? It's like you get to the point where you're thinking, I've achieved loads of things that I want to, and I was sat in my corporate job, a job that everyone said to me was incredible. Everyone used to say at parties, oh, it's so cool what you're doing, you work so hard to get into it. And I was so proud of myself until I sat down in the chair in the office and went, I hate this. Like, I what am I doing? Like I've literally made everyone proud apart from me. And I made a promise to myself when I was younger. I actually had some some bad mental health issues. And I made a promise to myself that when I ever felt unhappy, I would not be a victim and take action. And that my life was was up to me and my happiness was up to me. So that mental health issues as I was growing up gave me a strong lesson in like being accountable and responsible for my own life. So then you fast forward two years and I've sat in my corporate job and I'm like, I should be happy. Like, what why am I not enjoying this? Why am I not so proud of myself? And I realized that I had to take action. I realized that I was at a point where I was like, this is not what I want to be doing with my life. Um, and it all stems back from knowing that our like no one's coming to save us, and life is it sounds like it's a whole load of cliches, and people are probably listening to this and going, oh my god, another like mindset of life is worth living guy. But I can say that I knew I was as close to not wanting to be alive as possible to know what life is worth living. And and that's where the story all started because it just got to the point where I was like, I'm not living someone else's life anymore, I'm not living my parents' life and not living my friend's life, I'm not trying to play the status game. I want to do what I want to do. And and then when I started that corporate job, I was not living my life, Jack. So that was the that was the start of it all.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

So, what was the timeline between realizing that and then actually taking action upon that?

SPEAKER_00 3:35

So the funny thing is that I realized that even before I got into the job. So I was traveling around Australia and New Zealand, and then I happened, and it's so crazy to think to me right now that I my job got delayed by six months because the consulting industry wasn't doing so well. And I was sat in Australia, I remember getting the phone call, and I was like, okay, so you've like your job has been delayed, and most people would be gutted about that. And I was like, that is so good, because I get to spend another six months in this incredible part of the world. Life is so good. And then I was like, okay, well, I've always wanted to go to Bali, I've always seen all these Bali bros online and all these yogis saying how good it is, and like it's cheap, and I don't have that much money, so I'm gonna go and drop into Bali. And then I went there and I was like, everyone there was living the life that I wanted. There were four things that I say they were happy, healthy, rich, and free. They were happy, as in they were genuinely fulfilled in the life they were doing. Healthy, they all took their gym very seriously. Um, rich, they were all making crazy amounts of money, and they were free, which is the I think the most important thing is like they had control over their time. The guy was playing paddle on Tuesday afternoon. I was like, what do you mean? Are you not like, do you not have a job to do? Like, what are you doing on a Tuesday afternoon? Yeah. And I think you and I both, we both have met those people. It's like, what, you know, what are you, what are you doing? Anyway, I then met these people, I realized that I wanted their sort of life, and then I went back to start the job. So to answer your question, Jack, is that I decided even before sitting in that chair that I didn't want to do it, but I knew that I had to give this job a go that was the thing that was the thing that I'd worked so hard for. And I gave it a go. I did it for eight months, and within literally the first three hours, Jack, what happened is someone behind me was saying, Oh, um, so we get 25 days of holiday, but I've worked out this system where I can take a day's holiday here, take a day's holiday here, take a day's holiday here. And it means that I don't work for loads of time. And I remember sitting there and thinking, so there's this person who's trying to gamify how they can work less. And then there's the people that I've met in Bali who are happy, healthy, rich, and free, but also love what they're doing and would never want to take a day off in their life. And I was like, that sounds like the path to bet on. This does not sound the life I'll be on. So within about three hours, I heard that guy behind me, and I was like, I'm gonna do every single thing that I can to make sure that I have to work in this job for as little as possible. The only thing I'll say, which is a big asterisk, is company were great. Nothing to fault about the company. It's just that life and that corporate ladder that I just didn't want to be on. I couldn't, I couldn't stomach it for any longer.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

It wasn't for you, yeah. And I think the phrase that I hear so often that I absolutely hate is I'll just get into the weekend, like, oh, it's Wednesday, we're halfway through, right? We're halfway through. What are you halfway through? Why do you want time to go any faster? Yeah. Why? And it's so sad when you think about it, the amount of people in this life where they're spending their entire time trying to their entire time trying to get as fast through the day, as fast through the week, through the year as they can, looking forward to the time that they don't have to be doing the thing that they're spending the majority of their life on. I love that you realize that and were able to take action on it. Because I think so many people will suppress that desire to want to do something else.

SPEAKER_00 6:51

It's crazy to me. Like I and now, you know, fast forwarding two years, I had someone come up to me in the gym the other day and they literally said to me, like, Why are you why are you bouncing around the gym? And I was like, Why would I not be? Like I've got such a good day ahead of me. Like I've got interviews, I've got like client meetings, I'm making content, like I've got such a good day, and they couldn't believe it. And and I I cannot describe the difference. And if people listening, like if you're listening to this, you're probably thinking, like, okay, like how is this actually possible? Well, we'll come on to that later. But for me, it's like working out what you want your life to look like. And I think a fundamental thing is like you should not sit there and feel like the life you're living is someone else's or life you're not excited for. Because why waste any second? Like, everyone always you say about phrases that we hate, Jack. Like, one of the things that I hate as well is when people say the word you've got time. Like the time that you've got is is like every second I live that I don't enjoy is a second that's every second that I waste not enjoying my life is a second where I could be enjoying my life. And like I like I'm running out of time, or I was running out of time when I was in my corporate job because I was living seconds that I absolutely despised. And now every second I live, I will look back and say that was a great second. I enjoy what I'm doing right now. So we're we we are all running out of time, and I think it's so important to people to think that. And if your phrases are coming to your mind, like you say, oh Wednesday, we're halfway through the week, or I can't wait for the weekend, it's like just check yourself and be like, Well, and maybe it is the life you want, but for most of for for most of the people that I know, and for me, it's like, no, what that that seems like not a good way to live my life.

SPEAKER_01 8:26

The place where I think that you're different and where I do want to touch on is with a lot of people in the online space, they say all this stuff, but I think they've traded one reality of doing what they think they're supposed to do for another, right? Where what they're doing online and what they're chasing in their business aren't the true things that they've sat down and thought, this is what I want. It's what they've seen other people want, right? Like maybe you don't want to, you realize yourself you didn't actually want to move to Dubai, right? But that's so many people's dream. So you've really seemed from my perspective, and you're the only one that can know this, but you seem to be very clear on what it is that you truly want, and that's why you're lit up. Where a lot of people I talk to in the online space they'll never say this on a podcast or to their content or their followers, but uh they feel almost like they're in the same position that they were before, where they're still posing, where they're still doing something because it's what they were supposed to do. So, what is it about what you've done in your life that you know exactly where you're going and you're doing things that truly do light you up? What did you have to get clear on to be in the position you are now?

SPEAKER_00 9:31

I I really appreciate you saying that because it it is true, and like and as you say to touch on for people listening for the context, like everyone and everyone moves to Dubai. Like you go to Bali, you go maybe to Spain, but almost everyone in the online space, like all Rose Lee to Dubai, obviously it's 0% tax, and and and there's other great things about the entrepreneurial community, the wealth. I I get why people move there, but I realize that it's like it's not about what like your life should be about what you want to do and about the things that are important to you. And I looked at the people in Dubai and I just went, they are not the people that I want to spend the majority of my time with, and that is because, and to answer your question, Jack, I I there's a few things I think it comes down to, but the thing that really moves the dial for me is every single year so far, I have gone for a four or five-day like solo trip. So this year, or let's say two years ago, I did it in Cape Town. I got a little like truck and I got like a mattress in the back, and I was driving around the garden room, like a proper hippie vibe, and I was spending a lot of time with myself and working out like what do I really want to do? And in that time, when you reflect on your life, when you work, you know, people talk about working in the business, on the business. When you work on your life, not in your life, you have a lot of time to think about what you like doing. And that silent time I also had in Australia where I did the same thing, but down the east coast. And I realized when I looked out, I was in a beach in Australia in Byron Bay, and I looked out and I had a really nice coffee in my hand, had a really good interaction with the waitress, and like, and not that sort of interaction, it was just a friendly one. We just had a really good interaction with the waitress. And I realized like none of these things I'm gonna have in Dubai, like the community aspects, the beautiful nature, the beautiful morning coffee. And I realized like what actually makes me happy. Like, really, I don't think people jack sit down enough and think like what actually makes them happy because I know like I'm very fortunate that like this year has mean that I don't need to work for multiple, multiple years in my life. But I'm really fortunate to say that. But I know that money doesn't necessarily make me happy. Like a good amount of money does, but like not I know that not chasing it and therefore going to Dubai, paying 0% tax, being around people who are making millions a month. That's not the thing that genuinely makes me happy. Part of that equation does. But I also know that, like, for me, family is so important. It's such an important goal for me to raise a family, to have a kid, to meet my wife, and also being around a community and that sort of thing, and then also being in nature and being around those sort of environments. And I took a time off to think as instead of working in my life on my life, and when I thought about what I liked, it was those things. And then it becomes so easy for me to design my life around that. It becomes so easy. It's obviously useful to be able to have financial freedom, time location freedom, all that sort of thing. But even then, I've realized that when I was in South Africa two years ago, Jack, I said to myself, what do I want to do about uh like my location? Like, am I gonna be happy about being in London? No. Am I gonna be happy about working for a job? No, I don't want to be told where to be at a certain time. And once you get super clear on that, you can mold the life that you want into the way you want, but you can't do that unless you know what actually makes you happy and what you want. So if someone's listening to this, I would say it's about thinking, what is the things that light you up? What gets you going in the morning? For me, it's all the things I mentioned. For me, it's about coaching, it's about really helping people. That's the thing that gets me pumped. And therefore, my whole life or my whole day, if you look at my calendar, is all of that. It's nothing else other than that. And that's why, like, if you meet people, they'll say that like I'm the happiest pay person that they know because I'm just so clear on on those those metrics.

SPEAKER_01 13:12

Right, and a lot of that came from the spending time purposefully quiet by yourself, isolating yourself from the noise. Because I think most of us don't really know how to differentiate our thoughts from the thoughts of people we listen to on the internet and what we get on social media. So I really do appreciate that because I don't think enough people do that. I had a trip this summer where I went, you know, my best friend, we graduated from high school, and we drove across the US and we just camped and rock climbed for 30 days straight. We slept outside. And that was the first time I'd taken a break from business in over a year. First time I had not had school to do, and it really did make me get clear with myself. And I I just don't think enough people do that. Even if they consciously recognize that that is what they have to do. I don't think enough people, even if they know that they're going to get clear, they don't want to spend the time or the energy getting clear, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Absolutely. It's like the the time spent pointing yourself in the right direction is far more important than the time spent moving yourself forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

But that's that's so hard, especially in the in the hustle culture that we live in. I mean, it's so easy. I woke up just last week. I was feeling like uh this year so far has been the most progress I've made in my life. But just last week I was feeling probably the lowest of this of this year so far. And I looked at myself and I'm like, what is different right now from what I was doing at the beginning of the year? And I was waking up and I was instantly checking my phone, responding to messages, instantly sending emails, even from my bed. And I wasn't waking up and working out in the morning like it was, I wasn't getting the same sleep. And I think that we can be so disillusioned to think that the work is the most important thing when it isn't really. I've heard you talk about your routine and how with your freedom that you've created for yourself, work is not the only thing you're focused on. You're not on that like 996, whatever work schedule, right?

SPEAKER_00 15:13

Absolutely, yeah. And it's like I think the important thing is working out that that is like working out what I liked and what I didn't like. And I like uh, for example, I look at my Monday and Tuesday, I work incredibly hard on my Monday and Tuesday, but I then make sure I have things in the day that I like. So like I've worked pretty much all day today, but then at 6 30 p.m. I get to take out all of my clients for like a stake in South Africa. And it's like, okay, great. Like I'm super excited to do that. And I work really hard, and then at the end of that day, I have something to look forward to. So I'm like, I'm I'm not about I'm about chapters, I think, Jack. I what I really like is that right now I'm in a chapter which is building community. I'm strategically working out where I want my business to go. At the start of last year, all I was doing was working. I was grinding so incredibly hard. But it was because I was aware of what season I was in. I'm always conscious of what season I'm in and what I'm doing. And I'm doing it like intentionally. And that's like that's the important thing, I think. Is like, yes, I'm not sitting here and saying like to get the business to six figures a month, I wasn't working incredibly hard. But then I now am working less hard, but it was because of the work that I put in because I knew what chapter I was in. And now I'm able to work less hard because I strategized, okay, this is the time of my life to build a community in Cape Town, to go and meet people, to go and actually work out what I want to do in my business as opposed to doing the things within my business. And that's uh that's important. So yeah, I do work hard. I'm not gonna sell the dream to people that I don't work hard, but again, like what's work? I've sat high and I've not even thought, like, I've all that like it's so funny. I look at the top right of my computer, and I remember when I was on a corporate job, I would like it, I'd have like like neck cramp from looking to my right and like looking to my left, looking to my right, looking to my left to be like, how do the minutes go so slowly? Like, how do they take so much time to go? Whereas now I'm mate, like I like I'm like, how do I have enough I don't have enough minutes in the day to do the things that I want to do? And like that's yeah, that's I think when it comes to it. So yes, I do work hard, but I also don't see it so much as work, I see it as like a part of the life I've built for myself.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Right. And that's so amazing, and I think that's what everybody is truly dreaming of. So to touch on that a bit, when you were quitting your job, right, and you were going into what you were gonna do, you didn't necessarily have a plan of exactly what your business is going to look like, right? So, how did you go from that not having a plan portion to creating the structure that ended up scaling you there? But first, just also getting the idea of what was your offer going to look like in the first place. I think a lot of people they want to create something online, but they don't know what their offer should look like. They don't know how to start one, they don't know how to start something that could turn into potential to replace the income that they're getting in their corporate job. How do you go about that process?

SPEAKER_00 17:58

It's such a good question. I'm gonna make this as useful for for the people answering as possible. I explained firstly what I did and then some like themes that I learned through it, which is firstly when so what I did is I knew when I met the people, as I mentioned earlier, the happy, healthy, rich, and free people, there was a key theme with all of them. And I always think success leaves clues. Look at the people who are above you and think like what have they done to get the thing that you want. So, what have these people done to get the life that I wanted? All of them had posted content. So I was like, okay, so the thing for me to do, clearly, if all these people are posting content, is to post content. I'm gonna do it. I started making it about like Apple watches and whoops and like random sh random stuff that I had. I was like, I'm just gonna make as much content as I can and learn the skill of marketing because clearly marketing is so important. So then, even through my corporate job, I was posting and posting and posting and posting and posting. And then what happened is I quit my job because I was like, I know there's no, like I have no idea what I want to do, but it's not this. So, like, if I don't want to do it, I'm gonna quit. And then I quit. And then literally, ironically, the post that I spoke about quitting my job blew up, like went went humongous. And then over the next few weeks, I've never had so much traffic, no much, I never had so much interest on my page, and it was going so well. And then I had all these people message me being like, okay, well, how do I actually market my own business? I had people from all walks of life being like, I need help with marketing. So, what I hadn't realized is that I'd learn, and I kind of unaccidentally learned a fundamental skill of business, which is obviously how to get people to know who you are in the first place. I then also realized that sales, combining marketing and sales together, is a like a deadly combination. And then I learned sales and got um working with people doing sales jobs, and that was incredible as well. So I was basically working on sales offers, selling and online offers. But while I was doing the content stuff, people were asking me, look, so like I'd actually like to pay you to help you with content. And then what happened is I charged a little bit and I said if you get results, then you can get more. And slowly and slowly I built that offer up and up. And then alongside my sales stuff, I was then working out that people who weren't doing well with content were the people who were actually the ones who had poor offers. So with my offer, so then I was like, okay, well, I've built a sales business up to like 15, 10, 15k a month. What I need to actually do is help you with your offer, then your sales, and then your the your offer, your marketing, and then your sales. And then that stack ended up like leading to where I am now, which is a business consultant to help people. But that is my individual story, and what people might listen to is okay, I'm gonna copy that and do the exact same thing. But the key thing to learn is that what I did is I focus on learning something valuable. And what this amazing world of the online business space, the internet allows us to do is it allows us to have valuable skills that we can sell. And it's been incredible the sort of people that I've managed to work with, from people who are helping policemen leave the police service to people who do surf therapy to people who help people get into Oxbridge to do maths, all of these rogue, rogue things. But the key theme, and for anyone who's listening, is that we have the ability to sell and help or the ability to help someone with a problem that they have. Super business fundamentals. And if you can make content and you can sell all to that, you are gonna have an online business. So just think right now like what business, what skill do you have which people would pay you money for and go from there, like Jack? You're clearly great at speaking, you're clearly great at like filming podcasts, like that is as a bare minimum, great skills that you could sell to other people. You could do a podcast agency service, you could do a public speaking service, like all of these sort of things. But all of these are potentials, and and and that like that's really how it starts. It's just being like, okay, how can I help someone and you'll get paid if you uh if you help the right people.

SPEAKER_01 21:37

Right. Have you ever worked with agencies or coaches or just businesses in general that are making more money than you are, especially at the start?

SPEAKER_00 21:47

So I at the start, there was like two, I guess there's two stages. So right now, no. In the past, yes. In the past, I was working with coaches that were making all types of money and agents. That are making all types of money because of the fact that they need to help their marketing. But then now the the thing that gives me the, let's say, like the authority and the people's confidence is like they see the money we're doing and they see this system that we've created, which is to generate leads, and they want that. And for them to look up to us, they need to know that we know what we're talking about. You can't be a business coach if you don't have to run a business, right? So the thing that really gives me authority now is people who are basically like, I want to get six figures a month. And I'm like, well, I can tell you exactly how to do that because I've done that myself. Um, for a lot of people, that's not the case. Um, for a lot of people, they will work with different people, but that's like who I feel comfortable with working with.

SPEAKER_01 22:38

Yeah. Well, I I see it so often on the internet right now that people are selling these services, but they've never really accomplished that thing. And I I find it like, well, I would never pay for that. I need the person that I'm learning from to have been to the place. I just made a video this week. Like the person that you're asking for directions from has to have made the trip, or else their road ends where they where they stopped, right? So I do think that's cool, but I think at the beginning it's important if you do have a service, for example, marketing, that it's important to not have the imposter syndrome or work through it and realize that you can provide value to people even if they're more successful than you are.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

And I think that's the thing, it's exactly what you say. Like, I uh in that point, like I was making I was helping people who had made more money than me, but what I was doing was helping them with a skill that I knew more of. And I think it's so interesting, is that like may I have 5,000 followers when I was doing content coaching for people, and some people would be like, You like what you don't have, like that's not an amount of followers that is worth you helping people, and that's true because I would never come to someone who had 15,000 followers and say this is how you need to get more followers. But what I would do, and this is what I helped people with, is help people get off the ground, and because you could always help someone because someone is always further away from you, and there's a great example of this where you can look at, I don't know, say like golf, for example, a guy called Will Brown talked about this in the space, and he he says, Tiger Woods, if I'm looking to learn golf, Tiger Woods is not gonna be a good teacher for me because he's gonna get pretty frustrated with me because I'm a zero out of ten at golf. But someone who's maybe pretty good, like a local, a local professional, someone who's played quite a lot, maybe is like a five out of ten, is gonna be great to help me. But if someone is four out of ten, they're probably gonna be better working with a seven or an eight out of ten, or maybe even Tiger Woods, than they are working with that local professional. So the thing is like we all have the ability to help people at a certain stage. You've just got to be clear as to where you are in the journey. And that's why, like, if anyone's looking to start something and listening, this is like you are always in a place to help people, and that's why some everyone loves doing PT offers, because everyone who works out is further along the journey than someone who doesn't work out. People also love doing like tuition and math tuition because everyone who is like 18, 19, 20 has done more maths than someone who is like six or seven years old, so it's always a place you can find it. But yeah, I agree with the sentiment. You should only teach people the things that you are qualified to teach on it. Trust me, I see a lot of people who are like don't practice what they preach and are really not qualified. But that's I guess the problem with being able to be very good at marketing and not actually being able to deliver the things you want to deliver. There's another reason that I didn't go to Dubai.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

Yeah, I was speaking with uh Dr. Anne Lore last week. Um, she she's a neuroscientist at King's College and she's she wrote the book Tiny Experiments, which blew up, and she was talking about how at her old job at Google the people that got promoted the fastest weren't the people that did the most work, but they were the people that talked about the work they did the most. And it was like this 80 the 80-20 rule where if they spent 80% of their time talking about that work that they did for the 20% of the time, they were going to be recognized more than if they did 80% work, 20% marketing. The marketing aspect, the more that you're talking about the work that you're doing, I think that it's the more credibility you have, even if you're not necessarily doing more work than other people.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Couldn't agree more. It's and it's like I think sometimes you might listen to that and think, oh, that's pretty depressing because it's about marketing. I think it's about just knowing how the human brain works, which is at the end of the day, like we have a lot of suspicion, a lot of pessimism with things, and people have to market themselves and let them know, like, let people know they exist. And like I will market loads while I do believe I have incredible products, and while I'm sure like there are people in the world who who do incredible things, you have to let people know what you're doing. And I think it's just useful. Like it again, it is depressing sometimes. There is the people that shout the loudest that do the best, but like, how can you listen to that and think, not only am I great, but I'm also gonna tell people I'm great. And it's like the invisible expert is something I talk about a lot, which is people who are like so good at what they do, but they just don't speak about it enough. And that is one of the downfalls. So yeah, it's depressing that you do have to do that, but at the same time, like, how could how can we as good people who know we're good at what we do use it to our advantage?

SPEAKER_01 26:59

Right. And I think something that you do so differently is I think you approach content in a different way. You've actually, I didn't tell you this at the beginning, but you you've changed the way I look at it because I've taken breaks uh especially on Instagram where I've not posted. And you posted something, I think it was in January, where you said you're doing people a disservice by not posting content because your content is there to help them. And for you on your page, it's not like you're getting millions of views on every video. Not at all. But your your posts, from my understanding, are targeted to serve a specific person in a specific uh time with a specific problem, right? And your content isn't doing as well views-wise as like some of the people with hundreds of thousands of followers, but some of those people with hundreds of thousands of followers are making significantly less money than you, if not no money, right? So you've you've changed the way that I think about content and the service that you're doing by posting. If you want to explain that a little bit, because I I'm just summarizing what I've learned from you.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Appreciate it, and and you summarized it really well. I think the two thoughts in there is firstly about um content, like the the the importance of of content, and then the second is it about that that topic that you said about kind of like volume of content. But for me, like making money with an online business is as simple as backing the service that you have. And I am relentlessly backing the thing that I know I'm so good at helping people when they work with me, but we don't want to be the invisible expert. At the end of the day, people are not just gonna come and just buy from you if they've never heard of you, if you don't have any certain sort of sales system. So it's like I believe that I can change someone's life if they work with me. That's where this fundamental belief comes from. And then in order to do that, I have to work my way down the pipeline to think, okay, how do I get people into that chance where they can change their life? And if I'm not posting relentlessly everywhere and everywhere, like everything on every platform and everywhere, then I am ridding someone of the opportunity to find me, to then go down my sales funnel, to then buy from me to change their life. And it comes from that belief. So the reason I post everywhere and I post all the time is because I want to give the max amount of chances to the max amount of people to see my stuff, to think that I can change their life. And every person that doesn't see my stuff, I believe, misses out on the opportunity to work with me. So that's like why I post and why I believe posting is so important, and why I like I can't even imagine not posting, because why would I not want everyone to see my stuff? But the second point which you said, which is so interesting, is about the way to attract those people. Because I've like battled a lot recently, Jack, with like, yeah, my posts like really don't get that many views. Like, we don't get loads and loads of traction on the internet. And some people do, and some people have hundreds of thousands of followers. But yes, as you said, I know hundreds of people who've got hundreds of thousands of followers and they can hardly afford this month's rent. Whereas like I'm very fortunate that I can afford this month's rent, and that's because I've made an audience which is the right audience. So, yes, I don't go viral. I don't go and do stitches where I like go and walk down the street and do like things that I know are gonna go viral, but that's because I know that virality does not make money. And at the end of the day, business is all the content is just marketing for your business. And why would you want to market to people who are never gonna buy from you? So I focus, I focus my content on thing on people that I know are gonna want to buy from me. And yes, I don't get many views, yes, I don't get many likes, but every single one of those pa per one of those people that like or view my videos is someone who's a potential buyer to me. And therefore, like we again, it's high ticket, so we don't need more than five to ten clients a month to make a hundred to two hundred K profit in a month. And it's like, okay, so why would I try and be going viral? Why would I try and get loads of views when I just need to convince five to ten people that it's the time is right this month to go and work with me? And that's why I don't care about views. I don't care about uh going big, all I care about is about reaching the right people, and that's why I post loads of content, but I don't care about the views that I get. I just want to take as many swings as possible to get to the person that I know that can help.

SPEAKER_01 31:17

And I imagine that when someone or a potential client lands on your page, they're not gonna instantly send you a message and say, Hey, soul, can I buy from you? They probably watch your content, maybe go from the Instagram to the YouTube and get to know you better to the point where when they actually do hop on a sales call with you, it feels easy because they're already invested in the outcome that you've showed them is possible through working with you. Am I correct?

SPEAKER_00 31:41

Absolutely, because the whole thing that I've built my brand on is this idea of trust. And Jack, you said very kindly to me before the start of this call that it feels like you know me already because you've watched so much of my content. And that's very kind, but that's the, as you said, the exact desired effect. Because the idea is we buy from people we trust. We want to work with people we trust. We make decisions because we trust the person opposite us. And therefore, I want to build as much trust up with the people as possible, show them I can solve their problems, show that I can help them. And by doing that, I then make the buying decision very easy. So for me, the importance is to create content to build that um to build that connection with someone so that they feel like I'm the person that they can trust. And obviously it comes back to me back in my product and knowing that I believe that I should be the person to trust. And that relationship that is then built allows people to then come to my calls and come and just say, look, I want to work with you. And we have such an easy, low-friction sales system, and it's because of the amount of work we do in the with our organics.

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Why do you think that people conflate posting more with mistrust sometimes or sleaziness? Like I hear a lot of people that are afraid to post more or saturate their algorithm, but you're saying the exact opposite. Why is that?

SPEAKER_00 32:56

It's one of my favorite things that people people say, and I fundamentally believe it's because they don't have enough good things to say. Like people who are saying, especially all of these business coaches, we all know who we're talking about here. These guys will be like, oh, don't don't post as much as possible, because everyone who like sees your post is sometimes making a decision pro or sometimes making a decision where they go, I don't want to buy from you. And the problem with that is that I know that every single interaction someone has with me moves them closer to buying from me because I believe that everything that I say in my content is useful, valuable, and insightful. So if you feel like when you're posting, you're gonna put someone off from buying, you are basically admitting that all of the stuff that you say is not necessarily valuable. Because everything that I say to you, Jack, right now, I want to be valuable. If you're listening to this podcast right now, everything I want to say is valuable. And if there's a sentence that puts you off, then that means that I need to work on the things that I'm saying and the value that I'm putting out there. Because otherwise, well, what because then you know that's the thing that puts people off. So my volume play is to say that I know that every time I press record and I press stop, that thing is going to be valuable. And the more stuff that I can expose people to of my value, the more it pushes them along the line of believing they can trust me. So yeah, I'm uh I'm not a fan of those guys that say that you shouldn't post loads because everyone is doing it right now and they're only saying it because they don't back what they're saying. And these the hidden tip is, Jack, is all of those people are saying it, they just spend about 50 grand a month on ads. So they just like they just spend money on ads either way. You could they can't you can't break the first principles of marketing, which is if people don't know who you are, they won't buy from you.

SPEAKER_01 34:29

Yeah. The other thing is this all seems to stem from this genuine belief that you will provide the transformation for your clients. And I think that goes back to something I've heard you talk about where you fundamentally focus on providing the best offer for your clients. And you really, really want to provide that transformation for your clients. You want every single person that buys from you to get the result that they're looking for. And I think that's so different from what some people from what some people see. I know the first course I bought, I was 16 years old. I invested thousands of dollars into this guy, and he didn't really care. And I ended up getting a good result, but that was all on my own. It's because I had this drive that not everybody has. And I think it's so important that the person that you are investing into has that drive for you. Obviously, you need some yourself, but the they have that drive to provide that transformation because then you'll get referrals, because then you have testimonials, because then people are going to want to come to you.

SPEAKER_00 35:29

I could have said it better. It's like result, my favorite phrase is results pay for dinner, or sales pay for dinner, results pay for retirement. I can't even say it right. Results pay for dinner, sales pay for dinner, results pay for retirement. And that's the like there are there is a way to make money online where you are just incredibly good at marketing, you show off your Lamborghinis, you show how much money you're making, and you're gonna get people thinking, I want to buy from you. But in the long term in the long run, in the long game of business, the way to do well is to get people results and is to care about your clients. I'm not saying that when someone joins me, I'm gonna sit there and be like, you're guaranteed results, because you're not like nothing in life is guaranteed, and you aren't guaranteed to get results. But I have put together what I believe the single best program and product possible because I know that the best way for me to build my business from a purely selfish perspective is to get as many results for people as possible, as you say, because you get testimonials, because you get referrals, because you get affiliates, because you get a word of mouth, and that is the way to actually build a business. And it broke my brain when I saw one of my friends in Dubai, he's running a like a like an agency star model, makes 100k a month, and he does it all through referrals. He's never in his life made a bit of content, and that's the aim, right? That's the aim. Because why would you? The only reason you do marketing and sales is because your product fundamentally is not as good as it could be. So my aim is to get my business as close as possible to the point where the word of mouth is so strong and people get such good results that I don't have to post a bit of content because then why I don't I don't need to tell people who I am because they already find out from their friends. So yeah, if someone's listening right now, focus on your marketing, focus about talking about who you are. But at the same time, if you build your great products, you have to do less and less marketing, and that's the the beauty of of this online space.

SPEAKER_01 37:15

And it comes down to authenticity as well, because listening to you, I can truly see that you really believe in your product, and that comes across in everything, in sales, especially in your marketing. I don't think everyone believes in the product that they're selling, they don't believe that they're capable of providing the transformation that they're selling. Do you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's one of the first things when I ask people like, why are you not posting content? Why are you not um jumping on sales calls? Why are you not tackling objections? It's like I all of those things, posting content, tackling objections, having a very good sales system, is all because I believe that when people join, they're gonna have a transformational experience. And it's like, why would I not do everything within my right to make sure, or everything within my power to make sure that people get to the point where they buy from me? And that's not because I want to make money, it's not because I want to go and buy a Lamborghini, it's because purely that financial transaction allows them to get access to that product. But but it's it's not just like a like a manifestation telling myself my product is good. Why do I have so much conviction? Well, two things. We have incredible results and I've literally changed people's lives, so that's why I'm so confident in what we do and why I sit here and I have so much conviction because I have account the amount of messages that I have where people say that you that I've changed their life, and I like I can pick examples. Like I go, one of the a guy called Josh joined me when he was a two-care month. He was really struggling with his ads agency, and he's flown business class around the world to come and meet me in Bali in Dubai, and it's because of the fact that he invested in me. And he's like, I'm sitting there in Dubai, and I'm like, you sat on a sales call with me a bit nervous. There's a guy called Andrew who like had an awful, awful time. He was living in the US, like family problems, all that sort of thing. And he sent me a like a void a video voicing it of him making his first 6k in a month. Um and like the guy removed himself out of debt and he was like, You've changed my life. And I remember just sitting there and thinking, like, this is the greatest feeling in the world. Um, and so that's the first thing. That's like I'm so confident because of the testimonials. But the other thing, Jack, which is a game changer, is like I work on my product a lot, I make a lot of time to make sure that I'm very good at my product, and I it's very, very good. And that's why I have a stack of belief. I've even employed a head of product right now. My head of product, all he does, Joe, great guy, all he does is focus on product. He's all he's building is like, how can we make the call structure better? How can we make the trips better? How can we make this better? How can we make this better? So I've got someone full-time alongside me whose only thing they think of in the morning is how do we make products better? And I like that's that's how I sit there and I sit here on this call with you, Jack, and I'm like, my God, if you're listening to this, buy because I know we've got great product. Great.

SPEAKER_01 39:56

Yeah, and that's amazing. How do you think people, how do you approach it when you have a client that doesn't have the same belief in their own product? What do you have to do to obtain that belief if you don't have it already?

SPEAKER_00 40:08

So before you have like a product to the program, you have to believe what you know is good. And the what you know, and the way to do that is to jump on as many calls as possible and give free advice to people. So I was jumping on the way I actually started my program, Jack, was I jumped on calls with like people in my audience when I said, I know how to get views on content, do this. And I was jumping on calls, like three, four calls a day with all these people. I jumped on these calls and I told them what to do, and they got incredible results. One guy got his first million view video and he'd been stuck in 200 200 view jail. It's because I told him what what to do. He did it, like a million views. And then um, and like I just had so many examples of those interactions where I was like, I'm really good at what I do, I should have conviction in it. So, to answer your question, mate, it's about exposing yourself to being good at what you do as much as possible, and that gives you the confidence to then go and keep doing it. Like, for example, I uh this is a bit of a plug, but I excuse it, is that I hosted a mastermind this time last year in Bali, and I was like two months into my offer, and like people were saying to me, Jack, they were like, What the fuck does this guy think he's doing? He's he's like two months into his offer and he's hosting a mastermind. 15 people came. One guy texted me saying he had gone to the big info space masterminds in Bali. All of the big guys and people listening will know who they are, all of the guys in Bali. And he said mine was by far the most valuable, and it was like a tenth of the price. And like when you get text messages like that, Jack, there's no way you can't sit there and just be like, Well, I'm I'm fucking good at what I do, like, because you hear that sort of thing.

SPEAKER_01 41:39

Yeah. Yeah, it's Alex Schmozy undeniable stack of proof that you are who you say you are.

SPEAKER_00 41:44

I was trying to avoid saying that's that that statement, but that's it. I was thinking about alternative ways of saying that, but yeah, exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 41:54

100%. I mean, he's it's so good. Did you watch the episode with him and Tony Robbins?

SPEAKER_00 41:59

Of course. What a game-changing video for me. Classic to say, but game-changing video for me.

SPEAKER_01 42:05

Yeah, so going forward, I think that's a good segue into your goals for the future because we see so many people whose goals are just in continue increasing the revenue, continue building, and we talked about it earlier. Not everybody's clear in what they want. You're clear on what you want. So, what's it look like going forward for you? What are you moving toward?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

So, of course, off the back of my Sydney and my Australian trip, having reflected on this year, as I told everyone that that has helped me a lot, I realized like about October, November last year, Jack. I was sat there and I was like, I've done 200k months, I've I don't need to work for a few years, I've proved people wrong, I can make money, all that sort of thing. And I was sat there like, what do I actually do now? Because my motivation, my push motivation to leave my job and do all those sort of things had had kind of gone because I'd I'd completed that part. And then I thought, what do I actually want to achieve? And then I realized that like I had some really cool experiences. I went to a great mastermind in Sydney at the end of last year. I took my time a little away and thought like what I really cared about. And I realized, and it sounds so cliche to say, but like I care so much about impact. Like it really lights me up from the people that I've worked with. Like I've I've helped people who would genuinely swear on their life that I've changed their life. And I'm like, I want to 100x the amount of people I can do that for because that is the human experience, is how much impact we can have. And I got that from the Tony Robinson's podcast, or it like reinforced the thing that I was thinking from the Tony Robinson podcast, is like I want to be impact first and to have a humongous vision about the amount of people I can impact with business advice and how to like use entrepreneurship to change their life. Because it changed my life, and I want as many people to have the same thing as well. So moving forward, like, of course, like I want personally the business to grow, but much more importantly, is about like just having an incredible impact. So we've set a goal of working with Ted. People to help build and scale their offers, entrepreneurial like businesses. And I want to work with 10,000 people to use entrepreneurship to change their life. Um, that is it sounds really virtue-signing, but like that's the thing that like lights me up in the morning. Just before this call, I was talking to my media squad, eight people, and I was doing a whiteboard session with them and helping them, and it's all to do with this mission. We've got like five full-time team members now, six freelancers, so a team of 12 people, and we're all pushing forward towards this goal that we believe in, which is helping people using entrepreneurship to change their life. And that is the thing that I believe in, and that is the thing that like makes me bounce around in the morning as opposed to looking at my clock every single uh every single second.

SPEAKER_01 44:41

Yeah, I see that. I love that so much, man. So this has been incredible. I I'm so I'm so excited for you with what you've built in just such a short amount of time. I think it's really inspirational for people to see that you can really change your life in a year. People say it all the time, but I don't think it's often that we see just what a transformation you can have in a year. A lot of people talk about oh, your growth, it will happen incrementally, you know? It just it'll it'll happen slowly, consistent action. Yes, consistent action, but there you can grow exponentially. You can have a huge leap. And I think you're real proof that that can happen. So I think it's so important that you keep do sharing your story and making this impact that you're making.

SPEAKER_00 45:27

I appreciate that, Jack. And yeah, if anyone's listening, I hope I'm I hope I'm proof that you can you can literally achieve what you want to. It's just about working out what it is and putting some hours into do it. So yeah, thank you very much for having me on, my friend.

SPEAKER_01 45:40

Thank you so much for tuning in to this episode of the Grateful Podcast and staying until the end. You're committed. I respect that about you. If this conversation meant something to you, subscribe to the show and share it with just one person who could benefit from hearing this today. Thank you so much. Stay grateful, stay hungry. I'm Jack Wagner. This has been the Grateful Podcast.