The Business Advice I Had to Unlearn After Making Millions

I did everything right, built 3 companies to 7 figures, had the lifestyle, moved to Dubai, had all of the fancy cars, all of the luxuries. And then I was just sitting there one day in Dubai alone over a year ago now, and I just realized something was missing, something was wrong. On paper, I'd achieved everything. I'd achieved an 8-figure net worth, I had everything that I thought I wanted, but something inside me was missing. So since that moment, how I think about business success and what actually matters is all fundamentally changed for me now. So now I'm going to sit down and actually talk about the advice that I actually had to unlearn. So when I first started my recruitment agency over 10 years ago, some of the rules that I lived by back then were just working and hustling very, very hard. So it was just money never sleeps, and it was in the office early in the morning till late at night, 5, 6 days a week, and just never switching off. So always learning, always growing. Always trying to like win clients was always the key thing. So for me at the start in my business journey, it was more about just putting the effort in because I've talked about in previous videos, you've got assets, you've got skills, and then you've got like actually your raw unit energy of time. And as a founder, when you're first starting, it's just all about grind. It was literally just all about putting in the hours. But one thing I realized was looking back that it was making sure you focus on the right areas. And when I say that, I mean revenue-producing tasks. There's a lot of times as business founders when people are stuck around about $20K, $30K, $40K a month, they are working on the wrong things. They are spending too much time thinking they are having activities that are driving the business forward, but it's not actually driving the business forward. So I was actually just came off a mentorship call with my group of agency owners. We did a new business development for 2026, and I was talking about all the new strategies that you can do to win and acquire clients. And some of the strategies have stood the test of time, and I went through some of them that I teach them. When I asked the group how much outreach they're doing per week, how many client meetings they're having, how many events they're turning up to, how many letters they've posted down to certain clients, the answer was pretty much zero. So one thing I realized was a lot of entrepreneurs, they lack this actual real desire of the things that they need to do that they just don't wanna do, but they know they have to do it in order to get successful. And that was one thing that really resonated with me when I first started was, yes, you put in the hours, but are you putting in the correct hours on the right tasks? And when I look back, I realized that when I came out of employment, so when I worked at a big recruitment agency, which was Wolf of Wall Street suited and booted, I was in there 7:00 AM till 7:00, 8:00 PM every night. It was instilled into me that it just was cold calling, door knocking, just ultimate grind. And one thing I realised was it wasn't always about that, it was making sure that you've got leverage. There's a better way to optimise this. So when you are a founder but you've been a previous employee, there's a few things that you need to unlearn when you're first starting out. But then also there's things that instil with you that I've noticed that business entrepreneurs that just start up a business and haven't had any employment, any discipline, showing up on time, getting promoted, managing a team, leading a team, being disciplined, then that really sets your expectations and the barrier of your levels of success in business. Because you've had bosses, you've had people you had to answer to, and you've had clear direction of successful people and discipline. So that also helps when you're in your entrepreneurial journey. And one thing I've realized is some people that are stuck at a certain level, 20, 30, 40K a month, it's always because they probably haven't had the correct discipline in a previous employment, but also they haven't unlearned the employee mentality of the barrier of like 20K or 30K months is good. One thing I realized was I've talked about it before, self-worth and your net worth. And it was always important to me that your emotional bank account is full up. So then your actual financial bank account is full as well. There's always going to be times when that's different, which is why you really need to work on your mindset every single day. Keep programming your mindset. Jim Rohn is great to listen to in the morning. I remember like listening to him religiously every single day and reading his books. But bringing it back to the point was the more money I had in the bank account, and I'll be truthful with this, was the higher status and more esteem and success I felt. So you could walk into rooms when you had the first $100K in the bank account. I felt like more richer. And then when I had $500K and then a million dollars or pounds like physically in the bank account, that's when you have even more swagger and success. I always try to have nice cars, I always try to have nice things like nice watches, and as I progressed I bought better things. And again, it does make you feel better. Like, I'm not wearing a watch today, but normally if you wear a watch you do feel 1 or 2 or 3% better. And that is true. Even one of my very good friends who's worth 9 figures, finally convinced him to buy his first watch. He bought a Rolex and he was like, James, I actually feel great wearing it. Even just that little boost of self-esteem. So what I would say is like your net worth and your self-worth, obviously you need to balance it out, but the quicker you can get to a million in the bank account, then 2, then 3, then 5 and 10, then the bigger your, your worth as a person goes up because the only thing that can get measured in life, and I learned this from my old mentor Dan Peña, The $50 Billion Man, was what gets measured gets accomplished. And when you're looking at business gurus online and you're looking at these successful people, like, the most easiest way to judge if they have been successful is gonna be their financial bank account. I can get out my bank account and show millions of pounds in the bank account. I can show all of the assets. How many people can actually do that, you know? Because there's so many people online rented Lamborghinis. Funny, I did a video, one of my cars, my Bentley, and some of the comments were like, he's rented a Bentley for the day, which was quite amusing. But I don't feel any ill will to that person because I'm not surprised. Like, there's so many different fake people out there that are trying to trying to perceive something they're not, you know? So when I look back, when I was in that peak hustle stage, I was still obsessed with financial goals. And that definitely got me to here where I am now. But then I know that just financial success isn't everything. You have to have all of the other pillars lined up, especially your faith, your family, your health. You've got to have certain different hobbies. You've got to have that mix. But at the start, It is, you need to be obsessed with business. You have to be living and breathing it every single day. Business and personal development were the two key strategies for me that really unlocked that level of success, going from six figures to seven figures and then seven to eight. Once you get to eight figures, it's just all about having a balanced life then. Like for me now, it's like my faith with the Lord Jesus Christ. It's about family, my future wife, future children. These are the pillars that I spend more time and energy on because I've already worked the hard yards on the business side. Still obsessed with business, still love it and breathe it every day in the 3 companies that I own and more that I'm going to be investing in. But I just wanted to make you all aware that it does require a lot of hustle at the start, but you need to make sure that you're focusing on the right things. And a business mentor is definitely something that you could look at in order to give that advice. Claude ChatGPT, yes, it can give you surface-level bits of advice, but it hasn't really walked the path in business. So don't always just go straight to AI. Read books, surround yourself with mentors, go to masterminds. These type of things are still very, very crucial in today's age. One thing about hiring people that I've changed my mind on was each employee is a revenue generator in your business. And you have this balanced trade-off skill. It's like in this entrepreneurial journey flow. One of my good friends, Daniel Priestley, talks about this in his book Entrepreneur Revolution, which was you've got this lifestyle business and then you go into wilderness stage, like when you're normally 12, 13 employees. And one of these things that I was breaking past, 'cause I got all the way up to 40 employees in my company, but we did that like in 3 different businesses. So they're still very lean. They were all roundabout 12 to 15 people on each business unit within those companies. And one thing I realized was now is you have different seasons in business, okay? And in your life. And sometimes you really want a lot of freedom. Sometimes you want a lot of growth, revenue, lots of bums on seats, lots of employees, lots of growth. And then there's sometimes you want a lot of profit. So I've went through all these stages: aggressive growth, driving the numbers, driving the revenue, then leaning back and wanting just more freedom and more time once I acquired some wealth, then it was optimizing for profit, and then now I'm in the season again where I really want to grow again because I want to go again to the next level. And I realize like there's there's a certain amount of software, tools, systems, SOPs, lean remote team you get to, but then you also need good A-player employees, partners, like people that are gonna help you take things to the next level. I was actually watching an old interview with Grant Cardone. He was just talking about how he just pumps all his revenue and profit straight into ads again, just to be known, to be seen everywhere, to just swallow up all his competitors. And it just really like lit a charge in me to think, wow, I should be doing that in one of my companies now, The Agency Blueprint, because— and RemoteAssistance.ai, those two companies— I've got the funds to really aggressively grow with that now with ad spend and team. And I feel like I've done the season where I've had so much freedom, so much leverage, great profitable businesses, but now I just want to take it on again. So I wanted to be transparent with you where there is seasons in business, you know, there's no right or wrong way that you do things to a certain level, there's always gonna be different dynamics through different seasons in your business journey as you go from 6 to 7 and then 8 figures and beyond. So having a team is crucial and it's actually great to have a team that you can physically see as well. So I actually just recently had a lot of my team fly out to my place in Marbella in Spain and it was really great to get them all together again. And even just like all of you on your laptop actually working side by side, It just is massive because I've had offices for many years in my company, Ronald James, but in the other companies we've been very remote. And I feel like having people that you meet physically, even if it's once a month or once every quarter, still very important. But without a team, you're not going to get to the next level. So you must unpack the fact that you will have to be comfortable managing people. You can manage a remote team. We hire a lot of offshore people in South Africa. We've done that for over 500 companies now to really big success gives you way more leverage. And even if you're starting there, like all of you should be having like an executive assistant, a marketing assistant. You can get an operations assistant that will help you implement AI and all of the tools that we do a lot for companies as well. Like those 3 key hires can be the easiest hires you make and it's not going to break the bank account. But then to take it to the next level, you have to be comfortable building out a team. Because the team is going to be the one that's going to give you the leverage so you can remove yourself from the business day to day. So there is other business advice that founders give, especially online. You need to look, are they living the life that you want to live? Okay, so there's like Alex Hormozi, for example, genius, watched him for a long time on YouTube and a lot of his frameworks are great. But, and I haven't met the guy in person, but he does seem depressed, you know, like some of his videos, he would be recording in a tiny little box laundry room. For example, I'm like, for me, I'm the opposite, you know, like I have my work always with a view, like in my penthouse in Marbella, I've just got a full sea view, sun every day. I have to be looking at abundant and inspiring things for me to work, you know? So you need to make sure you're taking advice from people that are where you want to be. So there's one level of like, yes, they've acquired the net worth, but have they done it happy? Have they done it with a great balance? Do they have a good family? Do they have good friendships? Do they have their faith aligned? All of these things you wanna make sure that are aligned with who you follow and who you listen to. Otherwise, just try and take elements from different people. So I've had a lot of mentors over the years and I've just took 10% here, 5% here. One time I took 25% from someone, but then I look back and I think they haven't got their life figured out, you know? But we are all unique, you are unique. So you need to make sure that you're taking the advice from the people that have actually walked the path And again, just tune in. Like, does your gut tell you that this is the right thing to do? And has this been a proven path that somebody's walked in the past? So that's it, guys. So as you've probably seen, like some of the rules that I used to follow, I don't follow now, but I always wanna make sure that I come across authentic and I'll just give you a raw of like how I've walked that path from 6 to 7 to 8 figures and the groups of companies that I run. I've changed over the years, okay? So what freedom means for me now doesn't mean what freedom meant for me 5 years' time. And you're on your own journey and path. For those that have been watching me and are interested in hiring a remote assistant, there should be a link in the subject line below this video. And what I would advise you to do, we've got like a quiz, or you can book in a call. And on that call, we will establish where you can get more leverage in your business, the tasks that you're working on that you probably shouldn't be working on, and how really affordable it is to just implement a remote assistant into your company. So if you enjoyed it, give it a like, and I'll catch you on the next video.