Why curiosity and people are the ultimate business hack 🦾 | Ryan Carruthers (AI Response Lab)

It's like the best businesses solve a problem. And there's a demand for your product, your offer, or your service. I would always, always rather make a compelling offer than a convincing argument. But if you can make a really compelling offer, then it's just so much easier. It's easier to scale that business, it's easier to do everything. And if you can, if you can make it as easy as possible as well, then why wouldn't you?

This week's Millennial Master is Ryan Carruthers, an entrepreneur whose passion for innovation has driven him from early ventures in betting tips and property to AI solutions in sales. He's built multiple businesses, learned from some incredible mentors, and found ways to keep it all balanced with family life. In this episode, Ryan shares how he turned his entrepreneurial dreams into reality with passion, perseverance, and a little bit of hustle. This episode is brought to you by OffWork. Gym memberships, gift cards, free coffee, and pizza Fridays. Well, these staff perks just don't cut it anymore. That's why OffWork gives your team something they already love. Travel. They can book their own flights, pick their own hotels, and plan the perfect getaway, all with the travel fund you set up for them. It's super easy—just set the contributions, and OffWork handles the rest. Better time off means less burnout, more motivation, and happier employees. Give your team a perk they'll actually love. Check out OffWork today on offwork.com. Millennial Masters is proudly Sponsored by Jolt, the UK's top web hosting service. Whether you're launching a WordPress site or scaling up a custom app, every great project needs a reliable home. That's why Jolt has hosting plans starting at just £3.95 a month, with unbeatable deals on domain registrations too. Why Jolt? It's a no-brainer. There's no waiting around with support within 30 seconds on live chat. Your site stays live no matter what with over 99.99% network uptime. And you can also pay with Bitcoin or American Express, so you can rack up those points too. How good is that? Sign up today and enjoy your first 30 days free. 3 months free. Head to jolt.co.uk to get started. Ryan, welcome to Millennial Masters.

Thank you for having me, Daniel. It's a pleasure to be on your, your podcast.

Likewise. So your first entrepreneurial move was back in school, wasn't it?

Yes. So you have done your research on me. Paul Mann, you've listened to me quite a few times then. Yeah, my, I was always an entrepreneurial kid, always doing the buying and selling of things and coming up with ideas. And there was a kid who came into school who wanted to buy a guitar. And I told him I'd buy all of his PlayStation games. That's what he was selling instead of him selling them individually. And I went home and said to my dad, I need some money. And this is amazing. My dad didn't say no. He said, what for? And he actually gave me the time to listen. And explain it. And he was like, yeah, okay, cool. So I'll give you the money, but you're gonna have to pay your debt off by coming to work for me. And then I was like, okay, cool, wicked. So he gave me the money, I bought the PlayStation games, and then I started to sell them individually at a higher price than he was selling them, or I took them to the shops in town to trade them in against the games that I wanted. So yeah, that's when it all started. And now I look back at that and I go, well, Wow, my dad was amazing. And what he did was wicked. Instead of just shooting me down, he actually gave me the runway to go, well, you do have this idea here. I'm not going to shoot you down. And actually, I'm going to enable that. And I believe in where you're going. So, so yeah, that's where it's where it all started, I think.

So that means that your parents and your family have always been very supportive of your entrepreneurial endeavours?

Yeah, 100%. They're always really, really supportive. They always have been. They've never tried to slow me down. I think they knew anyway that if they did, I wouldn't have listened. But my dad was self-employed anyway, so he got it and he knew the power of being his own boss. And they always tried to, in everything we did, support us. And instill that confidence in us. So I always joke that they made this monster, but my mum is very confident as well. My mum is very to the point. We have a great relationship and we are very open and we speak our minds and I've always been able to do that. So that's testament to the way they brought me up.

Speaking of the family business, not long after, there was a point where you had to take it over, Yeah, so unfortunately my dad got ill.

I was away at university. It seems like a lifetime ago now. And yeah, I looked after the business for him. It seems mad talking about it now, Daniel, because I've done so many things since then. So it's almost like I don't really think about it that often. But yeah, I mean, my dad had paid for me at university, paid for my accommodation, and he'd looked after me. When I was there, we had these like two cards from Sainsbury's, just a kid one and a parent one. And every Tuesday after he'd been to karate, he would swing past Sainsbury's and load it up. So I would have money to buy my shopping, pay for my accommodation. So yeah, I mean, when, when it needed it, yeah, I just stepped in and I ran it and I loved it. I loved the, I loved everything about being in business and I loved the challenge of it. For me, it's just a game and I love that. I just love the game of business and I love interacting with people and trying to solve that problem and then trying to solve it quicker and then just trying to beat myself all of the time. That's why I do it.

And the first business game you had, it funnily enough, it involved women's makeup at uni. Can you tell me the background about that one?

So moved away to university and just overhearing conversations of girls who had moved from— they'd moved from different cities, and now they couldn't get hold of various different makeup brands, etc., etc. I was like, well, there's a problem. And they, they want to buy makeup, they need it, they use it. So I sourced some makeup. And again, my dad had given me the money to buy the makeup. And again, he knew the, he knew what I was going to do with it. So he gave me some money and said, you can just do whatever you want with this, son. This is for you to basically get through uni a bit. But I was in, I was in uni a lot. I studied physiotherapy and I had 40 hours a week almost in university for a sort of 6-week period. And then they sent you off on placement and then you actually went and worked in the hospital. So it wasn't like I was studying and, you know, there was like 10 hours teaching and the rest was reading time. It was intense and it was a lot. So yeah, he was like, I'll give you this money that'll help you get through the first few months at uni so you don't have to find a job so you can find your feet. I was like, okay, cool. Thank you, Dad. I was doing some other stuff anyway with Betfair, which I'm sure you're going to ask me about. And yeah, I just started sourcing makeup, buying it, selling it to people at university, and then that just carried on and carried on. Again, it's like if you— the best businesses solve a problem, and there's a demand for your product, your offer, or your service. I would always, always rather make a compelling offer than a convincing argument, which isn't my line. I stole that from Sabri Subri, who's a really good marketer. But if you can make a really compelling offer, then it's just so much easier. It's easier to scale that business. It's easier to to do everything and yeah, if you can, if you can make it as easy as possible as well, uh, then why wouldn't you?

But then you didn't end up being in physio. Your life took a different turn.

Yeah, I mean, for me, for me, the goal was always self-employed. I, I love human anatomy. I love the way the body moves. I love, I love everything about that. I just love it. I love, I still do. I still absolutely love it. In fact, my now wife, she was my girlfriend at the time. We went away for a weekend to Liverpool and there was a Body Works Expo on. So it was like a full real human that had donated their body to science, fanned out muscles, organs, the lot. And she was like, you really wanna do that, don't you? And I was like, yeah, I really, really wanna do that. So, I mean, she's amazing. She was like, okay, cool, let's do it. And she literally got an, an anatomy lesson, lesson for like 2, 3 hours. It was amazing. But yeah, I, so the goal for me was always self-employed physio. With my dad being ill and with me doing my stuff on Betfair, that didn't happen. I had to prioritize other things. I'm not resentful of that. It's the best thing that ever happened to me. And I realized that I didn't actually need to do the physio degree, well, the physio stuff. I could carry on and I could do, I could do my Betfair stuff. I could work with my dad and I, so like when my dad came back, I loved it. I still worked with him and I loved it. I loved the, I loved the relationship we had. I had the, I just had fun and everybody who knows me knows that I'm quite a fun person. I don't take myself too seriously at all. I value fun over so many things. And if I can have fun and make money, then that's what I want to do. Speaking about fun.

And money, let's talk about your Betfair adventure and community. How did that one come about? You said that you started it before you went into uni. So that was a bit of a side gig, passion, side hustle. How would you categorize it, at least to start with?

I'd probably categorize it to start with as a young man earning good money thinking, I don't know how long this is going to last, but let's go with it while it does. I was doing that. I was laying horses to not win races, and I was making money from it. I've always been interested in sport, football and horse racing, tennis. I just love sport. I will watch any sport. I will have a go at any sport. I love it. But I've always looked at it slightly differently to most people. And I think this is why I really like physio as well, because with physiotherapy, there's a problem with the body and it might, you might feel the pain in your elbow, but it might actually stem from your spine. So it's actually, let's get to the root cause of the problem and the reason why something is moving the way it is. And then let's try and fix that. And it's the same for me with sport. It was, well, why is that horse not going to win? Why is that? Why is that horse winning? There's a reason behind that, because there just is. So I would then go into the data, and I would, I'd find all those things out. And then people started asking me how I was doing it. And this was another lesson for me in business. People aren't always going to do the amount of work that you are, but they will pay for the shortcut to get to where you are. So I just said, I'll tell you what, I'll email you every single day. Well, they actually said that to me. They said, if you just email me every single day, and I just pay you every month. And I was like, what, you want to do that? So I put together a terrible website. And I had no idea how old were you when you did that? So I was 23. And I'm 36 now. 22, 23. Yeah. When I say that out loud, it scares me. I even— so Daniel Ionescu even went into PayPal.. And I got the code for the button. And I just put it on the website because I thought, well, it'll know what to do. So then it just literally had the open bracket, forward slash, and the code for the button there. And I was like, why is it not doing the button? But yeah, basically, people were paying me £30 a month. And they were, they just got access to my research. So all of the stats research that I was doing every single day to narrow down the best potentials for that day, I would just email it to them all. And then it's, for me, it's a rabbit hole as well. If I'm interested in something, I see it's working. And I, I just want to go deeper into that. I really, really loved— what I really loved about that was people have always said to me for years, oh, you've got a good business brain. I don't know if people do have a business brain or not. I mean, you have an interest in something, and then it's up to you whether you harness that or etc. And I just had an interest for getting more people on that email list and paying me. And then like the world of marketing opened up to me. I'd never, never really known about it. So I then dived into internet marketing and copywriting and Gary Halbert and David Ogilvy and James Schramko and all of these like old school marketers, direct response guys. And I was like, I love the power of words.

And was that to expand the community around your betting tips?

Yeah, 100%. It was to get more people on there. And then I started to understand the psychology behind it and people were actually what else they wanted and needed. And then from there it was like, oh, okay, well there's a need for a community environment because this is growing in traction and people haven't got anybody else to talk to about trading on Betfair. So I created a community and that has just grown and grown and grown. And I still own that to this day.

And you also developed a course around community building. You developed another business around your community business to teach other people to build communities. Was that another typical case of I identify somebody's asking me how to do it and what the need for it is, and I'll go and market it as a separate business.

Yeah, that, uh, well, that happened because I got locked down and I had nothing to do. So yeah, lockdown happened. And, but along, along the journey to get to lockdown, people knew I had a membership and a community and I had a YouTube channel and, you know, I think I've had 1.8 million views on YouTube and 250,000 podcast downloads. So people were like, oh, you kind of know what you're talking about when it comes to creating content, building a community and. You know, along the way, people would ask me for help. And, you know, I would do that. And I really enjoyed it. Because it sort of scratched that entrepreneurial itch for me where it's like, I'm not going to create another business or another community because I know how much work goes into it. But I love the idea. And I love what you want to do. So yeah, I'll help you, you know, friends and then friends of friends of friends. And then, yeah, lockdown happened. And the sport got stopped. So it's like, well, okay, basically there's nothing to do. And then that pivot to people wanting to move online, take their business online happened. So people were just naturally coming to me and I was like, well, okay, I've got nothing to do. I might as well give this a go for a while. I don't know how long I'm going to be stuck at home. I would not have been able to just not do anything. And it was great because what it did allow me to do is it gave me time to then go back over a lot of skills that I'd learned over the years. So I spent a lot of time going through the old copy skills that I'd developed, the old courses, reading the old books and sort of sharpening my skills again.

And among all of this, you also had a property portfolio. That's how we actually met back in Lincoln through your property business. How did you get into property?

Got into property because somebody offered to buy my first initial email Betfair business. And I thought, you know what, I don't know how long this Betfair thing is going to last. I will, I'll sell it because you've made me an offer and I'll just buy a house. I'll buy the house, I'll buy it outright, and I'll just put someone in it and that'll basically be a bit of a pension for me. And then I realized that I really, really, really liked property because it's dealing with people and I like people a lot. I also, the timescales for it worked because it wasn't, it wasn't intense in terms of like you didn't have to work on it all the time. You would, it would be in spurts and sprints. So I would, you know, I would find a piece of land eventually, because then that's what happened. I was buying student houses, I was converting pubs, etc. And the lead, the lead up to that would be keeping these relationships going with agents and stuff. And then, you know, go for coffee with them. So I'd be out, I'd be talking to people, it didn't impact my, my Betfair business, it just worked alongside it. So then I would have time to, to find these buildings. And then you build a team around that you built, you have a team of builders, you have an architect, you have planners, you have all of these people around you that help you and you drive the vision of that project. And yeah, I just, I absolutely loved that for a long time. I had a business partner in that who was a lot older than me, very, very experienced, very well respected in the property world. And I learned a lot about business and life from him. And yeah, it was a lot of fun for a lot of years.

But you exited the property business.

Yep. So my business partner didn't want to do the size of projects that I wanted to do. And that was fine. You know, he's a, he's of a different age. He'd already built his life, built his portfolio. The risk wasn't there. And he did an amazing thing. He came to see me and said, I don't want to hold you back. I don't want you to, I don't want you to begrudge me in any way. So I'm going to do the right thing. I'm going to let you go and just go off on your own. And at the time I was like, oh, that's amazing. Thank you very much. I still love the bloke. We got on like house on fire. We were like best friends. He always joked and said that he had two girls, I'm the son he never had. Because I was roughly the same age of his children. And it just wasn't, it just wasn't as fun without him. It just, I did not enjoy it. There was something about the way we worked. There was something about the fun we had. It was just not the same. Without him and I, I just didn't enjoy it as much. And then I also, I just didn't enjoy the— there was things happening in my life with children coming and various different bits and bobs like that. And I didn't enjoy the time it took to get the results. So, you know, there was a potential project that I worked on for 18 months nurturing that relationship. And agreeing prices, figures, and all that kind of stuff, pulling investors in and raising capital to do the job. And then just right at the last second, the person who owned the land said they didn't want to sell it anymore. They were selling it to someone else. And it's like, okay, I've just wasted 18 months of my life to get that. And that, and that happens. And that's what you've got to do. And I just, It's like, well, I don't want to do this anymore. I don't want to do that. I don't want to spend all that time and to potentially make nothing. Because even then, if I'd have got that, it'd have been another 2, 3 years to get the return. And as we've now seen, the cost of materials has gone up, the cost of labour has gone up, the cost of everything has gone up. So that was one of the things that I also didn't like, that you'd plan this project now and it might take a year or 2 years to build out and then, you know, what you forecast now, and obviously you do, you put the extra margins in and the safety nets and stuff, but you could very quickly see that you could spend 2 years building something or a year building something and then make not that much money. That sort of happened. And then very experienced head said to me that he's just finished a big project and he's worked out the time he spent on it and he basically got paid less than minimum wage with the payout. So there was that, and then I was, my wife was talking about children and I was looking at what returns I was getting elsewhere. And for the time spent, there was so much higher. So it was a very, very simple, simple decision for me to go, okay, I'm not, I'm done. I'm out.

Reflecting on the power of partnerships, what would you say were the key traits of your property business partner that propelled you in that business up until the point where obviously you decided to, to go your separate ways? You said he was, he was a mentor in, in many ways. What did that teach you?

Good question. Very good question. He taught me, he taught me quite a few things. He taught me one of the things was he always used to say to me, less is more, Ryan, less is more. Because I was like 24, 25 at the time we met, I was, let's go, let's move at speed. And he taught me that actually less is more and you don't need as much as you think you need. You don't need to always be chasing all of these deals. He taught me that there was always another deal. And he also, he was really big on the work-life balance as well. I mean, I've, I've always had quite a good work-life balance. But he was really, really big on that as well. So, you know, he was uncontactable on the weekends. You just, it just, it just never applied. And he was always with his family and I liked that. Uh, like I thought that was really, really good. He taught me just, he taught me a lot about myself as well, that I was very, I was very fast. My brain is very quick and he'd always used to say that to me and he would always just say, just take a minute. And just slow down at the end of a meeting or just reflect and think back on things. And that was great. And he said, never ever agree to anything on the first meeting because you are, you want to, you want to move and you want to go at speed. Just don't agree anything. And that's advice I take with me to this day. I think also he was just like, he was so experienced. He was so experienced. So for me, it was a great sounding board as well. And he was very protective of me as well, like very, very protective of me, like a, like a parent would be. So he kept me away from certain situations or certain deals or certain people, and he would always look out for me. And he always knew he had my best interest at heart. And that, for me, was, that was amazing because I could go into any situation knowing that he He's always got my back. I think that was one of the reasons why it worked so well. Yeah, and he was just a wise head. He had life experience that I didn't have.

And then you found another business partner for your next venture.

Yes. I like people. I like working with people. I work best when you let me play in my zone of genius. You let me do what I'm good at and you do the other things. So yeah, I—

so what are you good at? What's your thing? And what do you need from your other business partners?

Well, I read a really, really good book called Traction by Gino Wickman, and I implemented that into my Betfair trading community and realized that I am not— so in that book, it talks about, it's like an operating system for your business, and it talks about you need an integrator and then the, the blue sky thinker, the go-getter, the move out of my way, I'm just going to do it guy. And I want to move at speed and then someone else deals with the operations and the systems. I am not an integrator. My— like Adam in my, my community, my Betfair business, he is, he and he wants that. He wants to be operational. He wants to sit behind the scenes. He wants to do those things that I don't want to do. I just want to go out there and just, you know, decide the strategy, and move and do the marketing and all that kind of stuff. So I know that that is what I'm good at. I'm good at meeting people. I'm good at developing relationships. I am good at keep nurturing those relationships, keeping them going. I'm good at breaking down those barriers that people try to put up. I'm good at having fun with people. So when my friend who has been like a mentor to me as well, again, another guy who's older than me. So he's in his 50s, he came to me and he had an idea of working with AI and doing some AI androids and taking our copywriting and marketing experience and putting that into AI androids, and then enabling sales teams to use them. I was like, yeah, this plays into what I'm good at. I'm good at tech. I'm good at people. I'm good at working with other partners as well. And I also have— I have a network of people that I can pull on and I can speak to. So it was like, well, this is just perfect. We've been like flirting around with doing something together for a while. And then this opportunity came up and he's like, I think we'd be perfect at working with this because you are that blue sky thinker. You are the person that I can just let go. And, you know, my business partner in property was called Kim. He was a man, but born in Denmark, hence the surname, the first name. And he used to say, you get where water won't get. And that's what, that's what this partner wants as well. He's like, well, you can get to these people in these businesses. And he doesn't want to, he's like, I want to be behind the scenes. I want to focus on the tech. I want to focus on the operations and just like you do the marketing and the talking to people. I'm like, okay, cool. So yeah, in a long-winded way, I think my, for me, it's all relationships. I am good at creating and nurturing relationships.

So if you would have to give new founders any tips about finding a business partner. What would they be? There's a few things I would—

the first thing is communication. I would be making sure that you communicate well, first and foremost, that you guys communicate well. And you also, if you are thinking about going into a venture together, that you have rules around that communication. Because whenever anything— I haven't had any relationships go sour, But whenever they've even like wobbled, it's usually down to communication or lack of communication, or one person being annoyed with the speed of— me being annoyed with their speed of communication because I want to go quick. I am a bundle of energy. I'm just like a little golden retriever puppy chasing a frisbee. I am going at it with everything I've got.. And not everybody is like that. And if I know that, then that's cool. So set those boundaries. And also just be really, really honest and open. Well, I would definitely read the book Traction by Gino Wickman and find out what your role is, what it's going to be. Create that, that organizational chart of who's going to be doing what. Because if you know what you're supposed to be doing, and you've got a scorecard of that, then you can hold yourself accountable, they can hold you accountable. But also, you know their skills, and you know their strengths and their weaknesses and their values. And then all of it can just stem. You've got the right person doing the right role, sat up, and you're all on the bus together and you're going in the right direction. So my advice would definitely be just make sure you have rules around how you communicate, read the book Traction, and just be really open and honest about what you want to do and what you don't want to do. And I think sometimes people are very, very excited to work with a certain person because of whatever they think it can may bring. But just take a second to think about what it actually means to have a partner or a co-founder. And is that definitely what you want? Sit on it. You know, there's a, the book by Matthew McConaughey, Greenlights, has an amazing, like he decides when he's taken a role. Because he would live as if he's taken that role for a week, and then he will live for a week as if he hasn't taken that role. And then that will just give him the— it's a great book, it's a really, really good book— that will give him then the gut feel and the understanding of how this could work. And that's really, really good advice as well, to just take some time to think about how day to day it's going to work, because there's always that peak of excitement at the start because it's new and it's exciting and it's fun. But then the reality and the work sets in. So just to take that time to go, hang on a minute, I'm just going to think about this, think about this properly and what I do want and what I don't want. So hopefully that helps.

I'll make sure that the books are included in the show notes. The Green Light has already been referenced by another guest, but I'll reinclude it. And one of the things that I also ask my guests is what books influenced your life and the person you are today? Has there been anything in particular that was a eureka moment that you realized, actually, this is how things work and enlightening?

Yeah, there's definitely a few books that I won't let anybody borrow. They're not allowed to leave my house. So one of the books I've mentioned already is Traction by Gino Wickman. That That opened up a lot for me. That was like, right, this is the role you are supposed to play, Ryan. This is your skills. And this gave me a framework of how to run a business, of how to act in the business and how to create a scorecard for the business. And one of the key things for that was the weekly level 10 meeting, which is the meeting with your key people in your business. And you go through the rocks, the things you're working on for the quarter. And then you're, you talk about those and then everybody has them and then the to-dos, but the key thing then was the issues. So then you don't talk about those things and in the week, unless it's like, oh my God, the business is burning down. We've got to talk about this. This was just things that come up on a week-to-week basis. And then you talk about it in the meeting and then you decide what you're actually going to do with them. So whether they need working on now or, and then someone becomes accountable for that, or they become a future thing. And for me, I always fill the issues list because I get those ideas. That's amazing because then I'm not bogging down my, my team and the people that work with me. I've got an outlet and I know then that we're going to speak about them. So that's definitely one book. The other book was, um, Thinking Time by Keith Cunningham, which isn't a book that many people will have heard of. And it's all about— it's a really, really great book. Every single chapter you could read as a standalone and it's to solve different problems at different times. And it gives you prompts to think about. And this was one of the things that I learned from Kim. My brain thinks very, very quickly. I can get to the answer that I feel very, very quickly. But just to stop and actually just think about that and then reiterate and just go, am I right? And then what I would do with that, and again, I learned that from Kim, was to then talk to other people in my network. So there's other people in my network that I know I can ring, trusted advisors, I ring them up and go, I, am I on the right path or am I crazy? So there's that one. Profit First as well, by Mike Michut. I can never say his surname, but amazing, amazing book. Richard Hill recommended that book to me actually. And I put that book into my business. It's been one of the best things I've ever done. It's amazing. And then The Danish Way of Parenting as well was a really, really, really good book. I am a dad of two young children and it's massively important to me that I raise those children right and that I spend time with them. And the Danish Way of Parenting was just, just gave me so many amazing things and things to think about and how to, you know, bring up children the right way. And I just loved that book. And then I tend to read, I tend to try and read Tools of Titans at least once a year as well. And then another good book, the last one is just up there. And it's called Company of One by Paul Jarvis, which is a book that I read very recently. And that was really good. The key takeaway I got from that was everybody has a, they have like a goal of a number they want to get to. So like, you want this many members, or you want this many clients. But not many people have an upper limit of like what they won't then take. So if they get to that number, okay, so say you want 20 clients, okay, but what's the upper limit? What are you gonna do if you get to 25? You're gonna stop? And that was really great thinking for me to just go, yeah, hang on a minute. Well, you design this life around what you want. Like I said, it's very important to me that I spend time with my children. I've got great work-life balance. Yeah, I could take on 40 clients. But then what would that— how would that impact other parts of my life? So yeah, they're the books that I really recommend and I just, yeah, I love them.

You mentioned parenting, being a father of two daughters and seven years ago, you were encouraging everybody to take as many risks as possible in their 20s before they have kids, before they get married, but now with two kids, on how has that changed your life, your risk profile, and how you think about business and life in general?

It's changed it for the best. So I have, as I've mentioned a few times, I have some really, really good people around me who have always had a good work-life balance, and they're all older than me, and they've all had, they've all chased a lot of their dreams in their 20s and 30s. And I've left people behind that I grew up with who didn't really understand the path that I wanted to take in business and in life. And they, they sort of, they just didn't want that. They wanted the, they wanted to rush to get the house and have the children and all that kind of stuff. And I didn't want that. I wanted to, to chase my sort of my business dreams and travel and do lots of different things and then have the children. And that's what I've done. I'm not saying their way's right or my way's wrong or whatever. It's just different. I think when you don't have children, you can be more risky. You can be more aggressive with what you want to do. Because when you have children, everything changes unless you don't want to spend time with them. Like you just want to work all the time, which is not what I wanted to do. I wanted to get things in place so that I could spend time with my children and I could give them the life that, that they, that I want to give them and do the things that I want. So my risk profile has definitely changed now. I am way less risky. But I don't, well, I don't think I'm less risky. I'm just way, way, way more calculated. So my, it just now I think about how is this going to impact the overall picture? Is this going to take away from, from time with my children? Like I won't do anything that takes away my Tuesday because my Tuesday is the day that I have, I don't work on a Tuesday at all. I don't answer calls or anything. That's my day with my girls and I go to soft play and I do all that fun and there's no amount of money you could pay me to not do a Tuesday. Like, there's no— you cannot put a figure on it. It doesn't mean anything to me, the money, because the time with them does. So yeah, life has changed for me, but I see it as I've had a lot of fun. I have had some great years, like, and I've gone to some amazing places. One of the places I wanted to go to was California. I did West Coast road trip for my honeymoon. It was amazing, me and the wife. A couple of weeks ago, I went back with the girls. And it was phenomenal. It was just phenomenal to do that again with them. So nothing's really— everything's got better for me. I don't see it as— I don't see my children as slowing me down or anything like that. It just prioritizes what I do. And I'll tell you one thing it definitely does. It makes me get rid of a lot of faffy things that I think I should be doing that I maybe would have done before, but now I just don't have time to do. So it prioritizes the big things that I actually should be doing. That's a faffy thing that you stop doing. Well, faffy thing, there's just like some meetings, for example, with some people I'd be like, I'd do lots of different meetings and now it's like I would I would actually ask different questions of the person I'm going to meet to make sure that it's actually worth my time. And just like your normal to-do list, I'd just be like, well, there's lots of things on there. It's like the 80/20. 80/20 works on everything. You're looking at to-do lists going, well, probably 80% of that isn't going to make a difference. So now I don't have the time to do that. Let's just focus on the 20%. So that's one thing it has helped me do. Is move out a lot of stuff that I don't, that I shouldn't really be doing. So hopefully again, that answers your question.

You mentioned something that not many people talk about, which is kind of like leaving behind some people who don't align with your vision and trajectory. And I guess some other people shared it with me in the way of saying that you need to surround yourself with like-minded people, but you've, you've put it from a different perspective. Was that easy? How, how do you intentionally lose contact in order to move on and surround yourself with like-minded people?

Yeah, I mean, I found it, I found it easy, um, which isn't— not in a cold way, it's just I didn't— I just knew it was for the best for both of— for both of us. Um, you know, we would— you know, I'd meet up with various people and I, I'd just come away from it feeling a bit drained and like, well, that wasn't— that was— I don't think that was fun for either of us really, was it? Um, and then it was just a case of— I, I think they felt it as well because they knew that I wasn't they knew, they know my energy, they know the type of person I am and they know that that wasn't me that was there. Not that I was any really any different, but I was probably a lot quieter and a bit more of a, I didn't really add too much to the conversation because I found it boring and we didn't really have anything to talk about. What energizes, energized me was talking about business and the books we were reading and the people I was meeting and they didn't really want to talk about that. So Yeah, it just became a case of, you know, oh, we'll do something again soon. And then I wouldn't really arrange anything. And then maybe we would exchange the odd text message here and there. And, you know, we'd have a chat that way. And it just sort of gradually fizzled out. And then I would choose to focus my time and energy on people that I enjoyed spending my time with, and that we had the same goals, and we had the same alignment. And you know, I could add something to the conversation and so could they. And that, it just sort of gradually happened, which happens in life anyway.

So how do you build your circle of like-minded people? You talk to lots of people.

You talk to lots of people. And then for me, what I do is I talk to, I give lots of people time. So if you send me a message, most of the time I'll respond. Well, I will always respond. If I haven't, it's usually because LinkedIn does this thing for me sometimes where it's like, It's marked it as unread, so I've totally missed the message and I'm like, well, I would have read that. Although maybe I do need to build an Android for that. But yeah, I'll always respond and then I'll just see how, how, how the, how it feels. You can just, I just get a sense of it. Like we're going to get on. And then if we have a meeting, I'll always think after that meeting, and the great thing for me is when When COVID happened, my car lease had expired. And I said to my wife, I'm going to wait until March— expired in December— I'm going to wait until March. And then I'll get a new car then. And then COVID happened. So I didn't. So we only have one car. So I walk everywhere. And I love that anyway, I just love to walk. So most of the time I'm walking back from a meeting, which gives me time to then go Okay, well, what were the key points of that meeting? What did they, what did, what do I need to do? But also then I can think about, well, how did that, you know, how did that make me feel? Did I get on with them really, really well? And you could just, you just know there's just that energy and that connection. If I make a joke and they laugh, they make a joke and I laugh, it's like, okay, cool. And then I'll just, I'll just meet them again and again and again and again and again. And then you've got that, that circle. But for me as well, I don't want loads and loads and loads of people in that circle. You know, I want a few really, really good trusted people. And a couple of the people that I always want in my network whenever I'm doing anything, I want somebody who's been there and done it. So someone who's actually built what I'm trying to build, or in that roundabout fashion. So I can, I can speak to them and I can bounce ideas off. And then I also want, which is really important for me, I don't want a yes man or yes person. I don't want someone who's just going to tell me, yes, my ideas are great. I want someone who's going to challenge me. I want someone who's going to put me on the spot, who's going to say, that's not good, and then make me think about it. Because with those two combined, then I can get to where I want to get to.

You shared an interesting tip, walking and walking back after a meeting helps you clear your head and settle in what are the key points. What other routines or habits do you have that keep you sharp and focused when it's so easy to get distracted, whether it's family life or work? Going to the gym.

Going to the gym keeps me— is a big thing for me. It allows me to expend a lot of this energy. It allows me to get— it just allows me to get that feeling of momentum and that feeling of of movement. And I love that. That's a big thing for me. I love going to the gym. And I love staying fit. I love staying healthy. And I eat well as well, which also then gives me the energy to do what I want to do. And it makes me feel like I've got the right fuel in the car. So that's a big one. One of the ones I've started doing recently as well is a distractions list. So I saw this, strangely enough, saw this on social media. And I basically have a list of a notebook in front of me. And I do bullet, I actually do bullet journal as well. So I bullet the things I need to do that day, like 3 to 5 things I need to make sure I get done that day. But in the back of the book, I write a distractions list. So if something comes up in my mind when I'm, when I'm working or doing something, and I'm like, oh my God, I need to do that. I'm like, no, I don't. I grab my pen and I write on my distractions list. And then when I finish that task I'm doing, I look back at the distractions list and go, is that something that needs doing, Ryan, or was it just a distraction? And that really, really helps for me. I also try my absolute hardest. It doesn't always work, but I try my hardest to time block certain tasks, like assign certain task time to that task. I also try and plan my time. So Mondays and Wednesdays, both my girls are at nursery, there's no one around as well, because the wife's out, she's at work. So anything that involves deep thinking or needs to be left alone, I do it then. And that also works really, really well, because it's the start of the week. So I get it out of the way, I get it done. And then I also think about my goals for the week. And I'm like, okay, well, if I get this done, so Tim Ferriss thing, you get like, those things done, then everything else is okay. So then if I get those done and it comes to like 2 o'clock or 12 o'clock on a Friday, I'm like, yeah, do you know what? I'm done now. I've done that. So yeah, let's go to the park with the, with the girls and just ticking those off and just, you know, actively thinking about them really, really helps me and allows me to then get that forward momentum and then do the things that I want, I want to do.

You're speaking, or we're speaking from your workroom, but you've had experiences in multiple fields. How do you feel about the remote or hybrid work situation?

Yeah, I mean, I've built a team for my trading community who are all— there's no one base. We're all over the place. Like, we are all over the place. I don't feel too strongly about one way or another. To be honest. I don't really feel too strongly about many things, which isn't going to help you. But I mean, if you ask me a question about Liverpool Football Club, then I tend to feel quite strongly about Liverpool. But for me, you know, I, I was based in a coworking space. I loved it. I loved having those like pretend colleagues to, to chat to. And then in that space, I met Richard Hill, who became a really, really good friend and almost like an advisor to me. And I wouldn't have met him if I hadn't have been in that space. And then I also got really, really pally with the people that ran it, Ben James and Aid, etc. And it was great to have like all those different ideas. So I like bouncing off and different industries as well. Because one of the things that I've always done with everything I've done is I'm fascinated with how other industries have grown their business. What can we learn from that? I've just seen those different viewpoints as well. And that was amazing. I loved that. And I also then like Rich Harley was in there as well from ScholarPack, an amazing company that ended up exiting for crazy, crazy money. And he became a friend and then he became an advisor. And I never would have had that had I not been to an office. But then I also never would have built my company without the people that I've got remote. And I, I always feel energized when I've spoken to them and we've done a weekly, our weekly meeting. So I'm, and my new AI venture, that is remote as well. So I, I don't really, I see both sides of it and I love both sides. I love the remoteness of being left alone to work and I love the seeing people and chatting to them and getting that energy. I know though my own personality, I have to monitor that because I could end up just talking to people about fun all day and then not actually getting any work done.

While we're looking back and we're feeling introspective, what's the biggest sacrifice you've had to make to be where you are today?

So it's weird because I don't feel like I've actually sacrificed anything. Because I've, like my life now, if you told 11-year-old Ryan that this is what his life would be like, he would not believe you. He would snap your hand off for it. I 100% know that, but I don't feel like I've made any sacrifices.

Along the way, across your journey.

This is a really good question. I mean, I've had to sacrifice, I've had to sacrifice doing things with people. I've had to sacrifice certain friends and are now not friends because I've wanted to play a bigger game and I've wanted to do other things. I've had to sacrifice not going out and spending money or going out and not spending money. Uh, so those kind of things, or missing, missing nights out because I had to build furniture for the, the houses we were, we were developing, or But I never, I never ever saw it as a sacrifice, Daniel. I always saw it as it must be done. It's got to be done to get to where I want to get to. I've never really seen it as a, I don't feel like I've lost anything or I don't feel like I've missed out on anything. This question is going to haunt me for a good week though, you know, I'm going to be thinking about this a lot.

We'll have a coffee catch-up and we'll talk about it, but I want to turn to the future now and your latest venture. Deals with AI. It's the thing that's on everybody's lips right now. The markets are going crazy. The AI ventures are raising crazy money. And it's, it's an industry with potential to disrupt basically all aspects of life. And you're looking at disrupting sales.

Yes. And I I think with AI now, there's a few things with AI. Right now, AI is the worst it's ever going to be, and it's already mind-blowing. And I already know what you're going to do with that clip. Like, I know what you're going to do with that. You're going to clip that and that's going to be everywhere. I'm going to now see my face for the next week all over LinkedIn. There's that. I also think the AI train, this kind of will disrupt so many industries and the train has already left the station and people are scrambling now to keep up with it. And one of the things that that I am definitely seeing, and the reason why I'm doing what I'm doing is that sales teams are just— they just have so much to do. You know, they have leads coming in that they're supposed to be calling, they have leads that they are supposed to be closing that they need to call, they have dead leads to ring up. So what I'm doing is enabling the sales teams to do what they're really, really good at, which is just close, just close the business. So the androids that I build reactivate dead leads via AI. They, they, and they talk like a real human. They have conversational SMS, WhatsApp.

When you say android, you mean chatbot, just to be clear for everybody tuning in.

Yeah, but I think that everybody tuning in probably has some experience of a chatbot that is terrible. Whereas if they tried my android out, they'd be like, wow, that is actually a real, real person. So one of my One of my clients, for example, over the last 2 months, we've sent 400, we've had 400 conversations with some of their dead leads. They've booked 25 sales calls and only 2 people have said, this isn't a real human. So it's real conversational. Anyone who tries it goes, oh, that's pretty good that. So yeah, I mean, we'll, we'll talk to those dead leads, we'll reactivate them. And then the leads that you are working as well, if they don't pick up the phone, we'll chat to them via SMS or via WhatsApp. And we'll reactivate them and we'll book them on your call on your calendar. So the sales team just come in and go, this is my calendar. Here's a summary of the conversation they've had. Fantastic. I just need to do what I'm good at, which is, I think, the best use of AI. A lot of people wonder and worry about where they should start with AI. And if you're in a sales business, AI is the best, best place— sales and AI is the best place to start. Because you can test it out with your dead leads. Doesn't matter if, if it all goes to pot, because they're dead anyway. If you can then reactivate them and get some sales in, then it's like, okay, now I can start to open the door. My confidence is starting to increase in this, and then I can start to get rid of some of the repetitive tasks. I've been talking to someone just today only about one of their onboarding of their customers, and they have so many documents that they have to collect. It's like, okay, well, is your team bogged down by that? Yeah, they hate it. Okay, well, an AI can do all that. Android can do all of that, can collect all of the documents you need for your business for onboarding that client. And then that client relationship manager can just deal with keeping the client happy. And it can have multiple conversations. And as well, as we do move towards people pushing a better work-life balance, people wanting to get away from working all of the hours, working after hours. AI can just help with that. Like, there's no need for you to be answering any calls out of hours. Now, there's, there's a client of mine, and one of the, one of their salespeople literally took their phone home with them. And they would be messaging leads that came in after hours, then we built an Android that speaks to them, gets the exact same information, it does it so much faster. And it books calls on the calendar. That person now doesn't need to work after hours. They are so much happier. They aren't going to be burnt out and they're probably going to stay at that company for a lot longer.

So will there be a point when these androids or chatbots become so good at the sales process that the sales humans won't be such a big part of the equation anymore?

I don't know if I don't know is the honest answer. I don't know where it's going to go. I think it's, I think right now it's at a point where it's AI and humans, it's assisted, it's working together. I don't know if it's good. It probably will get good enough to be able to handle sales calls, voice AI, but there's always going to be a need for a human at some point to handle some part of that process. Whether that is to actually just do the very, very last bit of the sale, or to do something else creative. Now, I saw a study coming out of Germany where they said that AI was going to reduce jobs by so much in certain industries, but then it was going to create treble the amount of jobs. And there's lots of studies around that. And there's lots of studies like that. So I just, I just don't know, I think there could, I could see a world where AI could handle 90% of sales, the sales job, and then the last 10% is the real tricky nitty-gritty tricky bit. But then if that's what's happening, then the sales team are going to be doing real creative, complex, like mind-juggling work that's going to be just fun, fun for them. You know, they're not going to have to deal with sending out the quotes or doing the follow-up, or they're going to get to play some mental gymnastics and do some of the fun bits that they want to do. Or if they don't, then they can find another role in a company or do another passion.

Speaking of other passions, something that you highlighted is the informal education and not having to go through a formal education process to get good at something. You mentioned reading books, watching YouTube videos, and throwing yourself into something. Is the current educational system outdated, especially with the advent of AI, which could bring personalized learning for people as well?

Well, I've been out of education for a while, so I don't really know too much about it. I'm looking at schools now for my daughter, which is scary, but I can only talk back to the experience that I had and that I went through. And also I've been asked to speak at Lincoln University a few times. And that one of the things that I did think was a little bit outdated was they said, we'd love you to do a semester, like, you know, do a semester teaching the business students, marketing students, something. I was like, I would love that. I would love that. But then they said you need a postgrad in marketing. I'm like, why? I've been, I've been doing it longer than probably longer, as long as the person teaching it, but they're teaching theory. I'm doing it day to day. So who, who would I rather listen to? Someone who's living it and breathing it and doing it every day, or someone who's basically reading a textbook to me. So yeah, I I think there's, there could be a, could be a real, if you, it's difficult because you've got so many different people in the classroom, so many different characteristics, so many different interests. And obviously we need certain lessons, we need certain skills for, and maths, English, et cetera. Although my grammar is still terrible and it's never held me back. So I don't know, I, there's people smarter and paid way more money than me to try and solve that riddle, but I think for me, if we can harness people's interests more and people's, like, parts of their life that they're interested in, or certain curriculum or certain subjects they're interested in, we need to harness that and we need to lean into that. And great teachers do do that. You know, there's a teacher that I had at school, Mrs. Hamer, and a few months ago I sent her a message and said, I just want to say thank you to you because I've realized I've never said thank you to you. And you had a profound impact on my life because you showed an interest in what interests me. You spotted something in me that to this day I think back to and helps me. So I don't know. I don't know if it's going to be someone smarter than me, Daniel, that will try and unravel that, that one.

One other industry that's being disrupted by AI, and you've been in it as well, is marketing and copywriting. How are you leveraging AI for copywriting and marketing without sounding too robotic, but also, you know, sorting out some of the grammar bits, etc.?

Yeah, definitely sorts out my grammar, 100%. I'm using it all the time. And I think for me, the thing that I— it's really, it's like having a marketing or copywriting assistant right now. It's like having that sort of graduate, someone who's, who's just getting into it, who's starting to learn the frameworks, they're starting to learn about some of these big marketers and the way that you speak to people and the type, the way you style your copy with problem and agitation and solution, or, you know, using like various different frameworks that are out there. And it, it does help and it helps give you an idea of how to put something onto a page. And then from there, it's a great starting point and I'm using it like that. I'm basically using it as instead of me having to come up with a first draft or a second draft, it's like having someone sat next to me who is trained in marketing and copywriting to get something on the page. And then I can then come in and then add my experience to it and my experience of the market. And that's great because then I can, what I can do is then spend that time that I would have done. Coming up with the idea, or coming up with that, that copy to go, well, let me research the market more, let me really, really get into the market demographics, let me understand what their real problem is. But I can then also test that thesis against ChatGPT. I can say to them, you know, this is what I'm thinking. Am I right? What else have— what else is there? What have you spotted? But for me, you've got to understand the principles of marketing first, you've got to understand you know, the market sophistication, the market awareness level, you know, having that one big idea, that unique selling point, that offer, you've got to understand all of that, how you communicate with people, you know, how you write headlines, how you write subject lines, how you create content, how you create hooks, you've got to know all of that before you can get any of the AI tools to write your copy. Because then what you can do because that's what loads of people are doing now. I can see social media content. I can see— I talk to people and they're like, oh, we're using ChatGPT to write social media. I know, I can tell. Terrendous. Like, I can tell. I can tell, but some of your market might not. But if you spent some time understanding how to actually write and communicate, you'd actually get a much better result from ChatGPT because you could go into it and talk to it about how to put together a compelling piece of copy, a compelling piece of content, because it starts with that hook. You've got to hook their attention. Then it's a slippery slope. Every line is designed to get you to read the next line, the next line, the next line, the next line, the next line. So I'm using it to create, to give it those ideas. Give me 10 hooks for, for this idea that I've got. Give me 10 subject lines. But then I'm also, one of the great things you can do with it is if you have spent the time to understand marketing and copy,, you can go to it and say, in the voice of Gary Halbert, how would they put this forward? And then you've got some of the great minds of direct response, in the mind of, in the voice of Dan Kennedy, how would they write this? And it just gives you a whole different perspective of how to write it. And then you can also tailor it to the audience you get. I'm writing to a female audience or a younger audience. Once you know that, then you can start to put all of this together and then it will really enable you to to sort of frame how you use it. And then the last tip that I always do is I put my final piece back into ChatGPT. So firstly, it learns from that. And then I also say, I'm going to be showing this to or sending this to this person. This is what I want from it. How does this come across? And then it starts to tell me about the tone and the empathy and all of those kinds of things. So it's going to be amazing once it As long as you understand the frameworks and how you actually put those things together in the first place.

Just before we wrap up this topic, I wanted to ask you, which tools do you recommend? Is it the OpenAI ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic? Is there any particular one you use? Gemini?

I use ChatGPT and I use it every single day.

Cool. And I want to have a parting question. And now that we've been back and forth and I got you thinking a little bit and reflecting, 36th year-old Ryan, what would be the advice you would share with your younger self when you started your first business now that you know and you've learned so much in your journey?

Oh, that's an easy one. That's an easy one. Let's do it. There's two main pieces. Well, it's sort of one, but I'd always be curious. Be curious about everything, every single part of that business. If someone gives you one piece of advice, ask a question, be curious about it, be curious about them. You never know where that's going to lead. Just that advice, that, that, that is like my mantra for life. I'm always curious. And it's amazing seeing my children be curious about everything and dive into that and watching them do it. It just reiterates that for me, for some of the connections and relationships I have now. Came from that curiosity. You know, one person sparked something or said something to me and I was like, what do you mean there? And then they would expand on it and I'd say, well, can we have a coffee to chat more about that? I'm curious about you. I'm curious about your life. I'm curious about all of that kind of thing. And then just that natural curiosity leads you down a path with a person or an angle or a way of thinking that that just opens your worldview up to various different things. And that would be my, that would be my advice to, to younger Ryan.

Always, just always be curious. And you said there were two pieces of advice. What's the second one?

Yeah, the other piece is, is people, is 100% people. You've got to surround yourself with people, the right people. They can open doors for you. Just at the drop of a hat. They can pick up their phone and they can connect you with someone who you wouldn't have been able to get to. That person will take you seriously, or at least have a coffee or a phone call with you because of that relationship that somebody else has developed. So be curious, curiously meet people, and then look at how they, how people can help you because they, people do want to help. You know, you'd be amazed at what people will do if you just ask them for help.

And that's a great spot to taper off our discussion for today. Thank you so much, Ryan, for sharing the wisdom.

Thank you very much for having me. Hopefully some people got some, some gold nuggets from that.

Sure they have.

Thanks for sticking till the end for another great episode of Millennial Masters. But don't keep keep this to yourself, please share the wisdom with someone else, and it will also help me spread the word. Don't miss out on my book club and extra features. Get them in your inbox every week. Simply subscribe on millennialmasters.net. Catch you next week.