Before you can have, you must become 🐦‍🔥 James Fleming

'Before you can have, you must first become.' Before you can have a successful business, you need to act like a successful business owner. Before you can be a really great leader, you need to act like a really great leader. And that's the mindset.

Is that your take on fake it till you make it?

I don't believe in the fake it till you make it. That's not a word that I would use. But it's before you can have, you must first become. You've got to become the person in your mind. Like, you've got to think like a successful business owner. You've got to, and that comes down to the vision.

This week's Millennial Master is James Fleming, founder of The Power Within. James had everything you're meant to want, but realized he wasn't happy. Then life stepped in. A corporate reshuffle made him redundant. And overnight he had to turn a 3-year plan into a 3-month plan. Today, he trains leaders across the world on what James calls motivational intelligence, the mindset shift that turns self-doubt into self-leadership. In this episode, we talk about why confidence always comes before competence, the fine line between empathy and standards, and how to build a vision your brain can actually execute. Millennial Masters is brought to you by Jolt. Fast, reliable web hosting built for founders. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling an app, Jolt gives your project a rock-solid home starting from just £3.95 a month. You'll get 99.99% uptime, support in under 30 seconds, and flexible payment options, including Bitcoin and Amex, so you can rack up those points while you build. Get your first 3 months free at jolt.co.uk. Smart hosting for people building what's next.

James, welcome to Millennial Masters. How are you today?

I am very good, Daniel. Thank you for inviting me along. I'm looking forward to it.

And I'm looking forward to learning a lot from you, James, because most people only move when they're forced to. So I'm wondering what was the moment life shoved you and what did you do about it?

Well, it's actually a really touching story. So I used to be an executive, C-level exec in a large oil and gas company. American company, but I was based in the Middle East for about 12, 13 years. And I had a wonderful career. I made lots of money. I had nice cars. I had nice watches. It was a really good life. I had a beautiful house. I had a swimming pool in my garden. But I wasn't happy. It always felt like something was missing and I didn't know what. And I loved what I did.. And I didn't know what that was. And then I took a new role within the company and it was career development and talent management. Now I'm an operator guy. I know nothing about HR. And I actually really didn't want to take the job. I actually, you know, they dragged me to Dubai kicking and screaming. Then most people run into Dubai. I didn't want to go anyway. Eventually accepted the role. I was basically told, look, this is for your own development. We really want you to come into Dubai and you're going to be reporting direct to the VP. Fantastic. I went and oh my God, I absolutely loved it, Daniel. I absolutely loved working with people, understanding, and all my leadership skills from my previous roles all really are now realized. What I was really good at, and that was getting people to believe in themselves and to open up and talk about their career and talk about their challenges and then put a plan in place. So I did that. So we were in the whole of the world. There was 7 what we call super regions, and out of the 7, and we all had a score for our performance in talent management and career development, and we were the we were the sixth worst country, region in the world. So there was only one country, I think was South America, that was worse than the Middle East when I took the role. And within 6 months, we were number one and we stayed number one while I was in that role. Now, it wasn't anything I did, but what I did do and what I did notice was I used to be operations. So operations people didn't understand They felt like when HR put new things on top of them, it's just like, oh, here we go again. I want to manage my business. I don't have time for this. So I took a different approach. I actually went to each country manager and I sat down and I says, identify 2 high potential employees. I'm going to train them and then they can own it. And then they can train a few people and then they can own it. So what I did is I took the responsibility away from operations and I started to really train all these different people from these different product lines. And it was absolutely game-changing, absolutely game-changing. So that was my first, I suppose, insight to what it was like to work with people other than in an operational sense. Okay, so I'm going to fast forward. So I took— after 2 years, it took me out, put me back into operations. I was running a £1.2 billion company, had thousands of people on under my remit. And I was miserable. I was absolutely miserable. I really thought, what have they done? I really am not enjoying this. I loved that previous role. And I was sitting at my desk in Dubai, and my wife works for the same company, and I remember calling her, and I had been reading an article on LinkedIn, believe it or not. Now, this is going back to 2013. 15, 16. So I was reading an article and it was about, about a palliative nurse, Daniel. And the article is, she, this palliative nurse who obviously looks after people who are dying, generally the elderly, he asked them the 5 biggest regrets in life.

Okay.

And the number 1 regret was doing something like, you know, following a career path or doing something that wasn't true to themselves. And that hit me like a ton of bricks. I mean, I was sitting crying and mofos thinking, that's me, that's me. I thought success was about money. I thought success was about all these things. In actual fact, success has got nothing to do with money. Yes, it's nice, but I wasn't happy. And I realized in that moment that if I wanted to be successful in life, I had to follow my passion. Now, I had never run a training program in my life. I'd done meetings and short programs for my own staff and people, but never ever taught a leadership program. But that day I decided I was going to start my own business. Now, I had a 3-year plan I put in place, and I came back to the UK with an oil and gas company. So I moved back to the UK with a company to execute my 3-year plan. Then I was in the UK. I was here from— I landed in the UK on the 11th of November.

Okay.

All my belongings were still in the middle of the ocean. And on the 1st of December, I was made redundant.

From the job you were moving back into the UK for?

Yeah, well, oil and gas went through a really bad downturn. They let go all of their kind of non-essential stuff. So I had two things. First of all, I thought, oh my God, what's going to happen? And then the very next thought was, well, my 3-year plan is now a 3-month plan. So I went on holiday.

The timeline just shortened.

Just shortened. So I went on holiday, believe it or not, went on holiday at the start of January. Never told any of my family that I'd lost my job. Never told anyone. Because none of them wanted me to come back anyway. They all thought it was great. Their son lives in Dubai in this beautiful house. So anyway, we came back and we went on holiday. And when we're on holiday, we came up with a business name, me and my wife, that is, we're both co-founders, business name, business plan. And then we came back from holiday. And then on the 15th of February, 2017, we set up The Power Within Training and Development.

You came back from your holiday and decided you're going to change your life.

Just do it, do it. And it was scary because I had been so used to making— and oil and gas is a very, very lucrative industry.

And relatively stable demand.

Yes. And the problem being is that I wanted to come out of operations to go back into an HR role so I could execute my plan. And guess what? The first thing that happened was all of those nonessential positions were removed from the business.

So transitioning, James, from being employed on a very good salary and having all the things that you might want to your own business, what was harder than you expected at the start? Maybe not necessarily the grind, but the emotional part.

It was a roller coaster. I mean, I think the best thing to preface it. So I am very, very focused and committed. When I say I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it. I had all those negative thoughts. I had those self-doubts. I had all that. But I can overcome my negative thoughts pretty easy because I have a really clear vision. I know it sounds really corny, but I knew exactly what I wanted to create. I just didn't know how. I didn't know the how. So I really, I spent a lot of personal development time. I trained to be an NLP master practitioner. I did coaching training. I got certified as an executive coach and business coach. And I went through a real personal development journey those first 6, 7 months. Spent a lot of money doing it. But that training—

Spent or invested?

Invested. I invested. Yeah, I invested and it was probably one of the best things I did because now, yes, I've got credibility because I used to be a C-level exec, but now I know I can help people. I've got the tools to add to my current toolbox of being a leader. And I designed my first training program. However, and it went amazing, right? It went absolutely amazing. I invited 12 people, so 6 people paid. And invited along 6 senior leaders across Scotland. And after, it was a 1-day training course called Self Leadership Development. And at the end of the program, people were— we had people crying, we had people coming up who, multimillionaires, you know, run huge businesses, saying things like, I've never experienced anything like that before in my life. You're really on to something, James. This is incredible. And people are like, what is motivational intelligence? I've never heard of it before. And then I would be explaining, you know, what it is and how it comes around. And anyway, so I knew I had built something that was really, really powerful. And I just ran it. I ran it as often as I could. I was running them Glasgow, Edinburgh, Perth, Dundee, Aberdeen, just Scotland because they were all face-to-face.

So you basically dive straight in and set up after the first pilot was a success, you, because you already didn't have any other job or backup, you went full on and then started expanding the program across Scotland.

And it was hard because I went from literally I felt like you have a private cash machine to all of a sudden, the only money coming in is going straight back into marketing and content, attending meetings, going to networking events. I mean, there was actually in the first 2 years, I think it was 2018, I actually had to sell— I used to have nice designer watches and I had to sell my watches. My wife sold her gold just to keep the marketing You're running to keep the— and that was game because we went from being very much materialistic to actually realizing the real value of money. And I think you can only really do that, at least for me, when I realized I have— like, this is it, that I have to make this work.

You weren't trading your time for money anymore, were you?

Exactly. Exactly. I was building something for the future. And as I said, the first 2 and a half years were really, really tough. I mean, really tough. There was days I didn't know how I was going to put gas in the car to attend meetings, you know, really, really. But always, this is really critical, I always found a way when I needed it. I always landed a deal or something always happened. You know, I don't believe in luck. I believe you create your own luck. By getting out there. Don't be frightened to put yourself on the line. Don't be frightened to make mistakes and get it wrong. I mean, I've got more things wrong than I've got right, Daniel. You know, I've made a mess of things more than it's worked. But the things I've learned from every single situation, and I've always been able to self-reflect. So that's kind of how it all started. And then it just, after the kind of 2 and a half years, then of course COVID, which was horrible.

That came straight after those 2 first years in which you struggled.

Literally, we had just built our first executive diploma. We'd spent all the money getting it approved. And this was in February of 2020. 2019, 2020. And then on March, a month later, yeah, we— everything, all of our business, it was literally phone call after phone call, you know, cancel, cancel, because nobody could do— and all my training was face-to-face, was in person.

Yeah.

So that was like—

so how did you pivot and cope with that curveball that was thrown at you?

So On the 27th of March, me and my wife, we got— we're one of those people, we love podcasts, audiobooks. So every morning, we're really early risers, crazy early risers. We always go a walk in the mornings with a podcast or something on. But this morning we went a walk with no podcast, no audiobook, and we just talked about the situation that we were in. And we came back into the office, we had a big home office, and I'm looking up, I'm a big goal setter, so I'm looking at my goal boards and I'm thinking, all these business, all this, we've lost it. And my wife turned around and said to me, James, the people are still there, the content is still there, we just need to find a new way of doing business. So we literally, we got £10,000 from the government as a business, not a loan, a grant. We emptied our bank account, we went to Upwork and Fiverr We hired designers to design us an LMS system. We put all of our content into video and we started to do all of our training virtual. On the first 6 months of COVID we doubled our revenue from the previous 2 years because we didn't put our head in the sand.

And it was also the moment it allowed you to get out of Scotland.

Exactly. We were, we were running programs in Saudi Arabia. We were running, I was tapping into a lot of my contacts. We were running programs in Kurdistan, in Dubai, in Malaysia, and in Scotland as well. So we just opened this whole new audience. And again, the feedback, so obviously the content had to be changed because face-to-face, there's more engagement. So when you do virtual training, Daniel, it has to be really powerful. Like it's people, if you're sitting there for 2.5 or 3 hours, that content has to be good or you're going to switch off. So that was probably the hardest part was getting the content so that it was really put to the point and really powerful so that people didn't switch off.

And what did that growth actually demand from you? Because even though there's the mirage of courses and one-to-many and exponentially scaling on the backbone of the business, I'm sure it demanded more of you and your wife.

It did and it didn't, and I'll get— I'll explain to you why. So we were running training programs, more programs, but we didn't have the travel and the costs of hotel, food, and travel. And, you know, so sometimes when you're traveling 4 or 5 hours, your kind of day is gone. So you maybe go, you would travel the night before, you'd run the program, you travel back that evening. So we actually had a little bit more time to really focus on the business. But that first year—

And you couldn't go on holiday anyway.

Exactly. We couldn't go anywhere. So we just decided to build new programs. We started to develop new content because I was thinking, if this is how I'm feeling, How are other people feeling? People in businesses, large companies, not the smaller companies who was our ideal at that time was our kind of perfect market was the SME market. How can we get in larger companies? What is their pain points? What are they feeling? And it was all about remote leading. How do you lead through remote working? And so we just started to create new content.

That's a good point then to start Talking about leadership and coaching, James, what's a leadership truth that pisses people off, but you believe in it anyway?

The main thing for me in terms of leadership is the communication. So there, you've got two key types of what I call leadership and management communication. So you've got management communication, which all leaders have to do because they still have to manage as well as lead. And that's about telling people what to do, having all the answers. And then you have leadership communication, and a lot of people struggle with this. A great leader doesn't know everything. A great leader doesn't have all the answers. But what they do do is they're really interested in their people, and it's all about growing their people. So rather than trying to come up with the answers, ask better questions. And that really is Leadership 101. And a lot of people struggle with that, that like, oh, but how do I mix it? Well, it's not how. If you want to be a successful leader, you've got to invest in your people.

So how do you ask better questions as a leader?

How do you ask better questions? So example, let's say, so Daniel, you come to me and you say, so James, I've got this problem. And I'm going to say, Daniel, you're absolutely right. I think that's a problem too. So tell me, Daniel, what do you think that we can do about solving the problem? Fixing it? What's the solution?

I was about to come back with that because if I would come to you with a problem, I would possibly come with one or two solutions that I would want your advice on rather than just the problem.

So we're going to get there. So I'll get you to clarify what the problem is. So I agree that's a problem, and you're going to tell me, and then I'm going to come back and say, so Daniel, what would you suggest we do? Now, what do you suggest that we do? So keep the inclusivity. And you'll say, well, I don't know, James, that's why I came to you. And I would say, but Daniel, if you did know, What would that be? And they would probably say something, well, if I did that, I'd probably do X, Y, and Z. And I'll say, do you know what, Daniel? I think that's a really good idea. Are you empowered to actually go and execute this? Yeah, I think so. Okay, go do it. Job done. And that's it. Just asking great questions.

Uh, straightforward question, but I agree. So forget theory then. Give me a story, James, when someone completely changed because of how you coached them. What shifted in them?

Okay. So when you think about executive coaching or business coaching for that matter, it doesn't matter what that person, the initial, what we call the overlying or the umbrella problem, always the underlying problem is this. It's the mindset, it's the self-talk. That's always the underlying problem, because it doesn't matter what I tell you, if you don't believe it's going to work for you, you're absolutely right, it won't work for you. So my job is to get you to be so involved and come up with all the answers, and that's what great coaching does. And then what happens is eventually the penny drops and they go, do you know what, I actually think I could do that. And you can only do that if you take the person on a journey, because you cannot tell them— if you tell someone they've got a problem, I've got an issue, then it's just like hitting a brick wall. You've got to communicate. And I'm going to answer your question in a minute, the transformation. I have seen people, senior Senior managing directors come on one of our programs or executive coaching, and they come in and generally they don't think— they think they're really good managers, they think they're great leaders. And then once you—

to a certain extent, if they joined your training course, surely they must feel there is some space there for growth sometimes, because remember, a lot of the time it's their management team that puts them on the course.

So a lot of people come into the course thinking, another management leadership program, I don't have time for this, because their past experiences, they go along, they have a good time, they go back to work, nothing changes. So that's your stereotypical management leadership program. Nice letter manual, nice certificate, I am a leader. They go back to work on Monday, and nothing's changed. And that is the difference between motivational intelligence, Leadership, and everything we do revolves around the framework of MQ. And it is just literally helping that person identify and manage negative thoughts and self-limiting beliefs in order to overcome the obstacles in business and in life. That's it. And we do it through telling lots of stories.

So for a skeptical founder, then, For motivational intelligence, what changes first when you apply it?

So first of all, most people get the understanding of motivational intelligence wrong because they think motivation like a motivational speaker. So they just think that's rah, rah, rah. Well, that's not what it is.

Rally the troops, do a good town hall or a presentation and you're done.

Yeah, well, that's exactly— that's not it at all. So what happens is As I mentioned before, people normally come into the training and they've probably experienced leadership and management training before, so they're kind of thinking here we're going to have lots of theory and— but we don't do that. The very first thing we teach is self-leadership and why it's important to have the right diet, to take care of yourself, your mind. How do you feed your mind well? What things can you do So rather than traveling to work in the morning for 40 minutes and listening to radio, put a podcast on, put an audiobook on, feed your mind well. Stop watching the news at night, you know, because all it is is negativity. Stop reading the newspapers because all it is is negative. And the more negative that people consume, the more negative their brain becomes. So the first thing that people start to realize is they stop being so negative, the self-talk. So that negative self-talk starts to slow down. And then once that negative— so when they, when they stop believing that, or they start believing that they probably can do this and they probably can be better managers and leaders, then the game changes because then they start absorbing the information. So we never teach skills at the start of any program. We teach beliefs. And once people believe that they're capable, then we teach the skills.

I have spoken to people before, and many have mentioned the way even your internal talk can change your mindset.

Absolutely.

From I couldn't to I could do if, and so many small changes that you can apply, even if you don't vocalize those, the way you speak to yourself internally does contribute to it. So I'm assuming this background negativity that you mentioned stays on your mind even though you don't consciously realize.

In fact, most of the time it's unconscious, your subconscious. So you're not aware of— we have, as humans, have 60,000 thoughts a day. 90% are repeated over and over again. Our brains would explode if we were aware of all of those thoughts. So what we've designed as human beings is as we've evolved, we have a thing called a filtering mechanism. So for example, easiest way to think about it is, have you ever— do you drive, Daniel?

Yes.

Right, okay. Can you remember the last time you bought a new car?

Yes.

Okay, so did you know which car you were going to buy, or did you do a bit of looking around first?

Hmm, I knew.

You knew. Once you bought that car and you got the keys and you started to drive it, something miraculous started to happen. You started noticing all the cars that were just like yours.

True.

Now, the only reason you're— the cars have always been there, but the only reason you're noticing them is because it's on your mind. It's important to you at that time. And that's how our minds work. So if we focus on problems, guess what? We see more problems. If we focus on solutions, we see— if we focus on negative, we see more negative. And what we can do as humans, we can change that status quo. And the more that you're aware of the negative self-talk and the more that you feed your mind, Daniel, like, for example, so if most human beings think negatively most of the time, I would say I think the exact opposite. I would say 80% in my world is positive and I don't really see negative. Because I'm not looking for it. So you can change, and that starts with deciding that you have to change, that you cannot continue to think and act the way that you are. And that's it. And it's subconscious. Most of the time, we're not even aware that we're doing it.

That's an interesting point. Again, some other people I've spoken to about this also mentioned the power of within. So how do you manifest it on the outside? What changes on the outside for a leader or somebody building a business once they start applying these methods?

So I've got a saying, before you can have, you must first become. So before you can have a successful business, you need to act like a successful business owner. Before you can be a really great leader, you need to act like a really great leader. And that's the mindset.

Is that your take on fake it till you make it?

I don't believe in the fake it till you make it. That's not a word that I would use. But it's before you can have, you must first become. So you've got to become the person in your mind. Like, you've got to think like a successful business owner. You've got to— and that comes down to the vision. And we can talk about that if you want as well, how important having a vision is. And that is something I've always had in every aspect in my career or life and/or business, is a really clear vision of what it is I want to do, what it looks like, and how I'm going to get there. A picture. Because once your brains create a picture, our subconscious mind just goes to work and it just starts to put all the jigsaw pieces of that picture together. Now, it can take months, it can take years, especially if you're quite negative. I mean, a classic example, to give you an example of how this works, is when we work with a lot of— well, we used to work with a lot of kind of small business owners, and they would say like something like, you know, if I could— if I just make £200,000 a year, if I can just turn over £200,000, £300,000, I'll be happy. Well, they're limiting themselves. I always say to them, Think like a multimillionaire. Imagine you could have a, you know, 2, 3, 4 million pound turnover. What would that look like? How much could you achieve in your society? How many charities could you help? So I try and move them away from that small mind thinking to big picture thinking. And that's how you manifest it.

Yeah, because you speak— every time I've looked at something, whether it was something written or an interview or one of your podcasts, You always say we think too small or people think too small and that's limiting us.

That's exactly it. And thinking is just a set of repeated thoughts you have over and over again. Do you remember what a lot of people need to understand is the world that you see is just your perception. So my world and your world might be different. You know, your world and my world might be different. My world is because it's based on my life experiences and my expectations. I set the bar really high, not just for me but my whole team, because people will rise and they will fall to those expectations. But the critical part is don't bullshit, be honest. Really, if you're going to tell someone, you know, Daniel, I really believe in you, I really believe that you've got what it takes to be absolutely brilliant at your role, but mean it. Because guess what? Daniel Ionescu is going to rise to that expectation. And that's how our brains work. It's all perception. So if you perceive yourself not to be able to do it, you won't.

And what does confidence, where does confidence fit in this? Because we're talking about your inner voice. We're talking about the way you speak to yourself inside, the way you project to others. And confidence, I've written recently about it. And you can feel like an imposter or the imposter syndrome. What's your take on this?

Yeah, so competence— so confidence always comes before competence, right? So you've got to be confident to be competent, or you won't put in the effort, you won't use all those. So for example, how we learn anything— so go back to driving. We learn to drive as we get— make lots of mistakes and then we correct them. And we make more mistakes and we correct them until we master driving a car. Yeah, it's how our brains work. You've got to get it wrong in order to get it right. We don't have a program on how to drive. We don't have a program on how to walk as children. We've got to learn how to walk. We've got to get up, we've got to fall down, we've got to get up. You know, a child, for example, falls down 17 times an hour. In order to take its first steps. So we've got to have this feedback loop going on in our brains. I don't know if I'm answering your question or not, but, but it's the feedback, it's getting things wrong, it's having the confidence to say, I know I won't get it right all of the time, and I'm okay with that. But what I will do is I'm going to learn from that. So I believe confidence is absolutely huge in your ability to become successful anything in life, to be happy, it's all about the confidence. So it's huge in my opinion.

Let's talk then, James, about your operations because shorter work weeks are fashionable. So I'm wondering, what did you test? What did you learn? And what would you do differently now?

So we tested a 4-day work week. I'm not sure if you were aware of that.

So I am, that's why I asked you.

So we trial-tested. So for 3 months— so I'll tell you how it came about. I was in a— I was running a program for senior business leaders in Scotland, and part of the discussion was around employee engagement and, you know, perks and things like that and bonus structure. And we're kind of having this open discussion, and a couple of people in the room had said, well, we, we, we trialed a 4-day work week and it's been really successful. So, and I actually think to myself, I don't think that would work for me. And you're absolutely right, it wouldn't work. But then I changed my mind. So, but, but having from being in that meeting, that training program, to coming back to the office the next day, I completely 360 turned my mind. I thought, you know what, what if it does work? What if we do get more productive? What if things do really improve? And so I went to the team and I told the whole team, so there's 17 of us in the team. So I told my team, they're all full-time employees. So we are quite unique in terms of training and development. We don't use consultants. We only have employees because they live and breathe Motivational Intelligence. So I went to the team, some of them, I would say 80% wanted to trial it, 20% didn't. They were like, no, no, it's not for me. I'm happy what I'm doing, the hours at work, blah, blah, blah. Great. Out of all the ones that tried it, they did enjoy it, but it didn't bring any benefit other than they had Friday, Saturday, and Sunday off, an extra day off. There was no increase in productivity. In fact, what was happening, because they were still working 40 hours but just over 4 days, what they were doing is they were watching the clock from 4 o'clock 'til 6 o'clock.

The—

those extra hours.

Yes. So at the end of it, we did a survey. So we sent a survey out to all employees and we said, we're going to base the success of the trial on the feedback. Because I mean, it doesn't matter to me. The business was still running. We never lost any business. Okay, we didn't grow or anything, but we never lost anything. So the business wasn't really affected, but the feedback that we got was not as positive as we'd hoped it would be. And the kind of overarching theme was, so I think 20% liked it and 80% didn't like it. In fact, during the process, we had a few people who started the trial come out of it. So by the time we got to the end, I think we only had 6 employees actually complete the trial.

And you offered this to your employees. But did it work for you?

So it did, weirdly enough. So as you can imagine, when you're running a business all day, every day, you get problems. You know, when you run a business, most of your days revolve around problems. You don't have a lot of time to be creative. So I generally work at the weekend. I enjoy working the weekend. I go to the gym, I come back to the gym, you know, and I go into my office. I've got a big home office and that's when I'm creative. That's when I'm really— my juices are flowing. So what happened, because most people—

When you don't check your phone.

Exactly. So what happened was on the Friday, because most people were off, because the rule was for the people that don't want to do it, don't contact the people that are doing it on a Friday, because that's unfair. So me and my wife had all of this time. So Friday was really productive for us. So we quite enjoyed it.

And have you stuck with it?

No. As I said, at the end of the trial, the bad outweighed the good. The negative outweighed the positive. And I went to the team and I said, look, here's the feedback. What do youse wanna do? And I was almost, you know, a majority decided, you know, let's just go back to our normal working week.

Now, James, you also don't like to take excuses. I know. And no excuses is galvanizing and great for some people. Where do you draw the line between empathy and standards?

So let's stick with the success and excuses, right? So, you know, I wrote a book called 'You Can Have Success or You Can Have Excuses, You Cannot Have Both.' It's a business book. It's just my journey. It's my story about all the different paths in life that I could have went down. And by the way, there was a lot of harrowing stuff in there. I mean, I haven't had an easy life, I can assure you, but I've always had a really strong mindset. I've always been able to lift myself up. So that's the first part. Success or excuses versus empathy. When someone makes an excuse, it's not actual— a lot of people say, no, it's a reason. 'it's not an excuse.' And I'll say, 'No, there's a massive difference between a reason for why something didn't happen and an excuse.' Because I always believe that every single thing that you can get wrong, go wrong, there's always a solution, there's always a learning. And when they come back and say to me, 'It didn't work because—' and here's the learning, then it's not an excuse. But if somebody comes to me and says, you know, purely, 'Oh, we can't do that,' or, 'You don't have enough time for this,' or, 'Don't have enough time for that,' that's an excuse. What they really mean is, 'This isn't actually high on my priority list, so the things that you think that you want us to do, I don't see the value in it, James.' And then that's when the excuse comes in. So you've got to reframe that, and all of our employees never do that anyway. And even my daughter— my daughter works for the company. And she's been through her whole life success and excuses. So she gets it, you know, she used to think it was—

That's because you drilled it into her.

I mean, right from my daughter was literally born, I used to speak to her, like, tell her, you're an incredible human being, you can be whatever you want to be, you know, it's just about putting yourself out there. So I've been constantly affirming to my daughter that she's an incredible human being and I've got her back basically. And that has— she's now become an incredible young woman and she's taken all of those traits and characteristics that I've taught her throughout the years. And she's an incredible employee. But that's another story. There's a whole story around my daughter actually coming to work for me.

Let's stick with excuses for now until we get there because I'm wondering, James, what's an excuse you were making in your own business that somebody had to call you on?

So I'm very reflective. So one thing would be one point, so about a year ago, right? So I'm very, very ambitious, right? So for the last 4 years, our company has doubled in size. So revenue and people for 4 years in a row. Now last year we doubled our marketing budget. We brought on new people in January. By April we were losing money left, right, and center. I, I wouldn't get into the reasons behind it, but it didn't work. And I started to point fingers and place blame. So I would say, ah, but you said this and you said that and you told me And that goes against the person I am because I do not point fingers and place blame. In fact, I actually normally take responsibility and say, you know what, this is on me. You obviously didn't understand the question or you didn't understand the instruction. So, you know, but me bad, this is what I really meant. But I started to point fingers and place blame and it was one of my senior leadership team called me and he says to me, James, he says, I might not have a job at the end of this conversation, but I'm going to tell you anyway. It says you're too hard, you're pushing too hard, you know, just let, let's cut the numbers back, let's cut the numbers, let's not drive in for this, you know, exponential growth. Let's look at a lot of your team members, let's, let's get them. And I thought, wow, you're absolutely right. So I got all of my team together and I basically said, look, I apologize. And I said, I can't do this on my own. I can only do this with your input. So you need to tell me what we're capable of, how we can grow, how we can develop. So, and for the last 18 months, that's how we now run our business. I constantly say, I don't know. But I know yous do. I know the team that I've built. And by the way, I normally say every Monday morning meeting, I'll say, look at the team that we have built. Look at the team. My God, we have got such a powerful, strong, capable team of achieving anything. And this is my regular type of conversation. So I had to change because I was getting frustrated. And the excuse I was making was It's your fault. Pointing fingers, placing— Yeah. Yeah. So that was probably the biggest learning for me. And by the way, I wrote a whole article about it. I wrote an article on LinkedIn a year and a half ago about the experience and what I learned from it.

And what was the feedback you had on it? Amazing.

I mean, because a lot of— see, the thing is, a lot of— if you follow me on social media, A lot of the things that I say is things that people think but don't want to say. I say it how it is. I say what's really going on, how people are really feeling. You know, I don't beat about the bush. And I think I'm the kind of person that you either like or you don't, and I'm okay with that. I'm okay with that because not everybody's going to like my personality. Not everybody's gonna like the way that I go about business. Not everybody's gonna like that I speak so positive about my own mindset and success. And that's okay.

It's hard to hate somebody for being positive, but yeah.

But it happens. Think about it. Think about the society we live in. Most people, when they look at someone who's successful or achieved anything, they have all these excuses about why they've done it. What they don't know, I've never met anybody who's successful in business or life who hasn't had one hell of a journey to get there. Peaks, troughs, tears, snotters, you know, feel like the whole world is collapsing round about you. But they're always—

it's not a continuous upward line, is it? It's just a trajectory.

But people think it is. Some people think it's okay for James because he was an ex-oily gas exec. I left school with no qualifications. I've got dyslexia. I've got ADHD. I don't make excuses for that. They're my superpowers.

And you mentioned success and you mentioned it wasn't a super high salary with the house and the pool and everything else. What do you believe about success that most people don't have the guts to say out loud?

Success is happiness. It's being, feeling fulfilled. That's it. So, so if you think about it like this, so success and happiness is there, right? And your expectations are there, you're not going to feel successful and happy, right? And that's all about your outcomes. You're at your outcomes, you're actually— your thoughts drive your actions, your actions dictate your results. So if you've got a poor mindset and you keep taking poor actions they're going to get poor results. So your expectations, your outcomes will never truly align. And that's why people never truly find happiness. Once you either drop your expectations or raise your outcomes, and as soon as they align, people feel content and happy. Now, I would say I am very, very happy at the moment, but I still have lots of challenges. You know, I still have lots of business challenges. Some days I want to run away.

You know, well, the more the business grows and it's a new experience for you as well as a business owner, even after all these years, as your team grows, you have different challenges and the payroll only gets bigger and tougher every month.

I wouldn't honestly, when I think back to the early years and I think about our outcome and expenditure, so salaries, national insurance, marketing budget, I would have cried. You know, we— I think we are £135,000 a month in outgoings to keep the business running. Okay, we make more than that, but that's kind of our cost. I would never have— that's a month. I would never have dreamed of that 7, 8 years ago.

And, and now you somehow have to sleep with this and wake up calm and make sure that everything runs.

Well, I've got, I've got a, I've got a chief operating officer who's also my wife. Okay. She deals with that side. All, all I ask her is, can I afford to hire someone? And the answer is yes or no. Can I afford to increase the marketing budget? The answer is yes or no. And that's all down to cash flow. My, my business partner and wife, she does cash flow projections daily. Not weekly, not monthly, not quarterly. She does them daily. So she can tell you almost to the penny how this business is performing at any point of the day, any month, any day, any week. That's critical.

You mentioned working with your wife, building your business with your wife. Now, my question is, is it beautiful or brutal? What keeps it working? Beautiful.

Our relationship has flourished in ways I never imagined was possible. The early days were harder, of course, because my wife didn't have a lot of leadership skills because she was, she'd never really led people. She'd never run a business, of course. So we were learning together.

And none of us ever run a business until we do our first one.

So we had this real— I'm not going to say it was tough, but it was quite challenging the first couple of years because we're trying to find our strengths and weaknesses. Now I know I don't even— I just let my wife, she does her thing. She doesn't get involved in what I do. I don't get involved in what she does. And we have a discussion. We generally never bring work home now. Although it never really leaves you, to be honest. You know, you could be sitting watching TV and the phone goes or a text message, and that's your bloody night ruined because you're sitting with your business partner and wife. And guess what? You're going to discuss it.

And how do you put a balance in there? Because you said you try to disconnect in the evening, especially when you work with your wife, but the phone will inevitably ring or you'll get a message. Something will break at night. How do you keep those barriers intact? Yeah, I'm good, Daniel.

I'm going to go back to what I said right at the very start: healthy body, healthy mind. So we are really super healthy eaters. We go to the gym only for 45 minutes, 6 days a week. We go walks, we listen to podcasts. So our minds and our bodies are in tune for what it takes to have a high-pressure business. So that's the first thing. So, and then next is we're so aligned now. We know each other's strengths and weaknesses. We're so aligned. It's just, I think it's incredible because we have, we have so much fun. I mean, there isn't a day goes by me and my wife aren't absolutely peeing ourselves laughing at something, someone, or just each other. And that's amazing. I mean, for example, we are never separated. We never spend a day apart. We live together, we sleep together, we eat together, we go to the gym together, we holiday together, and we love it. It's like doing everything with your best pal, you know?

And that's why it's so important to find a partner who can understand that. You, I guess, didn't marry your wife before you started working on your own, but having the right partner alongside you for the journey in the business or outside the business is equally crucial. And I'm pretty sure you might have heard that throughout your case studies in your courses.

I think it goes back to, if you've got a partner that believes in you, That's one thing my wife always says. She's never once doubted me and my abilities to move the needle, to create, to take the business to the next level. So I'm very much a visionary and I'm very, very creative. And she takes care of the finances and the day-to-day running in the business. And it's just amazing. By the way, I probably wouldn't have a business, the business we have today, without Ines, my wife, running it the way that she does. That's Amazing to hear.

And it's also quite rare. I'm pretty sure, you know, you're quite lucky when it comes to that.

Now, James. I do. I just, I've just, I'm so blessed. I've got to say.

Now, James, you've got a gift for pulling people up a level. So as my closing question, I'm wondering what's your question you ask that always cuts through the BS?

Always asks— I would probably say that I'm going to go back to vision. So no matter what, I'm working with an SME or a senior leadership team, a sales team, always ask them, in 12 months from now, what is a perfect world like for you and your business and your team? What's all the things you want to have happen? What do you want the other— the rest of the business to say about you and your team? And then I get them to try and draft a vision of what that looks like, because it's the vision, it's the picture in your mind that enables you to take the right actions. And that's really always— no matter what I'm working with, team of CEOs or supervisors or managers or anything, I always ask them, what's the vision for the team or the business? Which, which your vision? What do you want to achieve? What does that look like? Because if they can articulate and paint a really clear picture, guess what the chances are? They'll probably achieve it or at least be close to it versus never ever doing that exercise. So I always revert back to, I always say, imagine you're sitting in the bar with your mate and it's 12 months from now and you're telling about all the amazing things that's happened in your business. Let's do that exercise. And they tell me all the amazing things and I say, what's stopping you? Well, what's actually stopping you? I'll say something something like, so Daniel, what you've written down, is that possible? Oh, I'm not sure. Has somebody done it before you? Yeah, yeah, there's lots of companies have done it. Okay, so that means it's possible and it's plausible with the right mindset, with the right tools and techniques, and with the right support. Would you agree? And they go, actually, when you put it like that, yeah, I do. Vision created. Then we start to build the race.

Okay. So you ask people about their vision. You started with vision and you said it's important. So let's try and make this the parting shot. If you're in doubt, what are the best ways to not necessarily find, but define your vision?

So it's going back to what I said, always think to yourself in 12 months, from now, because this is what a lot of people do with goal setting, right, is they underestimate what they can do over a long period of time and they overestimate what they can do in a short period of time. So I always say, in 12 months from now, what do you want to have happen? What's all the things that you want to have happen? And I start with that question because if you can put yourself— so it's called preposition. So if you can take yourself out of your current mindset and be, be someone else in 12 months' time, and you're telling your buddy, your friend, your wife about all the things that's happened. That's how you start to create this. Then you can move it around and, and make it really, really powerful. But that's always the starting point. What do I want to have happen 12 months from now? And start writing it down. There's no right or wrong answer. Just start writing it Write it down. What do I want people to say about me? What do I want them to think when they think about my company? What do I want them to think when they think about my team? What does my partner— would I want my partner to think about me? And be that person. Before you can have, you must first become.

That's a good parting thought. I'll stick with that. Thank you so much, James, for coming on Millennial Masters and sharing your story and being a true inspiration. And positive thinker. Thank you.

I, you know, I'm so passionate about life and people having the best possible life. And guess what? You said it earlier on, it's the power within. We all have it. We don't all use it, and that's the problem. But thank you, it's been an absolute pleasure.

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