Steve Sims - How To Make Impossible Things Happen

This is an intro. Intro, intro, intro.

Hustle and Float Shark with your boy.

My boy, Matt Wolf.

Joe Fear.

Hey. Hello. Ah, you beat me to it, Matt.

I beat you to it. You're listening to the Hustle and Flowchart podcast. My name is Matt Wolfe. I'm here with my co host.

My name is Joe Fear.

Joe A.

Fear.

Joseph A.

Fear. That's right, the third. Not true.

No, just the first.

Not a fir. Yes, it is the first.

The first. But your dad's name is Joe.

Different middle name.

Couldn't he call you Junior if he wanted to? Even with a different.

Could have. I was never called Junior.

Can I start calling you Junior?

Hell no. I don't want that Junior shit.

Come on. All right, me.

All right, Joey the Second.

Joey the Second.

Isn't the second the same as being a Junior?

I don't even. Yeah, it would technically be. Yeah, for sure. Anyway, today we are not talking to any other Joe Fears. Today on this podcast, we're talking to Steve Sims.

Oh, dude, Steve, this. I had so much fun with this interview. Like I, I just thought like, Steve's energy, his personality, his advice, like, just so, such like a good energy around this episode.

Hell yeah.

And so basically what Steve is known for is making insane shit happen for people. I. I totally slurred my words. Making insane shit happen for people who think it's not possible. Things like setting up dinner parties in front of Michelangelo's David, right? With. With Bocelli.

Bocelli singing.

Singing at the dinner party for only people, right?

Going down to the Titanic, you know, private tours, all these different things.

Got somebody who was like the ultimate Journey fan on stage, singing with Journey in San Diego. In San Diego. So I mean, he's just known for making insane shit happen for people who, who really don't believe that this stuff is possible.

And I think that's what I love about him is. And we get into in the interview how he has a whole different way of thinking and he doesn't take the surface level for an answer. He's going, he's thinking like a kid. He's not putting up mental barriers and these objections. He's going for the frigging Grand Slam. And then anything less is still a massive win. So Steve really breaks down how to do that formulaically through his thought pattern. Blue Fishing is his company. He actually does it as a service for these high level clients. That's what the Titanic experience and the David experience, all those things came from his company, Blue Fishing. He has a book. Yeah, it's amazing. And it gets you into this thinking. And that's what I liked about that and this episode is that for me, it just like, it's a different way to approach a situation or people networking opportunities, wants and needs in life and stuff like that. I mean, yeah, I mean, you're going.

To be blown away by the stories alone, just the stories of what he's managed to accomplish for people. And then by the end of it, you're going to be inspired and feel like, oh, I can do this stuff too. Because he's going to give some very practical, actionable advice on, here's how to approach these things. Here's. Here's how to find the right people and connect with the right people. And, you know, the stories are amazing. And then the actual actionable things that you can follow through based on what he's accomplished is really kind of killer stuff too.

And there is at the very end, which is really cool. Don't just skip to it because there's so much more gold on the front. But the social audit, it's something actually I learned from. He was on Roland's podcast and it basically is like a formulaic way to figure out how to best connect with someone and lead with value. And he breaks down exactly how to do that. That's something that I've been using a lot more just for all of our guests, just to kind of pull out some of these little nuances that might not be publicly known so much. So that's why you'll hear us kind of reference certain things and it's kind of strategic in our podcast. And it's cool because that's exactly what Steve does. Yeah, that's how he connects with some of these high level people. It's ridiculous. The Rolodex this guy has.

Yeah, no, we'll. We'll get into all of it on the show. Now. What I want to tell you about now is the same thing I've been telling you about on pretty much every podcast you've heard from us recently.

True.

I want you to get the notes for this episode because we're giving them away for free for a limited time.

Why? Why should they get the notes?

So if you're out walking or driving or doing the dishes or whatever, you're listening to this episode and you're going, this is some of the best shit I've ever heard in my life. I, I wish I had a pen and paper in front of me to take notes. You don't have to worry about that. We got you covered. We actually take the notes for you. And if you go to hustleandflowchart.com comp you can get access to the most recent episodes notes, but it is available for a limited time. You basically can get the notes for the week that the episode is first released, and then they kind of go into our vault. But go check out the notes. Hustleandflowchart.com comp we're going to share all the tips, tactics, strategies, tools, resources, names, URLs. Any of that kind of stuff is mentioned. Those are in the notes, so you have easy access. It's a nice little companion to the episode hustle and show.

Hustleandflowchart.com comp c o m P that vault is going to close soon, so you got to hurry over there.

The vault? No, the vault.

The vault has a big door, and it's closing quickly.

Well, you can get access to the vault if you'd like, but these notes are going to be locking into the vault soon.

That's a good point. Okay, good point.

So flowchart.com not evergreenprofits.com hustleandflowchart.com comp let's go talk to Steve before Joe loses his mind.

It's gone.

It's gone already.

It's gone.

All right, let's go talk to Steve.

Steve, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, man. So, yeah, we were just. We were right before recording, we were talking about how we have all these mutual friends, and we said it was just meant to be a matter of time. We're going to hop. Have you on the show here.

Yeah, I think it's actually worth, like, sort of breaking it down how connected you are, because, you know, we. I heard you on Brad Costanza's Bacon rap show. And then after that, a couple weeks later, we spoke at War Room, and we were talking to Roland, and Roland's like, you guys need to talk to Steve Sims. He's somebody that everybody needs to know. And so we're like, okay, cool. And then a couple weeks later, we were talking to Josh Aguilar on his podcast. And then afterwards, he's like, you guys need to know Steve Sims. And he was the one who finally made that. That connection through Facebook. But we were kind of. We were getting bombarded from people going, steve is somebody you need to talk to on your show.

Well, well, thank. I think that's a good thing.

Yeah. I was like, it's for better or for worse. We'll find out at the end of this episode.

But, yeah, we'll find out soon enough, won't we?

From what we've heard, it's amazing. Yeah. We both read your. Your book Blue Fishing, and just everything you've done so far. And I'm sure you have some wicked plans up your sleeve for the future. It's just so damn impressive where it was just. Okay, so let's figure out how to make stuff happen, but big things, big shit. And actually blow this thing up. And that's why we brought you on here.

Thank you.

I think your story is what fascinates me the most. How you came from bricklaying in England and that whole story that you say in the book, but let's get into that now, to this connected Steve Sims that you are now in la.

Yeah. What does that journey look like? Obviously we know this story that you were a bricklayer, but could you kind of give us the quick synopsis of kind of how you went from there to where you are today?

No.

I don't think anyone. Look, we're all entrepreneurs, you know, you can see a name drop and you can talk about fancy stories, but our journey is all the same of spending most of your years aggravated, the rest of the years not fitting in, half of those years pissed off because you can't make anything work. You know, we're entrepreneurs. We don't settle until we do. And so I was born into a bricklaying family in East London. Bounced off the walls. I couldn't hold jobs down my. My mum quite simply just thought it's only a matter of time before he's locked up. You know, I just. I didn't know what I was supposed to do. I just, like most entrepreneurs, knew it wasn't what I was doing at the time. So, you know, you know, I tried finding something that fit and it got me from. From London. I actually ended up applying for a stockbroker's job in Hong Kong. They were exporting, I think about 160 trainee stockbrokers over to Hong Kong to develop a new branch. During the 80s of what was called the tiger market. I managed to kind of skirt into that crowd.

I landed and lasted 24 hours before I was fired because they realized that I had my resume was a great work of fiction than any Harry Potter movie ever had been. And now I'm in Hong Kong without a job. And I was actually relieved because I'd broken all the ties from what I should have been because a lot of people sadly end up going down a route because their parents did or their parents know someone or Their best mates there, or that's where they started, or every single bullshit, excuse me, for them to go down a preset path. And they always say, better than, you know, better the devil you know, and all that bollocks. For me, being in Hong Kong with no job, no friends, no backup, no support as an entrepreneur, that's where we thrive. It was that moment where I went, all right, what do I do? Do I sit down, piss myself and cry, or do I actually stand up and do something about it now? Because if anything happens from here, it's either my fault or it's my fault. So let's go. So it was a very, very sad time. I'm not going to glamorize it. I'm not going to romanticize it. It was a horrible time of kind of, you know, what have I done? And there was some very dark moments, but it came through. And I ended up working on the door of a nightclub, started networking, shouting at people, communicating, bringing value to relationships. Before I knew it, I went from working on the door to throw in my own parties, to marketing other people's parties and events, to doing what I do now, which is getting you married by the Pope, sending you down the Titanic, piano lesson by Elton John, and basically just flying around the planet spending other people's money.

So you're saying you created a pretty badass life for yourself and your clients then?

Yeah, I did. And it was never supposed to be. You know, anyone that meets me for longer than three seconds and anyone that's still stuck to this podcast now has realized I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. But a blunt instrument can do the exact same amount of damage with force and focus. And I was just a guy that went, I don't want to be here. I'm going to go over there. And I tried to go the primitive aspect. So as far as I was concerned, let's start off with the basics. You are the combination of the five people you hang out with. We all know that's a fact, right? Well, my five people that I were hanging out with were whiskey drinking, broke bikers. Now, I actually like that demographic. I thrive in that demographic because I am that demographic. Yeah. Apart from the broke part. And so I thought to myself, immediately, be successful. My five people have got to be successful. So literally, as primitive as that, the only reason for me talking to people on the door at nightclubs that were affluent was to get into their head, not into that pocket. Big difference. I wanted to get into the head. What makes you successful? And so my first goal was to build up a Rolodex of affluent, successful people. Because purely by default, knowing a bunch of successful people, I would become successful.

Yes.

And the only way that I could become successful and talk to successful people was to give them something that they wanted to keep coming back to me for. So as the doorman of a nightclub, the only asset I had was I knew where all the clubs were going. So, and the new, the new ones that were opening up and the new part, I knew all of that stuff. So I brought value to the relationship because I could make your nightlife more interesting by sending you to the better clubs and parties. So in the early, early, early stages, my single focus was to give you a reason to talk to me. And I became the Google of the late 80s and early 90s of the best clubs in Hong Kong.

So that all started at that point at the nightclub. Is that where it kind of triggered in your mind? Oh, it's the network and it's the value you bring to these people to become irresistible, to be that conduit for them again?

No, I wasn't that sharp. I'm still not that sharp. I literally just thought, If I know 10 people that are rich, I'll be rich. And, and that was, as I said to you, I tried getting into their head, not their pockets. So I didn't care what I could charge them, I didn't care what I could sell them. I cared to give them a reason to come and talk to me. And so I became that, that value resource, that, that person that helped. And then I realized early on that if they don't pay, they don't pay attention. So then it was a case of, hey, I can get you into the best nightclub tomorrow night. Going to cost you 200 bucks. And then they'd be like, well, okay, here you go, here's 200 bucks. So now I was building up credibility again. No thought of a business, no thought of a client bank. I was building up relationships, reputation, credibility, in that order, with the idea it would go somewhere. I never had that, that end bit mapped out. In fact, to be honest with you, I, I was now flying around the world going to events like starred Cartier Polo, Monaco Grand Prix, Cannes Film Festival, Macau Yacht Festival. I was going to all of these high end events knowing 30 to 40 people in every single one of them.

And I had a beautiful penthouse. I was, you know, I had motorcycles, driving around in the Range Rover, still not realizing what I was building. It was actually my wife that came to me and she said, what are you gonna do about a job? And I went, I'm still looking. I. I've got a lot of connections now. I'm sure one of them's gonna offer me a job in selling yachts or, or jet charters or real estate. I'm sure one of these people are going to look after me. And it was my wife that turned around to me, and she'd actually printed off my bank account statement. And she went, just want to bring it to your attention. You have a business.

Now. My wife worked in, and I'm not going to put her down, but my wife was a receptionist at a hairdressers. I was a bricklayer from East London. These are not Harvard positions. But it was my wife that came to me, that brought it my attention that we already had a business. And so we didn't know Excel spreadsheets and CRM, we didn't know any of that. But guess what? You can hire people to do that.

That's right.

So we got people to help us with the stuff that we didn't know while we focused on what we had built. And 20 plus years later, we have the largest experiential concierge firm out there. So we're very happy.

I love it. And that's the power of the network. We did the same thing with our podcast for the years in business. You know, we just made connections, didn't know where they would go, and a lot of them have turned into some of the best podcast episodes we've had on this show. And who knows what comes of this, you know, so, yeah, I love it.

You know, there's all this thought process now that you have to, you know, you can't score a goal unless you know where the goal post is. And, you know, all of this kind of is no good. Being in a sword fight in the pitch black. There's all this kind of stuff that tells you where to focus. There's also a great thing out there about karma. If you're out there and you're open to those open opportunities, those opportunities will come. If you go out there with value, credibility, respect, then you will grow in where you are supposed to grow. You don't need to know all the answers.

Yeah. And that's where the network comes in. The answers lie in the network, you know, the connections. That's.

Let's be blunt. I could fall on my art. Look, we're entrepreneurs.

Yeah.

And I won't ask you guys to, but I've been, I've been broke half a dozen Times I've been sued, screwed over, ripped off, laughed at. Entrepreneurs, we all get that, okay? In fact, I'm a great believer that do not call yourself an entrepreneur until that shit's happened to you.

That's a good point.

Until that time, you're a onetrepreneur. And the good thing about relationships is every time you fall on your face, you get up, look around, and there's those that you are tight with and close with that will help you get back up, and that empowers you. We can make more money tomorrow. We, we could, we could talk to someone today, and we could make half a million dollars tomorrow. Okay? And then you could lose it the following day, and you could make it again the following day. Now, I'm not trying to be blase about it, but making money is not hard. If you lose respect and credibility, you ain't getting that back.

I like that.

So true.

So true.

And that's. It goes back to, like, the way. Because we get approached for consulting, for instance, and it's like, we. You don't really want to do that because we love doing this. So it's like we do this consulting for karma, which is. You said karma. And it's the longer game. We're like, you know what? We're just going to put our best foot out there just to see where this goes so we can help someone who's needing it and values it and maybe something in the future. It's cool. I'm not going to expect it, but sooner, you know, it usually comes out, what, 10 times more valuable with whatever shapes up in the future for sure. And doing something like that.

Absolutely, 100%, yeah.

So I'm curious, so your, your main, your specialty is just making cool shit happen that most people think is kind of impossible to make happen. I'm curious, is there anything that you. That you can talk about? I know there's probably a lot of stuff that's under NDA and whatnot, but is there anything that you can talk about that's like something that you managed to create for somebody that you were like, holy shit, I can't believe we.

Pulled that off many times during the year. You see, I can talk about all of those, but I can never talk about the clients.

I. The only clients that you've ever kind of like, know about me with is because I've been in environments where we've got photographed together or, you know, they. They've spoken about me, and they've actually been the one that's brought it to people's attention, but I can't actually talk about the clients I deal with. But the stuff that I've got up to, I still, I pinch myself because again, I'm still the bricklayer from East London that the rides around on motorcycles and has a horrible obsession with, with whiskey. So the places that I end up, let me. Okay. It's easy to turn around and go, well, in the past I did this, this and you name out five highlights.

Right?

Okay, so let me give you six months, you know, because we're, we're. I don't know when this podcast is coming out now, but. And I don't know if it's rude, I'm actually declaring it, but we're in. What are we in now? May 16th.

Yeah.

Right. Okay. I have, I have been paid to speak in Vegas twice. San Diego.

Mexico and Phuket, Thailand just this year. I have had a suite at the Grammys. I have hung out with Elton John, his Oscar party as the official partner for that event. I threw a kick ass party where we took over the entire Louis Vuitton store on Beverly Hills and partied on that rooftop, which was insane. I've got breakfast in a few weeks time with Richard Branson in Canada. I've got my own private event in Reno, which you'll see about afterwards that is involving a very influential person whose initials are E.M. and I've got.

I think three other countries that I'm going to later on this year. And in between that, I race motorcycles at the weekend. So this is my life.

I was actually gonna ask, is this a normal life? And it sounds like you're, you're creating it as such.

Yeah. Do you know, I never know where it's gonna go. I wake up in the morning and I pour the coffee and I pet the dogs and then I open up the phone and I literally, as I'm starting to go in the emails, I go, okay, where am I going now? It's like opening a box. We got offered, you know, various times we've been offered to have the company bought. Okay. Because it gets a lot of branding. You know, we've been in Forbes, Harvard, the Pentagon. I was on Wanderlust last Friday. I was in Korean publication the week before that. You know, we get a constant amount of media, so our brand is strong. And the danger's always been if someone bought bluefish, then what would I do with myself?

Right. That's a very good point.

Yeah. Because I get to do. And that actually is the downside of a lot of entrepreneurs. You Got to think about how much of your, of what you do is who you are.

Yeah.

And they always say, you know, split your personal life from your business life. A lot of entrepreneurs can't do that and I haven't. You know, if you think about Richard Branson without Virgin, you know, he very much tries to brand himself now, but Richard Branson and Virgin, the stories of Virgin, that combined me personally, you know, my DNA is bluefish.

Yeah.

And I was a couple of years ago, I had a client that wanted to have a dinner in Italy and that sounded pretty fricking dumb to me, so. Or dull. So. Not dumb, dull. So I closed down the Academia Museum in Florence. The houses Michelangelo's David, the most iconic statue in the world. I set up a table of six at the feet of Michelangelo's David and halfway through the clients eating pasta in a closed down Museum at 10 o' clock at night, I had Andrea Bocelli come in and serenade him while they're eating their food.

No big deal.

No big deal. But you know, the funny thing is, what's that? At 6 o' clock that evening when we were getting the table set up and I was sitting next to Andrea and I'm chatting in with, with him and Veronica, his wife, and we're chatting away, I actually suddenly realized where I was, who I was with. Forget the fact that I'm in another country because someone's paid me to be there. I've shut down an entire museum and I've got one of the most famous Italian speaker singers in the planet next to me. So I often can like go, holy crap, you know, look at where I am now, mum. You know, it's funny.

Yeah. And that was where my thinking was when reading your book, listening to all these interviews and Matt and I chatting about some of these stories because they're just outrageous, but they're all very possible. You put yourself out there, but it's like those quiet moments, I'm just like, what does Steve feel like? Is it like the moon landing effect or syndrome, whatever they call it, where it's like, okay, you've reached the pinnacle. What now? But it seems like you constantly are striving to keep up, leveling your experiences and it's just not going to stop. It sounds like for the war path that you're on.

Well, it took to take it a little bit further when we were sitting just to give it more in your mind at the Academia, the museum that we just spoke about, there is a behind David is a. I don't know what you call the technical term, but it's a dent in the wall. There's a circle behind it so you can walk behind David, and there's a set plinth in behind. And so we're sat on the edge of the plinth so that we've got the full profile of David there. And as we're talking, I actually got a cold sweat. I actually started shaking. Now, Andrea Bocelli is blind, but could actually feel me shaking. He put his hand on my knee, spoke to Veronica in Italian. Veronica actually said to me, are you okay? It was that much of a shock to me to suddenly realize after trying to plan everything, pulling everything off, negotiating it, getting people to agree, getting people to afterwards when I was there and I was physically waiting for the client to arrive. And let's be serious, I think Kevin arrived. I had done what I needed to do. True, it was at that moment that my body settled down and where the kind of shock and euphoria came out to such a point that Andrea could pick it up in my body shaking. And I said to him, I can't believe where I am. I can't believe who I'm sitting next to. I can't believe what we're part of.

I'm the little kid that goes out and does. And then goes, oh, wow, I can't believe I got away with that. I just happen to be doing it with open loyalty.

Yeah, right. So what's the thought process of going through this? And I'm sure you've honed it over time. So for people listening, how can they kind of experience this bigger up leveling of any kind of experience or thought they have? Because I know you don't settle with the initial, oh, that would be a good experience. You're like, no, fuck that. We got to make it the most epic experience and bring it up 10 more notches. So what's the thought pattern behind that?

The thought pattern is to ignore what the clients asked for. And quite often you've got to do that to yourself because as human beings.

We put parameters on what we dream. And that's ridiculous because that's a contradiction. The whole point of dreaming is that there are no parameters. But we do try and scare. I'd really love a good sports car. I'm going to go for the, for the GT. I can't afford a McLaren, you know? Yeah, that, that's just a cash flow issue.

Right.

So people don't dream big enough. So when someone, including yourself, thinks of something, listen to what they're Saying, then ask yourself, what is it they actually want? So when I have someone say to me, oh, Steve, you know, I want to, I want to. Here's a classic example. This actually happened. I had a client actually tell me that he wanted to meet the rock band Journey backstage. And I went, oh, great, okay, great. You know, you want to meet the rock band Journey, that's fine, Fair enough. Why do you want to do that?

And then shut up. And then he goes, well, you know, and just starts talking and they go, okay, so you're telling me that for you to meet the rock band and shake their hand backstage, what's that going.

To do to you?

What emotions are going to. Is he going to wake up at two o' clock in the morning going, oh, my God, I can't believe I shook the hands of Journey. And he starts doubting, he's now being given permission to dream a little bit more. Stretch the imagination of possibility, not plausibility, forget the word impossible. It's only possible until someone's done it. So he told me this story of when he was in college. He was the lead singer of a Journey cover band. And through his life, sickness, illness, wealth, broke marriage, relationships, divorce, basically anybody's life of the ups and downs of an entrepreneur, he's now he's comfortable. But all the way through this story, he listened to the music of Journey to get him through the next part. So they had become the music, the theme tune to his movie.

Yeah.

Meeting them backstage after They've just done two hours in front of 30, 000 fans. We're now hot and sweaty, shaking your hand, posing for picture and then running off. They're not going to remember your name by the time they've got to the changing room, you know, are you telling me that's gonna do it for you? And of course he was. No. So what we did was we approached the band and I spoke with them and I actually put him live on stage. And he sang four tunes live on stage and is now deemed as the shortest term lead singer of the rock band Journey.

He's probably in Wikipedia, so he has proof.

Probably in there somewhere. Yeah. The point is, I ignored all of the parameters that everyone said I should have. And every time I tell that story, everyone's like, oh, how the hell did you manage to get this? How did that happen? That's. That's impossible. You did that all the time that people think it's not going to happen. They are. Right now, I'm the little Irish kid. My wife jokes that I'm a 50 year old, 5 year old. I'm always the kind of person that goes, I want to go and do that, Mom. And then I go and do it.

Yeah.

And your mum turns around and what does she go? You can't do that. What does the kid turn around and go? The kid turns around, goes, why Mum? Oh, because your dinner's coming up soon. I don't want dinner, I want this. Yeah. The bottom line is kids are the best negotiators in the planet and we beat it out of them.

Sure.

Now me, I never ask a question. You may want to write this down, boys and girls. Never ask a question that you can answer with a yes or a no unless I'm open to either one. Okay. I am not going to play roulette with the possibility of something happening for me. I'm not going to face that liability. So instead of me turning around and going, hey, can I, can I have the, the museum closed down this Wednesday night at 3 o' clock in the afternoon till midnight. Instead of me asking that, which opens me up to a yes or no, and guess which is the short answer? Yeah, I am going to turn around and go, hey, I would like the museum to shut at midday and until midnight. What do we need to do in order for that to happen?

So you're putting it in their court to figure out a solution.

If someone then turns around and goes no, they're sounding like an idiot because no is not the answer to that question. If they turn around and say, which they often do, we've never done that before, Mr. Sims, then you've got to come back. Well, that's great. We're making history.

And if you are stupid enough to put yourself in a position to get a no, then you're asking the wrong person or the wrong question.

And that's really it. It's the wrong person and the wrong question. It sounds like. And even with your client, you're asking the right questions. The why or the how and what questions. It sounds seems like to kind of role play and future pace them a little bit so the ideas just get better and better and bigger and bigger.

Absolutely, absolutely. I want to, you see, if I give you what you ask for, Amazon's going to knock on my door the following day and put me out of business.

Right.

Because Amazon doesn't think you want toilet roll, it delivers toilet roll. You want batteries, it delivers batteries. If you want impact, if you want an experiential trigger, you know, my client will go down to San Diego this, that San Diego trip with Journey, I think was like about seven years ago. Every time he's in San Diego or every time Journey does something on stage, I get a text or I get a picture. I saw Journey worn TV a little while ago, and he took a picture and sent me a picture going, singing along with my favorite band. You know, because it triggers. You remember when you're driving down the road and you're in the car, music comes on from, I don't know, 20 years ago, 10 years ago, five minutes ago. And it triggers you to a point of your life that that music was relevant. Do you remember that?

Oh, yes, definitely.

Yeah, exactly. Just imagine my job is to not give you what you ask for. It's to give you triggers. I want you to listen to Journey and go, I remember when I was. I couldn't hit that tune. Or the next time they see here Bocelli, or the next time they see the Da Vinci Code or something, you know, one of the Dan Brown movies or any of these kind of things, there's going to be a trigger in it. And that trigger is in there is because you paid attention to. Again, to the core of the reason, not the ask. You got down to the core. Why is that want even there?

Yeah, yeah. And those triggers, and correct me if I'm wrong, I think they're what there's audio, there's visual, there's location, there's. There's things. You know, it's like these. These certain things become, you know, create these triggers a little bit more in people's minds. So it makes sense why you can then demand whatever the rates are for each experience because you're honing on the deeper meaning that they can last for a whole lifetime for that person.

Absolutely. I don't go for the price tag. I go for the impact. Now, if I give you what you asked for, again, I'm giving you a service, you know, you are a customer. Because I'm just. There you go, I'm providing. That's it. End of the relationship, end of the triggers. That's done. But if I can get down into the core and trust me, I've had people come to me that have gone my budget for this. And bear in mind, I never asked that question. You know, that was. It never comes up. But every now and then I'll get people go, yeah, that sounds good to me, Steve. I'm looking at about 150 grand there. Am I following remarkably? Okay, I don't care. I didn't hear them. I want to find out what's gonna happen? What needs to happen in order for you to wake up in a cold sweat at one of these Tuesdays. Now, if I can wake you up in a cold sweat, one of those days where you just go, holy. Let me tell you what I did. If I can give you that the budget is whatever I say it's gonna be.

Yeah, it is.

And I've gone to people that have gone 150 and they've come out 900 grand. And here's the beauty told me what.

A deal they got in a client for life. And they're. And they're still texting you and calling you.

Probably still calling me and texting me. I have no phone number, no email on any of my websites, because you come to me through referral. Because I've taken a client to a fan, to a marketing fanatic, and they're actually in a cocktail environment talking to their friends, and the music had come on. I go, oh, this reminds me of when I was doing this in Tel Aviv, or I was actually in Russia when this came up. I got to tell you about this guy Steve. Now, at the beginning of this, and I want everyone listening to this. At the beginning of this conversation and the little conversation we had before we went live, you spoke about the people that had told you to speak to me. Mm. So let's play a little game for a second.

Cool.

You two are in, and you get to keep your clothes on. You two are in a bar. Okay. And I walk into the bar, and I walk up to you and I go, hey, how you doing? My name is Steve Sims, and I got people married by the pope. I've sent them down to the Titanic. I play piano with Elton John. I play drums with guns and Moses. I'm a big fucking deal. Now, you've laughed and I can't see your face, but I'm sure as you're grimacing about that.

Definitely grimacing. And I want to learn more. I want to hear some stories. That's what I do.

Yeah. Let's be blunt. I think that in a bar environment, that would be the biggest turn off.

Yeah.

You would look at me and you would go, well, that guy's full of himself. He's arrogant. He's self promoting, you know, oh, my God, you know, what a dick.

Or he's drunk already. What's he talking about?

Right?

Bingo. Right? So all of that is coming. All of those are negatives. Okay. But now let's switch it slightly.

You're both in the bar. I walk through the door. I don't notice you guys and I walk across the room to have a conversation with someone else and one of you turns to the other and says that Steve Sims, he's got people married by the Pope. He said people done the Titanic. He's played piano with them and Johnny's playing and says the exact same thing that I just said.

One of them is marketing and self promotion. The other one is credible now because your best mate said it, it's gospel. Now in both of those situations, the exact same copy, the exact same text and verbiage was used. One of them is going to ignite you to buy me an old Fashioned and to introduce yourself to me. The other one's going to make you want to walk away and hate me for life.

And at the beginning of this conversation, the only reason I'm here is because you drop the names of some credible, respectable people. Yeah, and that's why I'm here, because I came to you through a source of credibility. So if you've got your clients saying things about you, how many people in that room do you think are going to be trying to get your phone number the following day to reach out and give you hundreds of thousands of dollars to give them better cocktail stories?

That's right, man. Yeah. And I love that. Yeah. It's these embedded in your leveraging other people's word. And that's it. It's the power of that.

Now do some of these things that you take on, do any of them ever scare you? Do you ever feel like there's things that are beyond your abilities? I'm just thinking in the mind of some of the listeners, there might be some people going. That's his superpower. He's figured that out. He's a master networker. He knows these people, he's got these connections. That's not me. That type of thing scares the shit out of me. You know what, what do you say to those people?

Well, I'm a shit networker. I'm absolutely God awful. I'm 240 pound of bald, tattooed, ugly biker.

You said your man size though, on your shirt. On the intake form you said XL man size. I laughed at that.

There you go. The bottom line of it is I don't go to an event to run around and collect business cards. You know, business cards. Can't pay my bar tab. I want to go to the bar and I want to have a conversation with someone. And so I will go to a networking event. To be honest with you. I go to very, very, very Very, very, very few. But if I'm somewhere, if I'm speaking somewhere, or if I'm doing, I'm around for the night and I have to go to a reception, I would just make my way to the bar and order myself a drink and just go, who the hell am I ended up going to talk to? I'll talk to two or three people and if I'm talking to someone, I'm going, this isn't going anywhere. I'll be like, hey, thanks for that, but I ain't going anywhere. Wish yourself well with the, with a night. Go out and, you know, mingle and I will send them on their way. But I'm really bad at networking. But you asked me if anything frightens me, if anything's out of my ability, if I ever feel as though I can't achieve or overstretch or I don't know. And let's go back to the five year old. Okay. How many five year olds are scared of much?

Not many.

No. Why? Because they haven't learned to be terrified of things. As we grow up, we become frightened, we become intimidated, we become scared of trying things. And of course, now we've got this thing called social media, which ain't. But we've got the social networks out there that basically tell me that your life is way better than mine because you're stood next to a yellow Ferrari. Okay. The fact that you then walked out of the garage and got into a, into a taxi because you can't afford and that was someone else's, that's never part of the story, is it?

Right.

So the social, we're looking at it now going, oh my God. Well, you're in the same industry as me, but, but you've got that private jet because you took a picture on it and you got this and oh my God, I'm so intimidated. I can't possibly compete. You get petrified. Now. I said to you before, I'm primitive. If you want to go and do something, then before I sit there and analyze how everything can go wrong, the million reasons as how this will fail, I'll focus on the one step I need to do to get forward. When I had the client that wanted to have the restaurant in Florence, the first thing I did was I looked at my Rolodex and I went, what powerful families do I know that live in Florence? Ah. That was the first thing I did.

So that's. Yeah, that's easy.

That's the power of my network. Exactly. There's an old saying that says that no one walked on. Walks onto a roof, you climb up a ladder. Okay, now, 10 years ago, could I have got the Florence academia to close down? Probably not, you know, but I would have got something. Because again, listen to it. If a client wants A. I'm gonna go for Z. And every time I don't achieve, I come back. I come back. I come back, I come back, I'll end up at F, which will still be 20 steps higher than what that guy was actually going for.

I love that visual. Like, yeah, you're going for the freaking grand Slam. But, you know, the win is still just get on base.

A lot of people have said to me, have you ever failed? And it's impossible to fail when you don't give your client what they asked for.

Right?

Give them what they wanted, given what they desired, given what they lusted for. I went for the academia. That was actually my first choice. Okay. Because if it had been in a chapel or a church, that could have been Poland. It could have been St. Petersburg. It could have been anywhere. But if I showed you a picture of people having a picnic and the stat in the Statue of Liberty's behind them or the Eiffel Tower, you know where they are. So if I could produce an environment that had David in the background, you knew where you were. Yeah, I never expected it to happen. I also never understood or could consider any reason why it shouldn't.

Yeah.

So it didn't. You know, I knew it was a long shot, but, hey, at the same time, why shouldn't it happen?

Yeah. And it's kind of like, what? The hot girl strategy at the bar. It's like, yeah, she's probably the one that least hit on by all the guys around because they're scared shitless. They're all, yeah. Sitting on their hands. And here's Steve O. Coming out there and freaking hitting his grand slam.

Oh, I'd be a great wingman. I've been married since birth, but I'd be a great wingman in that scenario. I'm a great believer that only do what arouses and scares. And so I will shoot for the stars and not always get them, But I'll grab a couple of comments on the way back, and I'll be all good.

Yeah, yeah, you forget about it. I'm just thinking of, like, you with your wife, like, for Valentine's Day, like, all these things. I bet all of your friends are like, damn it, Steve's just showing me up the experiences you create for her.

Well, it's never. It's never. We have a. We have a belief that we don't. We don't tell each other we love each other just because Hallmark says that we have to. Right, so any of the Valentine's, anniversaries, Easters, Christmas, any of those things, I don't do. Okay. But I do celebrate her birthday because without that particular day and her mum and dad getting frisky, I wouldn't be happily married.

That's right.

So on her birthday, she's usually very scared the months before, because I do. I will remember. She's very careful. Bear in mind, we've been. Yeah, we're. We're in our early 50s now. We've been together since like 16 and 17 years old. Wow. So she's very careful now, but she'll watch a movie and she'll be like, oh, I've always wanted a skydive. That looks cool.

So.

And then on her birthday, I'll say, I'll dress up casual. We're going for breakfast. It's just out in the hill, which is lovely. And I'll drive her out where there's a plane waiting to take her up and go skydiving.

That's awesome, man.

And so she. She gets terrified. It was her 50th a couple of years ago, and she actually came to me, sat me down, and she said, look, every year now she's done unarmed combat with Navy SEALs. She's done shooting practice via thanks to some people in the Pentagon. She's done race car driving, she's done skydiving, she done cooking courses. There's a whole bunch of stuff over the years that she's done. Okay, yeah. Been on stage, Cirque du Soleil shows, in backstage for singing lessons with people. Yeah, I. I put it on every year. She sat me down and she said, this is my 50th. And I know in that annoying little head of yours, you're thinking, this has got to be the big one. She said, I am pleading with you. I don't want anything crazy. And I said to her, babe, you tell me what you want to do for this one year. You tell me what you want to do, and that will be what we do. One year. You get a. You get a write off, you get a get out of jail free card.

That's all you get.

And she was like, okay. I said to think about it. So she did. Okay. And she came back and she said to me, all I want to do now, my daughter was in college at the time. She said, I know Lily's coming back. She said, all I want to do is go and have a nice meal. I said, okay, meal, dinner, fine. What, what time? She said, well, you know, I don't want 9:00 clock or anything. You know, like 7:30, quarter away. Yeah, that's a good time for me to start dinner. You know, you get older, you like earlier dinners.

Sure.

She's like, you know, 7:45, you know, maybe 8 o'. Clock. That's good. All right. What food style? She went, I love sushi. I said, okay, can I please find the sushi restaurant? Can I find one that we haven't been to before that's very well reviewed? And she's like, all right, you get to pick the restaurant. I said, okay, thank you. On her 50th. Yeah, you know it's going wrong already. Oh, yeah. On her 50th birthday, she woke up and we gave her. We'd make it. We'd made up this silly little certificate that said that you're having dinner tonight at. So you're having dinner tomorrow night because we couldn't get a reservation for that night. Tomorrow night at 8 o' clock at this restaurant. And we gave her the name of this restaurant and I said that it is a Michelin star sushi restaurant. Boat is one of the best in the world. She's like, oh, that's fantastic. And then the next envelope she got was the first class tickets to Tokyo, Japan, because she didn't stipulate where the restaurant was going to be.

That's her mistake.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you.

Tell her that it's fine.

While she was there, she did samurai sword fighting. She. She cut up a tuna in the. In the fish market in Japan. She. We had about three really good sushi restaurants and she learned how to make sushi, so. But I only did what she told me to do.

You were good.

That's.

Yeah, that's what I thought.

I want to be careful on time. But there was like one big thing that, you know, you actually had this on Roland's podcast and I heard it and I'm like, we need to. I want to share that with our audience. Is your social audit. And it's like such a very formulaic way that you, that you just use the Internet for all of your research for whoever you're trying to connect with. Can you just give us a quick rundown through that?

Yeah. So there's two things you mentioned, social order. And you also mentioned how to kind of like track people down as to what identifies them for the most impact so my social order is get a computer screen. The bigger the better. Open up all three or however many social profiles you got. LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, Tinder, whatever, open them all up. And what people will notice when they first do that is on LinkedIn now wearing a suit and they're looking all respectful. And on Facebook and Instagram, it's Girls Gone Wild. A social order is there not to confuse your clients because clients will type your name into Google and they will search for you. Okay, now I don't give a about your website because your website is going to tell me all the information that you want me to meet. I want to go where I'm going to suddenly see you playing with your dogs. I want to go and find out, you know, what your interaction with your family's like. Am I going to see you doing wet T shirt competitions? The idea that social is private is bollocks unless you have a privacy thing on it. So look at all your social profiles at the moment and think your top client is seeing that picture. If you don't want them to see that picture, then make your social there private. Okay, we can all do that. So that's the first thing. The second thing is when you want to meet someone, it can be a business relationship in your local village. It could be, you know, the king of Persia, it could be anybody, anyone that you want to meet. Google their name. Then go into images and look at the images they got, do the social audit on them, go into their Facebooks and stuff and find out what interests them, what do they like. And all of a sudden you see pictures of them at flea markets on Sundays and it suddenly becomes a regular theme that, oh, they love going to flea markets. That way you can make sure that when you orchestrate bumping into them the orchestrated accidental meet at the bar or wherever, you can go, hey, how are you? You know, what are you doing this weekend? I'm going to a flea market. Oh, you like flea markets as well? Oh my God, sorry. Bingo, you pull it off. So I use the images to give me what is their insights and then I try to find one that is kind of like absurd as possible. There was an actor, I was trying to get a client of mine to do a walk on role in that movie and I found out that the actor collected modern mid century chairs. Now I had gone to this event in Hollywood knowing that he was going to be out there and I watched everyone go up to him in the early evenings getting all that selfies and talking about. They love his movie and stuff like that. And he walked up to the bar. I walked up to the bar the exact same time, sat stood next to him ordering something. And I went, oh, I recognize you. Which is pretty obvious. He's an actor, you know, he knows I've recognized him. So I'm calling it out. I'm getting the elephant out of the moon. And I went, oh, but I've made an article that you love chairs. I love chairs. You know what got you in the chairs. There will be nothing to get someone talking more than, than what they love talking about.

Yeah.

And the guy turned around and went, you like chairs? And I went, well, don't look at me like I'm some kind of weirdo. I, I like chairs. You know, I've done a bit of research. I said, you know, really? From the sixties. I like that. The, the Herman Millers and the Cabossiers and that kind of. He's like, whoa. And bang, he was gone. And he was hot to try and he wouldn't shut up about chairs.

You got him.

Yeah, and exactly. So I've done my research and I've been able to find something that was there, but no one, they all go up and they go, I love your movie. When you did that movie with someone so brilliant. Oh, and you did this other movie. No one wants someone reading a freaking resume to them. You know, interest, excite, engage the person, find out what they're passionate about. Nine times out of ten is not about the paycheck, it's about what they're able to do with it. I love that.

Thank you.

Just crossed over the 45 minute mark. So I want to, I want to be very respectful because we already went over the time we promised you. So the book is called Blue Fishing. Joe and I both read it. It was an amazing book. Is there anywhere else that you would want to send people to check out after listening to this episode?

Well, you can text the word Sims S I M S to 345.345 if you're in the US and you'll get my emails and you'll get a whole bunch of stuff there. Or you can just go to the website sim Steve D Sims dot com. That's one M in Sims and it's D for dog. Steve D. Sims dot com. Sign up for my newsletters and you'll actually get the, the cheat sheet that you've read already in the back of Blue Fishing. Because at the end of every chapter I have like a cheat sheet. You'll actually get that cheat sheet to Kind of like seduce and tease you into, you know, puckering up. $12 to actually buy the book. So, you know, have a look at it first before you.

Awesome. Yeah, we're gonna link everything below here. And what's your go to whiskey drink? You said old fashioned, but I thought you had another one.

I love old fashions and Sazeracs as my whiskey cocktails, but if I'm just gonna have. And there's one called a samurai sword as well.

That's the one. Yeah, yeah.

But that. That. That's Japanese. And. But if I'm just gonna drink whiskey, then it's the Hibiki Harmony, which is actually one of the cheaper of the Japanese range. But I love that one.

Love it. Awesome. Yeah, I'm trying to. Trying to venture more into whiskey, so I'm like, this is the man. This is my time.

I think that might be the brand of Japanese whiskey I have in my shelf. So maybe we can have one right after this.

Sweet. We'll have a toast to you, Steve.

Bingo.

Awesome, man. I appreciate your time very much and we'll talk very soon, I hope.

Thanks, guys. All the best. Bye.

Thanks.

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