Joseph Valente went from being expelled and raised in poverty to winning The Apprentice in 2015. He quit a £50,000 job, took a £15,000 loan, bought a van, and built a national plumbing business. He credits belief and dismantling self-limiting thoughts as the turning point.
The Apprentice, 2015.
£50,000 per year.
£15,000.
From his salary at Tesco's.
On those self limiting beliefs and you know, it is very, very difficult and they're very difficult to break. You know, don't work too hard, don't do too much. I'm like, no, no, no, I'm fine, I need to do more, I need to work harder. I'm not doing enough, you know, you need to rest. I don't need to rest, I need to achieve more. So I quit my £50,000 a year job. I took out £15,000, the Home Development loan with my salary from Tesco's. I bought a van, I branded it infra, I bought a set of tools, I and within two weeks my business was born. It starts with belief. There's no point having finance, there's no point having a great idea, there's no point having hard work ethic if you don't believe that it's going to go off first and foremost and when you might as well pack your bag and quit now.
Hey everybody.
Welcome to another episode of the 2% where as always, we're interviewing peak performers in all walks of life to decode excellence, give you the strategies, tips and tools that you can use to close that gap between your current and best self, to break free from the 98% and join the 2% of people worldwide estimated to be operating at their full potential. And I'm super excited today to welcome to the show Joseph Valente. Joseph, a big hello to you. Welcome.
Hi, Eric. How you doing, my man?
Yeah, very good, very good. And you've done some amazing things. I mean, I'm just going to mention a few of them and I'm sure a lot more will come up in our conversation today. But you won The Apprentice in 2015.
I can relate to that. I was a guest judge on the Apprentice for, during one of the seasons. So we have nice, we have some common ground there.
Excellent. We'll explore that in a bit more detail.
Yeah, yeah. And you've done a lot of entrepreneurial things. You've gone through the highs and importantly the lows as well. Because a lot of people, you know, all the things that they've achieved and a lot of people don't fully appreciate all the pain that we have to go through to get that sort of achievement. And then these days, I know you're doing, you set up the trade group which is incredible online training company trying to help people, people entrepreneurs in the construction industry scale themselves and the companies.
Right, yeah, exactly right. You know, I felt, you know, coming out of the background that I've had from going as a Plumber to a CEO of a national business in just a few years. That journey was all about leveling up, it was all about upgrading, it was all about finding new skills for education. And when I exited my last business, I decided to, you know, look at the construction industry and see how I was going to help business owners that were construction business owners to become business people, you know, by teaching traditional business skills, sales, marketing, finance, HR structure, you know, recruitment, and allowing them to have the, you know, foundational knowledge that they need to scale.
Yeah, and now, I mean, now you're in this, you know, incredible position with this, you know, rapidly growing business just to bring things down a level, though, of course you didn't start that way. And so I'd love if you could just share your humbler beginnings. How did life start for you and what were the early days like?
Yeah, so, you know, as a kid growing up, we didn't have a lot of money. My mum kind of struggled. She did lots of jobs. My dad was an alcoholic, he didn't work. And so, you know, it was a very difficult upbringing for us. It was very hostile and challenging. And, you know, as a youngster, I was always one of those kids that wanted everything and I wanted it now. But. But our circumstances didn't allow us to have those things now. And even circling it, you know, and waiting and circling it in the catalog and kind of asking for it for Christmas, those days just didn't come because we couldn't afford it whether it was today or Christmas. So I decided very, very early on that if I was going to have to make money, if I was going to change my future, change my life, change my circumstances, you know, have a good life for my family and so on, that I was going to have to take action in some shape or form and that I couldn't follow the blueprint of what my dad was laying out for me. I needed to break the mold and go and find out what successful people do to become successful and kind of copy that. And I was very, very lucky to.
Have a very successful uncle. My mum's brother was super successful. He was an MD of a big finance company. He'd show up in his brand new BMWs, his sharp suit, very tall guy, walked in a room with presence. And I used to look at my dad and then I'd look at him and I'd say, how did that man become like that? And how did that man become like that? And I decided that I was going to recognize.
