Mark Simpson, founder of Boostly, shares how he built a business around his life instead of the other way around. He shifted from one-to-one to one-to-many work in 2019, now works four evenings a week in focused blocks, and uses automation and delegation to protect his time. Tim Ferriss inspired his approach to ruthless prioritization.
Questions this video answers
In 2019
6pm–10pm, Monday to Thursday (Friday–Sunday off)
Tim Ferriss (Four Hour Work Week; Tools of Titans; Tribe of Mentors)
Chapters
Good morning, good afternoon, good evening and welcome. And I am not really here. I am currently in the uk. Fingers crossed. All things going well at the Book Direct show and the Short Stay Summit. Now I am pre recording a couple of these intros so there is something to go out on the daily podcast. Like I said in the whole of 2021, I want there to be a daily podcast going out to help you do the hosts get the tools, the tactics, the training and the confidence to get more buckets. Now I'm going to slightly flip it kinda because I was interviewed on a podcast recently by the Amazing Lenka. Now what I wanted to do was just to put that podcast on the Boosted podcast in its entirety, but it was over an hour long and I do like to keep these episodes kind of short. So what we're going to do is I've got a little segment of that podcast to show with you.
Lenka has some amazing questions.
I sort of documented the whole of Boostly.
So if you're been ever been interested.
Who I am, how I got started, why I do this, and most importantly the tools that I use to run Boostly and recommend to others, then this will be a good one to check out. So without further ado, let me flip my camera. You're going to be listening or watching to the Amazing Lenka and we are delving into all about Boost Lee and who and how I got here. As always, thanks to the sponsors, I'll be back hopefully in a few days time from the UK where we'll be able to pick this up as per usual. But for now thanks for watching, thanks for listening and here is the Amazing Lenka.
So from what I know about you, from what you told me as well, so with your young family and everything you do and traveling as well and everything, you and you creating this community, you're helping people, you're creating this amazing business, etc. How do you do it around the young family? How did you, how did you create it? That sort of, if you can tell us a little bit more to those who obviously don't know that about you, because this is really, really inspiring and interesting story as well.
So again, lots of trial, lots of error, lots of making decisions, making wrong decisions and correcting them and it's very fine tuning service. But I think I mentioned to you earlier, but a big inspiration of mine when I started the business was Tim Ferriss. When I 2016, when I was thinking about starting Boost Lee, I went over to meet a friend in Liverpool. We're going to Go to see a Liverpool game and we're having a couple of drinks and he's very entrepreneurial and he said, have you checked out Tim Ferriss? And I was like, no. He said, oh, he'll be right up your street. You will love him. So on the drive back I downloaded his podcast. So and the first podcast experience I had of Tim Ferriss was the Jamie Foxx episode, which for those who don't know, I think it still is his most downloaded podcast of all time. And I was hooked from there. I got his book the Four Hour Work Week and then Tools of Titans and Tribe of Mentors and he's been a massive inspiration for everything. And a big part of what he talks about, especially in Tools of Titans, is that a lot of the very successful people around the world, whether it's business or health or wealth or anything, is that they have a morning routine. Now I misconstrued this, is that I should be drinking green tea and doing a full gym workout and doing cold showers, yoga, cold showers, literally before sunrise. When I first started I was trying to cram so much in as well as having two kids, which now three kids. And slowly over time I realized what it actually meant and what that morning routine meant was just basically doing something every day. You don't even have to think about when you wake up having like your non essentials. And that is what I've just crafted over time. I also stupidly thought that I should be working, waking up at 4:30 and then working from 5 until 9am and then doing nothing for the rest of the day. Proud as punch that I could do that. But again the problem having two young kids is that they do have the ability to get in the way. The selfish little buggers, they want like an attention and feeding and it just didn't work. And again we're traveling all over the world and doing all these things. And the main reason was, is that in 2017 when I was really doing this and we're traveling around India and Bali and Asia and Thailand and Cambodia, is that I thought if I work.
In the morning then I've got the.
Rest of the day to travel and I don't have to worry about work and it just didn't work. Uh, my one on one clients very quickly disappeared. And so it was one of the main, again one of the main reasons of shifting from one to one to one to many was that I was like there's got to be another way. And so in eventually when I got the hint in 2019, I swapped my early working hours to more later. So Now I do 6pm to 10pm, Monday to Thursday, Friday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday are off. So I only work those four hours, but by learning automation, delegation, systems and structures. And like you said, there's a lot of tech that goes on in the back, but there's a lot of people that I can now outsource to. And you know, when you first start, you've got to eat glass, as they.
Say, and just do it all yourself.
Over time, you can outsource it. So now a lot of what I do is somebody's taking care of it or computers taking care of automations taking care of it. So it just means that in the four hours that I do work, I've always got a to do list. I've literally got. And this was an Instagram recommendation. Every day my to do list is on this little whiteboard that sits on my desk as I go. Every night I write what I got to do the next day. So I literally know what I've got to do. So I've never got anything you don't.
Using paper as well, saving.
Well, I do have paper as well, but. But I have that. I have that as well. I do keep a little journal, a gratitude journal, I think, again, some of that I learned very recently from Stephen Bartlett, who's got a book, Happy Sexy Millionaire. Was that.
Wow, Sounds good.
It's a, It's a. It's a. It's a very crap title, but a good book. And Stephen Bartlett is somebody that I've just delved into a lot over the last couple of weeks. He's very well known. He was head of social chain, but now he's got the diary of a CEO, big YouTube channel, and again, somebody that I've just devoured lots of, lots of videos and sort of like the book and everything like that. And again, I think it's. I think, you know, you speak to Rob Moore, you speak to a lot of people. I think it's the journey more than the destination. And I think the problem is that you're always, as business owners, you're always thinking, right, well, I'm getting 20 grand coming in this month.
If I just get to 30, life.
Will be so much better. If I just get to 40 grand, life will be so much better. Instead, always thinking about, always chasing, just being grateful of where you are right now.
Having a blast. Gonna get it on the Bruce Lee podcast. Bruce Lee, Like Bruce Lee. Cause it's so hard and the tea is loose leaf Making up those rhymes don't write it, just do it loosely.
