What They Don't Tell You About Running a Company Will Shock You with Roy Coughlan

The entrepreneurial journey can be perilous when you don't understand the hidden traps within legal and financial systems. Roy, a seasoned entrepreneur who's founded over 20 companies, shares his harrowing story of building a multi-million real estate empire only to lose everything during an economic crash - not because of market forces alone, but because of critical knowledge gaps about legal structures and personal liability.

What makes this conversation exceptional is Roy's candid revelation of the systemic issues entrepreneurs face that business schools never address. From discovering that being a company president in Poland made him personally liable for all debts despite operating under what he thought was limited liability, to witnessing courtroom procedures that seemed designed to favor financial institutions over business owners. His experience facing over 100 court cases transformed him from a typical entrepreneur into someone deeply knowledgeable about legal rights and financial protection strategies.

The episode delivers practical wisdom about tax optimization that most accountants won't volunteer. Roy discovered numerous deductions and strategies by educating himself through books written by former tax authority employees, ultimately receiving tax rebates where others faced heavy bills. He warns against the common mistake of purchasing unnecessary items simply "because they're tax-deductible" while providing insights into legitimate deduction strategies like pro-rating utilities for home offices.

Perhaps the most powerful takeaway concerns the significance of signatures on legal documents. As Roy emphasizes, "Your signature is the most powerful thing you own," explaining how nothing legally binding can happen without it. This simple awareness has helped him avoid numerous legal and financial traps throughout his business career. Whether you're just starting your entrepreneurial journey or managing an established company, these insights could save you from devastating financial consequences that can emerge when economic conditions change or legal challenges arise.

Sponsored by Nico Van de Venne CommV

Chapters

• 0:00 The Power of Focusing on What's Real
• 1:37 Roy's Business Journey and Financial Collapse
• 6:20 Legal Battles and Court System Corruption
• 11:30 Financial Structures and Tax Optimization
• 22:14 Company Tax Deductions and Common Mistakes
• 32:26 The Importance of Your Signature

Transcript

Nico: 0:00

Two doors down, exactly the same thing is happening. That neighbor is thinking about the other neighbor thinking my front yard is not clean. And that's what people do. They think about what's going on, what other people are thinking about them. If you stop doing that, your life becomes a lot more easier because you're focused on what's real and what's really yours, and you can do that.

Nico: 0:37

Let me invite you to sit back, drop your jaw, tongue and shoulders, take a deep breath and, if you wish, close your eyes for a moment and feel the beat within In a few seconds. You just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within In a few seconds. You just jumped from your head to your heart and felt the beat within opening up to receive even more value and fulfillment out of your business and life. And today's episode I'm your host, nico van de Venne. Confidant, successful CEOs, founders and entrepreneurs striving to achieve everlasting fulfillment fulfillment. Before we dive into the episode today, I would like to have you give me a five-star review and send this episode to anybody that you know who might be interested. This is how we spread our word and this is the core of this podcast to make aware that this thing is a real thing called CEO disease and founder syndrome.

Nico: 1:27

But for today's episode, I would like to welcome Roy to the podcast. Hi Roy, how are you doing today? I'm very well.

Roy: 1:34

Thank you very much, Nico, for having me.

Nico: 1:36

Yeah, I'm happy to have you. We are in the same time zone, which is, for me, sometimes an exception to have somebody in the same time zone.

Roy: 1:44

You're inand at this moment I am, indeed I'm in a place called which, which is right in the center, but I'm originally from cork in ireland so that's?

Nico: 1:53

uh. Well, that's just one time zone difference, isn't it exactly an hour difference? Yeah, so have you ever heard of co disease or founder syndrome?

Roy: 2:04

No, I have not.

Nico: 2:05

Okay, what do you think it would be if we talk about those two keywords CEO and founder? What would you think would fill in the gaps on that level?

Roy: 2:16

Well, I mean chief executive officer, founder syndrome, I don't know no-transcript things yeah, I've had a lot of companies. I've had about 20 companies, but also in ireland I was kind of working for a mechanical contractor running a lot of kind of multi-million pound jobs and about I don't know 200 people, but that would include trades people that would be kind of working under the projects. I was one day yeah, yeah.

Nico: 3:15

So what's, what's your experience? Let's say, if we talk about having a company and and letting go of the baby, is that something that you've experienced?

Roy: 3:24

I was more. I I experienced more losing the baby.

Nico: 3:28

Oh, that's very kind.

Roy: 3:30

Yeah, so I basically that's how I got the fund. I was doing real estate and originally it was kind of. Basically I saw an opportunity that the properties were cheap, so then I started kind of selling properties to Irish investors and then it turned out to be Irish, english and American investors. And it started kind of selling properties to irish investors and then it turned out to be irish, english and american investors and it just kind of grew. But people then would say, oh, we need it renovated, I can do that, you know. We need to fit it out yeah, we can do that. We need it managed yeah, I can do that. And it turned out.

Roy: 3:59

I think I had about 14 people on my books that would include some security people on a commercial property as well, and things were going well. I had released equity in my Irish properties. So we bought a commercial property. We bought a site, we were building 30 apartments, we were building houses and a lot of different projects tenement buildings and I was doing very well and I was the small boy in the syndicates because a lot of the people in Ireland.

Roy: 4:21

They were worth 10 million, 20 million and when the crash came it took a while to come across. They started kind of getting in trouble and I thought I didn't think it was going to be a white boat. I thought, ah, this is like a hiccup, because sometimes things like that happen. So I started putting more money into a commercial. I put like 150 grand into the commercial. I said, look, I'll cover, because we got an 80% loan on that one. I said, look, I'll cover, I'll cover this and if you can't pay me, I'll just increase my share. I'll charge 10% interest, you know, yearly. So I wasn't being nasty. I appreciated that they had put trust in me and they didn't get it right and eventually I kind of went Ooh, I'm getting in trouble and went to the bank. So I said I need interest only I can split the site and everything. And they basically they just went for me once things started. But once they started running out of money and usually with a limited liability company, you go lessons learned, let's move on.

Roy: 5:15

In poland my solicitors and accountants didn't tell me when you're the president of the company, you're personally liable.

Roy: 5:20

So instead of making because I was after making about a million prior to that, I was looking, with all the projects I was doing, to be going to five million and in my head I was planning to do massive developments and I was like going, oh, this is, this is where I'm going. So I because I had a lot of different companies, I was personally label for all of them and then through that saw so much corruption with bailiffs, with with banks, with courts, and then that kind of became my passion to start kind of exposing this. I eventually cleared the decks it wasn't easy, but done it and then kind of that was my mission then for kind of you know, fighting the bad boys, I'd say. And then I learned kind of law, because I had over 100 court cases and I started learning sovereignty, common law, reading a lot of books on that and kind of understanding the power that we have, instead of kind of sitting next to a solicitor thinking they've got my best interests at heart and they don't.

Nico: 6:21

Oh, that's bad news for a lot of us. I would think If we hear these things, everybody thinks know, I've got a company, yeah, I'm certainly liable for some parts, but not for everything. But then comes down to you know, when the the hit, the shit hits the fan, it's. It all comes out to to reality. And so is this specifically to poland, or is it? Is it more or less? It happened in ire.

Roy: 6:45

Ireland as well. So I lost my three properties in Ireland, including all my personal belongings and everything. So I was in the high court in Ireland and I just saw so much fraud. So, for example, there was one person it's kind of strange Like you don't have the plaintiff, defendant, solicitor side, it's like a room with one judge and it could be 150. And they're usually barristers who are the high end boys and they charge a lot and most people didn't even turn up. So the judge was like rule in favor of the bank, plus interest, plus penalties, and one person had a representative and they said we were overcharged. We got KPMG to check the interest. We were overcharged 15,000 euro. 15,000 euro. When was that? Two years ago? Oh, you should have took it up with them then Banked Rule in favor, yeah, and everything I had because I did.

Roy: 7:28

When they came after me they sent an affidavit. I didn't even know what an affidavit is, so, for those that might know, sworn statement and it was like their bank's sworn statement. So then I returned my one and I had 43 points and I had them on so many things abroad. Like they had 20 signatures that were all different people but it was the exact same signature. Yeah, and then I had also. There was what happened is I had a property that was worth €400,000 and then when the crash happened, it dropped to €125,000, which shouldn't really happen. And eventually, kind of as I was fighting through this, it came up a little bit. So I had an offer of € 200,000. I had a 220 mortgage and I said to them full and final settlement and they wouldn't accept it and they sold it for less and then came after me for the excess.

Roy: 8:12

And it was just true that eight times I was in court they could never answer my affidavit Because there was a billionaire, dennis O'Brien. He got a 300 million write-off and I had that in my affidavit. I said how come you can do this to him, who doesn't really need it, and me, who's been wiped out, does, and there was a load of different points. They could never answer it and in the end I lost. The seventh time I was in court, the judge was on my side. There's a different judge each time, which is strange. He's just picking up a file and your life is on the line because you're, like, financially liable for the rest of your life for this. Yeah, and it's up to you to fight. I was representing myself because I basically was empty, so I couldn't hire somebody, and I think it kind of helped me in a way because I was seeing nobody getting any win. And this judge said why haven't you returned to his affidavit? You have to reply to the affidavit, because that's my sworn statement saying this is so. It meant it was true because they couldn't respond. And he said there'll be serious consequences if you don't do this within three weeks. And he offered me 1400 euro for my travel expenses, because I was coming from poland to ireland and it was in dublin. So then my parents, my family, are in carp, so I'd have to go to carp, then go back up to dublin. And I was thinking this is done, this is going to be sorted.

Roy: 9:23

Different judge, the next thing, and it was just a horrible experience. He started off. He goes oh, this is going to take too long, this is. I start like I'm there about 9, tomorrow, I think, maybe 9.30, 10. It starts and like the way it works. He started reading. He goes no, it's going to take too long if I left the room and and they call out my case, oh, he's not here. Rule of favor to bank plus thing. It's like it's just a strange setup. So then after dinner he'd done the same thing and he's like, no, it's going to take later.

Roy: 9:49

So it was nearly six o'clock and I had to be there to hold it. But I'm listening to all the cases but it's tiring, like because you're, you know here, and in the end the barrister starts talking first and all the different things and I'm like, okay, this is good. And when I go to talk he shuts me up and I'm like he wouldn't listen to me. I heard that kind of thing and somebody stood up and said, hey, you're not letting him answer. He says are you related to him? He says, no, get out of the room if you want. And I was like, so in the end I lost.

Roy: 10:22

But then he went to go for interest and penalty, which would have been a lot because I would have been paying for the barrister's costs, which after eight cases could have been 200 grand, and it was 65 grand was the actual original amount.

Roy: 10:35

And I said I've been fighting this for a few years and they've never came back on my affidavit and answered it. He goes fair enough, all right. So no interest, no penalties, and it was the only answer. So then I said I want to go to the EU about this. But I found out that you have to rebut it, you have to go back to court to try to do it again. And what happens in some countries is when you do that it stays at the 65 grand, but in Ireland it doesn't and it opens it up again. So it would have been maybe 300 grand plus or 300, 400 grand. I said this is fraud. It'd be different if you knew that you were getting a fair try. I was like I'm not going in here so, and it was basically my mission then to kind of expose all this and I've seen it happen all over the world.

Nico: 11:22

Yeah, yes. So is this what you're doing daily now, or is it something that you've you know?

Roy: 11:27

Well, it's more my podcast, because I've got like six podcasts and one of them is kind of called the Awakening, so that's exposing fraud and corruption, but with solutions. So I get a lot of people coming on talking about common law and sovereignty, the power of the signature, and it's just kind of going with GDPR and stuff like that. When they're passing your data, they're not allowed to do that. And when you know you're right because everything that they're doing is fraudulent. And this kind of comes into an entrepreneur as well, because even if they have a warrant or what, a lot of the time they don't and it's just a digital thing and it's not signed. You need a waiting signature by a judge and when you know your rights, they just walk away.

Roy: 12:01

But most people don't. They just kind of think, oh, I know better, and it's like no one will protect you. Look, I've had a load of different solicitors over the years, load of accountants and everything. And that's what happens to a lot of entrepreneurs. They just kind of go he's got my best interest at heart. They have in your pocket. Very few actually care about you. So the most important thing is for you to care not just legal but also accounting wise. I can touch on a few things on accounting that I've kind of done over the years. That helped me.

Nico: 12:30

Uh-huh. Well, I recently was reading, well, listening to, an audio book about one of the subjects that indeed was related to the legal parts to people who supposedly support you, and it was about setting up the fees, for instance. You know, there's a lot of legal people just kind of generalize legal people work by the hour and one of the points was that he said, you know, you always need to ask for a fixed price, a solution price. You know, no pay, no gain, no solution, no, what's it called? Again, I'm missing it. Yeah, yeah, no win, no fee, yeah, something like that. And I was like, wow, is this the reality that we live in? You know, it was kind of a reminder for me, indeed, and I had a small issue.

Nico: 13:18

You know, I had a tire that was popped by, driving through one of those potholes in a street in one of the cities here locally, and the amount of time that was spent on contacting the insurance company and coming back and then, and then suddenly, you know, with another party of course it's another insurance company, this ping pong going on of you know, when are you going to pay for this? And and in the end I spent half a day waiting on, you know the tow truck and stuff like that. So you know, this is, this is economical damage. I need, I need to be compensated for my half a day. Oh yes, prove it to us. I'm like, prove it to us. You know, I have a contract with my customer, but this is legally bound as being confidential. You know, I work in a nuclear power plant. Not everybody needs to know exactly what I need to do there and it's in the contract. So it's like we have to go to court. And he's like I'm like well, hold on, you're telling me I need to go to court for a freaking tire that's blown. It's like 250 euros for a tire and with the repairs, and then I think it was a thousand euros or something for my half a day or a couple of hours that I put in. I was like a court is going to cost you like 10x. And he said, well, we're probably going to win anyway. I'm like what? What's this? And I just, you know what? Just pay for the tire. And let's stop the discussion here. And they paid for the tire and that was it. You don't have any, any leverage, any power, uh, to to go forward and say you know, you know, you need to give me this money because I lost it.

Nico: 14:50

It's indeed, it's one of those small things, but it triggers the idea of what kind of system do we live in? And I understand what you mean by the financial part as well. I've noticed so many things myself that I'm like if you start a business or if you're running a business for a while, things start to pop up and say where does this come from and where does that come from? And here in Belgium there's a company that has made um their business based on creating an official document. It looks like an official document.

Nico: 15:25

It really, you know, it's kind of the vibe of an official legal document and it's just a subscription to it to a networking group. And if you look at it, it's like it's just a subscription to it to a networking group. And if you look at it's like it's mentioning that you're you're late on your fee and it's it's really marketing wise. It's an amazing thing. And there's so many entrepreneurs who just get you know, they pay it and they, they join this networking group and everybody within that networking group says this is wrong. We never signed up for anything like this. We thought it was like you know how you pay taxes for the, the amount of square meters that your office is and stuff like that. And it's just amazing that nobody triggers because they were trying, but nobody triggered the whole thing to say stop doing this, stop sending these letters. I I don't know if you have any other financial things that you want to mention, but it's amazing.

Roy: 16:11

On the insurance. I've had a lot of cases with insurance and what? What scares me is they now can use AI to find every single reason why not to pay you. They'll take your money Gladly, they'll increase the premiums and it's I mean. I've had cases even when we were doing real estate. There was a leak from the above and you wouldn't buy the pain for the amount of the ASS that we get back. I had an injury. I took my son last year Was it last year or the year before? To Turkey and I was just playing football with him. I snapped. It's like the groin area and it doesn't return to itself, and the next day I fell down the stairs and I ripped the hole there inside, yeah, and so I was getting the medical center. It's still not fixed, but I should have got the insurance to cover all my costs. They wouldn't pay it and I'm not giving up I had.

Roy: 17:05

Last year I went to Spain with my son. We were touring Spain. Second day we were outside the Valencia Stadium during the day in a place that was like with all expensive cars. I thought this is right, broke into the boot, took everything, passports, all our travel, the whole lot. So we lost the whole lot and the insurance wouldn't cover it. I mean, that's 100% a legal case of theft. They wouldn't cover it, you know, and I I've seen so many people telling me of the insurance claims.

Roy: 17:33

So maybe use ai on your side as well to say how can I word this better? But don't ever give up, because that's what they do usually, like with you. I've had situations here as well tires bust, the steering column destroyed because of the potholes and what they do. They just push you, push away, and it's a case of like I know, you have to look at your plane, that's, that's this. You have to choose your battles, yeah, but what I mean? Maybe use the ai on our side as well. Hey, this is exactly the details. Give me the work, because even if you're creating a letter like sometimes when you're doing ai, you go, has no good or you get like I see it lying and everything. But when you feed it good information and you ask it to structure it, it can be brilliant. It can do it 10 times better than I personally could do. So that's my plan now for the ones I'm doing Just keep your own to it, but you don't give it up.

Roy: 18:23

On the financial side, say the accountants and things like that. When I was doing property, I had an irish company in polish. I had a load of different companies 20 companies in there, but I I, they were auditors as well, the irish accountants and they told me uh, you have a tax bill of this amount and I bought a book called tax magic. It was written by a guy that worked for the revenue and I went through it from page to page and highlighted everything that I thought would be good and I said can I, can I do this, this, this, this? Yes, I got a tax rebate and I kind of learned from that. You think that they have your best interest at heart. And the same in Poland I changed so many times. It's like they're just choking through, they're not really looking after. So that's why you have to read books yourself or go on to Bladfra or go on and find out details.

Roy: 19:10

What exactly can I deduct? What can I? What's the best optimization I can do? Because a lot of people they just kind of some people. They give them the shoebox and stuff. They don't even organize themselves but plan to pay as little as possible. And even on the setup, when you're setting it up, structure that at the start, because sometimes people they say they make a company they don't realize how successful it can be and then they start trying to look at ways of not paying tax and it's better to think at the start what's the best way to be doing this so that I pay. You know, we call it uncle sam in america.

Nico: 19:41

Pay as little as possible yeah, yeah, well, indeed, it's like you know it's. It's the whole story of the shell companies and and and all these other ways of you getting a little company that runs all the other things. And then you know the whole structure that you start building is is is kind of crazy. In essence, what I found is you have to put a lot of money in some of these things to get even more out of them. And you know, when I started as an entrepreneur, I was like you know, I was an independent. Just, you know, no LLC, what you said, lower limited, something like that.

Nico: 20:20

Now I do, I have my own story and it's like the first couple of I think it was a couple of months because it was COVID. So I really jumped into COVID with my company and we had a lot of government support and I was lucky that I was in a certain branch so I could get support. You know, my company, I didn't have any customers. I just I mean, get enough out of it and then open it again, and it was like every four weeks if I spent one week on my agenda, my schedule, saying that I was open, I would get a full support. But of course, what you do, and I'm telling you secrets here people, you schedule those customers in that one week, but personally you tell them you know you come that date and that date and that date, but you don't put it in your schedule. And it's kind of crazy that you have to do these things to get support from the so-called government who wants to, you know, push the economy forward. And I was like last last couple of months we've seen our government that's kind of changing pace, where they they support, uh, entrepreneurs more and they're really, they really are supporting entrepreneurs more. But the thing is the employees are paying for it and I'm like, come on, guys, this is just, you know, if one gets the, the, the heavy load, the other one you know it's it's kind of the balance is out. There's no balance at all. Somebody's always suffering and and I'm like, okay, how can I fix this for myself?

Nico: 22:04

And then I started looking at, you know, other countries like yourself, you know, in poland, you used to be in ireland, so I so I looked at Qatar and all those wonderful places that you can see online, that they, you know, tell you where you can go to specialize your finances. But I still see so much stuff going on there as well that are just not legal. You know, if you would go down to the letter, it's not legal. And I started talking to a couple of entrepreneurs and they said you know, follow the money. Well, that's an old, that's something very old, where you start researching stuff and then, you know, follow the money. The guys that have the money learn from them, read their books, read their podcasts or listen to their podcasts or look at their videos and so on. They will tell you and not literally, but they will tell you how to do it.

Nico: 22:52

And I'm doing this more and more and I found ways that are completely legal in in our company or in our country or in the eu, that you would like what, how is this even possible? Uh, that that and as an, as an employee or or just you know somebody who goes to the job nine to five does this great thing and it comes home again, has their nice face check at the end of the month. They are sucked dry. They don't even realize it.

Nico: 23:21

When you come become an entrepreneur, you have so many more options to do with your finances and I'm trying to explain this to a few people that work with me on a project and then no, no, it's much easier to get that paycheck at the end of the month and I'll see when I get my pension how much it's going to be. This is not the way to live. You want to enjoy life a little bit more than just the 9 to 5 and doing things that you don't really like because you're just getting paid for them, things that you don't really like because you're just getting paid for them. But so when we talk about companies and you mentioned that, you know 20 is quite an amount. What triggered?

Roy: 24:07

you to go from zero to 20 and keep going. It was always just kind of moving on to the next thing. So, for example, when I was working in Ireland with the mechanical contractor, I set up a web design company with another guy. You know just ran its course Then, because you know it was just people were able to do it cheaper and we just kind of dropped the boat. And in Poland I had a few companies, and so you talk about how corruption and stuff like that.

Roy: 24:28

So at one stage I was doing, you know, I was building the 30 apartments and we had a tax bill of. It was about, I think I don't know, the 50 or 100 grand. It was a lot of anyway and they have up to six months to give you the money back for the fat. So when you get it an invoice, I have to pay the fat straight away, even though you didn't pay me, and it like that's insane. So like you get a cash flow, so we were owed a lot of money and they have up to six months to give you the money back. They wait till the last day. And one time we had a cash flow issue where we were three weeks short and they emptied the company. They went in and just came in and they were going to take the computers in the office and you're like what? So it's like everything is just and like the corporation tax and everything there. So I pulled out all of the companies out of Poland.

Roy: 25:12

Poland isn't good for that Like. So I nived the Estonian, so there's no corporation tax there. You can leave your money there, you don't pay the tax, and when you take it out, then take it as a dividend so you can do things a lot better. Regarding kind of I know people do the offshore stuff so they dip the. I'm not doing it myself, but I know some of the stuff and what you do is you have your then business card and you're living on your business card and it's cast as a business expense, so it's totally legal. All the big boys are doing these kinds of things and there's stuff to putting things in trusts, you know, so that they don't have access to take things. Because I learned about that because when they took everything, you're going yeah, you sold my properties. You didn, it was going to auction or while we were selling for anything, and then they pretended they put it into all the properties into one bag, which they're not allowed to do. I mean, I wish I knew then what I know now, because there's no way they would have touched it. Yeah, yeah, that's the thing, isn't it?

Roy: 26:04

The pension, actually, this is one, because In Ireland I never paid into a pension, but I got contributions, so they paid into my pension. So I had a bond in a pension. It wasn't big bucks, it was either 54 grand or something like that. And there was another one, 17 grand. But when I got it I cashed one in one year. It was 17 grand, and then the other one the next year. So when you hit 50, you can do that, so you can claim your thing. So I'm do that like so you can claim your king. So I'm 52 now, I'd be 53 this year, and so I did it. Once I hit 50, I said I don't trust them. Every year they're saying, hey, this goes up eight percent, it'll be worth this. By the time you're 65 or I don't know, probably 70 in some countries now it tends to be kind of sliding up, I thought, grand, I'd get this.

Roy: 26:46

Uh, yeah, you get your 25 tax free, but they're taxed% the rest. And they've done the same with the pension the next year. And you're going hey, that's a lot of money you're kind of taking there, but through my knowledge I got every penny back. So a lot of people will just go ah, this is how it is. So what I say is learn and look at everything and don't just think because they say, hey, this is ours, you know. Don't just think because they say, hey, this is ours, you know. Don't do and what I? Another thing I see a lot of people making a mistake. When they have a company, oh, but it's tax deductible, it's tax deductible and they're buying stupid crap because they think it's tax deductible. And then that's your money.

Roy: 27:25

Better to not be spending it and keeping it for what you need yes they're buying stuff because it's tax deductible and a lot of people make that mistake.

Nico: 27:33

Yeah. And the thing is then they come and look at it and they say this doesn't apply, this doesn't apply, this doesn't apply. And then you lost it anyway. You bought stuff that's yeah, you don't even need it. I've been focusing on a couple of things myself. You know what gives me extra knowledge. You know knowledge. They cannot take that away from you. You know finances, buildings, cars, whatever. They can take that away from you. The second thing is what can they take away from me? That does not hurt me.

Nico: 28:02

I bought my car. It's 100% of my company. So if my company needs extra cash flow, I just sell the car. That's like a spare thing. Of course, a car diminishes in in amount of value and so on. So you kind of calculate that and it's like when is it going to be valuable? I bought a motorcycle on the company, that that thing. If that's lost, okay, that's too bad. If they have to sell it, that's too bad. You know it's my fun thing, but all the rest of the stuff that I buy is either to move the the needle forward to finding more customers to continuously build my company and everything else I do not even buy. You know I don't buy luxury cars and things like that, it's it's not worth it. You know they come and get it anyway if you're really, you know, exaggerating on these things and and then sometimes you just go and you know, and you know, go out for lunch or stuff like that and with customers and so on, and you can actually, you know, clearly put down names and so on, just do that. But all the rest of the stuff I stay away from it. It's just there's too many risks there that they can find anything to, you know, to bug you, because that's the basic thing that they're doing.

Nico: 29:09

I had one guy here, um, an official, uh, federal person coming to my door who was coming to do check up on my company you know not the finances specifically, but he was from the financial thing and, um, he came in and he looked around and he was seeing like it was in my living room, because my office in is in the garden, um, and he's like, are you deducting all of this? And I'm like, no, this is my house, it's nothing to do with my company. Ah, so where's your company? I looked at a paper and I'm like you have X amount of squares here. What is that? My attic. That's part of my office. That's where I meet my clients, that's where I, you know, do my my, my sessions, and my office is in the garden. I just renovated it.

Nico: 29:51

And we went to the office in the back and I was like, okay, this is all office. That was one thing that he needed to know. If it looks like a company, if it doesn't look like a company, you're you know, you're messing with the whole thing I'm like, no, so we went up to the attic and there's two chairs there's, there's, there's nothing else there. There, there's, there's, there's, there's nothing else there, there's not. You know, there's a screen there, of course, because I need to do presentations, stuff like that, and yeah, it looks like an official thing, okay. And he scribbled something on paper and I was it's been three years never heard of anything. And I'm like, okay, I didn't exaggerate, I didn't go all out on all these things.

Nico: 30:33

And then I heard another guy who spent so much money on all these gadgets and things and so on and he's like, yeah, I got everything. You know, I can explain everything. Same kind of thing happened to him and about I think it was 25 of everything that he bought just got wiped out of his of his financial system and I'm like you don't have anything anymore. There it's it. He has to pay it for himself because it goes on to his credit. It's a bank account that you have to. You know a virtual bank account where you, as private, need to pay back your company because you bought stuff. That company bought stuff that's actually private. You're really messed up. It's a big amount of money because, course, he bought the best stuff. I'm like you know it's not worth it. You know, keep, keep it down low, keep it real, and in the end, what, what puts, what you get put in here is a lot more valuable than you know, all the toys and shows and so on for the rest of the world to see.

Nico: 31:30

That's one thing that I've learned from one of my mentors. He said you know, outside I always love the story where this person there's a neighbor in your neighborhood who's looking at his front yard and he's looking at it and there's, you know, all these kind of plants there that are. You don't want that in your yard, you want a nice, clean yard. And he's like oh, what are my neighbors gonna think about my front yard? I need to do something about it. And blah, blah, blah. He's going on in his head about the neighbors thinking about his front yard. Two doors down, exactly the same thing is happening. That neighbor is thinking about the other neighbors thinking my front yard is not clean. And that's what people do they think about. What's going on? What other people are thinking about them? If you stop doing that, your life becomes a lot more easier, because you're focused on what's real and what's really yours and what you can do with that. So just a little sidetrack there.

Roy: 32:23

No, no, and even just on what you said there, because some people aren't aware as well, you can pro-rata kind of like your electricity, gas and everything because they're used for the business. So people, most people, don't do that. I mean it mightn't be used, but the way energy costs have gone through the roof. Regarding an audit, when I had the building company that done the 30 apartments, they came into the office to do an audit. Two people came in for three weeks sitting in our office.

Roy: 32:47

We didn't have that many invoices because we had like a project manager, a builder, maybe 15 invoices. It was like because I kept it tight that it wasn't like you know a million things. So basically the builder would have been buying the different things based on the spec we were giving them and everything, and we'd have the architect two weeks or three weeks. They were there and I was like and then they come along, document the girl that was working for me that I had as the pp, like she's, go ahead, write it out, tell me, sign it, but date, backdated, and they saw us don't know and handed to them and they were like happy and I was like this is so crazy, like they're just like how they coach that amount of people in the office. You know so, like everything, is just a waste of resources.

Roy: 33:30

And I mean like I've dealt with cities and everything and they're just nasty. And it's what I would say to a lot of people is they tend to buckle and give them the power. Don't ever do that. I have given the power and just the one thing I would say that you learn in life and it's the most powerful thing is the signature, Because every time they're trying to catch you, they'll hand you a document. Just sign that there, and most people just sign it. They can't do nothing unless you sign it. I've had that. I've had a criminal case even against me, and they came after me for rubbish. For like three years or eight years they were coming after me for it and it was like about eight grand Dollars. Why you say let's about eight grand dollars?

Roy: 34:09

why you say let's say a euro yeah, I was like I didn't use that. We had an alcohol shop that had a, because basically people had left. So we'd down the street because we were going to renovate the whole building. I said we didn't use, it, doesn't matter. And they had, like good cop, bad cop, one really aggressive towards me and they were like they kept getting me to sign it, walked out and they were sending letters. So then I was using the knowledge that I had, writing back to him saying show me the contract, show me the invoices, show me all the stuff. They couldn't.

Roy: 34:35

Yeah, and then they go for the individual and then they just change about 10 different people that they changed. In the end they kind of they brought it was 28 000, a lot is they brought it down to something like 4 000 and they just made a decision themselves which I didn't agree to and so it just shows like that. So if I don't know anything, they just take that and they're plus interest, plus penalties. So everything they're doing is like that. So anytime they're handing you a piece of paper and say, sign that, be very careful. And your solicitor might say sign that. I've got into trouble from solicitors telling me sign things and now I trust myself, so I what I would say is your signature is very important yeah yeah, I've heard that one before as well, yeah.

Nico: 35:16

So, roy, thank you very much for your, for your, for your inspiration, because I think a lot of stuff that came out of our conversation is going to inspire a couple of people. Um, you told about, you said us about about your podcasts. There was probably a lot more information there. Is there anything else that people need to know from you that they can find when they contact you?

Roy: 35:37

I mean I've got one on meditation as well because I think to make change in the world, to just get calm. That's because some people are going through a lot of stress and everything. I would recommend breath work. I've got a lot of breath works and everything loads. And some places people say I don't have time to meditate. I've got from one minute to two hours. I've got healing meditations and everything. And I've got a crypto one. So you find everything on ryconcom. They're all about kind of making the world a better place. Everything that I'm doing is trying to kind of improve. I've even got a podcast. The podfather one is for podcasters to kind of stay in the game, because we don't want to be watching like c BBC and things like that. They regurgitate lies. So I'm trying to keep the podcasters in the game, ones like yours where we're sharing good knowledge. I mean your other guests as well. That's what they need to be hearing. You're not going to hear that on these mainstream televisions. No, no, no.

Nico: 36:21

That's true, that's very true. So where can people find you?

Roy: 36:26

The best way is my name RoyColincom and or if they're looking for a virtual assistant, I've also do that. I've got a company with that, VAWorld, Okay, Well, there you go.

Nico: 36:36

Great. So thank you so much, roy. It's been very inspiring, different than the usual episodes. I must say you know very deep. It's wonderful to have that. And to the listeners, thanks again for listening to the podcast and remember you know, share this. I think this episode is really one that you need to share with a lot more people than one that you think oh, um. So thank you very much and have a good one.