The Power Of Peers - Are You A Busy Fool?

In this episode, we explore one of the biggest traps facing entrepreneurs and business owners: being busy without making meaningful progress.

Why do some people achieve extraordinary results while others stay stuck despite working harder than ever?

The answer often comes down to the people around them.

I share how surrounding yourself with ambitious, supportive peers can challenge your thinking, accelerate your growth, and help you focus on what truly matters. We'll discuss the difference between activity and achievement, why accountability is a superpower, and how the right network can save you years of costly mistakes.

If you've ever ended a day exhausted but wondering what you actually accomplished, this episode is for you.

🎙️ Discover the power of peers.
🎙️ Learn how to escape the "busy fool" trap.
🎙️ Build a business—and life—with greater purpose and direction.

Because success is rarely a solo journey.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This week at EBN we've done a deep dive on one of our members' businesses, Rhea from Brandon Fun Adventures. And also, are you being a busy fool or are you being more strategic with your time? Hey everyone, Ahmed here, and welcome to Gibraltar's Entrepreneurs podcast. The home for your local dreamers, doers, and business builders who are shaping the future of our rock. Each week we'll share real stories, fresh ideas, and powerful conversations to help you grow your business, your mindset, and your network. Because here in Gibraltar, we don't compete, we collaborate. Let's build something great together. Welcome back to the podcast. Now we're going to start doing these deep dives every week or bi-weekly, is when we sit down with one business owner as a group, and for an hour, an hour and a half, we go through their business and we strategically plan and execute how we can grow their business. And we had the first of these sessions with Rhea from Random Fun Adventures this week, and she has, and I'm gonna tell you, I'm excited about the results that she's already produced. What it tends to be is number one, we were giving her these ideas on how to improve your website, the optimization of the website, maybe the marketing material needs to be changed, all of these types of things. The branding, what she does, first of all, let me take a step back. She does trips for people that want to see parts of Gibraltar or Spain or whatever, uh, Morocco, even internationally, that they want more adventure in their life, and she organizes these trips. Now, she's been doing this for many years now, but she wants to get into the corporate game, she wants to get into uh organizing corporate retreats and and trips for them. Now, how does she get in there? What most entrepreneurs have, myself included, is some limiting beliefs that these types of people are they're above me that I can't speak to them because they are wearing their shirts and ties or they're in their fancy offices, and it could be any example of that for you. There would be something that's holding you back, and you think you're not ready, you're not qualified, and it's a limiting belief. So once we started going through all like okay, we do this with the website, rebrand, all this kind of stuff. It actually turns out it's all to do with what's in your head, it's limiting beliefs to think that I'm not I'm not ready. I'm who am I to like walk into an office and and pitch these corporate executives? And everyone, and myself included, we we kind of get we talk ourselves out of it, but in reality, they're just human beings as well. And what Rhea offers, which is a fun, exciting, lively lifestyle, they is that's what people are looking for that are working in these corporate offices with their uh what they're on three, four monitors and they're just staring and typing away. And what Rhea offers, to be honest with you, majority of people will be wanting what her lifestyle, and you have to go in with that type of attitude, which is they want what I've got rather than I'm going in there like all over twisted, my hands like cupped, like please, sir, can I have a little bit of your budget? Like, please, like it's the opposite of that, and we in our businesses we all have this situation where we're the clients that we're we're getting, we could potentially get bigger clients, and as and it's no additional extra work for us, it's purely based on our mindset. And this is what the breakthrough was, to be honest with you. It's she already knew what she needed to do, but she was stopping herself from doing it. So once we we broke through that ice and got her to the stage where listen, you need to after this meeting go to this office, speak to this person. This is the office manager of this uh big fancy office with lots of gambling companies in their casinos, they've got plenty of money. Speak to them, and she done that, and later on that afternoon, she was posting her results saying, Look, this is their email, they said they're interested, they're looking for someone to do this. We're they're actively looking for it, but you just had to show your your face, and there you go. Huge breakthrough. Something she had been procrastinating, and we all procrastinate over things that we need to do in our business for months. We got that breakthrough for her, hugely beneficial, super excited for her. She put some audios in our WhatsApp group, really excited for her, and I want you to apply that to your business right now. What is it that you know you could be doing and you should be doing that's gonna grow your business, but for some reason you're just not doing it, you're talking yourself out of it. It's normally the hardest thing which is stopping you. It's a hard thing that in your head is hard. Put it this way: going to speak to an office manager is more difficult than sitting behind your laptop or your computer and sending out an email. You know yourself, if you showed up to the office, you're gonna get a better result than if you emailed 20 office managers because they're just not gonna see it, right? That's what's gonna grow your business, and I'm so glad to see Rio's results in such a short period of time within one afternoon, the results have been incredible. So I I urge you to do that to do that as well, and that's the benefit of coming to our in-person meetings to get out of your own head and into a community and a in a room with like-minded entrepreneurs who want you to win, genuinely want you to win. They're not there to compete with you. It's not like you've got your competitor on the other side of the table trying to sabotage your business saying, like, oh yeah, go do this, even though they don't they know that doesn't work because they tried it like two years ago. They know that doesn't work. The people around the table, there's no competition. That's one really important aspect of EBN. Only one professional or one category in the room at the time to make sure that we are giving you and we become all you your connections, we become your connections that there's no one else in the room that has the same expertise as you. You are the expert, and there's no conflict. That is such a powerful aspect of this community. EBN is the only networking group of its type here in Gibraltar which works on collaboration with no competition and no limits to how much we are willing to put into businesses and without any expectation of a return. Like after after we consulted Rhea, nobody's sending out consultation invoices to her, right? We're just pouring information and experience and viewpoints to her and into her business, and with the the hope that it was going to come around, which it always does, karma always comes around positively, and that we'll be doing it week on, week out with different business owners in our network as well. So I look forward to inviting you to our next meeting. Another big huge takeaway with me is I sat with uh one of our members during this meeting, and we spoke about how sometimes it seems like we're always short of time. Doesn't matter how much money you have or how successful you are, you're always short of time. Somebody who is worth millions and billions has no time, person who is almost job hunting, looking for a job, trying to make ends meet, seems like they've got no time as well. Everyone's struggling for time. But the this concept of are you being a busy fool? He told me this story where he had a restaurant, and let's I'm rounding up the numbers. Let's say he was making half a million pounds in a year, and when he came to look at his numbers at the end of the year, he realized everyone's making money, uh, suppliers making money, the employees are making money, landlords making money, the franchise is making money. Uh, it was a franchise restaurant, everyone's making money, but he's there's nothing left for him. Uh but yet he was busy all year, you know, missing out on holidays, stress, just being present at at work, just being there all year and making no money. Basically, just being busy but making no money, comparing that to an other types of investments that they had made in property, which let's say £2,000 a month gets paid into your bank from your from your tenant for basically not doing anything at like time-wise, not doing anything. Yes, you made some strategical movements and decisions earlier to set up this the property and everything, but on a day-to-day basis, not not much is of your time. And it brings back the concept: are you a busy fool? Are you just doing busy work or are you doing productive work? Which one is it that you are doing? Have a think about that because right now you'll be rushing off to do something, you'll be listening to something as you are preparing maybe food, you're leaving the house in the morning, you're on the commute, you'll be doing something on your way to somewhere in the hope of that being productive. And is it being productive or are you just being busy? So, this concept of being a busy fool really stuck with me, and I urge you to consider looking at your schedule. What is it that you're doing that is genuinely productive, moving your business forward, or are you just being a busy bee? Busy bee, um zapping all over the place, end of the day, you're exhausted. But you're like, Did I even do anything? Or even worse, you get to the end of the year and be like, Did I even make any money? Am I just a charity here and everyone's making money off me? So be very cautious about that. And congratulations again to Rhea, and I look forward to seeing you at our weekly next monthly events. Until then, have a monthly weekend and season. Thanks for tuning in to Gibraltar's Entrepreneurs Podcast. Remember, success isn't about growing it alone, it's about growing together. If you're ready to connect to Gibraltar's community and entrepreneurs, join us every Thursday morning and become part of the movement. And come next time, keep building, keep believing, and keep the next time.