Defining Your Own Success in a World Full of Self-Appointed Experts - w/ Mike Winnet (Worlds #1 Demotivational Coach)

[00:00:00] have you ever stopped to wonder, are you chasing your dreams or someone else's sales pitch? We are what we consume, and it's natural to want to improve something in your life, but it's a dangerous world out there online and it's full of algorithms and individuals set up to prey on our insecurities.

After all, any advert is basically there to make you feel that your life isn't complete without their own product.

So in today's world where our feeds are full of gurus, influencers, and so-called entrepreneurs.

What we often don't realize is that these influencers are their own product and they are selling you something.

For following them. They might promise the secret part to success. Luxury cars, exotic holidays, claims of six figures and six weeks, et cetera. But behind these filters, in bold slogans, how much of this is real inspiration and how much of it is simply a scam designed to make them rich and leave us frustrated or worse, feeling like a complete failure.

So. Hello and [00:01:00] welcome to the Growth Mindset Psychology Podcast where we explore the science of self-improvement and the philosophy of a life well lived. I am your host, Sam Webster Harris, and today we are asking if the content we consume is making us unhappy and greedy for an aspirational life that is not only unobtainable, but isn't even real.

This episode will be about cutting through the noise, and I sat down with Mike Winnet, who calls himself a UK's number one demotivational speaker. He has built a reputation for exposing what he calls entrepreneurs. Those are people who profit by selling false hopes and empty shortcuts. But this isn't just about calling out fake gurus online.

It's also about asking deeper questions ourselves, such as what do we really want from life? And how do we measure our own success? And how can we tell the difference between useful advice that helps us grow and toxic misinformation that keeps us stuck and feeling terrible.

By way of warning, I will say that Mike does start with a bit of a hard extra [00:02:00] demotivation, but as we get into the interview, his views are actually very nuanced and worth listening to, and for me, actually quite inspiring. So yes, don't worry if you feel a little bit like, he's some depressed dude who thinks everything is pointless.

Um. That's just how he comes across in the first few minutes. And he, he isn't like that. Uh, in fact, this conversation will make you think twice about the content you consume, the goals you set, and the metrics you live by. So, if you have ever felt overloaded by self-help slogans and business hacks or hustle culture, I think you will enjoy this episode.

And perhaps be challenged by it. So stay tuned.

Introduction to Mike Winnet: The UK's Number One Demotivational Speaker

Can you tell me about Mike Winnet and what it is you're trying to achieve?

Yeah, so Mike Winnet is the UK's number one Demotivational speaker. So I basically go around and tell people that have got their dreams and capabilities completely mixed up that they shouldn't quit the nine to five rat race.

They shouldn't go out and you know, have a side hustle and they shouldn't. Go chasing that elusive [00:03:00] dream of being an entrepreneur and living life on your terms because the chance of you making it is so small. There's no point in trying. 'cause it's unhealthy. It can be a long, hard battle and I don't think everyone's cut out for it.

The Harsh Realities of Entrepreneurship

It's, um, being glamorized recently, you know, like everyone wanted to be a rock star in the eighties and everyone wanted to be film star in the nineties. And it seems like entrepreneurs are having their day now. Everyone wants to be an entrepreneur because it seems cool. Mm-hmm. But it's not cool.

Okay. So kind of the opposite of the growth mindset where I'm like, you can do what the hell you want with your life.

Anything's possible.

Well, yeah. I would call it shrink mindset. That's what I'm trying to get out. Yeah. Is just be happy with, you know, having a job roof over your head, putting food on the table and paying the bills. Cool. More people need to accept being average and mediocrity.

Mm. Yeah. I think there's some really good points in there in that.

If you can accept what you've got and be happy with it, then that's super awesome and you're gonna be like a happy person for the rest of your life, which is perhaps better than trying to be an entrepreneur. And whether you make it or not, you might never actually be happy because you're seeking the wrong things.

Yeah. [00:04:00] What, what are they

chasing? That's what I don't get. What are they chasing?

The Illusion of Social Media Success

It seems like a lot of them are aimlessly going around chasing likes.

Mm. You know, in

search of the meaning of like, rather than the meaning of life. Like what are you actually doing?

So I think it's really important to define your metrics of success and focus on like sanity metrics rather than vanity metrics.

So as in, sure, you might have a turnover of 10 million, but perhaps you're not making profit, or perhaps you're like stuck in the office all day every day. It's better to sort of be making, like I say,

that you've got a 10 million turnover and you're making 50,000 pounds profit. Yeah. You might as well just go and work in the sea.

Exactly. Without having the stress and now having people saying that they can't work today. People going on maternity leave, all these things that stress out business owners. Yeah. Sick Christmas parties go and sits up all these things that go wrong. You might sort of

remove all

the stress, all the pressure.

Yeah. If you think of it like either way you're making 50 grand a year, but if you're the entrepreneur, you're working like all the hours of your life. As opposed to if you're just working at nine to five, you finish it five o'clock and you go home and you just enjoy your spare time.

Well, this is it. Who Glamorizes that?[00:05:00]

The 90 Hour Work Weeks. The hundred Hour Work Week. I'll give you um, a real good example. Now. There's a book, it's called The One Minute Millionaire. Do you know this book? No. Yeah, so I think it sold 130 million copies. I mean, Jesus. Now, of course, that book sold so many copies because if someone released a book that had the same message inside it, that was called a hundred Hour Work Week, which one do you think these entrepreneurs or entrepreneurs are gonna buy?

Everyone wants a shortcut to success.

Yeah, definitely.

So when you are seeing someone on Instagram with Elise Lamborghini with a photograph in front of a stately home where they're probably staying there for the weekend 'cause they booked the holiday there from Groupon and then they're posting all these pictures and they're filming vlogs there and all these kind of things, you are gonna think that that's attainable.

And you've seen these people do it have been 3, 4, 5 months. But that's absolute, that's the same as these filters, photographs that you see of people. That's like one snippet in time where everything's going well. No one wants to glamorize either 99% of the time where. Mm.

It

really is like pushing water uphill.

Definitely.

It's

horrible.

Yeah, that's really true. I literally watched a, um, a [00:06:00] YouTube video yesterday of some guy being like, I had to make like a million pounds on Shopify, and this guy's like, oh, I've got this like, great Shopify guy, and they literally just turn up to this rented apartment. He's like, oh, we're moving into the new condo.

There's no like furniture or anything, which we just signed the lease today. It's worth like 2 million. We're on the waterfront and here's my Lambo. And, and they talk about stuff for like half an hour and like about how successful they are in different parts of this condo. And at no point did they tell you anything about how to run a business.

Or launch a Shopify website and at the end of it, oh yeah, now pay us like a grand to like get our like info about how to actually run a Shopify website. And you're like, oh God, there's hundreds of them. Yeah. It

just so, so bad.

The Problem with Business Gurus and Influencers

How many, many, how many of these gurus or inspirational leaders or business mentors have actually ran a business?

I've met taxi drivers that tell me the life coaches. You know, I've met, like, you know, I'm a business mentor and I'm also an Uber driver. It's like, well business mentor yourself out this Uber taxi and go and like start running a business. How many businesses have you run? Mm-hmm. How many successful businesses have you run?

How many businesses have you sold? But I don't know. It's like these [00:07:00] multi-level marketing companies. It's like you're not an entrepreneur if you're at the bottom of a pyramid.

Yeah. Yet

that's what they all label themselves. Do you know what I mean?

Mm-hmm.

The entrepreneur that's there, the guy, Mr. Herbal Life, he's the entrepreneur there that's got thousands of you working from your kitchen.

Sure.

Okay. So I do agree that. It's not easy to be an entrepreneur and that a lot of people think that success is easier than it is.

Yeah.

But it is also possible to be successful whoever you are. I think.

The Importance of Realistic Goals and Self-Awareness

Well, there's opportunity there, but not everyone's cut out for it. There's a opportunity, we could all become professional footballers, but you need to be talent talented.

You need to work hard, you need to work ethic. But these are key ingredients that I think 90% of people lack, yet they won't admit that to themselves, and they'll buy into. The six minute abs. The seven minute abs, not the guy that's selling that product. Yeah, yeah. Has been working out in the gym for 10 plus years and is probably on juice steroids.

Definitely.

He's willing to do something that you are not willing to do and sell you a product that's gonna shortcut you to that. So that's what all these people do. Tony Robbins. [00:08:00] Gary V, they are selling a program to people where people turn up and think in this 30 minutes that Gary v's. On the stage, he's gonna gimme that secret sauce or that awesome tip.

And I'm willing to put hard earned cash down to find this out when there is no secret. Yeah,

to find out. It's not secret. If you sit down and you just responsibly get like your priorities done each day, you can be successful. If you need to pay someone to sort of tell you what your priorities are, then yeah, and it's

also action.

Action is the key thing. The law of attraction to me is absolutely cool. Have a vision, a target. Have a vision board if you want to, but sticking post-it notes on a whiteboard isn't gonna make shit happen. You've actually got to go and do that thing, and that's where I think most people fall down. So I'm almost like calling it on these people.

I call 'em entrepreneurs. Yeah. So it's entrepreneurs telling entrepreneurs how to be entrepreneurs, and I think it's irresponsible, really. It's almost like preying on the vulnerable or they're the weak that aren't mentally strong enough to realize and identify what they need to do to be success. If you are on YouTube looking for motivation, inspiration, you're in the [00:09:00] wrong place.

Mm. Do you know what I mean? Like Arnie's, not Arnie didn't go on YouTube and watch videos on how to lift weights or any of these things, and he didn't think, you know, I'm gonna watch this

video.

And he

didn't have the option back then. But he did read the, the magazines and he did try and find, but then he went and did it lifting weight.

But yeah, and did it, do you know what

I mean? Yeah. I've seen people saying, oh yeah, I've watched your sing on the Keto diet. I've watched your sing on the Next Diet. It's like, but what you actually doing? You're telling me why you're eating your dominoes on a Friday. You're telling me all about it. You know that person in the office that talks about, oh yeah, there's so many things.

Oh, I haven't quite had time for it, but I'm gonna do this next. And you're like, Monday I always call. Everything's Monday. Oh, I'm gonna start on Monday. So, yeah, and that's all I wanted. I just want them people just to accept, listen, you're not gonna be that thing to stop putting pressure on yourself and just accept what you've got really,

if that makes sense.

Mm. Yeah, I think, well, I've studied science as a degree and you fundamentally learn to be scientific about all the sources coming at you and actually see what is truth and what is not. And that I think is really useful skill for anyone to learn, which is quite hard if you don't go through a whole like degree teaching you to [00:10:00] like not believe everything you get sent and yeah.

And yeah, it's really impossible really with just the amount of stuff that comes at you that is kind of selling things. And 'cause you just have your feed that it's built by the things you've already clicked on as well, which is super unuseful these days. Yeah. So you don't even see the other options that you could be thinking about.

So you never really get challenged so much on your views.

Yeah. Well I've, I've noticed if you challenge any of their views, especially on LinkedIn, LinkedIn's a platform that. I do, um, the best from, in terms of getting new customers, getting new inquiries, people interested in what I'm doing, and I would say most of these people that post themselves up has, like Gary V doesn't, isn't on LinkedIn really.

He's on there, but he doesn't really use it in the same way that he's on Instagram or he is on Twitter. Not none of none of them are really, but. What you've got is like a second kind of tier. It is a second tier of these people that I've got a problem with.

Yeah.

And it's, they're the ones that haven't really done anything.

Like they've, they've, you know, they say they do thousands of hires and they've given people like massive opportunities and stuff, but if you just look at the job history, they've never had a job role where they can actually do that. And they've never been in employment long enough to achieve these things.

It's just, like I said before, it's like paint by [00:11:00] numbers even done for you marketing for this type of person. 'cause they're all following the same, um, it's like they're all red crushing it. And they're just like, oh, let's just copy that. We'll make some pillared content and we'll use it and break it down into its formats of sushi's social media platform.

It's just ridiculous. But if you challenge them on their own content, they will either block you, report you, or delete your content. And I'm speaking from experience. I'm currently going through a shadow of. Shadow ban on LinkedIn due to me highlighting the similarities between certain influencers posts and then saying, well, someone's lying, or someone's copied somebody else here, and then they put in a complaint to LinkedIn about what I do, so, so it is true if you challenge 'em, you know, but my post is full of this stuff.

The stuff that I sort of don't like or parody or take the mick out of

Yeah, is

full of it because it seems to be spawn in more and more. Of that type, type of person with absolutely no sort of evidence in the background that they've achieved or done any of the things that they claim to have done.

Yeah.

It's funny age now it's with like the fake news, but it's so more difficult with sort of many celebrities that aren't really anything that anyone, apart from like perhaps the group of people [00:12:00] following them. Yeah. So it's not like any newspaper's gonna sort of talk about this person that no one's heard about apart from the 20,000 followers that they have.

So there's never gonna get like caught up. Well caught out by it. Yeah. Or told off. So yeah, it's really hard to actually police that in any way. Things. So, yeah, it's good that there's some people like you doing that apart from bigger, banned, we are fine. A good fight.

We are the, the evil side or the dark side of LinkedIn.

There's, there's a few of us on there.

Yeah.

But, um, yeah. Um, there's a lot of people that sort of agree with it or mm-hmm. We're all banned by the same people. It's interesting now 'cause I think what people we're smarter than we used to be in terms of everything. I mean that in terms of how people market to us and advertising.

We know when we're being advertised to, I think personally.

Mm. Yeah. So you're watching,

you're watching a movie now and someone uses a Nokia handset or someone uses a, an iPhone or someone drives a Volvo or whatever. Yeah, yeah. You are thinking they've paid for that product to be there. But we are aware of this now.

We weren't, you know, back in the eighties and nineties, but now we are, so we are a lot more aware of it. So all these people trying to push us products and stuff online, I think, well, I like to think we [00:13:00] realize that everyone's selling as something, everyone's selling as a dream, really.

Hmm.

But then on the flip side, it seems like some people can't see when something is advertising or bullshit.

You know, like the followers I'm on about are these Yeah. These people. Um, and Gary, I would say Gary B's followers are quite the same. Some of the worst for it. Yeah. You know, look how many people abandoned him. Case with trainers. We've seen his case with trainers that he's got. Yeah. And he, he, he advised people to buy 10 pairs and then flip them, sell 'em on eBay for a profit.

Yeah. Oh

Jesus. Well of course you are gonna recommend that, Gary. So you sell thousands and thousands of pairs of trains and people did

Jesus.

I've seen a few people wearing 'em today, you know, walking around London. Yeah. Because obviously he's on tomorrow, so,

wow. That's crazy.

But then fair enough. It's good if you've got a natural following that would do that.

Mm.

Like brain dead cheap is what I call it. You say buy it and they buy it great, isn't it?

Yeah, a bit confused. I feel like maybe some of these people aren't that stupid, but they just haven't had like, enough life experience or they're being naive or something because they, they are quite compelling at saying these things.

And if you have never run a business or done a thing and then someone comes and sort of says everything of how [00:14:00] they're gonna do it and it's, it seems like they're real, like how you, how do you know the difference between a true person and a fake person?

I suppose it's all set up, isn't it, for you to sort of like swallow the hook light and think.

Mm. It's to be fair, he's a good one. Yeah, definitely. He's good in the, in the sense that he's found his niche, the way he's marketed himself. One thing I don't really understand is what is he doing it for anymore? Mm. You know, you said before about what is success? It'd be interesting, I get to ask him a question tomorrow.

It'd be interesting to know what is his. Sort of end goal? Like is it a number? Is it a figure? Whether it be you want, for some people, I know it could be charity work. I wanna be able to build a school, I wanna be able to donate, I wanna be able to set up, I met a guy recently in Manchester and he says he'll see success if he can buy so like an old warehouse in Manchester and, um, kit out with beds and stuff to give a homeless people in Manchester, a place to stay.

So he wanted to use his business to make enough money to be able to afford to do that. So I know that's kind of what his goal was, but. You know, what's Gary v's. Going now to get another thousand followers, to get another million followers to get, make more money and know what, what's the figure that would stop him?[00:15:00]

What is

success for

you?

Like what is your

goal? I, I, I feel I'm successful because I can do what I want. Mm-hmm. In terms of online, I get lots of messages saying, I wish I could like, or share or comment your, on your content, but I'm not allowed to because work can't let me, or HR has told me I'm not allowed to.

So I, I just felt, feel in my mind. I can pick and choose where I work. I can pick and choose when I work. If I don't want to do something, I don't do it. I can post whatever I want. You know? It's almost like that freedom to be in a position where you can do it. It's not like a financial amount. It's not like success is being is making 10 million or 5 million or a hundred million.

I've not got a figure on it. Mm-hmm. It's almost like the. Option to do what I want, when I want really, or the opportunity to do it.

Okay. And so do you hope to demotivate like a million people,

10 people? Um, if I can just stop one person becoming a self-appointed influencer, that will be a job well done. So if I can stop one person becoming the next Bridget or like, then I will be very happy with that and my work will be [00:16:00] done.

'cause there's too many of them people out there. So

yeah,

just like, you know, motivation, people might say if I just motivate one person to make their life better. If I can just demotivate one person that wants to achieve that into not achieving that, then I'll be pleased with myself.

Okay. So what would you say if, if I go, you know what, Mike, I'm gonna quit this podcast.

I'm, I'm influencing people and telling them they can achieve their dreams and stuff. Does that mean that you could just like pack up and go home and be like, oh, success. Yeah. Yeah, I'll be happy with that.

No. You must meet some people and just think like, and you've probably interviewed 'em. I know you probably can't answer this to say yes, but there must be some people you think.

Your dreams are too big. Like you are not gonna achieve that. And it's like, when do you tell that person?

How to give advice

Oh yeah. So I definitely notice it a lot with people that I mentor maybe who are kind of young and sort of naive and it's kind of damage control almost as a mentor being like, yeah, go try it. And you know, they're gonna fail.

And yeah, you're like, well, if I try and give you the exact advice right now, you're just not gonna listen to it anyway. So I'll try and give you like the best advice for your situation and then. Maybe in two years time you'll have learned some stuff and you'll come back to me and we'll do something that's actually [00:17:00] useful.

But I speak to a

lot of people in startups and what I find is how you handle them. People, it's almost like a parent and child relationship.

Mm-hmm.

They don't want to be told exactly how to do something. Yeah. Even if you know it's right. Does that make sense? What you need to almost do is like, let them think they've thought it themselves.

Yes. So it's almost like it's. The advice you want to give them, but it's almost like they've got to discover it at their own pace. Yeah. Yeah. They have to give it to the themself kind of thing. Yeah. But you could tell 'em that right from the off. Like sometimes I hear stuff and I think that's so obviously a stupid idea.

But you can't say that's a stupid idea. Yeah. Because if you do then have to prove

that they're right. Exactly. Whereas if you don't and you somehow like open it up to suggestions that there are other options, they might at some point realize them and then be like, oh, this is such a bad idea.

Like

say

this is the thing as well.

The Pitfalls of Following Trends Blindly

People always try and look for something because they've seen other people do it, but nine times outta 10, that means the opportunity's gone in that sector, I think. I think there's certain conditions for a business to do really, really well and there's a certain kind of like. Almost like a checklist for businesses that I look for and think, oh, do you know what, [00:18:00] that's actually in the right sector.

It's the right kind of voice. It's could really be disruptive. It's like offer real alternative to what's out there. When I hear people now, and most of these people are online in cycle, like Insta Gurus, it's like, yeah, we are doing drop shipping. We are doing, it's almost like you are just on the next trend, but you are like the thousandth person doing that.

Yeah. So unless you are the first, you're the best or you're the fastest at doing something, you're not going to be successful.

Do you see what I mean?

Yeah, definitely. And that's what most people turn to because that's what's forced on them. That's what they see. If you are on Instagram and you're on YouTube and you're consuming that kind of content, you become a product of what you, you consume.

I read books. I read books all the time, but I read books on a wide range of different things. I've experienced a lot of different things in business. If I lived my life on Facebook, I live my life on Instagram. You think that is the. Thing out there, you think you have to buy that Lambo, that scene as itself.

You see what I mean? And I think that's the thing, especially with younger business people, they all think that, oh, that's the sort of the model that I need to follow. And it's like, you're in the wrong sector. You're not gonna be as successful as that person because they started this three years ago, four years ago.

Five years ago.

[00:19:00] Definitely. And if there is like a million tutorials on YouTube, like how to make all your money off Amazon or use a crypto mining bot or something, and like if someone's selling you this. They're probably not doing that well out of it themself to have put so many hours into making this content for you.

Well, like you said before,

Questioning the Authenticity of Wealth Claims

you've got someone there saying they're making all these millions of pounds, yet, then they're asking you for like a 1000 pound payment to get the course. On the secret behind it, it's like, well, where are you making your money? Because I'll be honest, if I sold a business for 10 million pounds.

I wouldn't be bothered about getting 500 pounds off your, or a thousand pound mix. It's a drop in the ocean. I'm not asking. You just go and do the same thing again if you needed more money, I'm saying.

Yeah. Yeah.

You'd go and do the same thing again rather than wasting time, building an audience, getting followers, marketing, you know, hijacking a tribe, all these things that people talk about.

Mm-hmm.

For what? For fewer hundred quid per person. It's. It's a lot of effort for very minimal rewards if you are as successful at the other thing that you're saying you are. Does that make sense? Yeah, definitely

makes a hundred percent sense.

Entering Competitive Markets with Unique Offerings

I would just counterpoint on, you're saying that you look for things that are completely innovative and different and that you [00:20:00] can be competitive and something that's completely the same.

Like pretty much all of the things which Branson has done. Most of his Virgin stores, they're always like, you know, Virgin Finance, virgin planes. Like Virgin Media when that came out. Like there were already phone companies, there were broadband companies, but he came on and like I owned the market. But 'cause he was super good at marketing and really thought about it.

So you can go into competitive market? Well, oh,

I'm, oh yeah, no, I'm not, yeah, so I'm saying like a competitive market, but you need to offer a genuine alternative. Yeah. So a perfect example was might be, say, um, safe as. Give Gaf a nice example with mobile phones. That mobile phone was saturated. What Gift gift give gif GAF did was rolling.

Gift G gave gift g gif, um, like rolling contracts, cancel any time you can put the, submit any handset where no one else did that. What they wanted to do was time to a long contract tied to a handset.

Mm-hmm.

Make you have to pay penalty fees to get out. So it was like they've got into a market and then offered basically the opposite of what the whole industry was doing.

So then it became a real. Either or Choice. Yeah, so they did well and like obviously [00:21:00] Gift craft did really, really well and I could, there's, there's lots of examples of that, but, um, purple Bricks, they did something completely different. Whether you like 'em or you don't like 'em, they went into that sector and then said, well, we're not gonna charge a percentage on the sale.

We're gonna fix pricing. You can upload your own pictures. We'll, and they did it. So yeah, there's loads of examples where you can go into a market, but what they do differently. Is deliver a service in a completely different way. So it gives the potential customer a real choice. You know, do you wanna do it the traditional way?

Do you wanna do it this way?

Mm-hmm.

Does that make sense?

Yeah, definitely. Complete sense. It

might not, it might, you might not agree with it, but that's, in my mind, that's what I always look for. And I think that's with any sector. So if I was to open up a business in another sector, I would say, can there be a workable alternative to what's out?

Yeah.

If so, then you look at your marketing, like, how do we market ourselves

Biggest Risks Taken

What's the biggest risk you've taken?

Um, biggest risk. Good question. Oh, biggest risk. Probably accepted olegs friend requests on a connection request on LinkedIn. Oleg? Yeah. You know who Oleg is? Surely Oles. [00:22:00] Um, its like the godfather of LinkedIn.

He, um, posts inspirational, motivational messages every day. Uh, lots of hiring messages. He works for the Daily Mail and now it means that I get to see his content in my feed all day long. So that was the biggest risk. It was almost like getting in bed with the enemy or,

yeah.

You know, keeping your friends close, your enemies closer.

So accepting his friend request just a couple of weeks ago was probably the biggest risk I've ever taken recently. That comes springs to mind.

Okay. I

mean, other things is quitting work and setting up my own business and stuff like that, but

too motivational to talk about that. Yeah, of course, of course.

Okay, cool.

The Kindest Act Received

What is the kindest thing someone has ever done for you?

Kindest thing?

Yeah.

So I used to work for a company and um, the guy who owned it, there was a job opportunity that came up. Uh, it would've been like a promotion and it went to someone outside the company and it wasn't really advertised internally.

And I mentioned to this person that I was a bit upset. It was something that I would've been interested in and I wanted to know where he saw me in that business over the next two years. And he said, well, I did well in sales. I did well in telesales. I made enough money for the business doing that job role.

So [00:23:00] there basically why you're making so much money for the business in that job role. This is where you are gonna stay. And I said, it didn't really fit with what I wanted to achieve in sort of life and outside of work. So I wanted to look at alternative. And he said to me, take a month off work. Go and find what it's you're looking for.

And if you can't find what you are looking for, you've still got a job here with me. And in that month. And he was my boss.

Yeah. Wow.

And in that month, I found a job opportunity with a brand new startup that had no employees. They had a single page website that I ended up going and working for. I ended up working there for five years and that's where I learned about startup businesses from the ground up as him being the first employee.

Yeah. Now, not only did he do that for me, I was only 25 at the time, 24 or 25 at the time. He also paid for me out of his own pocket to go on a personal, like personal development course, and I met this guy called Darren. And he kind of told me really, really simple and basic things. Like Darren said, I only wanted to work four days a week, so I worked four days a week and it was just like getting that clarity of what you need to do.

He said I wanted to earn 4,000 pound, I wanted to earn 4,000 pound a week in cash, you [00:24:00] know, in, in salary. So I realized if I anyone work four days a week, I've got charge 1000 pound a day. So I went and only found clients that were willing to pay 1000 pound day. And it was that real, real clear clarity on what you want and how, how to achieve it that I learned at age 25.

Oh,

and, but um, the person that sent me on this course and paid for it, Martin, I'd say that's the kind oft thing. 'cause it kind of like opened me up. He said I was ready for it. He could see something that I was ready to do and even though he knew I'd be leaving this business, and we still keep in touch now, and I'm 34 now, so

10 years later we still speak.

Cool. That's really nice. And also quite motivating that you, uh, got advice from someone, but I guess he wasn't a entrepreneur such as.

No, 'cause he was someone that had really done it. He had a, ran a successful business and he could see, you know, I was ready for, to move on. He could see that I, obviously, I had bigger ambitions for myself and I was gonna take the the action to make that thing

happen.

Really? Yeah. You didn't just say a bunch of fluffy stuff for a few hours and then,

yeah. I wasn't going there and saying, taking some more money. I want an extra annual leave, or I want an extra, I want a thousand pound a year pay ride. I wanted to go [00:25:00] because I wanted to see what did you have planned for me for the next two years and what can I learn elsewhere?

And I moved somewhere else. And even then, he still said, it speaks to me while I was there saying, if you wanna come back, you're more than welcome.

That's cool.

Dealing with Demotivation

What would you say has made you, um, what's the most demotivating thing that's ever happened to you?

Uh, where I'd say, I'd say one of the, one of the is when people now tag me into content that they post online without realize, like, as in like, oh, I'll tag Mike Winton.

But they tag me in with the people that I actually despise on there. So it's like I'm seen as that to certain people. Like, oh, so say, oh, like say Bridget, and then they'll tag me in as well. It's like, no, I'm the opposite of these people.

Yeah.

So it's like some people have started to say, oh, that's inspirational.

That's motivational.

Mm-hmm. It's

like, no, I'm not that. I'm taking the piss out of those people. Yeah. Do you see what I mean? Yeah.

It's an awkward one because you're trying to say. Sort of that you can be inspirational and you can do things if you do it correctly. Whereas they're just sort of blanket inspiration, but the wrong type and you don't wanna be seen as them,

like I say, scratch below the surface and these people haven't done [00:26:00] anything.

It's almost like that sometimes it's, but yeah, so that's something that bothers me at the moment. It's not too much.

I don't really sleep over it. Like hasn't made you quit doing it?

No, to be honest, I can take online. I can take it or leave it really out. I never had social media before this. Yeah. LinkedIn was the only social media platform I had.

The only reason I've actually got a website set up and set up on Instagram and got on Twitter is just because when the book gets released mm-hmm. It's just that there's more channels to be able to promote the book. Mm-hmm. And, um, it's, it's interesting because there's, there is actual real business advice in there.

It's not all just me, just taking the Mick outta people and saying like, this doesn't work. It's almost like saying how. People have misinterpreted certain rules, like fake it before you make it. Mm-hmm. That's been misinterpreted and work hard. So work smart, not hard. It's like, no, that's been misinterpreted them kind of thing.

So a breakdown of the rules that everyone's following and how I see they've been hijacked by entrepreneurs. You see what I mean?

Yeah.

So, uh, yeah. So, but I can take a leave. Social media, to be honest.

The Impact of Social Media

You are what You can see Aren and there's no I minimum IQ entry level for social media. So you. Associate yourself with Simpletons, I would

say.

Do [00:27:00] you not think you're being a bit rude to the general population when you could call all these people simpletons and saying, nice percent of people are in that fit stuff.

Yeah. Yeah, probably. Probably. But we, we can do this. We, we can do this now. How many people have you worked with in work or in life?

And, but you would actually say, I would choose to work with them again. Just be honest.

I, I couldn't tell you the exact number, but a, a lot, a lot of people are pretty cool, but then I have made a point of spending time with the people that are really good and like actively seeking people out. As in like, I've done a podcast finding the coolest people on the planet to work with.

Yeah. So maybe I have a bit of an attribution era of. He's good to work

with. So I've

worked in a,

like call centers before, there's like 300 people on dialers, on multiple floors. And I would say like I would, I wouldn't trust them, like to go get some milk from the shop, let alone like make any sort of executive decisions.

So I would say I go on the basis that, you know, you're lucky. You're lucky if you've got maybe like 10 people that you can actually fully trust and

oh mate, it's that many more than 10 people easily. But also I went to a really good [00:28:00] university and yeah, good schools and things, so maybe because I've never really worked, worked in like a big business.

I spent, well, I worked in a cool center for like a month. Yeah, once and, but some of the people are really nice,

actually. I felt like they were okay. I judge a person by the content that they're like and share. And if you are sharing that content in my mind, you've got to be stupid. That's why I call 'em sheep.

Yeah. His brain dead sheep will just following like what everybody else does, rather than thinking for themselves. But if that offends anyone, cool. I'm not, I'm not gonna lose sleep over. It doesn't bother me.

Yeah. I guess I'd like to think that people could be converted rather than just sort of saying, oh, you're stupid, you'll stay stupid.

And like, oh, you've been getting it wrong. Well, ignorance isn't it?

Ignorance is bliss. And I just think it's, it's easier to believe that how it's being portrayed to you by these ultra positive people is true. But we, we live in a world where that isn't true. Do you know what I mean? We're in a world where the media's lying, lying to as politicians, lying to it's the banks lying to it is everything's like stacked against us.

Yeah. So you can't just like wish on a star and this shit's gonna happen. Yeah.

The stuff that's popular is [00:29:00] kind of lies. So like click bait. So like I did a post on um, like an actual life hack that is not any normal life hack list. 'cause of the top 10 life hacks of all kind of things that probably aren't real life hacks.

And no one actually then goes and does. Sort of like you're not gonna do like an hour of meditation a day and like follow the perfect diet. Who's got time for that? Yeah, exactly. So

like a real life life hack. Go to work in your go to bed, in your actual work clothes. You've saved yourself half an hour in the morning.

There's a real life hack. But who's gonna do that? I mean, some people might do that actually, I dunno. I was on the train, right? It's interesting you say this because I was just talking about on the way down on the train down, but I was on the train on Wednesday and I was going from Warton to Manchester to do this.

Small group, different, uh, startups and they're talking to me about their problems and stuff. But it was really interesting because it was like, really, I just like facilitated the group and they kind of like come to an answer between themselves and they come up with answers and stuff. It was really, really interesting.

Some really cool guys there. And when I was on the train, I ended up getting offered to stop early. I ended up getting off at Scape because it was that packed. I've not been on a train at like rush hour. It was that packed. And I looked around the, the carriage and I would say about 80% of people were just on.

[00:30:00] Mobile phones. Mm-hmm. I was stood next to a girl and she was on Instagram scrolling through picture after picture after picture of like, you can imagine who it was. It was like X on the beach, people, MTV, like, like celebrities. Liking, liking stuff. Boohoo, liking like, like, like, um, then she'd come off that, she'd go on Snapchat.

She was on Snapchat for about two minutes. Then she went off that onto, uh, back onto Instagram, onto Facebook. Scroll, scroll, scroll. And I was on that train for about 30 minutes. It was getting too hot and it was getting too crowded. So I just thought, focus, I'm gonna get off. Yeah. So I ended up getting off of stuff earlier and as I, as I got into the meeting with these people, I said, you are the content you consume.

Mm-hmm. Every day. She's probably on that train 'cause she was on before me and she was still on when I got off. So every day she's on that train for 30 minutes there and back to work. That's an hour a day. What could you learn five days a week? In five hours a week? That could actually benefit your. Rather than spend it looking at what Kim Kardashians did for breakfast.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, what so and so said about someone else on Snapchat, what's happening on X on the beach? And just thought that's what's going into your head. You are actually dumbing [00:31:00] it down. Yeah. And she wasn't the only one, by the way. There was lots, but it's just, I was so close, I could see everything that was on her phone and I just thought.

You could be learning a language now. You could be listen to an audio book. You could be doing things that would actually increase your earning potential, could be increasing, your job prospects, could be interest. It could be improving your actual life. But what are you doing? I think it's like damaging.

Mm. Yeah. Social media, definitely. I think. Makes you stupid. Well, that goes back to my point

then. So you were saying it's wrong to call these people stupid, but how much time is lost to social media now And we are the biggest consumers of social media. So I would say while we've got the ability, and we're smart in the sense that we know when people are advertising to us, we're also, we've progressed in terms of intelligence.

Mm-hmm. You know, like people think that movement in any direction progression. But I don't think it is at all. I honestly think that yeah, it is. As we are, the opportunity is there. The internet can open up anything. We can use it for whatever we want to and what do, what do we go and do? We've got porn sites here, there and everywhere.

We kind of like don't [00:32:00] take advantage of the opportunity that's there. And that's what I'm saying. It's, and that's what I think the majority of people, people

are, and majority of people do. I think if you can convince someone to put their phone onto airplane mode and time themselves for 25 minutes to just do the task that they set themselves doing, yeah, they can get a lot done in the day.

And that's awesome. That's what I'd want to motivate people to do is if I just go and say, oh, you're stupid. You check post social media all the time, that's not that useful. So as in, I wanna tell people the realistic thing and how they do it better. I don't just wanna like purely demotivate them, if you know what I mean.

Yeah,

yeah. But maybe you are doing that as well. 'cause it sounds like you're giving good advice on stuff.

Yeah, like I say, I find motivation in, in de-motivation. It's like, how bad would this be if you are still doing this stuff, you're gonna miss out on things that you really want to achieve. Do you know what I mean?

Does that make sense? Sure.

Yeah. Yeah. That makes such a big difference. You just sort of put your phone in a different room or in your backpack or something whilst you're trying to get some work done and you get work done. There's amazing. Cool.

Favorite Books and Financial Wisdom

Uh, do you have any favorite books? Um, do you know? I

always say the same book, and it's weird because it's, well, that's, it's a bit basic.

The rules are Wealth by Richard Temple and it's just, it's like 113 rules now, [00:33:00] but I've got the version which is a hundred rules, and it basically explains like what wealthy people do to become wealthy, create wealth, how to manage the wealth and what to do. And it's, you kind of read it up to where you are at.

So you might stop at Rule 17 and that might be where you are at at this moment in time. And then obviously as you achieve certain things, you can read further into the book. And I've had that book for maybe 10 years and I'll probably read it maybe three, four times a year, depending on, to see where I'm up to and what I'm doing.

Cool.

I got that as a gift when I was 24.

Yeah.

25. Someone got that me for my birthday and um, they keep it with me all the time. Sos understand about, you know, setting yourself financial goals.

Yeah. Creating

passive income. What to do with it. You know what? Lots, lots and lots and lots of rules that we are not taught in school.

I'd say we are not taught in school. I mean, working class people, we're not taught these things in school because obviously the system's set up.

Concluding Thoughts on Entrepreneurship

So working class people don't become financially free because as soon as we. We do that and who's gonna drive the buses? And if everyone

decide to be an entrepreneur tomorrow, who's ever gonna work in the businesses?

That, that's

one thing to say in my book, if everyone's got a side [00:34:00] hustle and owns a business who's buying

Yeah. There'll

be no customers anymore because everyone's got their own thing. So, you know, don't quit your day job. 'cause we need that. That's dangerous to the economy if you go and set up. Mm-hmm.

Imagine living in a, a city where there's 20,000 business owners like that popping up, like, you know. Yeah. Here, there

and everywhere. Yeah. Chaos. Cool. Thanks so much for being on the podcast. Cool. Thanks for having me. Pleasure.

Take homes

Thanks a lot for the legendary Mike Winnet coming on the show. What a baller and I have personally really enjoyed watching his entrepreneur Bingo episodes on YouTube, which I can recommend if you are bored one afternoon. Now let's talk about some of the take homes , from the interview.

Firstly, question the source, because not all inspiration is created equally.

So be wary of entrepreneurs who are basically profiting by selling you quick fixes rather than genuine guidance. People who are giving real inspiration should empower you. They should empower you to take meaningful [00:35:00] action quickly without having to sign up to some course or paywall secret recipe.

Whereas some toxic misinformation is often designed just to make someone else rich at your expense. And I'd remember that if someone is actually rich or making millions of dollars with a trading algorithm or flipping properties, they would be far too busy to be selling you the secret to success.

Which leads us to point number two, measure success with sanity rather than vanity metrics.

. So think about what metrics actually matter to you when it comes to happiness and fulfillment. Instead of just chasing vanity metrics for appearance like your follow account appearances, high turnover numbers, et cetera. Sometimes a very simple balanced life is more valuable in chasing entrepreneurial status or financial extremes.

And I can say that as someone who did run a VC back startup for a while, raising money, and honestly, all the founders around me were so stressed, and it was a really difficult time of my life and concluded that I didn't aspire to be someone who was constantly stressed and another one of these founders [00:36:00] without a life. And I'm pretty happy that I'm not doing that right now.

So let's talk about number three.

Action beats aspiration. There's really no substitute for actually just doing stuff, uh, vision boards, motivational talks, endless planning are pointless without just concretely taking action.

Ultimately success stems from your responsibility and your daily priorities and not chasing magic secrets or shortcuts if you can develop the mindset to actually just work on difficult things, you can avoid the traps of people that try to sell you shortcuts 'cause they don't actually exist.

Which leads us right into number four, which is that we should be really critical of the content we consume. And how it feeds our mind. Social media can make you feel very inadequate or encourage you to pursue unrealistic ideas or dreams, but it can also be a tool for learning if you're mindful about what it is you are watching, reading or listening to.

I did a good episode on this like six months ago around like the content diet to actually make you more intelligent. So if you can swap mindless scrolling for a real book or audio books, spend your [00:37:00] time to actually learn and build skills,

and if you want to listen to a podcast or influencers, seek out people who make you actually feel good, rather than telling you that you aren't good enough as you are and you need to do a bunch of different things to one day be as happy as they are because that's probably not true. And that leads us to the final point, which is that you should define your own version of success and happiness rather than adopting someone else's goals. And really spend your time being clear on what you actually want from life, because it's probably not a financial number, but a feeling of autonomy, freedom, community, being able to follow your interests.

And yes, money can give you some freedom to choose what you work on, but it's not usually worth chasing it for the sake of just having more money

and being able to live on your own terms. So worth knowing what you actually want from life.

Wrap up

And there we go. All righty. If you got some value out of this episode and you think you know someone else who might benefit from questioning who it is they follow and what they aspire to, well please share this episode with them as it is how we [00:38:00] grow.

If you have ever felt like you'd enjoy a chat with me, well, you can for free because like talking to people, I have slots on Wednesday afternoons. For free with the sole goal of getting to know my listeners because I'm a pretty chill podcaster who lives by the beach, avoiding the office, and I don't actually have any other calls in the week.

So the link is in the description. Then if you have some ideas in your head that you maybe wanna take action on, like business wise, or if you have feelings that you find it hard to shake. I am offering a prize draw for two, three months of coaching with me.

If you subscribe to my new podcast called How to Change the World, again, links in the description, and I hope to see you there. And yes, I am selling you hard or I'm going to listen to my new podcast. I am aware of that. Hey, moving on. Remember, life is short. Don't put off your happiness behind some arbitrary goals and start embracing the life that you live every day as you live it.

Thank you so much for listening. Go you. Your consistency to reach the end of an episode is [00:39:00] legendary, my hero. If you have any ideas or feedback for the show, I'm always interested to hear from you. You're the best studies show. We need time for information to sink in, so I'm going to give you a five second pause, silence to reflect on one idea from the show before you jump back into your busy life.

Ready and go.