67. Steve Sims: Author of Bluefishing

Hello, Book Thinkers family, and welcome to episode number 67 of our personal development podcast, Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books. During each episode, I interview one of the world's top authors. And as a listener, you can expect to discover new books, new mentors, and new resources that you can use to achieve more and to live better. In this episode, I have the pleasure to interview author Steve Sims. Steve is known as the real-life Wizard of Oz. And I had the chance to see him speak a month or two ago at Greg Reed's Prosperity Camp in San Diego. After hearing his message, I knew I had to read his book and invite him on this podcast, and I'm so happy that he said yes. Steve has been running his luxury travel and lifestyle concierge business, Bluefish, for more than 20 years. With his unique talent for connecting with people's passions, opening doors, and making things happen, Steve has developed an exclusive reputation and impressive client list of the world's rich and famous. Our conversation today is all about his book Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen. The lessons that I learned in this book have already paid off in a big way for our business at BookThinkers, and I think you'll find this interview fascinating.

I know that I did.

So please enjoy this amazing conversation with the real-life Wizard of Oz, Steve Sims. Steve, thank you so much for joining the Book Thinkers Life-Changing Books Podcast. How are you doing today?

I'm doing well, thank you. Obviously better now that I'm with you.

I am very excited for our conversation. We had the chance to meet at Prosperity Camp a few weeks ago, but for those in the audience that are not familiar with you, your business, your book, could you please introduce yourself to everybody?

Wow. How do I do this quickly? Forbes called me the real-life Wizard of Oz. I was also referred to as the Make-A-Wish Foundation for people with really large checkbooks. But quite simply, I was the go-to guy that would make the impossible happen for about 25 years. And, you know, I just grew the world's leading experiential concierge firm until I released a book about it. And now I just educate other people on how to do the stupid and the fantastical but never use the word impossible.

One of my biggest lessons from Prosperity Camp a few weeks ago, where I had the opportunity to see you speak, was go for the impossible. And I have a couple notes here. I wrote, go for stupid, go for the unimaginable, go for the impossible, go for something that will have everybody laughing at you before they end up clapping for you. So you're the real-life Wizard of Oz. That's really cool. But before we go into what the practical applications of that might look like, Let's go all the way back to your childhood. Tell us about what was life like growing up, manual labor, bricklaying, that whole story.

I don't think my story was any different to any other entrepreneur. I think I just grew up curious and pissed off. I wanted more from my life. I came from an era where we didn't have social platforms. So we didn't have social media to point out how inadequate our life was. But I just knew that there was something different. I knew that I had more. I knew I could do more. I just didn't know what that looked like. So as a curious kid, I went out to find it. And I got a ton of jobs that I was ill-qualified to do. And therefore, I got fired. I got a ton of places that I shouldn't have done. I made mistakes along the way, which is really just what an entrepreneur's life is. You know? We're constantly making mistakes. We're constantly falling down. We're constantly trying things. We're constantly getting slapped. And that was my life. I knew one thing though. And I knew that the room I was in was wrong. You see, I was, you know, being a bricklayer, hey, noble profession. But I was also a biker, always been a biker. And I remember sitting in a bar one day drinking me beer, knowing that I only had enough for maybe 1.5 more beers. And I thought to myself, everyone in this room is broke. Everyone in this room is a broke-ass biker riding around on a shit heap of a machine that may start, may not, I must be the same. I am the combination of the room that I am in. And I knew from that moment, if I need to change me, I need to change my room. Now we can do that very easily today by going to a speakeasy, going to Prosperity Camp, going to a different Facebook group, listening to a podcast. We have so many opportunities today to change our structure, to change change our digital ecosystem. And at the time, I didn't have it. So quite simply, I changed rooms. I would go to upscale bars. And trust me, you've met me. I'm 240 pounds of ugly. So me going from a biker bar and now I'm in a wine bar sipping my overpriced imported beer, I looked out of place. But I pushed myself to watch people. How do rich people interact with each other? The first thing I noticed was how do fake rich people interact with each other? Because they do it differently to rich people. So I suddenly started becoming a student of psychology. And it grew. It grew to the point that I suddenly started going, ah, that person's got substance. That person hasn't. And that was it. I just wanted to change the room, change the conversation, change the narrative, and change the people I could have conversations with. Because quite simply, I wanted to ask a rich person, how come you're rich and I'm not? And that's what I managed to do to some of the most successful people on the planet.

Yeah. In the book, I remember you saying that you would go to a hotel and you would ask to see the nicest room in the hotel so that you could just experience it. Right? Because it didn't matter if you stayed there or not. If you saw the hotel and you knew what the lobby was like and you knew who interacted there, then you could put yourself in that person's shoes. And now you were the same as them.

Yeah. I did that all this way through my life. You know, I wanted to know what's it like to wear a $50 grand watch. A lot of people will be like, oh, that's stupid. Why is it stupid? Have you ever worn a $50 grand watch? Have you ever put a $50 grand watch on your wrist? Do you know why it's worth $50 grand? Get all those answers. And then educated, you can make the decision whether it's for you or not. Okay? Getting a $150,000 sports car, You know, go and stay at an overpriced hotel and go, hey, this is for me. This is not. But just try this. And everything I've just mentioned to you costs nothing. Walk into a jeweler and go, hey, I'm looking to buy an expensive watch. Let me have a look at that one. And they're going to let you try it on. Go to a sports car showroom. Sit in an expensive car. Go to a hotel and go, hey, I've got some guests coming over. I want to know the standard of your rooms. I'd like to see a king suite. Let me have a tour. And they will do it.

Well, Steve, one of your father's favorite lessons to talk about was that you don't drown from falling in the water. You drown from staying there. Don't be afraid to jump is the lesson that I took from that. Could you talk a little bit about that lesson and what it means to you?

So my dad was not a poet. He was not the most educated man in the world by far. He was a thick-headed bricklayer, quite simply. Big Irish bricklayer. And we're walking down the road one day. And I was like a kid. I don't know, 12, 13, maybe 14 years old. And as we're walking down the road, for no reason whatsoever, he just puts his hand on my shoulder. And we weren't even having a conversation. So we've got to frame it right. We were not deeply conversing here. And he just puts his hand on my shoulder and he went, son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water. They drowned by staying there. Takes his hand off my shoulder and carries on. I stopped. I remember thinking, the fuck was all that about? You know? Where did that come from? And I still today don't know where it came from. He's passed away now. But I thought he'd got consumed by a fortune cookie or something. But somehow that came out. Meant nothing to me. And then like all of those things, years later, I was like, ah, that makes sense. And as entrepreneurs, and as we spoke about earlier, we get into positions we shouldn't be in. We get into rooms we shouldn't be in. We get into relationships we shouldn't be in. But it doesn't mean you have to stay there. You fall in the water, but it's your decision whether or not you stay there. Because as I say, no one ever drowned by falling in it. They drown by staying there.

Yeah. I really love that lesson. And a big theme of your childhood in the beginning stages of the book was that, listen, we get this lesson imprinted as kids, don't look dumb. Like you don't want to fall in the water in the first place. But if you raise your hand and you ask a question and you don't get it right the first time and you don't get it right the second time and you continue to ask, you can get yourself out of the water. And that was a really big lesson for me because just like you, I watched that video by Suli Breaks, Why I Hate School but Loved Education.

I watched that back when I was in college.

Yeah. And it's such an important lesson. So what kind of advice do you have for any parents that might be in the audience about encouraging their kids to speak up a little bit more and not being afraid to look so dumb in front of other people?

Well, like all fear, the first thing you've got to do is confront it. What are you actually frightened of? Are you frightened of asking the question or are you frightened of people laughing at you when you ask the question? And here's the twist on that. Are you frightened about becoming educated?

Hmm.

Now that last thing is going to be, well, of course, I'm not frightened of being educated. But so many times, we're actually frightened of asking the question that we never get to that bit. We don't get to the educated bit. I remember being in a room once And someone was saying something. And I remember not the exact letters, but they used a shortened letter sequence to represent something. So they were like, oh yeah, well, we're going to be talking about the BDQ now. And the BDQ is like on this concept. And the BDQ is going to do this. And again, I'm making up the letters, but they were using them like that. And I remember I stuck my hand up and I was like, hang on a minute. Hang on a minute. What's BDQ? And they looked at me and they were like, sorry? And it was almost like I was being confronted for asking that question. I went, you assume everyone in this room knows what BDQ is. And as I looked around the room, they were snickering at me. They were like, oh dear. You know, as though, look at the big lug there. He doesn't freaking know what BDQ is. Okay? No one, not one person put their hand up and went, it's this, Steve. They all just snickered and would rather hang around in a group rather than be humiliated with me on this little pedestal that I've now been put at to be jeered at. Okay? And then what happened is the person that was doing the presentation looked down at that paperwork and went, Oh, I'm so sorry. It was EDQ, not BDQ. And they corrected themselves and then explained it to myself, explained it to me what it meant. And I just looked around the rest of the room and nothing needed to be said. These morons were all kind of, BDQ, he doesn't know what BDQ is. They looked so stupid. And I just looked around the room and I thought, you guys are a bunch of planks. You would rather scoff at someone in a group even when you're all wrong. Thankfully, the presenter pointed it out. And I realized at the time, we're not frightened of the answer. We want the answer, but we're scared of the ridicule. In fact, if you think about it, there's TV shows, there's YouTube videos that the sole purpose is to put people in bad situations, prank them, make them fall over, Make them walk in and scare them. You know, America's Funniest Videos is constantly people walking into doors, you know, dropping their phone off a bridge, something that we can laugh at. We love laughing at people. And so in which case, what we've done now is we've actually become a society which is scared of being ridiculed. So what do we do? If we're not asking the question, what do we remain? Ignorant. And so you've got to ask yourself, you may not like to stand out in a crowd, but are you frightened of getting educated? No. Are you frightened and terrified of remaining ignorant? Hell yes. Then that should be the driving force. So you've got to reframe and confront the fear itself. For any parents out there, I always tell my kids, ask any stupid question. Ask any stupid question because it's only stupid people that won't help you.

It's a very important lesson. I mean, I grew up here in the U.S. in a traditional public school system, and I was taught not to ask questions because of ridicule. I was taught to be ignorant essentially. And then also, you're taught not to fail, right? Because failure leads to embarrassment. Failure leads to punishment. In the real world of entrepreneurship, which is what I've come to love, want to embrace failure. You want to, I think as you say in the book, you replace fail with discover because you're discovering new ways to do things. You're discovering new answers. It's such a beautiful thing. I'm so grateful for my business partner at BookThinkers because he always asks dumb questions. You have to ask dumb questions. It's such an important lesson.

And it's amazing how many really smart people still spend all their life asking dumb questions.

Yeah.

You know, all those questions that people go, oh my God, I'm not going to ask that, they're asking. I remember working with Elon Musk. And Elon Musk says he never tries to fix a problem. He tries to establish why the problem's there in the first place. So, you know, there's all these people that, a prime example, try to make car engines work better. Oil, electrics, silicon this, smooth this. They're trying to make something prehistoric work better. He's come along and go, well, why is it there in the first place? If it didn't exist, could we build something that not gets rid of one of those problems, removes the problem in the first place? Now an engine needs servicing, needs oil. It's a combustion. you're putting something that quite simply explodes at frequency in the front of your car. When you think about what an engine is, and I ride motorcycles, I've got things exploding beneath my luggage every single second. It doesn't sound too cool when you put it like that.

No.

But if you put an electric engine in there, you've got no friction anymore. You've got nothing wearing out. Your computer doesn't wear out. It may get full up. There may be systems that come over. But it doesn't wear out. Okay? There's no wear and tear on an electrical system. So he just looked at it and he said, look, forget trying to fix something that's already there. Try to establish why we have the problem in the first place. And it's by that curiosity that allows you to ask those questions. Now you said about the education. When we fail at something, isn't that normally where our best education comes from?

Yeah.

When we've done a line of Facebook adverts and it's cost us $200 and we haven't got a single click-through on it, haven't we just learned how to do better copy, better adverts to a better market? Haven't we learned all of this education? Didn't you just pay $200 to learn how to do it better? So you've really got to focus that your failure is quite simply your education.

It really is. It's such a great metaphor. Now I'd like to transition over to this story about passwords. You travel halfway around the the world once you start your professional career, you discover this term bluefishing. And tell us that story. How did you get to the term bluefishing? What was that all about?

In order for me to get more people that were affluent, I started throwing parties. And at the time, I was living in Hong Kong because I really just gave myself no boundaries. Living in Hong Kong, I started throwing these parties. And I thought, how can I protect the front door? Now I was a doorman. And I knew that if you let someone through the front door that shouldn't be in that room, you change the dynamic of the room. Quite simply, if I allowed someone that was drunk in the front door of a nightclub, I knew that it was only a matter of time before I was going in there and throwing them out again. If I put wannabes in a room full of achievers, the achievers would suddenly start feeling dejected and annoyed because there's a bunch of wannabes on there. So I always protected the front door. And one of the ways of protecting the front door was to not allow ego to enter it. So I started making up these really stupid passwords to get into my private parties. And I would say, hey, when you get to the door, you've got to name 2 of the Teletubbies. Or you've got to name the lion Out of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Or you've got to finish this Dr. Seuss sentence, one fish, two fish, red fish. Now the funny thing is we had very affluent people that would turn up to the party and go, I'm here for the party. And my doorman would be like, I don't know of any party. And they would blank them. The whole thing's going nuts behind them. But they would blank them and kick them out of the line. And then you'd get another person who would lean forward and go, bluefish. And that'd be it. So the whole point, it was we discovered very, very early on, if we can get people humble and smiling as they walk through the door, then that's the right atmosphere. If you imagine everyone that turned up to your party heard a joke before they walked through the front door. You told every single person. a different joke as they walked through the door. They would walk through that front door smiling, giggling, and happy, wouldn't they? What would be the reaction of every single person in that room as every new person walked through the door smiling and happy? It would just grow. And that's what we did. We focused on the euphoria, creating a euphoria and creating a culture. And that's where the whole blue fishing came from. We didn't expect it to be anything. Hell, it was just a password to get into one of my parties. But because of the attitude behind it, people started going, oh, you know, I threw a birthday party for my kids and I bluefished it. I brought in this and I did this. And then there were people like, oh, I just got 2 tickets to Taylor Swift and I bluefished my way backstage. And here's my photograph with me and Taylor playing drums. It was just now adopted by the people within my circle to become an adjective, to become a force, to become a mindset that this was the way they got on with their life. They didn't accept what they'd been given. They didn't accept the tickets to the concert. They didn't accept the business proposal. They didn't accept the position in life. They went, how can I bluefish this? So I'd love to sit here and tell you about how I created this culture, about how I spent years analyzing it. You know, I studied psychology at Harvard. But that's all bullshit. I gave people an opportunity to just dare to do something different. And they took it.

I love everything about it. I love the whole metaphor. Have you ever read the book The Third Door by Alex Banayan or heard of it?

I've heard about it. But no, I've never got around to reading that one.

It's a very similar concept, although yours takes it a step farther. It's about empowerment. It's about risk-taking. It's about getting outside of your comfort zone. It's about a lot of things. And so I've started to actually use the term bluefishing to describe some of the different work that BookThinkers is doing. And so it'll live forever in the realm of BookThinkers and all of the authors that we're working with. So let's see, you started working with affluent people. You started creating great culture. How did that then bridge into a business where you would act as a concierge?

So really, my first goal was to get a group of affluent people around me. That was the first goal. You know? And so once that started happening, they started going, hey, I'm going over to New York. I'm going over to Monaco. Can you handle it for me if I need travel and hotels? And I'd be like, Yeah, sure I can. And then try and work it out later. The first thing was get in a room full of people that had higher demands and expectations than you. Now when you've got in your— when you're in a room with people with higher standards, where does your standard go? You're not going to drag 100 people down to meet your measly standard. You're going to rise to theirs. As I was looking after people, they would tell other people, oh, you need Steve. Oh, you're doing what? You're going to Rome? You need— oh, you want to meet Guns N' Roses? You need Steve. You want to meet Elton John? You need Steve. These people became my market. Again, I never, ever, ever went out to build a concierge firm. I'm not that good with people, not that warm and fuzzy and friendly. But it just did. I became the guy that would walk up to someone because so-and-so had just introduced me. I'd walk up and be like, hey, Kevin, what do you need? Well, I want to go and see this concert and I want to go backstage. Or I want them to come to my birthday party. Or I want to do a walk-on role. Or I want to get, have a meal in Florence. You know, they came up with the basics. And then I just went and went, oh, okay, how can I take this a bit further? How can I like blow some magic onto this? How can I go for that goal and turn it into something ridiculous and stupid? that is giggly, is laughable until I've achieved it. And the amount of things that I've done that people literally just laughed at. You're going to do what? That's never going to— you? You're a bricklayer from London, for damn's sake, man. Stick to your lane. I've heard that one a lot. Stick in your lane. Stay where you should be. Settle. And these were like chants of encouragement to me. You know, like when someone turns around to you and says, you can't do that. The entrepreneur in us goes, right, here we go. Now it can often get us into trouble because we are accepting challenges from people that are not worthy to have those challenges accepted. But I like to actually go out there and find a way of actually doing something a little bit different.

Well, I'm wearing this shirt that says Think Big today because that is the best representation of your business. It's get uncomfortable. think bigger than you ever thought before. Make sure people laugh at you. That's how big your goals need to be. And I was entering this phase when we went to Prosperity Camp where I, I started thinking about big thinking, but I needed some practical applications on how to get there. I'd like to touch on some of the more practical things in the book that you recommend in just a minute. But before, you just talked about Florence. That's the story that you told at Prosperity Camp. And I think that it highlights your Wizard of Oz status pretty well. So can you tell us the story about Florence and that lesson, no one's ever asked, at the very end? Hello, Book Thinkers family. A quick word from today's podcast sponsor. Today's episode is sponsored by Audible. Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers to celebrity memoirs, business, and my favorite, personal development. And as part of Audible's partnership with us, we're actually offering listeners a free 30-day trial. This trial includes 1 credit good for any Premium Selection titles you'd like on the whole platform. So that's pretty much any book, including the one we're talking about today. That book is yours to keep even after the trial is over. Now, this trial also includes access to Audible's Plus catalog of podcasts, audiobooks, guided wellness programs, and Audible Originals. You can listen all you want, no credits needed. Now everyone on the Book Thinkers Instagram knows that I love physical paper books. There's nothing better than having a book in your hand, scribbling notes everywhere in the margins. I kind of tear those things up, but I've been completing an additional 20 to 30 books every single year using Audible by listening when I'm in the car, doing chores around the house, or while I'm on my morning walks or runs. You could take advantage of this free trial by clicking the link in today's show notes or going to www.bookthinkers.com/audibletrial. You will not regret it. Now, back to today's episode.

We just gave away the punchline. So I had a client of mine that contacted me, and I was in Rome at the time. And he asked me to set up a dining experience for him in Florence. Keyword, experience. And he wanted to be there on Wednesday. So this was Sunday afternoon. So I literally had 2 and a half days to make this happen. And I went, yeah, I'll see what I can do. Now the first thing to do is look at the request. And I did. He wanted a dining experience. Great. I could have got him a restaurant, could have paid this, could have got the chef to come out and shook his hand and take a photograph with him. would have been it. But how can we make this stupid? So I wanted to see how I could take that request and transform it into something ridiculous, something really daft, something really stupid. So I dared myself to dream. And a lot of people don't do that. I dared myself to go, how can I make this absolutely stupid? How can I make this ridiculous? So we ended up, through speaking to a few very well-connected clients of mine in Italy, taking over the Accademia di Galleria Museum in Florence, setting up a table of 6 at the feet of Michelangelo's David, which is the only piece of Michelangelo's work outside of Rome. That's in Florence. We had a table of 6 at the base of this string quartet in a museum at 9 o'clock at night. And then as my clients are eating dinner at this amazing view, I asked them if I could bring in a local entertainer. And I walked in with Andrea Bocelli to serenade them during their pasta. I had wanted to see how far I could take things. Now, the daft thing was I'd got some really connected people to introduce me to the museum. Of course, I came in on their credibility. So once I got it, they're not going to handle the day-to-day bits. So they gave me one of the curators who, best way to explain who he was and what he was, was an Italian irritating little shit. That's probably the easiest way to put it. Every time I said to him, hey, I've got the restaurant coming in at 8 o'clock to set up. I need to come through the front door. I'd be met with a, eh, it should be okay. And I'm thinking, that's not the kind of answer I want. I want, yes, okay, we'll have it ready for you. And then I said, oh, and Andrea will be coming to do a sound check at 7 o'clock. I need him to come through the back door, you know, so no one can see him coming in. And they went, eh, I will see what I can do. And I had this for 2 days. Now I had to mind my manners. Because I didn't want to pull him to one side and say, right, you little shit, stop talking and answering like this. Tell me it can be done. Otherwise, I'm getting nervous. I couldn't do that. That's what I wanted to do. So I waited until the night. On the night of the event, I'm in. I've got the museum. Andrea's in. The chef's in. The only person that's not in is the client. And they were turning up in like about an hour and a half. And I thought to myself, now I'm going to get my back to the curator. So I called him over to me and he wanders over. Now bear in mind, the guy's like 5'5. I'm nearly 6 feet tall. I'm 240 pounds. That guy looked about 150. He looks up at me and I said to him, look at this table. Is that not one of the most beautiful tables? It's got Versace tablecloth and hand-painted plates. And it's really set up top drawer. He's like, no, it is the most beautiful table in the world. It is absolutely gorgeous. I said, but wait a minute. Look at the view that you've got while eating your meal. Is there any view better than this? He's like, no, it is fantastic. It is brilliant. It's just incredible. I said, hang on a minute. Not only have they got a fantastic meal, cooked by a major local chef with that as the view, but they've got Andrea Bocelli as the dinnertime entertainment. Can it get any better than that? He was like, no, it is fantastic. He's brilliant. He's incredible. So I said to him, so let me ask you this. How come I managed to pull it off? And this was where I was expecting him to say something like, No one's as well connected as you. No one's as smooth. No one knows how to negotiate. Any of these kinds of things would have pandered to my ego and I'd have let him off. But instead of that, he turned around and he went, no one's ever asked. And it crippled me. I was trying to be immature and to give him a little slap for kind of challenging me. But instead, he taught me a valuable lesson. I had dared to ask. Now the funny thing was I had to go back to California about 5 days later. On the flight over, I made a note of all of the amazing things that I'd pulled off with the people that I pulled them off with. And over the next 6 months, I used these as a reason to reignite relationships that maybe I hadn't spoken to for a couple of years and go, hey, Johnny, how's the dog? Do you remember when we did this with Tom Cruise? Hey, I just wanted to ask, how come we managed to do this? The daft thing was every single one of them answered in the exact same manner. You asked. And I realized then most people don't ask. They go for what they can settle. They go for what they can achieve. Well, if you've never closed down a museum in Florence, how do you know you can achieve it? You go for what you've done. How can you expand and grow by doing what you're doing? You have to do what you've never done before. You have to reach further. You have to try more. You have to be willing to be laughed at. And never go for the impossible. Go for the ridiculous. The second you say impossible in any point of your grammar, subconsciously, you've just acknowledged it can't be done. And that's not the game you want to play.

So when somebody reaches out with a request like this, you say that you always ask them for a time to chat rather than go back and forth via email or text message or anything like that. And I thought that was a really important lesson. And then you go into 3 whys. So how often do people come to you with the real request, and how often do you kind of work them into a different, more passionate area?

They never come to me with what they get. You see, now I don't do so much concierge work now. I do training and coaching for coaches, influencers, for entrepreneurs, small businesses. But it's the exact same format. What people think they want is not what they need and desire. You see, if I say to you, hey, you've just won $10 million. What are you going to do tonight? You're going to go, oh, I'm going to get a private jet and my mates, we're going to go to Vegas. We're going to get girls and we're going to get champagne and we're each going to buy a Ferrari. And then I go, hey, great. And in 6 months' time, what are you going to do then? Now you start thinking. You know, the other one was just a knee-jerk reaction. You know, I'm going to get drunk. In 6 months' time, you'll be like, well, my school never had a playfield. I'm going to build my school a playfield. My mom always wanted to go and learn how to cook in Tuscany. I'm going to send her to Tuscany. You see, the real stuff suddenly starts coming out. So when someone comes to me and they have a small business and they go, hey, I want to hit $1 million. I want to hit $1 million in revenue. That's fantastic. Why? It's the most confrontational word in the world. And I love it. Why? And what you need to do is you need to understand the meaning towards them giving you the objective. I want to make $1 million because once I'm making $1 million, I'm rich. I hate to break it to you. You make $1 million, you ain't rich. Hey, if you live in Manhattan, you're still living in a tiny little apartment the size of a toilet. Hey, if you've got $1 million and you want to move out to Wisconsin or Waco, Texas, Hey, maybe you'll be all right, but not in one of the main suburbs or one of the main cities. So you've really got to understand what's pushing the question, what's pushing the goal, and get into that and evaluate that. So when they say to me what they want, I go, well, that's— I match their enthusiasm. Hey Steve, I want to make $1 million. I match them. That's fantastic. That's brilliant. Why? Oh, because once I've made $1 million, I can do this. I can do this. I can do that. All right. But why is that important? And I drill it down and I drill it down and I drill it down. Eventually, you get to what is the core. Security, peace of mind, stability. These are often the clear definitions of the goal. The goal is no longer $1 million. The goal could be $250 grand. It may need to be $2.5 million. But you discover that in identifying the why, you now change the objective. And too many people are scared of challenging the question. You know, if someone walks into a bakery and goes, hey, I'm looking for a red cake. Red's a beautiful color. But why? No. Oh, uh, my dad loves the color red. Great. What shade of red? And why is red his favorite color? Well, he loves Ferraris. Great. Then should we do a red car with the Ferrari emblem on it? Oh, that'd be fantastic. In fact, let's do little yellow cupcakes around the outside and put little Ferrari models on it as well. That's brilliant. You've taken what they asked you and transformed it into something that they never thought possible. They hadn't dared themselves to dream bigger.

It's a very confrontational question, but I think it was my favorite lesson from this book. There are a lot of small business owners that need to be asking why at every point during the sales process. You talked about shopping for tires one time and the person just sold them to you without asking why. And they could have recommended something and had an upsell opportunity. So there's so many good opportunities in the book for people to learn a little bit more about that. Now, before we wrap up, a couple more questions for small business owners. I love the culture that you built at your business, and the chug test was a really fun, practical application of how to create a great culture. So tell us about the chug test.

So I went through a dark chapter in my life. I wanted to find a way of being able to recognize what was good and what was bad and really take it down to its most minute standard. And one of the things I did was I looked at my world, the people in my world, the people I knew, the people I was working with, and the people I was communicating with on a daily basis. And I came up with this silly little dream that gave an example that if I'm walking up the high street one day and there's 2 lanes of busy traffic and on the other side of that traffic Walking the opposite way is someone in my world. My accountant, my wife, my head of sales, my chief marketing officer, my accountant, whoever is walking the other way. Do I look left in the window and pretend as I'm really interested in purchasing some kids' shoes, watch the reflection of them walk past me before I turn around and walk on with my day pretending as though I didn't see them? Or do I challenge myself to run across 2 lanes of roaring traffic to jump in front of them and go, Timothy, let's go chug a beer? If it's not the latter, get them out of your life. You know? If you would dare to try and ignore someone, they shouldn't be in your life. And that's what I did. I went to my accountant. I remember having this conversation with my wife. I'm going to get rid of my accountant.

Why?

He is so depressing. He would pick up the phone and he'd be like, hey, Steve. Yeah. Okay. I'm going through your, yeah. Oh, your taxes and stuff like that. And I said, he just depresses me every time. And Claire's like, but he's only there to do your taxes. I don't care. There's got to be an accountant out there that I get on with that I like. And now I've got an accountant that phones me up and he's like, hey, Steve, how you doing? got some bad news for you. You're making too much money. You know? It's the same thing, but he reframes it. He knows how to handle me. And I'm like, yeah, it's a tough one. So what are we going to do with it? He's like, well, we're going to try to— he's a lot more upbeat. You know? And now I'm happy. So you've got to look at your life and go, okay, who should I get out of it and who should I focus?

Yeah. It's another great lesson. And right after I heard that in the book, I called up my business partner and we did a little inventory. The team at BookThinkers is pretty small, but But we would chug with everybody. But—

Oh, that's good news. That's great.

It is good news. What if I— yeah, what if I told you right now that we just fired everybody or something like that? But I—

Hey, that's fine. I've had people turn around and they go, I split up with my wife because of that. You see, the thing is people get into relationships because it looks good on paper. It looks good in their eyeballs. It looks good on the surface. But especially COVID. You know, we've been trapped for over a year with those people that we entered into a relationship with. I will hands down tell you that it's been the best thing to ever happen to my relationship. I was so busy flying around the planet, I was losing time with my wife. Now, I don't do a speaking gig now unless my wife comes because I'm not willing to be apart from her anymore ever again. But just imagine the amount of people that are sitting there going, why the bloody hell did I marry you? Why did I get into a relationship with you? And what's worse is they're stuck with that person until COVID's over. It's a very horrific, horrible situation that a lot of people are in. It is.

It also did wonders for my relationship in a positive way. So I'm happy that we both shared that. All right. Last thing before I ask you to sign off. This is a problem that I was actually talking with my girlfriend about recently. And it's something that I've struggled with for long time. In the book, you say that you can only grow by giving other people responsibility. And I've always struggled with that. I've always tried to be a perfectionist. I've always tried to do the job 100% the way that I want to do it. And I know that you can't grow a business that way. But what advice do you have for people that are stuck in a situation where they can't delegate effectively?

Delegation is the key to scalability. Okay? So again, reframe it. Are you happy where you are? Or are you yearning for more? If you're yearning for more, you know that there's a raging river that you've got to cross. And that river is going to have many little ways of tripping you up because you can't see what's lying underneath it. I speak in metaphors a lot. But the bottom line of it is delegation is by far one of the toughest lessons an entrepreneur has to learn because the entrepreneur will always be, I Pointless me teaching you. I'll do it myself. I'll just save myself the time. You will that once, and then you've got to do it again. So you're not saving yourself the time. So spend twice as long teaching someone to do something that you never have to do again. And when you do it in the early stages, delegate tasks that don't carry liability. Don't have a newbie go and speak to your top client. Have them prepare a document. Check over the document. I like that. Oh, I don't like it. Can you do da da da da? They redo it. Okay. Now I like it. I've now saved myself that time. So delegate small tasks with low to zero liability and increase the liability as you gain confidence from them. But the point is now I'm here now having a podcast with you. We've been chatting away for I don't know what. 40 minutes or something, my team's working away because I've worked with them to be able to do stuff that I'm not there. I was on a motorcycle track day last week up in Sonoma riding around a racetrack at stupid speed. My entire team could carry on the entire company because I had worked with them and learned the art of delegation. That's probably the toughest, but you've got to do it in order to scale. If you're happy where you are, which basically means working 24/7 every day and you being the be-all and end-all of everything, that doesn't sound like scalability to me. So learn the art of delegating by using small baby steps with low liability objects.

Beautiful. Well, Steve, I think everybody that's listening today got a great introduction to some of the concepts that you talk about in Bluefishing. For people that want to learn a little bit more about you, Where should they go? What should they do?

Oh, I'm very easy to find. Steve D. Sims. There's only one M in Sims. Don't forget the D for dashing. stevedsims.com. I'm on Instagram @SteveDSims. I'm on Facebook with Steve D. Sims. And I have an Entrepreneur's Advantage Facebook group, which is a free Facebook group for all of those entrepreneurs daring to do something a bit different.

Amazing. Well, thank you so much for coming on the show today.

It's been a pleasure. Thanks for having me.

That is a wrap. Thank you so much for listening to today's episode of Book Thinkers, Life-Changing Books. It would mean the world to us if you could write a review and share this episode with a few of your friends. I mean, these books truly have the power to change people's lives. And by reviewing or sharing our podcast, you're helping us make an impact. If you have any recommendations for future guests or any constructive feedback for us on how we can improve our show, please feel free to submit a form on our website, www.bookthinkers.com, or send us a direct message on Instagram @bookthinkers. With that, I am signing off, and I hope you have a wonderful day. Don't forget, go read something.