Trevor Blake: $300M Exits While Working Less Than 5 Hours A Day #MindsetSeries

Trevor G. Blake. I'm fascinated by this human being because he wasn't an entrepreneur until he was in his mid-40s, and then he had $300 million in exits within his first 10 years. And he says that he never works more than five hours a day. This is a guy that I want to learn from. Trevor authored the book Three Simple Steps, which I listened to and loved, and I've listened to it multiple times, and it's basically how to create great results in your life, regardless of where you're starting from. Everything starts in the mind. And when I sat down and interviewed some of the most successful entrepreneurs that I knew, I wanted to include Trevor in this because he started late. He has really big success, and he has the type of lifestyle that most of us desire. What you'll find in this discussion is that Trevor has a way of blending the woo woo energy stuff with very logical principles. And I think there's something to that. If nothing else, it gives him permission to go after really big goals and to accomplish amazing things. And that's something that I think we as entrepreneurs deserve to listen to. Trevor, welcome back to capitalism.com, great to see you, my friend.

Thank you, Ryan. And we truly are friends now. I've really appreciated since the first time we met, so we've had lots of communication. So, yeah, it's my honor, My honor, and hello to everybody.

Well, I wanted to start things off today with something that you said to me on one of your coaching calls. I'm a member of the Guild, your coaching community, and something that you said to me on one of the calls was you kind of called me out for not thinking big enough, which really sort of sat in my body for a couple days, and I sort of had to wrestle with this for a little bit. And your exact words to me were, ryan, with your skillset and your background, I think you need to add a couple extra zeros to your goal. And you said it like it was just a foregone conclusion that someone should be thinking a lot bigger. And it's rare that someone challenges me to think bigger. So I wanted to hear you comment on what led you to say that and why you operate from this place of, you might as well just think bigger.

I mean, there's several aspects of several layers to it. So this won't be a really quick, straightforward answer, but I think you expect that of me anyway, so. So the first thing is there is a magic to thinking big. There's actually a book called that, which is not one that I Recommend to people. But there is a magic to thinking big. Because when you think big, you retrain your neurons, you create neuroplasticity. And then those things that you previously set as what you thought was a stretch goal no longer seem so intimidating. They seem really small. And so when you think big, getting those other things that have previously seen the big just come so much easier to unit. You know, a good, a good example, I suppose, would be, you know, is anything physical? You know, when, when, when I get into my lazy mode and I pamper my, pamper myself in my lifestyle and then I think, oh God, I've put on five pounds, I need to get it off. You know, the first, the first step of getting back onto the treadmill is really hard. But then after a few days of jogging, then I'm kicking a football, then I'm playing tennis, and all of a sudden losing a few pounds seemed ridiculously small goal to set. So, so life is like that. So there is a definite magic to thinking big. So that's not. That's number one. So I always recomm one. Number two, everything in the universe is energy. And energy isn't fragmented. It doesn't get, you know.

Distributed in small amounts to some people and large amounts to other people. It's just there. And so it takes the same effort to tap into the universal energy. Whether you want to get 100,000, 100 million, or 100 billion, it's the same effort. So you may as well aim high. So that's, that's kind of number two. Number three is. And I don't know how this happens, but I'm, I'm something of a reader of souls. So I can be in someone's company and I can see something that. So a lot of people will say to me, I feel seen for the first time when, when with me. I don't know what that is or how it happens, but it's always happened throughout my life. In business, it's an absolute godsend because you can spot bullshit a mile off. And that's, that's really helpful in negotiations and things like that. But when I met you for the first time, the back of my head is saying, why is he holding himself back? And I, and I felt you holding yourself back, like, and we all do it like, you know, you have these amazing ideas and you say, well, am I really worthy of that? And you had that to such a degree that you, you sort of pigeonholed yourself into the, into this number. Whereas really with the same mindset and the same Energy, you could be at a much, you should be at a much bigger number in your life. And that because that's in your soul path. I mean, whether, whether you get there tomorrow or 10 years from now is entirely up to you. But that's what I saw.

Yeah, and I felt that way when you said it. There was something about you calling that out that allowed me to shed some shackles in a little bit, a little bit almost kind of free myself of that thinking. It sometimes it helps when somebody else is able to see that in a different perspective and you can kind of grow into that. And I remember something that you said about the first company that you built and sold. I think it was your first company where you wrote down a goal or stated that you would sell something for over $100 million. And at the time that felt like Austin Powers, Dr. Evil saying $100 billion. It was like a made up amount of money that didn't exist in the world. It felt like the biggest mountain you could climb. And then a few years later you sold it for over $100 million. And I was hoping you could share about that experience. And what gave you the confidence to be able to state something like that, even though it felt impossible?

Well, it never felt impossible. And so because you never ask how, you just set an intention. So I've learned over the decades how to set intentions in an effect. You know, there's a lot of schools of thought out there about how to do intentions. And many of them, they sound good and they make you feel good about the life you have. But you want a better life, right? So you need a tool and technique that's backed by science. So, so I use the science to put a tool together that I can have confidence in that if I just, I'm disciplined enough to use the tool. I don't have to believe in it even. I just have to do it and it'll happen. So. So I'd experimented many ways in my life with that. You know, I'd said when I was earning 12,000 English pounds a year, you know, I set a goal to earn 333. I just like the number three. $333,000 a year, which meant not only do I have to earn dollars, I have to be in a country where the US dollars exist. So I've got to, I've got to move from one country to the other, find a job and I'm going to earn three. And that happened within four years. And so I knew, and so a lot of people, they would Say four years is a long time, but you know, that's really not a lot of time to go from one version of quicksand to financial independence. And so, and so I learned the sector technique and playing with it again. So when I started my first company, I had no doubt in my mind it would happen. I didn't know how or how long, but, but I had, I had this, the sense of who I was, what I wanted to achieve in this business. But also I had the motivation that I wanted to prove somebody wrong. The person who doubted me and said to me, you'll never make it in your own company because you're not smart enough. You'll never be able to be a successful CEO because all you've been as a junior manager, as a director at the time, I think, and that was my boss, my CEO in the company. I bought the rights from his company as the company went out of business and I went on to be successful. But so in order to achieve that, I said, I remember sitting one day and think, well, when I go up to this man and say, look, told you so what does that look like? So I'm thinking backwards has already happened. It's going to have to be $100 million because that was his target with his company. And so it's got to be at least $100 million. So I set the intention and it wasn't any cleverer than I have sold Qualmedical. It still exists. People can look it up. Qllmedical.com I have sold quality for at least $100 million and I sold it for 105.5. So then I realized, well, I should have said a billion.

But, but at least I. But the technique works. Doesn't matter how you know, as long as you do that you have the discipline to do the technique, then it works in any situation. Not just in business like you and I like to talk about business, but in relationships as well. I've just had that very experienced myself, which I can talk about if it's of relevance to your, to your.

I'd love to go there. But before we go into the intention setting technique, there's a, there's, I can hear sort of the, the way that most people might implement something like this. And I have noticed a difference in people like you who sort of set the intention and it unfolds naturally. And then there are people that I see that almost set goals or set intentions out of a place of insufficiency or not enoughness. It's almost like to compensate for their lack of belief. For example, I see the people who have the hardest time financially often set the bigger goal or the bigger intention almost to justify themselves. And the longer they struggle, the bigger the goal gets. And I'm curious how you have seen the difference between people who are able to set those and watch them unfold naturally versus people who seem to perpetually struggle and set bigger and bigger targets, and yet they seem never to make any progress. What's the difference in your experience?

I think you actually mentioned it in the previous sentence in the letting go part of it. You know, when you know something's backed by science and neurology and, and the art of peak brain performance, then you don't have to believe anymore. You can just follow the plan and it'll work, right? So, so it takes all that pressure away. It's very important. But to get to that point where you trust is quite hard for a lot of people. And I find people are split between two groups. One, one just get to the point where say, oh God, I'm fed up. Just I give up, make it happen. And the other, the other saying that doesn't quite work today. I'll try a bit harder tomorrow, I'll do a longer, I'll do more meditation tomorrow and all this kind of stuff. So they're not trusting the process. And so ironically, 20 minutes before you and I have connected here I was doing my vibrational sanctum, you know, vibrational leader sanctum for entrepreneurs, which you can find on trevity blake.com It's a, it's kind of a mastermind plus a sort of shark tank thing at this point in time. And a guy came on right at the end. He came in late, but we'd finished early. So he came in by himself. And he had no one to talk to. Just myself, the host.

His name's Troy. And you can go and watch it on trevorgblake.com because I said, hang on a sec, I want to record this. So 18 months ago, Troy, he's got a small company. It's very special. This is a beautiful business. It's something that interests me.

It's a neuromuscular.

Disease and, and repair and, and he was really struggling with the company. And then so, so he got to the point where he had found my course transformation and he'd gone through all the tools and techniques and we had a one on one and he said, look, I, you know, okay, I'm not fighting this anymore. I'm trusting you, I'm gonna go with it. And Just by chance, he popped in today and, and so I got a chance to catch up with him. And, and he explained it this way. He said, once I stopped fighting, once I stopped trying and let the technique work for me, all these really high level people started popping into my life. People that I had been chasing for years and not even been able to get through the door. They came in through my door. And this high level, his thing was in the military, in the Department of Defense. So now he's gone from this tiny niche business to this massive market opportunity where he was talking previously about $100,000 contracts and now he's talking about, you know, 10, 20, 30, 40, $50 million contracts with all different kinds of defense departments and the Defense, the Department of Defense is talking about taking his company and pulling it inside the military. Massive change in his life and in this thing. But I've never seen a bigger smile in all my life. He just sat there smiling like that. He kept saying, and it's all because I did what you said. I stopped fighting and let it happen. And when you do that, you know, life has to fill in the details. So as you know, right, it becomes like a winding staircase. In one minute you think you're going directly to where you're talking target is, and the next minute you think, hang on a sec, it seems to be unfurling somehow. But if you keep just doing the technique, eventually that winding staircase gets you to the place you want it to be, but not necessarily in a straight line, which is what we all want in life because we're human and three dimensional. Like I want to go from here to here, but typically it goes like this because all kinds of things have to happen for life to be able to put the right people in place. So he was a great example just 20 minutes ago. To answer this question, the minute we let go and let the science guide us, then success is guaranteed. But the minute we stop and question it and say, well, maybe it didn't work and maybe I'm doing it wrong and maybe I should try a different technique, that's when it all kind of, that's where those people really get a frustrating experience.

At the time of us recording, I'm just coming off of a week long retreat with Joe Dispenza. And Joe Dispenza does all the science of a lot of what you share and believe in, Trevor and, and talking about how in the quantum field everything is connected and two things that are connected are never truly separated. And that connecting to that field and allowing that to unfold, kind of brings the reality towards us and brings a lot of the woo woo into a very scientific approach which I know you really resonate with. And I'm always inspired by people like you and Joe who are 30 years my senior but are still setting new intentions. And I wanted to hear you comment on this because I'm 34, about to be 35 and sometimes I forget how much time I have. I forget how many chapters of my life I still have. And you, even being decades my senior, are still setting new goals and, and new long term plans. And I was hoping to hear you comment on how you think about time and what to do with that time.

Right. Times a complete illusion. So, but, but the funny thing is the older you get, the more you hear people say that. Right? So because you don't want to believe that you're getting older, of course, but you're not getting older. You're physically this body that holds our soul and our, you know all about what I call the torso wand. So, so the body that holds the torso wand is just a vehicle. And so it's going to, you know, it's going to get old eventually. It can't help it. It's exposed to radiation and gravity and eventually it's going to wear out and you get another one. That's basically how I think about it.

What I want to, what I want to kind of not correct, but I want to put out to everybody. Okay, so, so, so you will look at me and you'll say, okay, he's X years old, right? But I remember, remember before I read souls. Okay, so I'm going to tell you something. You're twice as old as I am. So, so I am around about 153,000 years old and you're at least 350,000 years old. And how do I know that is because you're an old soul and I'm a new soul. So I'm designed for the future, you're designed for the current. And so that's. So when you think in those terms, then you don't allow the world around you to say, hang on a sec, you can't do that. You're 60. You can't climb that mountain. You're 60 years old. That's not allowed. I just got off the beach this morning and I was climbing rocks faster than my girlfriend who's 20 years younger than me. Having a girlfriend who's 20 years younger than you helps keep you young too, by the way.

I'm pretty sure that's not Legal for me, but I'm glad that you get.

To experience that's true. Yeah, you've got challenges on that one. But eventually, you might be lucky enough to be my position, and that'll happen for you, too.

It's how we think. So at the back of our brains here is the reticular activation system, and it gives us what we want. And it doesn't have an emotion, and it doesn't say, oh, he wants only good or anyone's bad. He'll give us what we're focusing on, what we pay attention to. So if I pay attention to the aging process, then the reticular activation system is going to give me even more reason to pay attention to the aging process. I'm going to start getting pains. I'm going to start to lose my mind a bit. I'm going to start to see more old people than young people around. But my reticular activation system knows that I want. You know, my favorite quote is, I want to die at 95 years old from a single bullet wound to the head fired from the gun of a jealous lover. Okay. Because that's a. That's a life. Well. Well, run. Okay, so. So I want to. I want to. I want to be the, you know, the. The oldest, randiest man in the world. If you like, the old sexiest man in the world. I want to. I want to. I want to be hedonistic to my. To my very last breath. And because of that, my reticular activation system, which just keeps giving me what I want, will give me all kinds of experiences and, you know, and connections that will allow me to continue to stay young, you know, brought. It. Brought a tennis guy into my life. And I'm playing tennis now, which I didn't play tennis before, and I'm loving it. And it's really helping me physically and with my reactions and everything.

I came across somebody who was a brilliant teacher of yoga. I've not done yoga before, but what I didn't know is this person also was a teacher of swing dancing, and I'd never done swing dance because I'm swing dancing. So I'm treating life the same way now as I did when I was your age. And I'm not going to say that it's an attitude. I think it truly is a question of getting our reticular activation system programmed in a way that it gives us what we want and not what we don't want.

Trevor, you mentioned several times the scientific process that you use to set intentions. Would you walk us through what that looks like?

Yeah. So we crush time. We've already mentioned that time is an illusion. So one of the secrets is to understand that the past, present and future exist at the same time. But in the present moment, we control it all. We can affect the past and we can affect the future that we would have if we change nothing. So if we remain exactly thinking as we are today and behaving as we are today, we can pretty much predict what the future would look like. And we can pretty much remember and hold on to the past that got us to the point where we feel this way. But if we decide to change the way we think and the way we act and the way we write and talk, then we have an opportunity to change both what happens from this point forward and also the effects of what happened to us in the past. We loosen those ties, those anchors. And so what we do with intention setting is we put our mind in a place of where we want to be and we imagine a day in the life of that success. So let's say I decide today my intention is I am a billionaire. Okay? So now I put my head into what does a billionaire feel like? What does a day in the life of a billionaire feel like? And then I will window shop around that and I'll start to get the experiences of what a billionaire might feel like in that situation. And then I use a technique I call the mini mind movie, which again, everyone can get into in trevorgblake.com and in the mini mind movie, I imagine the most important thing, which is the feeling of what it's like to live that life. And the minute I connect with that feeling, as you were mentioning earlier before, we now have scientific labels for what used to sound like woo, woo, which is this connection to the Higgs field. So we can use this feeling to connect through the Higgs field and pull it to us so we can experience it in the shorter term rather than having to wait, say centuries to have that experience that. So that's how an intention, a scientific intention works. But, but it requires, it requires a bit of foundational knowledge to get to the point where, okay, I understand why this technique works. Therefore I don't have to try and believe it, I'll just do it. And also get to the point where we're quite practiced in creating the mini mind movie and then sharpening the detail of the mini mind movie with, with, with the detail we do through window shopping. So it's unlike anything, any, any. I mean, people are talking about intention setting and they're Telling people to share it with the universe and all this crazy stuff. And of course, when you do all these crazy stuff, you go against the laws of energy and you get a life of frustration. You don't get your intentions. So long as you follow the science and follow the laws of energy, then you can change anything. I just provide tools and techniques, and the reason I provide them is nobody in the world needs them more than I do because I'm as screwed up as anybody is. So I have to use these tools all the time. I've been, you know, you know, a little bit of my. My life. So, you know, I was happily married for 36 years with a woman I'd known for 40 years, which I met when I was 20, and. And she died in December 2020. And it didn't just break my heart. I mean, it smashed my heart into a thousand pieces. But I had promised her in the week before she died that I would not quit, that I would keep going, that I would get myself back up again. And so I've used all these same tools and techniques that I've taught for business and for relationships with two other people all of these years, and that I've used myself. I use nothing new. I use all the same tools and techniques to build myself back up again, to reinvent myself and to set my new intentions. And I discovered after six months that life on your own isn't so much fun because I've got all these great adventures I want to have. I want to share them. So I set an intention to get for a new partner, and I set an intention for a new business and let life fill in the details and just did the same techniques that I teach other people. And so here I am now, 2022, with, you know, inspired by the most amazing person I've met since my. Since my wife died, the only person who's inspired me since my wife died, the only person I feel anything for since my wife died. And we're living this amazing adventure together, creating new business opportunities. And, you know, she turns out to be, which I didn't know at the time, a very successful, you know, globally renowned author. And so we're using her brilliant techniques and her brilliant mind and my scientific techniques and scientific mind. So we've got art and science coming together and new projects, which is very exciting. So, you know, I'm just using the same techniques over and over. And if it can get you through grief, it can pretty much get you through anything.

Neville Goddard wrote a book called Feeling is the Secret. And I'M kind of thinking of that as you're talking about walking through the world feeling as though something has already happened. And I used to kind of see two worlds on this where sort of the woo woo world would say, you know, as you feel it, it draws the experience to you and the universe gives it to you. And then there was like the more sciencey or the more action oriented sense of it was if you just feel it, you'll see the world through the perspective of already having it and you'll make decisions from that place. And I used to kind of wonder who was right. And then I kind of realized it didn't matter who was right. Both of them kind of fed each other because if you're doing the actions in alignment with how you're feeling, you're more likely to draw those situations to you anyway. But do you have an opinion on that?

Well, I'm a big fan of the Neville Goddard books too, all 10 of them, but I've never counted. But he must use the word feeling probably 500 times in those books. And so he's, and that's key for me is to get into that feeling. The challenge is, you know, someone would say, well, how do I, how do I get into the feeling? So here I am, I'm up to my eyes in debt. You know, I'm about to lose my marriage. What, what, what's going on in my life. How do I get the feeling of financial independence and, and a successful relationship and, and that's where I think there's a gap between some of that teaching and, and how we live this modern. You know, that might have been great in 1945 when he, he wrote his masterp. People have so much disposable income and they have such a different lifestyle. So you have to add other smaller tools and techniques in order to help you get into that position where you have the feeling. And.

Obviously, Trevor G. Blake.com and Ryan, your company, we have those tools and techniques to help people get to that level. And once you get the feeling, it all happens very quickly. And then people say, okay, so when it happens, what does it feel like then? And whereas previously I would have thought, you know, you'd get a sense of excitement and you want to shout it from the rooftop and stuff like that, I find I just go very quiet and get into a feeling of gratitude and because it's a wonderful process and then realize, you know, I did actually create that myself. I'm very grateful to Universe for allowing me to do that. But I'm Worthy of much more. So here I go again and I'm going to create something else.

That's right. Yeah. I'm glad you said this because I often also used to think that once I achieved whatever my intention was, that I'd feel elated and excited. But that over excitement, that over enthusiasm is almost what happens when you overcome a doubt, when you're surprised by something. But if you truly believe it, if you can truly step into the feeling of having it, then you're not surprised at all. It's more a feeling of quiet gratitude. It's more an appreciation and an eagerness for what comes next rather than this completely excited, I won the lottery and I surprised myself kind of feeling. It's almost the next logical step in the unfolding of whatever the next intention is going to be.

It is. And I don't know about you, but.

I never get used to the sense of awe at how easy that all was, you know, how easy it was to get from point A to point B with a few simple techniques and changing the way I think. And I still get a sense of awe every time, you know, I start a creative project and then it comes to fruition. It always comes better than I expected and better than I said. And then I just, I think, wow, that's just, it's an awesome process. And that's why I think people like you and I, you feel a bit selfish knowing it and holding it to yourself. I think it's. I think we feel that would be wrong in some way, so that's why we share it with everybody else. Because you want, you want everyone you know to have that sense, same sense of gratitude, but also that feeling of awe about how amazing this universe is that we can convert one form of energy into another form simply by the way we think.

Trevor, do you have intentions that you've had for an extended period of time that have not come to fruition, that have ever planted seeds of doubt, or do you just dance through life picking them up and watching them unfold?

No. Doubt is constant. Okay, so. So no one should ever be afraid of doubt. I mean, you know, I pick. So I've never had an intention not come to fruition to answer the, to answer the question because it isn't possible not to, so long as you do the technique. Because it's a scientific process. At least as I observe it.

Every time I set an intention, my world is full of self doubt and the tools and techniques are there to allow me to overcome it. So I do a lot of mirror work you know, I'll think, am I crazy? Because the world will tell you you're crazy straight away. I mean, you've experienced this probably as much as I have, Ryan. That, you know, you, you make the mistake of sharing something with somebody and they go. And the look in their eyes is like, are you nuts? You can't do that. You're not qualified. And so every intention I've had has been in a field where I have no qualifications, where I have no experience, and I actually like that. And, and so because I think you go into it without a preconceived sense of what should happen. So you challenge everything and you create new new ideas and new structures, new ways of doing things. But the self doubt is constant. And so I have to on a daily basis overcome myself. That which I do by with my meditation technique. I do a lot of mirror work where I'll look in the mirror and I'll talk to myself. I'll do a lot of pump work. I call it Pump up the Volume. I pump myself up a lot. When things went on. When you're on that winding staircase and things seem to be unraveling and the voice in your head says, hang on a sec, has this finally caught you out? You're a fraud. You just got lucky seven times. And then I remember and then myself.

Seven.

Seven out of seven, not seven out of 20. So I think, okay, here I go again. So I do all the tools and techniques and. But that's why trevorgblake.com exists in the first place, because I always felt that was what was missing in the personal development self help world was anyone can talk about getting out of quicksand and having a hugely successful life. It's hard to get from one to the other without. It's like saying everyone can climb Everest, but you're not going to get there without a set of ropes and you need a guide. And, and so I. So travisiblake.com is there to help people find tools and techniques that can help them overcome these moments of self doubt and these moments of crisis and these, you know, sort of rebooting the RAs and rebooting the mirror neurons and staying disciplined. You need all of that. I treat it.

Very much like an athlete. It's hard for an athlete just to come out of high school and become a world star. There's a lot of work involved and a lot of setbacks too.

Gary Vaynerchuk once said to me, we both wanted to be athletes when we were growing up. He wanted to be quarterback for the New York Jets. I wanted to pitch for the Cleveland Indians. And he said, ryan, aren't you glad you didn't become an athlete? And I said, no, why? And he said, ryan, athletes have to quit when they're 35. As an entrepreneur, you get to play this game for as long as you want, which sort of reset it for me, remembering that it was a game. Trevor, you mentioned seven out of seven. And for people who don't know, that means seven companies you've started. Seven companies that have been successful, if I remember correctly.

Right.

I'm curious if you could. Can you comment on why you think you have? You're batting a thousand. When it comes to business projects, that is exceedingly rare.

I got lucky, I suppose, to an extent. With my first one, I didn't have enough money to hire a bunch of employees, so I got the rights to a product. I knew what I wanted to do with it and I had to find a different way of doing it. So I built the hub model, or a model of alliances, as people like to call it now in our politically correct world. So the structure turned out to be not only effective, it freed me up to focus on growth instead of holding the hands of disgruntled employees. And it was proved to be incredibly profitable. 76% net profit in the first company. So I just repeated the same. It's a repeat rinse for me. So when I have a new idea, I set an intention and then the top level people I need will pop into my life and I will build a structure, sort of hub model structure, which I don't suppose we have time to get into to now, but it matches the energy as occurring of the modern world. And that's why businesses, you see, are changing dramatically. Those businesses that are hierarchical, old masculine energy structures, they're gone. And if, and if they're not gone today, they'll be gone in the next few years if they don't change the way they do things. Now we're in this really fast, spiraling, feminine energy. These are just labels. They don't mean male or female, which is what we call them. So fast spiraling energy requires companies that can adapt really quickly to changes in technology and circumstances or, you know, just spin around. And to do that, you don't. You can't be encumbered with, you know, ten levels of manager. You've got to be really lean. In fact, I'm so lean that I'm just a company of one. I've never had another employee in any of my companies. And so when you have when your structure matches the energy of the time and you're following the right tools and techniques and you're adding intentions, it's going to work. So you just keep, I just keep repeating it even though I'm in different industries all the time. So I sold the first three for 300 million and then I'm in the process of selling number four, a deal that I can't put a number on yet, but it could be anywhere from 600 million to a billion. And I've got another three that I'm running at the same time. So this is the most I've run at one time, four companies, but I'm moving the fourth one out. It's like graduating a child to someone who has better resources than I do. It's got too big for me. And then I'm going to focus on these three businesses which are in industries I've never been in before.

And do it again.

And when you talk about these businesses having no employees being worth hundreds of millions of dollars, do you have one central person that is operating them and then other outsourcers to complete the hub model? How are you able to live a life while you're still running $100 million companies?

So I am the central person, so I run all the companies. I do use vendors and clients. So I have a lot of very talented people who give me a few hours a week for their piece of the business, what they do. And I profit share with all of them because I believe very much in sharing the rewards of everybody's labor. So the really good people who they made really good money, they're likely to, to want to come and play in the next game. So. So I do have a, I do have a continuum of a group of people that have been around or in and out of all of these different, different projects of mine.

I have a. If you go to Trevor G. Blake.com and there's a free download, I, I wrote it for Covid because I could see this tsunami of people moving from the traditional corporate structure into working from home without any training or education about how difficult that can be if you don't get it right. So I wrote a book, very short course, called the Practical Magic of the five Hour Workday. And so the way I run my companies and run them all at the same time, as you've heard, is through working less than five hours a day. And it sounds counterintuitive, but actually it's based on science. It's based on peak brain performance and about structuring A day into dedicated work periods and then dedicated relaxation periods. And the dedicated relaxation periods are where the magic happens. So there's certain things that I have to do in the productive period. I got to check on forecasts and budgets and stuff like that. In the dedicated relaxation period, I'll walk on a beach and I'll use a couple of tools and techniques and that moment of insight that's worth a lifetime of experience will hit me and that will solve any problem that seemed insurmountable when I was in the productive period. So I structure my day like this. And if you want to know how that happens and why it should happen scientifically, that's there's a free no strings attached download at Trevor G Blake.com the practical magic of the five hour workday. But I learned a long time ago that working less achieves more and thinking more achieves more. And so actually thinking less achieve more but relaxing more achieves more. And so I structure my day like this. So two hours in the morning, I never work before 9 o'. Clock. I don't allow distraction from electronic devices. So I work on the work, then I go and work on the relaxation, come back, work on the work, work on the relaxation. And that's what I've done. Well, probably I used to do it in the corporate world, so it's not just something that applies to your own business. When I was in the corporate world I realized the madness of making people work 10 hour days. And so I would only work five hours a day, but I'd have to cheat and lie to my bosses about the results the other five hours. And yet I won every award going regional manager year sales manager, marketing manager, European marketing manager. All of these awards that were up for other people who were 10, 14 hour days, you know, I won not just, you know, I won by a, by, by a, by a mile by following this science of peak brain performance which, which tells you that the brain's at its most creative when it's tired, not when it's fresh. And that the brain can't concentrate more than two hours at a time. Everything after that is mush and not worth the effort. And so by structuring your day that way you can achieve, you'll blow your mind with what you can achieve.

Trevor, can you comment on the company that you are exiting right now or is that tight lipped at the moment?

No, I can comment on it. So it's a biotech. So.

You know, my mother died of breast cancer and.

You know, she always, she died with tremendous Grace. She handled her disease with tremendous grace. So she's a real inspiration for me. I get most of my. Most of my ideas from things she taught me. But the side effects of the treatments really crushed her and took her. What stole her womanhood. And that always sat in the back of my mind. I always wanted to do something about that. And back, way back when, actually 2001, I found myself in a situation where I came across an inventor, and everyone doubted his invention. But I was able to take his invention almost for free and put it in a laboratory almost for free and have them test it. And the data that came back astounded me. And so I built a company around that, and I fed it from the funds from another company. So as I was making revenue with one company, I would feed it in and feed it in and build it up slowly. And the reason I had to do that is because no one in the world would believe that we could create a treatment for cancer that had zero side effects. No one would believe it. And so even to the point where I had to go into clinical trials by myself in order to make. In order to prove that. And so. And so now we've just finished our first phase of clinical trials. We have a very efficacious drug with no side effects. So why that's important to me is that, you know, these patients that we've had in our clinical trial, they've got, you know, a matter of weeks left to live. They have been exposed to all kinds of smart G cell therapy drugs, chemotherapy drugs, immunotherapy drugs. Nothing's worked. But the side effects have destroyed their lives and the lives of the families and friends who are watching them suffer. And so they came into our clinical trial as a last resort, and they were able to. We were able to achieve stable disease and then shrink the tumors as we got the doses higher. No side effects and no loss of quality of life. That's just a passion of mine. And so I'm thrilled to have got to this point. Now, I have to say that my baby has graduated to this level, and it needs to go into the hands of a company that can take it the rest of the way.

Now, there's a. I think there's a very important business lesson here that ties a lot of what you've shared, But I need to fill in a gap here. So am I right to assume that the buyer of this company is another pharmaceutical or biotech company that is buying the technology, not the revenue stream they're buying the tech to implement is that correct?

That is correct. They're buying the tech and the ip, protect the protection around that tech, and.

The company probably doesn't have any substantial revenue.

No, it has none. No.

Okay, so this is the important point here, is if you. If you've listened to this. This story up until this point, you set this intention of having this ginormous exit, and somebody asks, how could somebody sell a business while working five hours a day? There's this assumption that there's a ton of revenue. There's this assumption that in order to have the revenue to justify a $600 million valuation, that there must be a ton of employees, a ton of operations. The BS meters go up here. But then if you just realize that you just developed a technology using clinical trials by finding the product almost for free and running tests almost for free, you just did the work for a buyer that valued it enough to. Where they implement it into their systems, and it will be worth billions of dollars to them. It is not the traditional model of developing something and getting it to $100 million in revenue and then selling it. You're just developing an asset that somebody else is going to put into a revenue stream. That's the missing piece of the story that I think a lot of people will overlook because they'll assume that their model of business or their model of the world doesn't fit into your intentions. This is you letting go of the how. This is letting go of how it gets there.

Yeah, you. You've put it really well, Ryan. Better than I put it, actually. And it's my company, so.

That'S exactly it. And so the question of valuation always comes up. How can you value an idea that highly? And so what you do is you say, okay, if this is successful, if it eventually becomes a drug on the market, it will make this much revenue. Therefore, we're willing to buy it for this much today because we want to make that much revenue in the future. And so they're offering this much now, which is a big chunk of money, which I'm happy to receive, but I'm not leaving at that point. I'm also asking for a little piece of the future. So I'm willing to take a little bit of risk. That's why I say it's between 600 million and a billion. I'm willing to take. I hope they won't watch this. I'm willing to take 600 million so long as I can get X percent of net sales in the future, because I know this is going to be a blockbuster drug. Because I've set the intention for that, so I know it's going to happen. So I'm trying to be smart about my a continuous revenue stream in the future, but right now there's nothing in the company. There's no building, there's no laboratory, there's, there's no employees. There's just me sitting at home.

Answering the phone, basically when the phone rings, you know, but with the data that has been created through the process of developing this drug. So that, so that is the value is in the data. So now they can see, wow, okay, in 38 people this happened. Imagine we put our resources behind it, in the 300,000 people that need this drug, what would it be like? And so they're willing to pay a price for that. And it's a bidding war too. So it's not just one person, it's several people.

I want to ask this question selfishly because when you talk about that, it makes me think, wow, maybe I'm in the wrong industry. Maybe I am thinking about things differently because I know you've been in biotech companies several times. Do you think about these things as you're entering into an industry, entering into a space, or is it more that you're following an impulse or an interest and then you cap, you put the intention on top of it and you let life fill in the details.

It's a little bit like the latter, Ryan, but it's simply that I'm trying to fix something that needs fixing and I don't care what it is, right? So just like how Netflix came into being, you know, fixing the old, old fashioned model of the blockbuster model of, you know, having, you know, being fined for not returning your video on time. It's, it's seeing something. And then I look for a fix and then I realize that that doesn't exist. So then if it gets under my skin for a period of time and I find I can't sleep at night because of thinking about the problem, then, then I'll go and fix it. And it doesn't matter what it is, because I know I will always find brilliant people because the intention will do that for me. So.

Like Sun Tzu said, the best manager is the one whose people say, we did it all ourselves. And so I keep that in mind all the time that the best talent I bring to my businesses is to get out of people's way and to let them get on with it and then to share the rewards with them. So they're all going to be very happy people, very Soon.

So it's a bit like that. It's finding something to fix. It doesn't matter what it is, you fix it. I mean, Richard Bryson, but Branson didn't want to get in the airline business. He had a problem, he wanted to fix a problem, a personal problem, and he ended up in the airline business as a result. So he realized there was something that needs fixing. It's all like that. So in my Secrets to a Successful Startup, which is one of my books, three Simple Steps, which I know you recommend, which is I thank you for, but I wrote another one, A Secret to a Successful Startup, and right at the beginning is how to create a winning idea. And it's all about finding something to fix. Instead of thinking about what, doing something you love, something you're good at, or something you've got experience with, just find something to fix, start fixing it. And you'll be amazed at how you suddenly have the right people around you. And we're amazing human beings. You know, we can. We can pretty much fix anything once we put our mind to it.

You have a lot of people who come to you with ideas and they're sharing with you their intentions or their plans for a business. What do you look for when you're sniffing out the ones that you feel confident in versus the ones that you want to flush down the toilet?

Well, two things. First of all, I'm always looking for passion. So I'm turned on by passion, not by facts. But secondly, they have to have had connection with the potential customer and the potential vendors. I get an amazing number of people who come to me with an idea, but they haven't even left their home yet.

It looks great on paper, but what's the point? So I wait for people to say, you know, look, I've had this idea. I found someone who could do a prototype. I took it, I gave it to this customer. They ran with it for three months. They've said it's brilliant. They've shown me, they've shared with me the data that they've got from it, cost savings or time savings or whatever benefit that idea gave to them. Now what do I do? And that's the right time for me to enter a business or go or form a partnership with that person, because the person is more important than the idea. But it's the passion and the fact that the customers and the vendors have said, if you build this, we will come. You need that in place these days, I think today. I don't know what your opinion is, Ryan, but I think Everyone needs at least a proof of concept. It's expected of.

Newbie entrepreneurs, if you like. And the proof of concept can be very simple. But you've got to at least have gone out and talked to your potential customers, customers and vendors and manufacturers and all anyone else who's involved, and get their opinion and use their opinions to build your business plan, to help them build it for you. So that's so important for me. I get so frustrated when vendors come out full of enthusiasm and all they've got is a business plan written on a piece of paper with some marketing information that they've never actually tested with anybody before me. So they usually end up in the trash can.

Trevor, we're doing this mindset series@capitalism.com because the more that I go down the rabbit hole, it just keeps getting confirmed. That mindset really is everything in entrepreneurship. It's not second or third. It's first, second, and third. It runs everything. So what do you say to entrepreneurs who have a dream, but they doubt it, but they feel unqualified, but they feel like their dreams are impossible? You have proven that the impossible can be accomplished seven out of seven times. So what is it that gives you the mindset to be able to continually go after these goals that some people would say are impossible?

Well, if an entrepreneur came into my energy field saying what? You're repeating what you've just said, Ryan. You know, I'd say, welcome to the world of entrepreneurship. That's what it's like, right? That's what it's like. It's a world of uncertainty. And you have to be the personality that loves that. If you're looking for security, then get a corporate job. And even that's not secure, but at least it'd be more secure. The fun is in the playing of this game. You hope to get a good result, but the fun is in playing of it. And so when people come in with that and say, okay, what do I do next? My answer is always the same one word, start. Because you don't know what business you're in until you get in the business. Best bit of business advice I ever got from George Rothman, who built Amgen. I was waxing lyrical one day about a business idea, and he said, just start. And he was right. And so I started, and I thought the business was going after a particular direct in a particular direction. As soon as I was in the business, an opportunity I never would have known existed popped into my life, and it was 10 times bigger. And so although I kept with this Business. I ended up really going in this direction and all the funds from this paid for this beautifully. So, you know, you, but you. I'd never been able to predict that forward. I could only look backwards and say, wow, I'm glad I made the start. I'm glad I met that person. I'm glad this happened. The hand. You can put the dots together in reverse in the past, but you can't, you can't going forward very well. And that's why intentions work so well, because you avoid the process of the dotting. You jump to the end and then the dots fill themselves in. And so that's kind of how I do it. Just start is my advice to answer your question.

Well, Trevor, it is always a pleasure. Thank you for being so inspiring on my journey and so many journeys of other entrepreneurs. And thank you for being an example of how much fun capitalism can be. It's great to see you, Trevor.

Thank you, Ryan. You too. And thanks for the questions and good luck, everybody. And now a quick word from Jared.

One of our members.

In the 1%.

I was bankrupt and crippled to making a million dollars in a year. And then I grew that business and kept growing it. So, like my whole world changed financially very quickly. It was amazing how fast it was able to transition and like, turn once things got rolling. Ryan in capitalism.com pretty much taught me everything I knew about E commerce and specifically branding was the biggest thing that I think capitalism really does well. And they focus on teaching their students about building a brand and just teaching business to people. Like, everything he teaches is stuff that he's done. You know, it's not like from theory that you're gonna learn. So it's like all stuff that he's done. So I think the biggest thing that capitalism, capitalism.com helps you with is that you're getting to learn from somebody who's done the exact thing that you want to do, which is the most important thing in the world. Like, that's how you fast track your results. So if you want like the fast lane and to get your results really quickly, you go to capitalism.com and you have them show you what to do so you don't make all the mistakes and you get there really quickly. And it was the best money I ever spent because I went from bankrupt and crippled and all this other stuff to a million dollars a year business in one year, which is exactly what he teaches. And I was like, holy crap, this stuff works. So I was a. It was a very healthy exit and was able to let me focus on many other things in my life and not have to worry about that stuff anymore.

If you found value in this podcast and you're ready to go Deeper, here are three resources where we can help you. One, you can grab my book 12 months to 1 million on Audible or Amazon. It has over a thousand reviews and it's the playbook to building a seven figure business. Second, you can join our community of entrepreneurs who are following a plan to build a 1% net worth by building businesses and investing the profits. You can get plugged in@capitalism.com 1. And third, if you're looking to go deeper and build a seven figure business that you can sell, you can work closely with us inside the Capitalism incubator and you can get on the waiting list and find out what we do over@capitalism.com inc. That's capitalism.com incident.