0533 | Nigel Thomas

Hi, my name is Nigel Thomas. I'm the founder of David to Goliath. And you're listening to EA interviews, EA.

Interviews episode 533, inspiration, transformation, success stories and the imperfect action round. Seven days a week, join Mario Ficcini for today's expert Authority effect interview.

Expert Authority World. Have you ever had a story to share? Have you ever wondered about how to share it and get it out there? What if there was a framework you could follow to do this? You know, maybe you have a good life, maybe you had a bad life, maybe you had a decent life and something happened and you know you're trying to make a comeback and you just want to share that with people, get your business message out there. You know, I talk about that, you know what the publishing. I love talking about messaging and story. And that's why I've brought to you today, today, Nigel Thomas, right after we thank our sponsor. Every business needs a book, including yours. And that's why I'm launching my new book to help you regardless of where you think your current writing abilities are. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Once again, that's EA Publishing method book.

Here he is, ladies and gentlemen. Hailing from Manchester, Manchester, uk, Nigel Thomas. Nigel, how are you feeling today?

I'm doing good. My friends. You always, you know, manage to put that energy into people, Mario, so the credit is all yours and I'm really, really happy to be with you today.

I appreciate the kind words but respectfully, I'm excited to hear from you. I just turned this thing on and started rolling it so we could capture the moment. But I have a feeling I'm in for a treat because there was stuff I told you in the pre interview. Let's just save that for the interview. So why, why David to Goliath? Why? Why'd you pick that? That's what I wanted to ask you. There's so many names in the world. Tell me the backstory of this because that's very specific and I love what you shared. If you could please share it again about.

Yeah, I think you know, so six months ago.

I opened up my phone and there was a text. I read.

I have found someone else.

And that was the last message, Mario, that I ever read from the woman I love most. And in that moment, the tiny bit of hope I was clinging onto was shattered into a thousand pieces.

And I had nothing left to give.

So at that moment, In Austin, Texas. I stepped forward onto my balcony, looking down at the concrete 22 floors below, preparing myself to jump.

And in that moment, I said to myself, Mario, if I'm not going to continue for me, I'm going to do this for everyone else who deserves a second chance in life.

Wow.

I needed something to bring me back from these suicidal thoughts. And that was where I came across David to Goliath. It's a newsletter. It's a community, but it's a movement. It's not just another boring email that's sitting in your inbox gathering dust. It's a comeback story. It's a tale of how David went to Goliath and took on, you know, the biggest demons in his mind. And the reason I wanted to do that is because in today's world, where obviously we have everyone in such poor mental health, suicide rates through the roof, depression at its all time high, we need more leaders to stand up and say, yes, I'm struggling, yes, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm running a business, but I'm suffering so much. But here is what I'm doing about it. And I wanted to document my comeback in public and share the mindsets, the tools and the strategies that are helping me build this newsletter. And what is the Goliath? What is my Goliath? 100,000 subscribers in one calendar year. And as we speak today we're at 23,000 subscribers. 15 weeks in. We're making a lot of progress and we get a lot of people on board with this movement. But why it's David to Goliath is because that was the best underdog story of all time. Right? And it's to show people that no matter where you are in life, no matter how much you're struggling, that there is hope. And we have to work in the darkness when no one is looking. And we have to rely on ourselves and take that self responsibility and turn for me and, and for that excruciating pain into a mission. Maybe it's to help yourself, maybe it's to help other people, but that, Mario, is why it's David to Goliath. Wow.

That's incredible. I'm sorry to hear you went through that, but it sounds like it was the launchpad of your new beginning. And I'm glad you're here with us for sure.

Yeah, it's been a hell of a ride. I struggle still every day, but I'm vulnerable about it. But I'm also, I'm not sitting there crying myself to sleep because I already tried that and it didn't get me anywhere. And I have to stamp out that voice of the victim, Mario, by doing hard exercises, eating a clean diet, sleeping. Right. But most importantly, taking action, you know, building a business, what we love as entrepreneurs, but putting pressure on myself to say, I've got to do this, and I've got to do this now for other people. And I've never had so much purpose in my life, so I'm grateful for that.

Yeah, there's tons of people that they're dealing with, all of it, you know, and I hear, hear about it for years, just the behind the scenes. It's like, you see someone has a successful life, business, whatever the case is, but you never know what they're dealing with. And it's usually when it's a fun event or you're relaxing or something, and it's like, hey, how's it going? And, you know, they don't need to put on a show for everyone or their team or staff or whatever it is. And it's like, you know, this is going well, but there's always that. But, you know, this is great, but. And it could be, you know, relationship, personal, business partnerships. It could be someone on the team, it could be the kids, it could be lack of kid. You know what I mean? It doesn't really matter what the it is. It's just like everyone's struggling a silent battle, and I think it should be voiced more 100%.

And the thing is, is everyone's chasing happiness, right? But that isn't how humans are designed. You know, we feel all these emotions, but this is actually part of the human experience. And to give a great example, to kind of relate to business. Look at the stock market. Look at the stock market for the last 100 years. If humans weren't emotional and their emotions didn't go up and down, it wouldn't go up and down like it does. That's a reflection of human psychology. And it shows that where there's darkness, we wouldn't know darkness if we didn't have light. We wouldn't know happiness if we didn't have sadness. So the human experience in life is actually both sides of that spectrum.

Both sides of that spectrum, right, exactly.

And it's, you know, the opposites are important. And I think most people forget that. And if they chase happiness, they're never truly fulfilled. Because I think it's okay to not feel great, but you've got to understand this as part of the human experience. But yes, it definitely helps talking about it. And when we Talk about happiness. I don't know if you know this, but Harvard University did the longest ever study on human happiness. And it was quite astounding. The results they found Mario, and the key to all human happiness, physical health, everything. They tested everything. For 85 years they followed these guys around America. And what they found is the key is a small number of deep, meaningful relationships. And that would speak to the biggest issues we've got today. Right? Because while social media has been incredible for connecting us in a global marketplace, it's terrible for deep, meaningful relationships. They've got all of these entrepreneurs who are now, you know, quitting their nine to five jobs, starting remote businesses and they're all working from home, isolated, you know. Exactly. And they have remote teams sometimes, but they never see people in person. But we need that interaction. This is how we were built as tribes. We can't fight against mother nature. And we're trying to, we're trying to use all these pills and substances and supplements, but the reality is we just need to face the truth. We need to be surrounded by people. We need to open up to people. And it's not always easy as entrepreneurs to find those people who understand us, but they are out there. And I, my advice is to everyone is keep looking because you will find your people. And it's, you know, a process I'm still going through, but it's the best decision you can investment you can ever make in your life.

I agree. I've been doing more the last couple of years of it's cool when you want to be efficient with something, you know, click here, do this. But at the end of the day it's like, we're not machines. We need to be around people. So I've been doing more in person experiences, events, stuff like that. Not just speaking at them, but attending them so I can, you know, I can get filled back up with high level people. And it's also given me ideas for some things, you know, that I was like, I know a lot of cool people. I'm like, what if we did, you know, got, you know, this to this, this to this and just had a fun, fun time with it because at the end of the day it's like, wow, that, you know, everyone's just going so quick. It's. Do you remember in middle and high school when it was like every day it was like, how much fun can I have? And now it's like.

I don't want to say me because I get irritable if I don't do something fun every Day. But it feels like when people go, I haven't gone to the movies in two months, three months. It's like, when do you do this stuff? And I'm not saying the movies are gonna make everyone happy, but we used to do it so frequently, and now it seems like it's a treat, like twice a year to just do something. It's like you're a grown adult and you have money. There is nothing stopping you from playing hooky, even, or eating ice cream for breakfast.

The other thing is you can intertwine it with business. You know, if you run a remote team, why not do a retreat where you all meet together? People in your team would love that. I know when I've met with my remote teams in the past and I was building these agencies, the before and after, it was night and day. You know, the. The energy we all had as a team after meeting each other, actually understanding the human behind the screen, you know, asking those questions, seeing what they care about, seeing who they. And really understanding their passions as people. It's just unrivaled. And one to two to three days just spending that time together as a team, which is business, not only massively impacts productivity and results, it just gets everyone bought in. Because when people care, they're more empowered. And then, you know, what comes from that is team culture. Right? And that's the thing that drives business.

I'm so glad you're getting people together.

You chose David and Goliath for the great story. When was the first time you heard the story?

I went to a Christian school. And it's interesting because you talk about storytelling. I don't really remember much about school, that I'm being honest. I don't really remember, you know, history lessons and all that kind of stuff. But what I do remember is how Jesus fed the 5,000, you know, how Moses part of the Red Sea, and who could forget Noah's ark? And the reason I say that, you can have whatever religion you believe in. I'm not here to preach. You know, I respect everyone, their backgrounds. But what I'm here to tell you is, why do I remember those things? It's because they're stories. And that's how, as humans, we communicate. So it was at school, actually, I believe I heard it. And then all throughout my life, I've always attached myself with the underdogs, you know, people who had nothing, who had everything against them. And then when I started looking at the best stories in the world, you know, whether it's great sports, people we follow, whether it's great musicians, whether it's great entrepreneurs, the ones that always have the best stories, you know, let's think about a script of a billionaire who has given everything, never have to struggle in life. Terrible storyline. No one wants to listen to that. People want to listen to this. The people who slay dragons and they have to go through immense struggle and turn that into something incredible. So I always related with it. And actually at school I was an outsider. I had, you know, really bad skin. I've got eczema, the skin condition, okay, I was ostracized from the rest of the class. And I still remember Mario, because when we used to do sports back in the day, all the guys used to shower together. And I was stood there fully naked with wounds and scars all over my body as the other kids pointed at me, they laughed at me. They said that I'd never amount to anything in life, how ugly I was. And they used to call me, my nickname was Krusty the Clown because my skin was so dry. So I knew deep down inside of me that I had something great and I just didn't know what to do with it. And it was only 10 years on when I was in the corporate world, you know, I was doing things to please my parents and other people. Keeping myself to myself at 26 years old and one walk home from work when I said, enough is enough, I'm going to make a decision for myself. And I made the decision to quit the corporation I was in, which is aecom, a big construction consultancy, as a cost manager, to go all in on entrepreneurship and figure out this marketing agency stuff. And I went on to build two seven figure agencies from the ground up. And it was the best decision. And to the dismay of my parents and everyone around me who told me it was the worst idea in the world, it was the best decision I ever made in my life. And I think the whole reason why, if we're kind of relating it back to David, to Goliath and the whole underdog thing, is it's self belief. And that's why I think entrepreneurs struggle with the most. Because no one's going to hand you an exact blueprint. There might be courses out there that say the 26, 26 step process, blah, blah, blah. But as we both know, Mario, you know, business is so fast changing, there's so many moving parts. There's 8 billion people in this world. You have to understand that your path is going to be different to other people's and you have to take risks without knowing you Guaranteed to get to the other side. And how do you do that? You believe in yourself. And that's obviously what David had passed to him to beat the mighty Goliath. So the cornerstone of everything I'm doing is, you know, I had this woman believe in me. That changed my life. But then I have not. I had that no longer. So I had to believe in myself. And that's what it's all about. And that's why I resonate so strongly. The underdog stories.

I think God's watching over you. I think you are such a great storyteller and you have a heart and you're helping so many people. I don't think it's coincidence that we're talking and you're still here.

Yeah, man. I mean, what can I say? God smiles on me sometimes.

I appreciate you for sharing and being vulnerable with it because.

I don't think enough people are. I don't think enough men are. And the reality is there's a lot of people hurting. And I can relate 100%. When you're telling me about the kids picking on you, I remember being thrown down in the mud and putting glue in my pocket and then sand on top of that and, you know, a different story, but similar storyline. I guess it would be if it was a movie, you know, if we had two different movies. It's like kids are little. Kids are. Can I say crackhead. Kids are mean.

Oh, insecure.

That's what I personally think. Because you see a lot of them, when they mature, obviously look back and think, well, that's ridiculous. A lot of them probably don't even remember the insecurity.

It is insecurity, isn't it? Yeah.

Yeah.

Because it's not that they're mean, it's that they're insecure. That's why they're lashing out, being mean.

Exactly. Because they want attention. They want to show to the. If it's a guy, for example, they want to show psychologically, they're kind of like the alpha of the pack. And the way they do that is they dim down someone else's status so they can rise their status in the pack. That's like, psychologically.

But it doesn't actually work.

No, it doesn't work. But, you know, and the other thing is, they don't realize the trauma that they're causing for the other children. And we carry these traumas throughout the rest of our lives, but if we understand that, we can actually use those to our advantage. And something that I can disagree with a lot of People is that people say, don't use dark energy. Right. Don't use pain to drive you. I understand where they're coming from to an extent, but that's all I ever did. I only had, like, a lot of pain and insecurity to drive me. That's where I got all my strength from, and I've got it again now. So I'm saying to people, if you are in a hard place and you've got a lot of pain in your life and you need to use that to drive you, that's fine. I use whatever you have. It doesn't really matter. I know. Like, I can just tell you my own case study. Like, I was in a lot of painful situations. I'm still in a painful situation, and I'm using that to motivate me to get out.

I think it's a hidden superpower. I've done it. I've done it too.

I probably still do to an extent.

I'd say it's less, but it's still there. And I think everyone has some degree of it. But instead of trying to have everything perfect, it's like, when it's good, you can be excited, but when you're irritated, I love using that as motivate. You know, when you said in people.

I heard it too, a lot. And people are going, you know, you're never gonna mount. You're not. Whatever. It just makes me want to go, watch this.

Yeah.

And you can use both in your favor. Favor. As long as you don't let them consume you, you know, and now you're like, double dipping. It's like, oh, it doesn't really. It literally doesn't matter what you say. Like, either way, I'm gonna be excited.

Yeah. Well, I've got this thing that I call it the path of the undeniable, which is.

Instead of, you know, trying to go after those people and have conversations and argue with them. No, no, no, no, no. Put that to one side. This is what I'm doing.

I'm putting everything into my life, and I'm going to become so undeniably good to the point where I just cannot be ignored. Because there becomes a point when you do such great things. You drive so much value in marketplaces and help so many people when the word just starts spreading and it compounds and it compounds and there's just becomes a point where you just cannot be ignored because you're so undeniably good. And if you do, sure, maybe the negative energy is driving you, but you have a good purpose and A mission to help other people. And it's not self serving. I just really do believe that. And I also believe that for all the people that wronged you, that long term, even though it takes a long time, the universe does eventually arc to the truth. And I do believe that.

This is surreal. I gotta be honest, you're like verbatim.

One of the quotes from my first book over a decade ago. Instead of being, instead of trying to get everyone's attention, why not be so captivating they can't look away?

Exactly.

It's, you know, it's Frank Sinatra. Right. The best success is just like massive. Sorry. The best revenge is massive success.

And I love that you're doing it from a. How can I help more people? I mean, having 500 or a thousand people is a good list. Having 5,000 to 10,000 is rare air. And you already have 25,000 and have a goal of a hundred thousand. That's awesome.

Yeah. Yeah, man.

How are you promoting it?

Yeah, so for some context, when I was in my last agency, one of the main ways I grew, that is I built a personal brand on LinkedIn. So I've got over 50,000 followers there. So I'm doing that. I also, within those agencies, the teams I ran, you know, I spent over $100 million on paid advertising. So I know how paid advertising works. So we're also using that. And then obviously I'm getting on podcasts like this, spreading the word, so we're using that and then we're tapping in some other things. We're going to do some SEO stuff, but I'm just doing everything that I can and obviously the resources that I have and bootstrapped, I'm just going as hard as I can, Mario, until I'm just going to keep pushing it and keep pushing it. And I do believe that with this kind of story and if I keep driving to help other people and this purpose, I'll eventually crack it and will, you know, we'll help a lot of people.

I think you're already helping a lot of people helping me. I'm really enjoying this. I talk to a lot of people and they're always nice conversations, they're good. But this is like.

It'S resonating with me. I suppose I could say, and I love your, your words. On my own.

It'S, I think a lot of people with the whole personal branding thing, they've been caught up in the be authentic. And then people are like, what's that mean?

Stop lying to them.

Yeah, yeah. But it's it's almost like people are trying to be authentic. It's like, no, no, you don't understand the concept. Just be yourself. And the truth is so hard to come by these days because no one. Because obviously, you know, being politically correct and you're going to offend. Some people just don't want to speak the truth anymore. But the thing is, is we're all sat at home, we're all scrolling through our phones, we're all thinking the same things, but no one's willing to actually just say the truth. And guess what? You know, some people aren't going to like what you say. But for the people who do, it's so worth it. And the best thing. And this is the best thing, Mario. So when you go to bed at night and you look yourself in the mirror, you look at that reflection, and you can just say to yourself, I'm living true to myself. And that feeling, it doesn't matter how much money you have, that feeling is priceless.

I agree 100%. 100%.

And so many people don't have that. They know deep down they're pushing. They're pushing their. For their.

Forcing. Forcing it.

Exactly.

I can't even imagine walking to family Christmas or Easter or something and being like, hi, everyone. It's good to see you. I'm gonna be authentic when we have a conversation today. Like, what? In the real talk. Okay. I'm so excited to be here. Like, I get it. I get it. I see it, see it on the.

Viral topics that, you know, people want to hear about or trying to push certain agendas because they will make you more of a favorite with some people in the family. You know, it's just like, sure does that. You know, get some. Get some laughs going in the family or something. Yeah, maybe. But deep down, you're lying to yourself, and that's just like, the worst lies are the ones to yourself. You probably know what I'm talking about here.

Yeah.

For over a decade, you know, trying to outdo everyone, trying to do this better, do this better. And in many cases, I did, but I was still running from myself.

It's like, nailed this, this, this, this, this. Oh, by the way, you're still here. What's going on? And once I started fixing that, it was like, oh, my gosh. Some of the stuff, like, I thought was a goal that I'm still working towards. I'm like, I don't know. It just got so clear. And like, I achieved that six years ago that it. There's only one common Denominator. And it was, I'm the problem. And I've been fixing it more and more and more, and it's like, fun and.

Do you mind if I ask you an honest question?

Please.

Who is the true Mario.

Person? I knew I was at 16 to 18, that wanted to help everyone and be super generous, not worry about.

All the details and the rules and this. It's like, if someone's in trouble, if someone needs help, like, you just help them. And it didn't matter what the cost. And because I started my first business at 12, and.

Relative to my age, I never was really thinking about money, because I always had it. And it's not like it was a million dollars a month or anything, but if, you know, if I said, hey, let's go to the movies, and you said, I'd love to go, but I don't have the five bucks or whatever it was, hey, no problem. I'd rather have you there and having fun. And I just. I've always loved people, and.

I've been praying about it to be more like I was when I was younger in some regards.

Because a lot of the stuff I was figuring out in my 20s, I didn't need to figure out. It was. I had figured it out. And then I was swayed by other people and I started to believe in this trash and it was untrue, and I had to unlearn what I already knew to be true prior. So it was kind of annoying. I was like. I felt like it went 10 steps back, and I just started going, maybe I wasn't wrong. Maybe I wasn't wrong. And the reality is, in a lot of the instances, business and personal, I wasn't. I believed it. It was true. And now I realize it probably was even before high school. I just, you know, you're kind of loopy. It's like toy car and a gun and whatever, and it's like you're happy. But some of it's been ingrained. It can actually pinpoint now to 8 to 12, in some instances 5. But I always. I just actually, before we started, I was chatting with our team and.

There'S things I was saying. I go, yeah, the one thing I haven't changed since 2008 was this. And it was always being honest and upfront with people, always adding value and always doing what's in their best interest. Like, we've taken the hit many times. I go, but when you made that comment about sleeping at night, I'm like.

I'm here to help people.

So the true Me is that amplified. And it's fun. It's getting even more fun. And I have no doubt I'm just getting started.

Yeah. Well, what I was going to say is, firstly, I appreciate you sharing that, and secondly, I just feel like you need to hear this. You're a really good person, and thank you for being who you are.

Thank you.

So, wow. Tell me more what's in store, because clearly you've got a lot of this. Oh, I got to go back to the other thing, too. But let's.

You already have a lot of this figured out. You're helping people with the newsletter. You want to get it to 100,000. What's that goal look like? And why that number? Why not 50? Why not 250?

Because I needed something massive to get me out of that hell hole. And for me, I just. I love risk takers. So I thought of something. You know, as they say, like, if your goals aren't. Don't scare you. They're not big enough.

Yeah.

And that was a goal where I was. I looked at what a lot of people do in the newsletter industry, and I'd saw, you know, Cody Sanchez, if you know her, she's. She. She's done. She did that. She got to 100,000 in one year. There were a few other people, but very, very small list of names. And I was like, yeah, that's it. I knew instinctively it was like when you said, when you're 8 to 12. I didn't need another reason or.

Yeah, I didn't need anyone to map it out on a spreadsheet for me. I just knew Mario. I was just like, that's it. And I was like, I'm gonna figure out a way to do that. And I also knew that if I did it, the story that I'll be able to share after doing it will inspire so many more people.

And that's the ripple effect. That's one of the things we look with. Well, to be honest, it's one of the things we look with for guests on the show as well as our publishing author clients. Like, if we're going to invest and commit to doing this, how long will this outlive if tomorrow's the last day? And I'm very proud of what we do. If this is the last interview I ever do, I think there's enough already that between the show, the books, the people we've helped, it's like you can have a clear print and that legacy will still continue on that ripple effect of helping people. It's not Just I can't stand transactional. And it's like, if you don't want to do something, like, why are you wasting your time? Time is precious. Like, if you don't want to talk to someone, don't talk to them.

No one's forcing you. 100 man. And the other thing, obviously to say from a, you know, someone's tuned into this, listens from the business side, obviously, I dug into. I'd already been doing this, so I ran a lot of agencies, right. And I feel like the 8. This is a personal opinion. So I know there's a lot of incredible agencies out there and it's a hard life. So if there is an agency owner listening out there, I feel you. It's. It's a hard gig to run. But I feel like it's a bit of a flawed business model because really what an agency is, if you strip everything back is it's scaling people and, you know, that becomes quite hard on profit margins. So really, when I was looking into Navarre Ravikant and his work, he's a great entrepreneur. He talks a lot about leverage. And there's four main types of leverage. You've got people, you know, running a team of people. You've obviously got capital, using other monies to invest, you know, and grow your businesses faster. And then you've got software and code, you know, the big buzzword AI that everyone's talking about, getting software to do things 10 times faster or 10 times cheaper than humans otherwise could. And then we've got the last type, the newest type, which is media. So, you know, we could be recording a podcast here and 10 people might listen to it. I hope not. But we also could record the same podcasts, spend the same amount of time. 100,000 people would listen to that. I hope so. But the point is, is it's about getting more output for every input of time. And that's what leverage is. And that's where obviously I saw with the newsletter, as well as it being an inspirational story, which is obviously what I'm going for, it's also a high leverage activity because, you know, I'm building a database of people who could potentially be customers, you know, whatever I choose to do with it. And I have control that ecosystem as opposed to it being on a third party platform like LinkedIn. So I'm also trying to play smart, work from the business side of things strategically. And I saw, you know, like, for example, Cody Sanchez. I don't know if you know what she's doing there, but she's Obviously building up this big investment portfolio. But the foundation of everything is her newsletter. You know, she's nearly got I think a million subscribers now. And she's going to grow that whole thing like with all the investment companies and portfolio into like a billion dollar business. And I saw, you know, how fast things are moving and I also just really believe we're just getting started in this whole Internet thing. So, you know, a big newsletter, let's say 10 years ago was 40, 50,000 subscribers. That's now like a big newsletter, like a million subscribers. You've seen what the guys at Morning Brew did. They sold for like 75 million. I'm not saying that, you know, like everyone's going to be able to do that, but it shows the potential because obviously they built up a big ecosystem and database which then you can build other businesses off the back of that. So I am also trying to play smart. Like I said, I just wanted to kind of provide a bit of business strategy as well to kind of, you know, back up the decision of why I'm focusing on a newsletter. Because the end of the day, like you want to make impact. And that's why I believe in entrepreneurship. You do need to have money, right? Because it's a resource, it's a tool so you can hire people and, you know, do more things at the world. I think that is why I fundamentally believe in entrepreneurship, Mario, is because.

If we think about it, and this is a big belief I have, is that the biggest driver of innovation, in my opinion, is constraint. So when people, I'm sure you've had a time when your back's up against the wall and you figure out weird and wacky ways to do new things, right? But those weird and wacky ways extrapolate across millions of entrepreneurs. They're the big breakthrough innovations that drive this world and humanity forward. And if more entrepreneurs are inspired with self belief to actually take those risks, then we can leave the world in a better place than we found it. Because Steve Jobs once said, it's the people who are crazy enough or think they're crazy enough to change the world who are the ones who do. But what he didn't say, Mario, is actually the best ideas are found in graveyards all over our lands. Why? Because people didn't have the self belief to take a risk on their opportunity and their innovation that could have drove humanity forward. And I want to help more entrepreneurs have that self belief to make those innovations happen. So ultimately we can leave our world in a better place than we found it.

I Love that. Everything you're saying, incredible. There's like four points. I have to hit one. Cody's awesome. Would love to have her on. I've been following her for years. I didn't know her newsletters up to a million. And I've always.

Somewhere around there. It's getting close.

I've always been a little contrarian, a lot contrarian myself.

I gotta ask you about the paid ads from like 15 minutes ago because you've real nonchalantly were like, I've ran multiple seven figures, spent 100 million on AD spend. So you clearly know what you're doing there. And I also want to touch on the newsletter as well because.

There'S so much I want to ask you, but I'm trying to take a lot of mental notes.

Talk to me about the ads and why you still think they're a good thing. Because there's a lot of people with this. I don't want to spend money on ads and I. A lot of people money. A lot of people money spending ads that want to spend money on ads. And I'm more with this one.

Because when you can go, here's a dollar and you get a dollar fifty out of it, it's like, how much can I give you? But I think the misnomer is people think they can put 100 bucks in. They're gonna make a million overnight. They never figure out the data, they never figure out the testing. And they don't realize that you might have to carry it for 42 days and they might not be in a position to do so to get that, generate the ROI on the ad spend that they had. How did you figure it out? And obviously you got to some point because you want to put. Put 50 million more into it too. You would have never spent what you did if it wasn't working. So how long did it take to get working? And what platforms were you targeting the most?

Yeah. So again, for context, this was our client's money, right. It wasn't actually my money. I wish it was, but we were working with.

You still got the data and got to see what worked though.

Yeah, yeah, of course. We're working with big E commerce brands. So there's two things I'll say. Firstly, you got to think from first principles. I really believe in that. You said you're a contrarian. I think it's important to think from a first principle perspective. So let's look at social media platforms, right? What is their goal? Their goal is to get eyeballs. Usually how that starts is they give a lot of organic reach. Why do they do that? So you can get more people to the platform who then will build businesses off those, off that organic reach. Those creators will draw more people in, they'll have case studies and more and more people will flock to it. Like what's happened with Tick Tock in the last couple of years. And then what do you think they're going to do once they've got all of that attention, they've got all that data, they're going to make you pay for it and they're going to drop the organic reach and they're going to make you pay for it. So until that business model isn't the business model that all these social media platforms work with, if you don't understand how paid advertising works, you're basically fighting an uphill battle because that's their end goal. So if you're just relying only on organic traffic, you don't understand how paid ads work. You're, it's a ticking time bomb. Now, if you really want to, you can obviously just keep on jumping on the trends like TikTok and then when that one dies, there's going to be a new one. You do that strategy if you wanted to, but really, if you understand how paid advertising works, I think the best way is to obviously do both strategies. Now the other thing I'll say is he talks about expectations, you know, people putting a dollar in getting a million out. So in e commerce, when I started out in 2017, Facebook advertising was extremely cheap. But there was a reason for this. Now the big companies, they were still spending a lot of money in the old methods of advertising, like, you know, tv, radio, newspaper, whatever. So they were just kind of testing the waters out. So that was fantastic for all the entrepreneurs who are building all these E commerce brands with obviously the rise of the Internet and social media, because it meant with the supply and demand ratio, you know, we talked about before we got started, didn't we? There was a lot of people to advertise to, but not many advertisers. So it was really cheap to advertise. So what did these companies do? All they did is they just kept on buying, buying customers. But here's what they did wrong. All of their entire supply chain with their manufacturers, with obviously the team members they hired, all their profit margins, they basically built their entire unit economics of their business on unrealistic market conditions. And then what do you think happened? The big players saw how cheap it was dumped in all of their budgets as well as loads more Competition coming in from smaller companies which massively inflated the price. But all these companies over here who had obviously still got all their unit economics aligned with the unrealistic market conditions, now all of a sudden they can't make any money anymore. So they were focusing on the wrong thing. And it all comes back to basic fundamentals. So the biggest thing that investors look at, especially for E commerce brands, is the lifetime value to CAC ratio. And that is essentially lifetime value. How much do people spend over the lifetime with your business versus how much does it cost to acquire a customer? Now a healthy ratio is three to one. So for every, you know, $1 you spend, you get at least three out over the course of the lifetime of that customer. But a problem for these lot of these E commerce brands is not only are they not going to make three times, they're just going to break even. They don't even know their numbers to start with. So what we started figuring out is we just didn't work with brands anymore, didn't know their economics. And what I understood about paid advertising, and I heard this from a guy once and it always stuck with me. It's basically all a game of economics. That's what it is. Because sure, the creative matters, the copywriting really matters, the customer journey matters, you know, the customer experience matters. That's really important. That's business fundamentals. But for advertising, it's all about economics. Because quite simply put, if you can afford to spend 20 times more than your competitor, it actually doesn't matter how good your creative is, you'll always win. And that's the thing that most people and businesses don't understand about paid advertising. It's basically just solving a complex math problem. But the problem is it's not all inside the platform. It's about understanding the unit economics of your own business. And when you really figure that stuff out, that's when with proper forecasting and cost models, that's when things can start to get exciting. Because you know that you can outbid your competitors on the front end. Maybe you can even lose money because six months down the line because you've got enough cash Runway, you're going to make profit because you've got an excellent customer experience, great manufacturers, great supply chain and great profit margins. So, you know, like I said, kind of rounding it up, it's solving a complex math problem. And that's what most people don't understand. And if you can't figure out the numbers, you should not start doing paid advertising. Because if you don't know what you're doing, it's essentially gambling.

Wow, that was a great masterclass. And paid advertising. Thank you for sharing that with all sincerity. Because.

We'Ve done a little bit, we've done a lot. And when you just said we were doing it so much over here. And I know people, that's their whole end game. I know people, you know, they go, I do email marketing because I hate social media and there's people on my team. I'm doing my best to wrap my head around all the social stuff, but I agree, I'd rather just talk to you. Pick up the phone, let's talk email. Not like one on one email. Like, I like that for one on one. But people don't realize they don't own whatever social profile they're on. If they want to shut you down tomorrow, they're going to shut you down tomorrow. I've been saying that for like 10 years. So I've always been like, this whole thing's like a powder keg as far as I'm concerned. And that's a whole other thing. However, my goal is also to reach 10,000 businesses with our publishing. And that was my goal when I did our the latest book. And I go, I have to figure at least one of these out for that scalability and the reach by the end of the decade to accomplish that. So I've been fighting with some, not fighting, but they're like, oh, have you considered doing this, this and this? And I'm like, I hate that platform. I hate that one. I don't want to do this. Why? What's the point? What if they, you know, and I, I'm very good with the one on one and just speak into a room or whatever. But sitting there all day long trying to figure out like what the algorithm, like, oh my gosh, I could care less.

But let me just add one thing because this is something I realize a little bit later is paid advertising is like an amplifier, right? It's kind of like, and I want.

To clarify, I was referring to organic social, because I know there's strategies with that and not paid.

Yeah, I'd rather pay. Yeah, well, I'm actually a big believer in both. But there's actually something even more important that's, this kind of brings all of them together. And you know how with money, like, let's say someone's got a terrible personality when they get loads of money, it basically just amplifies a terrible personality. You know how that goes, right? That's what paid advertising's like for business. It amplifies a great business or a terrible business. Now I'll tell you how this works. So let's say that you start spending loads of money on paid advertising and you've got an absolutely terrible product. Now when someone sees that ad, obviously you can't see this in the data of the impressions. And this is why, you know, the data is not always what it's kind of, you know, chalked up to be. But let's see, say someone sees that and they're at work and they show it to a friend and they're like, hey, look at this ad. This is really cool. They're like, I bought that product before, it's terrible. It never worked. Then they just close the ad, they never look at it again. Now think about this. They show that to that person and that person's like, that is the best product I've ever bought in my life. Definitely buy it. But here's the really exciting part. When that person then buys it, they then tell five of their friends. So if you have a product that's so good, which is fundamentals of business, having a great product, a great customer experience, now what's happening every time you buy a customer from paid advertising, you are essentially getting five, six customers. Because word of mouth marketing is still the most powerful marketing there is. And if your product isn't good enough that someone's going to tell a friend, then what you're going to be fighting against is the entropy of negative word of mouth. And that's why I've seen this a lot of e commerce brands, they're like, why can't we scale guys? And it. And then I start asking about the testimonials and what the customers say and there's nothing good there. And it's like, well, this is why you can't scale guys, because so many people have seen your ads. But for the people you've already burned through and obviously you've tried to give those false promises, they buy the products, they've never worked. The think about it. People spread negativity, a lot more positivity. So this is now working against you. So you can't scale these markets anymore. So actually to get your paid advertising working, I'm sorry guys, but you need to go back to the drawing boards. You need to fix your products and your customer experience and then you can put money into paid advertising. Because how are you going to compete with a company that's spending on advertising for every customer they're getting? 6, how do you compete with that? You can't and that's why the best companies with the best products and the best customer experience, regardless of its organic or paid advertising, they're the ones that always win. And that is something that I wish I realized sooner.

Mario, I appreciate you for sharing that because a lot of people do dump the money into the ads and all you're doing is creating a bigger problem, escalating it like you're saying. And if you don't fix it, I would do this in presentations. I don't even know how many years it's been. It's probably at least a decade. But I'd say, who wants 10,000 leads? Everyone raises their hand. I go, who could actually handle that if I gave it to you tomorrow and it was a third to half? And I go, what's wrong? What's wrong with everyone else? And I would say it's that self belief or they knew the product. You know, they're doing all the dog and pony show and it's like just shut up for a month and make it that much better. Instead of this hamster wheel of. You'll see that in a second. But there's, you know what I mean? Like you're saying if you don't have a good enough product, if it's great, run your mouth about it. But I think a lot of people don't even talk about their stuff with excitement because they don't believe in it subconsciously, let alone the negative entropy you're talking about now. You're actually exacerbating the problem and you might not be able to even compete with it unless you fix it.

Exactly. And like you say, you're just taking yourself into a bigger hole and the whole thing kind of bringing this conversation back that we said about the undeniable route being so, being so monumentally good, you can't be ignored. You can do that of a business too. It just amplifies everything because at the end of the day, businesses are just reflection of people, especially the founders of those businesses.

I would argue when you said, how can you compete with someone that's outspending you six to one. I've done this because I've been the underdog many times.

If you have such a good product that no one can touch it, you can take market share from someone who doesn't, even if they're 10 times bigger.

I meant if you have a product that's so good that when you buy one customer, they tell six people, people, how can you compete with that?

Oh, you, you, you have to be in the same League, you have to have a product that's so good that.

Exactly.

And people don't want actually better because that. That would be on par with them. How do you compete? Compete with that? Compete and win. You'd have to be better, which is also possible. But that's a tall order.

Yeah, you have to have a product where they tell 10 people and that's where, as we both know, that's hard work.

So let's talk about making the work easier and leveraging the newsletter because that was the last, not the last question, but it was also on my list because I gotta be honest, newsletters were irritating me for the longest time. And now you got me thinking, maybe it would be worth to revisit doing this proper. Because the reality is you do own the list. You do the. You know. But I would say, and everyone's biggest problem, what was ours in the past, how do you keep. How do you consistently keep getting people to subscribe to the newsletter and stay on it?

Yeah, well, staying on, it's just basically a good product, right. You got to keep putting out good content. And.

The thing is like, yeah, it's newsletters, but it's also kind of personal branding advice is that people ask me all the time, you know, through LinkedIn, it's like, Nigel, how do you write better content? And then I start asking them about their life and then I'm like, well, there's no wonder you don't write good content. You've got a really boring life. Like, I'm just going to be honest with you. You're not doing anything, you're not taking any risks. So maybe get some life experience and then document that life experience and that's really cool content. For example, last week or two weeks ago, we went and spoke on stage. Me and the guys run the newsletter is actually my. My best childhood friend, Dan, and we haven't spoke for 10 years. And when I came back to the UK, I found him and that's how all this thing came to mind. Story. I had it. I brought him on stage at the end. It was really emotional. But we got in front of like, you know, 2, 000 people and that was a great thing to talk about. Right. But obviously that was pretty risky. Like we did a really big bold speech in front of 2, 000 people that could have gone wrong. And there was a really cool piece of content. But it's because we like took a risk there. So I think that for the newsletter it's like actually be doing cool things and just document what you're doing. That's one way to do it. Then terms of obviously getting people to subscribe. Well, that's where obviously you've got to understand human psychology. Right. You know, I talk about this a lot, but whether it's LinkedIn, whether it's Instagram, whether it's YouTube, the core fundamentals of getting people's attention, which as we both know is the new oil, is you've got to understand human psychology. And I think a lot of people, they copy other creators, but the real ones, the real original ones, they understand human psychology is at its core. So when the algorithm changes and that kind of content doesn't work anymore, they know the why behind the what. And that's the real issue that most people have these days. They don't do that deep research. They don't understand human psychology. And when the trends all shift and the algorithms change, now they can't get subscribers anymore because they never understood the why. And the people who do, they adapt. And then obviously they keep getting more subscribers. So I know that might sound a bit out there and high level, but I'd rather teach people how to fish for a lifetime instead of just giving them the fish.

I love your analogies and I appreciate you sharing. I prefer high level, so thank you for going there. And yeah, if you don't know the psychology, you're gonna have to be dancing times a day, you know, in different locations instead of once a day, just to play the game, so to speak. That's not a business. That's, you know, I don't want to knock it too much because what a great opportunity. We live in a time where you literally don't need to know anything and you can build a following. But I also see it as a gift that even if you start that way, like many businesses do, all businesses do. I think if you go into business with the. I think a lot of people, at least people I know, started with the intent to be able to serve people more. I see a lot of the social, let's just say stuff as like, oh, it was easy, I did it anyway. All I got to do is film it. You know, there was a promo that said if I do 10 videos a week, I'll get a 500 bucks or a thousand that turns into the next. It's a great opportunity. But I will say for anyone listening, if that's the background, treat it as an opportunity. Don't think you do know everything and realize it could be gone tomorrow.

Yeah. And the thing is, if you're just Making videos just for going viral. Like, trust me, when you go through hard times, if that's what your purpose is, you're going to have a real problem.

Yeah. And people can see through it too. Like, there was someone I'm not going to name, but they go, oh, you know her? And they're like, sounds familiar. And it's in their. Their definition.

Regardless of the money, regardless of this and yada yada.

Oh, you'd know her. She's the one that always posts the selfies constantly, incessantly. Oh, yeah, I remember her from the thing that did week. Oh, time ago.

And it's like, time's gonna go by. What do you want to be known for? Like, is it business? Is it personal? Is it spiritual? Is it financial? Like, what do you want to be known for? I guess, you know, like I said, that ripple effect, like, unless this is gonna have an ongoing thing, that's my filter the last 7 to 10 years. Even more so. Like, harder filter. Like, is this gonna impact someone's life whether I'm here or not?

Yeah, man, I'm sure what you're doing is so you can. You can live and die.

And you too.

Yeah.

You're doing on an honestly, bigger scale. Like, I don't have dozens, tens of dozen, tens of dozens. I would love to have a hundred thousand, a million people on a thing and impact them because I know why I'm doing what I'm doing. And I'm sure it's just a matter of time, but I probably have to calm down on some certain beliefs that may or may not be true. And I'm admitting it because clearly there's successful people like you and other people out there that are just killing it. And I'm like, here's what I'll say. One, I would love that platform to be able to help more people globally. But if it never happens, I'm also very thankful you can still have a very successful business helping people with a much smaller audience. You don't need that just to pull off what you want to do to help people.

Yeah. And the other thing is, is it all looks like sunshine and rainbows, but behind the scenes it's absolute chaos. Like, doing things last minute.

Do you have a solution for that? How do you achieve that without the chaos?

How do you achieve it without the chaos? Yeah. Hire a team. You have to be good at leadership.

Oh, okay.

Because.

I gotta pick up more John Maxwell stuff instead of copywriting.

Yeah, yeah, right. It was interesting because I remember I spoke to this guy who really Inspired me. His name's Drew Green and he's a CEO of Indocino. Now, this guy's got an incredible backstory. So imagine this. He's, you know, been in business quite a while himself. And he was presented with this incredible opportunity, Mario, where he got offered the CEO job of one of Amazon's highest divisions. Okay, wow. And they literally put a blank check in front of this guy because he was that good, and said, you can have whatever you want. Drew, you know what he said? He said, no. And instead he went to Indocino and Men's, they're a tailored men's. Men's brands. They do, like, suits and stuff. And they were about. They were. They were really like, in a bad way. They were in a real bad way. And he said, no, I'm gonna fix this. Instead, within six years, he's turned that business around. I think they're doing over 200 million in revenue. The second fastest growing company in the entirety of Canada. And I asked him, I was like, drew, how did you do it? And he was like, nigel, he was like, you want to know the secret? It's all about the people. All about the people. And it just rewind my thinking because I was like, people talk about between 0 to 1 million, it's all about tactics. All about tactics. Everyone's talking about tactics. Like, how do I, you know, optimize this landing page and all that sort of stuff. One to 10 million, it's all about systems. You getting the right systems in place, making sure you know your numbers. And then 10 to 100 million, it's all about people. So then it got me thinking. I was like, well, surely there's a way that. Sure, you need resources. I get it, you need to get off the ground. But surely there's a way to start thinking like the person who's already at 100 million just get there faster. And that's when I. When people talk to me, for example, about, oh, you're not worried Nigel, about AI is going to replace all of our jobs? I don't think like that. I think I will build up my resources with leverage and I will hire the best AI person in the world to work on my team because it's a great opportunity for him. And then together we'll build something even bigger. Because this, this is the thing when you know how to lead people. And that's why leadership is one of, if not the best skills. Not everyone can be a leader, but if you are, it's an incredible skill set. You can get a whole team and as we kind of drawing all this back again to the whole, like, people being lonely. We are tribal by nature, and as humans, we're imperfectly imperfect, so we're imperfectly perfect rather. So we've got to admit we don't have strengths in all areas. And that's why we need to collaborate with other people. Because when we were back as humans of tribes, you know, some people were going out there finding the food, some people were leading the tribe, some people were taking care of the tribe. We all had our unique things that we were doing, and that's why we're all wired so differently. But as together as a tribe, we come together and we build these incredible things, Mario. And that's what I think people don't realize. So I think to handle the chaos, you've got to go through that period to build up the resources. But if you can start thinking more as a leader earlier doors and then start hiring people, paying them what they're worth, and having a mission to get them on board with and then driving them forward and getting more out of their potential together, that's how you stop the chaos. And that's how I build an organization that inspires generations to come.

Geez, I'm blown away. You're incredible.

Appreciate you.

I appreciate the insights and everything, and I. I wish we had more time.

I feel like I say this often, but I'm happy to say it's the honest to God truth, because I don't say stuff I don't mean. I have a few more questions for you, but I really wish we could just do like a weekend seminar or something. But I made a joke about that hamster wheel earlier. I actually have one. This is the wheel of whatever.

Would you like yellow questions or black ones?

Oh, block. Yeah.

All right, we got to make it.

We'll stop it right here.

Now, with your renewed outlook on life, mission and goal, where do you see yourself in 10 years?

Oh, very good question.

You gotta think about it. That's a good question.

Yeah.

Debating it.

You know what.

What's. I don't know the answer. And I'm okay with that because I feel like life's. I. I'm. I used to be this guy. I still am to some extent, who just needed to plan everything. And I planned everything out of this woman. Right. There was a really close connection with the child, and it was. It was really messy. And that just got taken away from me, and it just shattered my entire world. So it just made me realize, like, I'm not in control of Everything. And I can't plan everything. But then obviously, David to Goliath's come out of this, and I would never have imagined that. I would have thought I was still CEO of that marketing agency. So I do want to do big things. I want to build a big business that inspires a lot of people. I want to maximize my own potential. I really feel like my true calling in life is to be a leader and to build a big community, whatever that looks like. Probably something to do with entrepreneurship, but that's as much as I need to know right now. And I feel like I'll figure out the rest along the way with self belief.

Wow. Good for you. And I will also say you are a leader and you're already doing a great job. So I'm excited to continue to see what you do over the years, because if you're doing this much already, good for you.

Yeah. How old do you think I am?

Yeah. I don't know.

I'm debating about going over here and seeing if I can.

That's a black question for you, Mario.

If you said 45 or 50, mentally, I'd say I see it. But I have a suspicion you're under 30.

32.

Okay.

Yeah. So still a baby. Still a baby in business.

Yeah. You got 40, 50 years ahead of you, easy.

Yeah. That's why I love business, by the way, because the only sport we can play for our entire lives.

I was trying to do a quick calc because you said at 26, after 10 years at one point, but I'm like, well, how long ago was that? 26.

Yeah.

You left out six years ago. When I was 26. Like, that would have been six.

Six years as an entrepreneur. I didn't even. You know what's funny is when I was 26 years old and I was in that corporate job, I had to Google what entrepreneur meant. I'm not ashamed.

I love it because so many people.

So many people are just like, they have to have everything figured out. I can't start the business without a business plan. I can't start it without a website. I can't start it without business cards. And it's like, you're the business.

Exactly.

Like you can figure that. There's people I know that got to 300, 400 grand in revenue yearly before they had a website.

Yeah. By the way, I love that phrase. You should frame that. You are the business. That's great.

Thank you. I appreciate that. I really wish we did have more time to talk. We have to thank the sponsor, and we'll come back with the imperfect action round. But you're incredible. We'll be right back. You've heard me say every business needs a book, including yours. And it's true. And that's why I'm launching my new book@eapublishingmethodbook.com so you can learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. But you know what? Don't take my word for it. Take it from a few of my authors like Lori, I went from having.

An idea and a possibility to actually getting my book published.

Or Catherine, thank you for making my.

Mom number one best selling author.

Or Mary Alice what he got done for me in three days regarding my book launch.

Unmanageable. John Cody I've worked with Mario over the phone and online and he's been very helpful in getting me where I needed to go with promoting my books.

Rocio there's no way in the world I would have been able to do this with somebody else again. I've attempted it in the past. It didn't serve me. As a matter of fact, I ended up more frustrated than anything. So this has been a very seamless process. Adele if you're looking for an amazing business coach, I highly recommend Mario Ficini or Bill Benner. I can't make a higher recommendation for than to work with Mario Ficini.

He has been great for me and.

Right now I won't work with anybody else except for Mario.

Hey, their words, not mine. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get your copy and I look forward to hearing your transformation as our next video success story. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.com and we're back with the Imperfect Action round. I just gotta say I felt like a telethon or something. I usually it just felt like we'll be right back after we thank our sponsor. Like this is very calming and surreal. So. But we are back and it is the imperfect Action round. I got three quest what do I have for you? Yeah, three questions for you. Rapid fire answers, 60 second or less. The first one is what is the fastest path to the cash.

Sales and doing it the hard way.

So what's the hard way of sales?

Asking more people and facing rejection head on. So if you don't have any experience.

Selling the pen.

Yeah, well, yeah, exactly. Selling the pen. You know, cold calling, cold emailing, reaching out to people, asking them questions, going for coffees with people, getting rejected, getting the door slammed in your face with the self belief is your sling charging forward until you get that one. Yes. Which opens up all the doors to your true potential. How about that?

I love it. Love the energy too. You got me thinking, why do you think that is? What do you think is the byproduct of doing it that way? I'll tee you up a little bit.

Yeah. Resilience.

Okay. I was also thinking the, the, the experience and data you get from it to be able to make decisions on the fly of what's working and what's not.

Yeah, it's a lot of things. I think the other thing is, is you learn a lot about yourself and the hard times, the mo. You know, the best lessons come from the most painful experiences. When you really put yourself out there and obviously you know there's failures, there is a big option. That's when you find out who you really are and how bad you want it. And that's all internal. But you know, that's a really important part of life. And the last thing, let me just say one last thing for the cash you don't ask, you don't get in life.

Oh, I like that. Agreed.

Again, wish we had more time. Two.

What'S the biggest problem you see your prospects making and the fastest way for them to fix it?

So I'm doing some consulting with some agencies and I think their biggest problem is their mindset. They. So a lot of them, they don't charge high enough prices, they don't think they can hire certain people, they don't think they can work with this client. And I started to think it was all these like tactics and things like that. And then I just realized it's literally a lot of it is just in between the ears. And again it all comes back to self belief. So I'd say self belief, man.

We could, we could do a half day training on just what's the origin of why people have such horrible. Self belief.

Yeah. And probably a lot goes back to that childhood and bullying like we spoke about.

Maybe more than three hours.

What's the third one? Customer Lifetime value. What's the best way to maximize it?

Have an incredible product, just an undeniable product which your customers, you give them, you give your customer, your customers an experience in their life which they will never ever forget. If you can do that, you will never ever have a problem of lifetime value.

Love it.

Being a publisher, I have to ask you about books. What ones would you recommend for expert authority world?

Well, we already talked about naval, so there's someone I can't remember his name, but he basically put all of Naval's best content together in a book. So Navarre Ravikant. You can go search it on Amazon. That's an incredible one.

I know, I know what. I know exactly what you're talking about.

Yeah, yeah, you've seen it. So another one, I think just incredibly important for understanding humans, whether that's leadership, whether it's marketing, whatever it is, is Robert Cialdini's work. He's an incredible psychologist.

Yeah. Influence. Yeah. The six principles of persuasion, Influence and Pre Suasion is obviously the updated one, but Influence is the original one. And that is an incredible book. I love that. I've got a lot of books, man. Trying to think of any other ones that like really, really deeply inspired me.

I tell you what, there's an outsider one. So there's this guy called Eddie Hearn and I don't know if you know who he is, but he's basically a boxing promoter. Now he was given the keys to the kingdom or that's what people used to say because his dad's name is Barry Hearn. He came from like nothing like literally the, the bottom of the social chain and built this business, this sports promotion company, right, called Match Matchroom. They do a lot of box sports, but mainly boxing. And for his whole life, Eddie was known as Barry's son. Okay. He had this massive chip on his shoulder and he was like, you're the silver spoon kid. You've got everything given to you. And he was like, no, I don't. I just do not agree with that. I'm gonna make something. So again we talk about undeniable, so undeniably good that I'm gonna switch that. And now Matchroom boxing, they got this big deal, the the zone platform. They're worth over a billion dollars. And it's got to the point now when they see the two together, people go up to his dad, Barry heard and they say, oh, you're, you're Eddie's dad. So he's literally switched human psychology because like he's made that much impact. But the reason I say his name and he's got a book called relentless the 12 rounds of success is because this guy, and a lot of people call him arrogant, his self belief and yeah, he's a boxing promoter, but his self belief is just absolutely incredible. Like I love this guy. So if you want confidence, you want self belief, but also someone who massively backs it up and just is so hard working. Eddie Hearn, 12 rounds to success. Relentless. It's a fantastic book on the raw realities of building a massive business in an industry like boxing. So I'll check that one out.

I appreciate suggesting that and recommending it because, yeah, when you have ironclad belief, it's. There's almost nothing that. It's not that you want stuff to go wrong, but there's almost nothing that can go wrong that's going to sway you long term. You're probably going to be irritated a day or two and then, you know, get over it and be. Your resolve is going to be even stronger. But he had. I like that a lot.

I do have. I've got one more. We got time.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah. So there's. There's a rug. Do you know rugby, the sport? Yeah, yeah. So the. So basically the All Blacks, New Zealand, it's like a tiny country. At the time, the rugby team was a laughing stock. Okay. They were just like, just not doing well at all. And there's this guy who took over from them. I actually can't remember the coach's name. But basically, over the course of a decade, he turned them into the best rugby team that's ever existed, like, ever. And basically, as this guy called. I think it's James Kerr, who went in with the coach into like the dressing room and he saw what this guy had done and he sat down them and he taught all the principles. And they broke it down to 15 principles. And it's called Legacy. And it's the best book on leadership I've ever read. It's absolutely phenomenal. And it talks about the principles, how they hire. Not on talent, they hire literally just on principles. And it's incredible for leaders who want to, you know, build a really good culture and organization. And how this guy turned a team from a laughing stock into the. The world's best ever rugby team. And they break it down to these 15 principles.

It's just.

It's an amazing read.

Tell me the author's name again.

James Kerr, I believe. Legacy, it's called.

Wow. Okay, I'll make sure that's on the show. Notes for EA interviews, dot com. All of it will be, but I want to make sure. Sounds good. Sounds real good. Thank you for everything. Can't say enough good stuff. But where would you like people to learn more?

So davidtogeliath.com is the newsletter. And like I said at the start, it's not just another boring email that's gonna sit in your inbox gathering dust. No, this is a story. This is a tale of how David went to Goliath with raw naked personality splashed all over your inbox. So go out to David davidtigalife.com two newsletters every single week. One about my comeback on Tuesday, one on Thursday is about the best underdog stories of our generation and it's all for free. David2goliath.com thank you so much and let me just share this with you. The tagline to our company keep dreaming like a giant, but fight and believe in your dreams like a God damn underdog baby.

I love it. I absolutely love it. Thank you so much for your time and sharing all this. Not just the information but the passion. I really wish we had more time, but thank you again.

Likewise. I appreciate you for who you are. You're doing incredible things and remember in this conversation you told me about who you really are. Keep showing that person to the world because that person's an incredible human. And I really thank you for letting me be part of it today.

I appreciate that. Thank you very much Nigel.

All right, Expert Authority World. We have another great episode here today. I'll see you on the next one. Have a great day and God bless. You're already the expert, but have you transformed your expertise into a tangible asset that will generate qualified leads while increasing profit for you 24 7? And if so, how well are you promoting it? With my new book, the Expert Authority Effect Publishing Method, I take you through my process step by step. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com today to learn the seven steps to publish and promote your nonfiction, lead and profit generating business book in eight weeks. Visit eapublishingmethodbook.com to get started now. Once again, that's eapublishingmethodbook.Com thanks for listening to today's episode. I would love to know what you enjoyed most from it. If you haven't done so already. I invite you to connect with me on my new LinkedIn. You can go to it directly at eainterviews.com LinkedIn Once again, that's eainterviews.com LinkedIn lastly, check out the full eainterviews.com site for complete show notes, the full interview video experience, links to the resources we mentioned, and more. Have a blessed day and I'll see you on the next one.