063: The Art of Creating Magical Experiences with Steve Sims

Hi, I'm Natalie Jill, fat loss expert turned high performance coach. When odds are stacked against us, how do we shift and create everything from nothing? How do we level up when we aren't feeling it yet or we've had a big setback? On this podcast, I'll be talking to some of the most inspiring and courageous men and women on this planet who at their worst, learned how to achieve success greater than they ever dreamed possible. Leveling up and creating everything from nothing. Forbes magazine calls Steve Sims the modern day wizard of Oz. And after chatting with him for this episode, I feel they nailed it with that description. You see, Steve grew up in London and came from very humble beginnings. Growing up in the 80s when entrepreneurship was frowned upon. He was a bricklayer by trade, just like his dad and just like his grandfather. And this is all he knew and this was all he was taught. When it hit home one day that this was going to be his whole life, his future, he decided that this was not for him. He decided to shift and create everything from nothing. Today, Steve is the CEO of Bluefish.com, an author of Blue Fishing, and he is a master at creating magical experiences for clients. Join in today and learn exactly how Steve Sims leveled up and created everything from nothing. Today on Leveling Up, I've got Steve Sims. And listen, when it comes to getting things done, founder and CEO of TheBluefish.com Steve, he is the man for this and most people know. Steve, thank you for being here. By the way, Steve, most people know you as this incredible Success story from thebluefish.com but I know that's not always who you are. So thanks for being here. And I want to dive right into who you were before that.

Oh, I openly say I'm a serial failure. I was a Rick Layer from East London, a whiskey drinking biker and that was it. I just thought that was going to be my life and I didn't like it. So as entrepreneurs, and here's the funny thing, it doesn't matter what industry you're in, entrepreneurs, we all have the same kind of feeling. We all have the same kind of traits. Aggravation. And growing up as a forced bricklayer, because that's what my father did. I knew it wasn't for me and so I did what all entrepreneurs do. We bounce off the walls. We go from one job to another. We don't settle, we don't fit in. And in those days, of course, my mum just thought I was heading to jail because I couldn't keep a job. I Couldn't stay to it because again, as entrepreneurs, we don't settle. That's for other people. So did you.

Did you know you were an entrepreneur? Like you. You said you grew up in a family of bricklayers, that you became a bricklayer. That's what you knew to do. When did this, like, entrepreneur spike hit? Were you told you weren't a good bricklayer? Like, what made you think, like, I gotta get outside this box here?

Well, for a start, in the 80s, you know, I'm 53 years old now, okay? So I'm talking about growing up in the 80s, okay? In the 80s, if you were an entrepreneur, then it meant you couldn't get a real job. And if you were a hustler, it meant that you were selling shady cars. So the bottom line of it was all of the traits I had led me to, the fact that I was an untrustworthy person because I couldn't keep a job. I was always looking for an angle. I wasn't following the rules. And I can tell you the day that it hit me and it hit me hard, and I can actually tell you the smell in the air and the color of the clothes. It was that impactful.

Wow. So what happened? Before you even tell me what happened there, I'm curious because this is what's coming up for me, listening to you. Similar to my story and many people that I've interviewed that maybe. Were you that kid also that got, like, sort of in trouble for school for not paying attention or tuning out, Was that also a trait that you had?

I'm wondering, oh, I'm. I'm 245 pound of ugly, so I'm a big lump of a fella.

So you're exaggerating. He is not.

I was the guy that. And I was a big lad at school. I was one of the big. I kind of did all my growing at school and then kind of stopped. So I was big. I thought I was tough. I was living in London, I couldn't concentrate. I didn't see the point of half of the lessons I was learning. I remember, even at an early. Understand early age, asking myself, whenever will I use Pythagoras theorem? Yeah. I just always ask myself that at the time, thinking, what am I ever going? When I'm going down to the grocery store and I'm buying my bread, I'm going to go, oh, crap, what was Pythagoras theorem? And how is this going to help me buy my bread? I just never fit in. So I, I was a Danger. And everyone thought that I was going to get in trouble. And as I say, I was constantly aggravated because, like entrepreneurs, we're outcasts. And unless we join clubs and communities and meet other misfits who tell us, hey, we're the normal ones, you look around to your pals and you'll go, why are you doing that? And they go, well, that's because that's how it's always been done. And it aggravates you because this isn't the way that it could be done.

It's so interesting that you're saying this because it just clicked for me, Steve, that this makes a lot of sense because I grew up in the 80s as well and I deal with, with, I work with so many people. I work with people of all ages, but I work with a lot of people in their 40s and their 50s, right. And they have this story around that it can't be done or they can't create on their own. And you saying that just really made sense to me that that was the theme in the 80s. You're right. As a kid, like you were an outcast. If you were an entrepreneur, it meant you couldn't get a job.

Oh, yeah, you were brainwashed. You were brainwashed. If you didn't give the answer the teacher wanted, then you were wrong. Even though your answer may be better, save time, maybe more economical, maybe more productive, it was wrong. And for a start, you are a lying cow. There is no way in the world you grew up in the 80s, you're about 25 years old.

You're funny. No, I'm 47, but thank you, you made my day.

As you keep. Well, you see, that's the trouble with me. I looked 53 at the age of 19. I'm the opposite. But yeah, that's what I mean. Entrepreneurs, we're all the same. It doesn't matter. The fact that I'm dealing with Elon Musk and the Pope now is. It's no different to any other entrepreneur's journey. We're still faced with the exact same thing. And that's where it's a bit scary, because in today's world, where the entrepreneur is revered, the entrepreneur is the new rock star. If you ask people to name big celebrities now within the top 10, you're going to start getting the Mark Cubans, the Elon Musk's, the Richard Bransons. You would ask for people to name rock stars in the 80s and 90s. It was Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Brad Pitt, it was entertainment based. You're right now, my kid's 13 years old. And the other day, we talked to me about Warren Buffett. Have you heard of Warren Buffett, dad? And to Tai Lopez and Gary V. And, you know, we. We revere the entrepreneur. And the trouble is, entrepreneurs don't all wear van sneakers and hoodies. We get shit on, we get ripped off, we get screwed over, we get sued. We go broke a million times. We fail consistently. We just don't allow it to define us. We allow it to be fine us.

I love that you're sharing this, and this is so relevant, and so talk to me about that, though, because I know that when we are in that failure mode, when you're in that, like, something's not working and it's. Or it's bad, it, like, takes those. You get hit by it. Like, this is not working. And then it sinks in. I'm failing. It's not like this instant turnaround and find the opportunity. So, like, I would love to dive a little bit more into that. Like, because when you do have those moments of, like, that failure, like you said, I failed so many times. Like, how long does it take you to shift out of it? And how do you shift out of it?

I don't. I used to do kickboxing when I was a kid, and when I got a punch in the head, it didn't tell me it was that I was a bad fire. It told me that I had a bad guard. So I just got educated to keep my guard up. So every time I fail at anything, every time I lose money on a contract, every time something doesn't go my way, then I literally look at the positive in it, and I go, okay, I just learned how not to do it.

Like, that instant you look at the positive in it.

Absolutely. You know, when you trip on a curb, very rarely will you trip on the same curve the same way.

You're right.

Because you've been educated, you now are aware I have been screwed over probably to the tune of about half a million dollars on contracts. I know those paragraphs to look at now. And in 23 years, I got caught out twice, and I got educated twice on how to make my subsequent contracts better. So every failure is a learning curve on how to be better. And to be blunt, to be absolutely blunt, I love. I hug my failures now. When something goes wrong, I go, oh, my God, that went wrong. And usually, usually failures are those glaring moments that you go, why did I do that? You know? And those are the aha moments, because you don't Grow from your success, you grow from your failures.

I fully believe you and I love what you're saying. And I'm with you. Where I'm struggling right now, and I know listeners are struggling right now, is how did you get it to be that quick of a pivot? Because, like, for instance, for me, I'll share with me when I've had failures. I definitely have rock bottom pity parties. Sometimes. They used to be like three months long. Now they could be a day or a couple hours. So they've gotten better. But how do you embrace that? Like, just shifting it right away? Like, did that take you years? Is that something you were taught? When did you start being able to do that?

Yeah, it does. It takes time. And they always say experience comes a few seconds after you needed it most. There would be that collapse, there would be that almighty kick in the, in the testes where you go, oh, my God, my life's over. How am I ever going to bounce back? And you're right, you join in the pity party and you sit there and you cry and you look around and then slowly you come out of it and you stand back up and then you start proceeding. And the funny thing is, you then look back and this could be a year, two years in the past, and you go, do you know that smack, that push off my pedestal taught me things that have now made me taller? It's elastic band syndrome. You stretch it, it never goes back to its original size. And there is nothing more empowering than falling down and getting back up. Now, in the first few years, you're correct. And your path, same as everyone else, you, you, the first few years, the first times you do, it takes a couple of years to get over it. Then it takes a year. Then it takes six months. Now we're into the oh, shit, I'll cry for a couple of days and. All right, get up. Because as they always say, the fight's not over when I go down, it's when I stop getting up.

Yes. That's so good. That's so good. And I would say I'm. Am there. I'm. That I'm a day or two now. So I have a failure question.

And it's all the same.

Yeah, so I've gotten better. But I love that you said that. So for listeners listening wherever you are, it does get better with practice. And what I'm hearing you say also is that you do look at failures now as they're happening for you, not to you, because you're learning from it.

Do you know I had the great fortune of hanging out a few times with a gentleman that most people know, Elon Musk. And there were a couple of great. The beauty of entrepreneurs is it kind of gives us a license to peek into other people's sandbox and to meet people that we normally wouldn't get to meet.

True.

And so I've been with Elon Musk a couple of times, and you get to talk to him and understand how he looks at things. And I remember him saying that they laugh at you before they applaud. Now that's good. And I remember one of the other guys at SpaceX once, he said to me, he said, how many times have you seen news footage of our rockets, our fuel boosters that were landing back on the platform in the ocean? How many times have you seen them land, fall over and explode? And I went, oh, yeah, I saw those loads of times. He said, how many times have you seen them since land and not fall over and explode? And I said, I haven't. He said, no, because he said, once it's successful, it doesn't matter how many times it's failed. You've now got it right.

Wow.

And no one's interested anymore. No one's seen those rocket cells land. But they do. Every couple of weeks or every couple of months, they land upright. Because every time they fell over, they learned the trajectory was off. They learned the gravitation, the gyro was off. They learned things to make it work. You can't go from nothing to. To excellence without those failures. Chinks and lessons during the. During the journey.

Oh, that's so good. That's so good. Okay, so, Steve, take me back because I interrupted you earlier. You were saying you remember the exact moment when you were bricklaying, and you, you can remember the smell, the scent when you made that pivot, that decision that your trajectory for your life could be something different than a bricklayer.

So I was working on the building site and my dad asked me to go down, and there was a thing called a Hodge, which was this weird shaped thing that you put on your shoulders, and it carried a load of bricks in it.

Okay?

And so, you know, I went down to the bottom of the scaffolding, put a pile of these bricks in this hod, threw on my shoulder, and you walk up the ladder with one hand. Very, very unsafe, but that's what you did. So I walked up the ladder, and as I got to the top of the scaffolding, I turned around. Now, the first one in front of me on this this line of bricks that were being laid was my dad. Next to him was my uncle, two of my cousins and then my granddad. And I looked down this line and I suddenly saw my future. Here I am and by the time, by that time, I'm 18 years old and I'm looking at my 73 year old granddad down the other end and I thought to myself, is this it? Am I just seeing my lifeline here?

Wow, what a cool moment. Yeah.

My dad yelled at me because I was stood there paralyzed. And so I put the bricks down, carried on with work. We had tea break at 10 o' clock in the morning. We went down into the shed. My granddad was there eating his sandwich, drinking his cup of tea. And I went and sat down next to granddad and I said, granddad, did you think that at your age you would be doing this now? Of course, that's quite a rude question because I'm sure he didn't. And without even taking a breath, he looked at me and he said, if you don't quit today, you'll be me tomorrow. Whoa.

I just got chills with that one because how powerful for him and to be stepping outside of his self and his ego to tell you that.

Yeah. And so what did I do? Stood up, went to my dad. Now bear in mind, I'm a big Irish lad. My dad's a big Irish lad, my mum's a bigger Irish woman. So I walk up to my dad and go, I have to quit. Of course. She's like, you know, what do you think if I ain't by your. Suddenly ramps off. And I said, I got to. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I know I'm not going to do this.

Wow.

And so of course then I go home and then my mum doesn't want to talk to me because she thinks I've turned my back on the family business. She thinks I think I'm up myself and thinks thinking I'm better than everybody else because you got all of that. You know, people that tell you it can't be done 9 times out of 10 don't want you to be able to do it because it shows them up.

Yes, it's because they can't do it. They haven't done it. So that's.

They want it qualified, they want you to file so they can go, I told you. But the second you get it right, they're like, you know. And yes, my dad was like that. And so I'm living in an Irish household And if you think elephants never forget, piss off an Irish person, you.

Know, oh my gosh.

So, yeah, so I had it. It was a tough six months for me. I just tried out.

So you say you didn't know what you're going to do, you just knew you weren't doing that.

Yep. And that's what I did. I went from a number of jobs. I went, I was a cake salesman, I was a door to door insurance salesman. And if you can imagine me knocking on your door at 6 o' clock at night trying to sell you insurance, that's not a pretty picture. I tried so many different jobs, call centers, cleaners, working in factories, driving forklifts. I tried so many different things and I think my shortest job may have been an hour. I went there and I went, I don't like this. And I left and my mum's going, you can't do that. I knew that wasn't working. Why do I need to stay there a year to tell me it doesn't work when I know it doesn't work in an hour?

So you knew you didn't want to do the bricklaying. You knew wanting to do your own thing. But what made you, like were you doing job hopping just to sort of like figure it out or were you doing it just to pay bills while you were going to come up and create something? What was your plan?

So that gives you the idea that I had a plan. I worked a lot. I was a loose rocket, to say the least. Knew I did not work anywhere, I wanted to commit. All entrepreneurs, we want to give it our all. We want to be in, we want to be responsible. But of course, as an uneducated bricklayer from East London, I couldn't find anyone that would give me a chance. I ended up, I think the technical term is bullshitting my way into a job in Hong Kong from London. So they transferred me to Hong Kong. I got fired after one day because they realized that I was a waste of space. I ended up working on the door of a nightclub and I was happy. I was now poor. Bear in mind I came from an English, an Irish bricklaying firm. So we weren't exactly driving around in Rolls Royces. We had a white van, but I didn't have a lot of money. I was sleeping in an apartment with like about seven other people, most of them roughnecks. That's how I got the place. But I was, I had kind of broken all the strings of attachment. So I was loose to make my own path now.

So you Were happy because you felt free.

Yeah, yeah. Anything I was doing today, I didn't have to speak to anyone about it.

So that's so cool because I know people listening. Also, a lot of times you ask me, what do they want? What do they want for their life? And the thing that comes up is, I want to be happy. And the. What you're speaking into right now is being happy as a state. Like you can decide to be happy. And it sounds like what you did is you shed away the things that were not making you happy and then you experience happiness. And I'm imagining that's where the creativity.

Comes from, that I think you did. What I remember working on the nightclub because again, you know, God built me to be big and ugly and to stop people coming in. So I was working on the door of a nightclub in Hong Kong called Neptunes. And you used to have these guys pulling up in front of their Ferraris or in their Mercedes. And you'd get the arrogant tossers that would just come out and just walk into the club. And then you'd get those people that were like, hey, how you doing? Good night tonight. And you'd be like, yeah, it's pretty, pretty. Going crazy in the moment. You probably enjoy yourself. Oh, cheers, fella. Thank you. And you got those people. And I noticed there was two types of that affluence. There was those that wanted to show it and there was those that enjoyed it. Now, I've noticed a lot of people buy Ferraris because they love Ferraris. There's a lot of people that buy Ferraris to impress you. And so I being on the door, and I think any service industry, whether you're a waitress, a bartender, a doorman, an Uber driver, you get front row seats to humanity. Yeah, it's a great way to see what ticks people up and down. And I remember thinking, that guy's cool. I want to be him. And so then what would happen is they would come to the club and I would say to them, hey, not tonight, Billy. And they'd look at you like you were kicking them out. And they'd be like, why? And they'd be like, because you won't be happy. There's a new club that's just opened up around the corner. Colin's on the door tonight. Tap him on the shoulder, tell him Sim sent you over, he'll let you in there. That's where it's going to be, the fun tonight. And they were like, oh, thank you so much. And without me realizing it, what I wanted to do was I wanted to give these affluent, humble, cool people a reason to talk to me.

Yeah.

So I thought to myself that, you know the old saying, you're a combination of the five people you hang out.

Yes.

I was hanging out with whiskey drinking bikers, which is fun, but it ain't going to get me anywhere. So if I could get four affluent close friends in my circle by default, that's what I would be. That was the entirety of my plan of action.

It's just to get those people in your life so you could be that.

Yes, yes. You were thinking, get rich people in my circle. So get rich, cool people. I didn't like arrogance, I didn't like pricks, so I wanted to get rich, cool people in my life.

When you say that, I'm assuming it's not so they would give you money. It's just, I'm assuming it's so you can learn how they think and the actions they take.

So it's strange where you learn most lessons from, but I remember when I was in London and typical Friday night, the pub would kick off at about 11 o' clock at night and there'd be a bar fight. And when you're in those fights, you don't step back and work out a plan of action of I will fight this person, then I will attack this person, then I will go over there and defend my mate. Getting attacked by you don't plan those things.

Okay.

You react to what's in front of you and then plan after that. I was. When you go with your, your short term, your medium and your long term goals. My long term was two minutes. So I always focused on, okay, what's in front of me now that doesn't work or what's in front of me that I need to be in front of me. So my plan was nothing financial. I was literally get those people in my life. Okay. Then all of a sudden I started to become an oracle. And then I started throwing my own parties and going, oh. And I was seeing the money they were spending, so then I was going, hey, there's a party on down there. 500 bucks, but all the drinks are included. Now if you averaged it out, most people would drink a couple of hundred bucks that night. So you were making 300 bucks profit. So I then started to become a party promoter. And then people were saying, oh, do you know anyone in Monaco? This is a true story. Someone asked me if I knew anyone in Monaco because they were going there for the Formula One. This is mid-90s now. And I'm in Hong Kong. Okay. I said to them, I do. What do you need? They told me what they needed. I went back home to my apartment, found a book because I had to look up where Monaco was. True story. You know? And then I started doing it, and people started moving around the world. I started getting them into different events, throwing events, getting them to meet people, always charging them. And I would always say, hey, you want to do that? Sure. Five grand, ten grand, 100 grand, 200,000. And I would. I would never. I was never frightened of asking for money because I learned very early on, if they don't pay, they don't pay attention.

Whoa. So you weren't. When you were charging them, you just kept upping what you could ask for. For what reason? What was the reason that you were asking for? That kept going higher?

Well, for one thing, I've never failed to give in, given the client what they wanted, because I never did.

Okay.

If someone comes to me and give you an example. I had a client of mine. He wanted to have a exclusive restaurant in Florence. Okay? If you give people what they ask for, Amazon's gonna knock on your door and put you out of business, because all you're doing is providing. Okay? So when he came to me, said, I need an exclusive restaurant in Florence, I didn't book an exclusive restaurant in Florence. I created an exclusive situation. I took over the Academia Museum that houses Michelangelo's David. I put a table of six at the feet of David in this museum. And then I had Andrea Bocelli come in and serenade him halfway through that pasta. Whoa.

So you create an experience. You were creating an experience for people.

I never give people what they ask. I give them what they want, what they dream of, what they desire.

And how did you. How did. Do you sell them that vision? Or did you sell them that vision before you told them what it was like? They say, I want an exclusive restaurant here. Would you then, like, what was your process for that? Were you asking him a lot of questions on, like, what would make the experience right? Did you have a fee up front? I'm curious how that even comes together.

Yeah, you chat with the person first. The greatest skill in the planet at the moment, which people are losing and you can't download a bloody app for is communication.

Yeah. So true. Down.

And they go, okay, you want an exclusive restaurant in Florence? Why? Well, I'm getting. You know, my fiance's got a family in town. And let's be blunt, Steve. I want to. This is the true conversation. Show off to her family, and she's got a best mate in town as well. And I want to show everyone that I'm the man. Okay, so at the end of the night, what's got to have happened to this to have been a success? Well, we got. Okay, fine. So if we go to a nice restaurant, is that going to do it? Because if you're in a nice restaurant, the table next to you could be on a bachelor or a hen night and ruin the ambiance for you. So, you know, how about that liability? You thought about that? Oh, yeah. Maybe. Yeah. And so you talk to the client to find out what the goal is, what they're trying to achieve, what the moment is, what the engagement and the emotion, the reaction and the story needs to be by the end of the night.

This is so powerful, and I hope everybody listening is really getting this, because never once did you say, what's your budget? You didn't lead with a price. You didn't lead with options. You jumped right back in with questions to understand what it is they actually want and why.

So here's the thing. We don't know each other very well. Okay? We know your husband. He's a cool cat. And we could both agree on that.

Well, it depends on the day. Yes.

Relationship. Yeah. My wife's just the same. But if I. If you came up to me and said, hey, I want to do this, and I went, great, ten grand, please. Then the thing you're focused on is not what you just asked me. It's on the 10 grand mark.

Yeah.

Okay. I don't ever want to pay for anything. I want to invest in something I want. So if I now can speak to you and go, that sounds beautiful, but why. Why is this so important to you? You're now explaining it to me, and I'm bringing up ideas and concepts, not the concept you're going to end up with, because I'm always going to surpass what I promise you. Because that way, I assure myself of never failing.

Yes. So you're speaking into vision, which I love. So it's like you're getting the client or the prospect to really speak into their vision.

Oh, I'm in your soul. And here's the bottom line. If I can get to your core, to that thing that, by a slight tickle, gets you all kind of nervy and goosebumpy, if I can get right into that area, you know, the bottom line of it is, people, when you get down into what it really is they want, then the price is Available. I've had people come to me. Another true example. A guy came to me, said, I want to meet Journey, the rock band. And this is a beautiful story. And I said, okay, fine. You know why? He said, I want to go backstage and I want to shake their hand. All right, you told me what you want to do, but again, why? And he turned around and he gave me this story about how through his life, from college, he used to earn money by being the lead singer in a cover band for Journey all the way through his life. Sickness, illness, finances, up and down, companies going back up and down, relationships going bad, divorce, bad, illness, all the way through. Journey had been the theme tune to his movie, to his life. And he said that now he is successful, now he's strong and steady. He wants to thank them for being his theme tune, his motivation.

Wow.

And I said to him, clearly, I said, so, okay, great. I love that. So you're telling me the band comes off stage all hot and sweaty after being cheered at by 20,000 adoring fans, and you want to get a handshake and a selfie and that will do it. That will be the finale of your movie now he was like, oh. And he had said to me in his statement, I believe getting backstage is like, you know, five, five or ten grand, something like that. I didn't respond. I just went into the why? Okay, what we ended up doing for that guy is we actually stuck him live on stage in San Diego, which used to be called the Cricket Amphitheater. I think he changed. Now I think it's Sprint or something, but it was called the Cricket Amphitheater at the time. And we stuck him live on stage, and he sang four tunes as the temporary lead singer of the rock band.

That's incredible.

So he went from going backstage to shaking hands to actually being the lead singer of the entire band live on stage to those 20,000 a door, in fact.

Now, before you go into, like, what that cost or what you paid the band or anything, or even if you're going to go there, what I'm imagining is because you were so clear on his vision, his dream is that what would make it happy. I would imagine that story is so compelling to whoever you're trying to hire to make happen. So, like, for instance, I would imagine a band, if you get to the right person, hears that they want to support and help. So now it's like, I'm assuming you make your money. It's like you're creating the experience, but you enroll whatever you're setting up for people in the Vision, people probably want to help more than you can imagine.

Yeah. Never buy into the price tag. Buy into the value. Now, if you remember or if you rewind, I said when I was a doorman, I needed to give people an excuse to have me in their circle.

Yes.

Okay. So the only way to do that is to bring value. When I was a doorman, my value was I knew where all the best parties were. And it started off from there. Then I started taking over mansions, yachts, I started throwing my own events. But I've always created value. So when I went to Journey, before I went there, you do your research, okay? You can't make a second intro call. So I've got to be able to go in there and be so irresistible with my concept, my idea, my vision, my passive, my passion that they don't want me to leave. So what happened was in doing my research, I found out that the drummer's son had autism and my clients brothers son had autism. So when I went to the band, I went to the drummer and I said, I'm gonna tell you a story of an adoring fan. Now, bearing in mind, bluntly speaking, they've heard this a million times.

Yes.

You know, and I'm aware they've heard it a million times. So you're brief on it and you go, hey, I'm gonna tell you a story about a fan, blah, blah, blah. But I am at the same time going to tell you how it's going to raise awareness for a foundation called Autism Speaks, which I know is close to your heart, how it's going to raise awareness, and more importantly, funding.

Wow.

And so what we did was we took over the first five rows, we packaged it up, you could go along and see this client of ours singing on stage. It was overpriced on the tickets, but the money went to Autism Speaks. Everyone was wearing a badge for Autism Speaks. Every promo flyer, mention of it raised awareness for Autism Speaks. You could donate to Autism Speaks, you could get a side guitar, and the funds went to Autism. So there was a big benefit on the Autism Speaks, but Journey had just started back on a comeback tour. So I said to him, your manager's going to be happy because you're going to get promotion of you guys being back on tour. Autism Speaks are going to be happy and you guys are going to look really good because you've satisfied and made a fan's dream come true.

So good. I love all of this and I love the back work on it and the listening and the research and the structure and living in the dream and the vision and giving people what they really need and want versus what they initially say. I think it's brilliant. And I also love, like, you're all about win, win. It's not about just, you win, you get paid, and then what happens? You're not about just the customer winning. You're about, like, everybody winning.

Absolutely amazing. If only one person wins in a relationship, then you don't actually have a relationship.

Yeah.

So if both people win, then it grows and it grows and it grows.

So cool. And so. So if I believe if you lead with vision and winning, winning, winning, like, everybody wins. That's like a big formula for you. And it's. It's incredible.

Yeah. And the payment. Here's the dumb things. And I told you earlier about the Florence dinner that I did with Andrea Bocelli. Well, we had got them involved so much in the passion and the vision of actually doing this, you know, private concert for six people at the feet of Michelangelo's David. We had actually forgotten to address how much he would charge. And, you know, the funny thing is, the afternoon that he was to appear in Florence with me, they brought up the money, and I said to him, I don't disagree with it. Because we'd agreed that it would be a charitable donation to his cancer foundation. I said, I don't disagree with it. But you are aware that it's only, like, five hours before you're performing. My bank account is in America. If I initiate the wire on my phone now, you're not going to have it for two days.

Yeah.

But they were so sold on the passion that they agreed. So the standing joke for that night was that I had Andrea Bocelli on credit.

That's funny. I love that. That's amazing. That's incredible. This is so cool. I love your whole outlook, and it's so cool. And I love that you really come from a place of giving and generosity. And, like, see, when you help others achieve what they want, like, it comes back at you, and that's really where you're living. You're living in the space of helping others achieve what they want.

I believe so. I truly believe so. And if you go, you know, I forget who it was that said it. Obviously someone smarter than me. But they said they won't care. They won't care till you show you care.

Yes, that's true. Yeah. People don't care about you unless they know how much you care, like, first.

Absolutely.

They don't care what you know they don't care what you do. They want to know that you care.

And if you can show that you've done a bit of research in there and show them value via the offset, and that's what I mean, go into the conversation. And I'll often go into a conversation, go, hey, I want to talk to you. And here's the funny thing. If I call you this afternoon at 4:00 and I don't even have your phone number, so for a start, that would be spooky. But if I phoned you at 4:00 clock in the afternoon, the one thing you can guarantee when you pick the phone up and you answer my call is that I want something because I've called you. It's a natural assumption. Correct. The more affluent in a power, in a placement or position of power, the more your higher the profile becomes. Everyone wants something from you. So when you're walking up to Richard Branson in a room, I'm telling you now, he has stood there thinking, are you going to pitch me an idea for business? Are you going to try and get an autograph? Are you going to try and get a selfie? Bingo. Bingo. And there it is. What do you want? And the bigger profile that you have, the more that question leads. So when you speak to people, and I'm not about anybody, tell them what you want within the first 10 to 15 seconds and then tell them why they need to do it. Because of the benefit that it brings for them.

Amazing. And don't do the bait and switch. Don't like, act like you're doing something else and then switch to that.

Oh, no, no, no. The clarity. If you could walk up to someone and go, hey, this is. And I've done this, this is the wrong environment for me to talk to you about a business that I want you to be promoting for me. You know, because let's be blunt, nine times out of 10, when you meet people of power, you're in the wrong environment to be pitching. So if you get it out of the way and say it obvious, hey, this is the wrong place for me to be pitching you on a business that I want you promoting. But I am aware that your cause is blah, blah, blah, And I've got a way that we can actually raise significant money in that by looking after.

Plan A. Yeah, get their attention. You give them the benefit quickly.

You give them the benefit quickly. You get the elephant out of the room by saying, hey, I want something from you. But you already know that. But I've done My homework. And I'm going to be telling you why you're gonna benefit three times more than I will.

That's so good. This is really, really great. There's so many people out there leading with price or like they're beating around the bush. They don't say what they really want. They try to, like, buddy up, become a friend. And then they do this bait and switch thing, which is terrible. So I love the directness. I love the win win. I love how you're really into getting people what they like, looking at people's visions, which is so cool. So it's like not just about your own vision, it's what's their vision and how can I make this a reality?

Yep, absolutely.

So your company, your main thing that you do, it's Bluefish and that's what you do. You do luxury concierge services.

So I've got two. I've got the Bluefish, which is a high end VIP concierge. I've got TasteOfBlue.com, which is a iPhone membership concierge. But the one that's really taken off a lot more over the last few years since the book has been steved sims.com, which is my consulting events. And I really just help people, you know, get all the excuses out of the way and if they can meet me and go, well, hang on. If a bricklayer from London could be doing this for the Pope, I'm already out of excuses.

Yeah, it's amazing. What's your favorite thing to work on for people or to be doing if you could be living in your passion each day? What, how are you spending your time? What are you doing?

So all of the kind of travel requests and things like that through our concierge business, I never see these. Okay, I'm the guy that gets the phone call when it's a case of I want to play football with Ronaldo, I want to shoot hoops with Kobe.

Bryant, I want to hang out with Oprah.

Yeah, exactly, exactly. We had that the other week, actually.

I'm going to call you about that. Same thing, by the way.

So we get a lot of those kind of requests. We're doing something with Richard Branson in Toronto. Those are exciting because I want to know the reasons behind why it's so fun. Those are fun. And I'm really enjoying the Steve D. Sims element because I'm meeting future millionaires and billionaires and teaching them how to be that, but more importantly, how to communicate with those people so they can get there faster.

Yeah.

Finding that really exciting at the moment. And it wasn't, you know, when I did my book, the Funny story about the Book, when I got offered to do the book, Simon Schuster offered me the deal, and they said, we want you to do a tell all the. On all the rich, powerful clients and what they do, and if that, I'd be dead by cocktail hour.

Yeah.

And then they saw me doing one of my speeches at an entrepreneur event, and then they came back to me and they said, instead of doing a book on what you do, how about a book on how you do it? Oh, that's a lot more entrepreneurial. And so I wrote the book as my way of telling my kids the way I did it. Don't overthink it. Do it. Get going, then. Get good. And I wrote the book, and to be honest with you, I didn't think it would sell. And I know this sounds horrible to say, and I'm sorry, Simon Schuster, I kind of didn't care either. I wanted it to be my book, and I didn't want there to be any hindrance around or any shackles or any handcuffs. So I think the first month we sold like, 400 copies. The second month we sold 500 copies. And I remember contacting my agent and going, is this good? And he went, no. And I was like, oh, dear. And then the following month, it was like 14,000. And then it kind of hit number ones, and then the audiobook hit number one, and it's just actually got translated. It's in Taiwan, Thailand, Korea, and Vietnam that just do it now. But it's gone crazy. So I went from being a really big deal to about 1% of the planet to people actually knowing who I am. I'm speaking on stages literally all over the world. I just came back. We're in. I don't know when this podcast comes out, but we're doing it in March, and I've already been in Mexico, Vegas twice, San Diego, and Phuket, Thailand, just by March. And I've got Spain, India, so I'm speaking all over the place. It's a very exciting period for me at the moment.

So, Steve, the theme I keep hearing from you is, like, over and over again, is you don't focus on yourself, actually, which is so cool and so awesome to hear. Like, you literally focus on being in a state of happiness and giving and fulfilling what other people are looking for. And that's like you just said, I wrote the book. I didn't really care. But you cared. You were sharing the information that's what you cared about. So you, you operate from this place of giving and serving others and look at what that's done for your life.

Yeah, it's not too shabby, that's for sure.

Yeah, but that's so cool because I think so many people will operate from a different place. They operate from a place of greed or give me or I deserve, and it's all about them. And then they wonder why they're not getting the results again.

Bottom line of it is if there's nothing else you take away from this, if you show that you care, if you provide value above what they requested, then you're building loyalty and you're building longevity. If you don't do those things and you are literally a price match for everything. As we said earlier, Amazon is just getting ready to take your job.

Yes. So, so true. Okay, here's a question I ask everybody, and I'm going to ask you. I'm dying to hear your spin and your take on this. If somebody is listening right now and they are in their own personal rock bottom, so maybe they're stuck in those failures that you've learned to shift out of. Maybe they're the bricklayer and they can't make bills. They're in their own personal rock bottom, whatever that means to them. If you were to tell them three things so they can start snapping out of it and creating everything from nothing, what would you tell them?

So my dad is a blunt instrument at best. And when I was young, about 13 years old, we were walking down the road, he was smoking cigarettes. I think he was on about his 200th within the hour. And he put his hand on my shoulder without looking at me, without breaking stride. He said, son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water. They drowned by staying there. And then he took his hand off my shoulder. Coward. On walking now, at the age of 13, I remember stopping and going, what the hell was that? And it never made any sense to me until I hit my 20s. You've hit rock bottom. Great. Okay, now you need to decide, are you staying or are you out? So first of all is the mental perspective of, okay, analyze how you got there. Did you overspend? Did you market in the wrong areas? Did you take easy risks? Because if you're going to be broke, be broke big, don't be broke small. Take risks, take chances. Learn from that education and get going. But the first thing to do is realize that it's a mental state. Are you comfortable being there?

Yeah.

If not, then do something about It. That's the first thing. Second bit, analyze how you actually got there. And third, understand the fact that if you can wake up in the morning, you've got an unfair advantage that you're going to win just purely and simply by waking up the day. You don't wake up any morning in the morning, that's when the fight's actually over.

Yes. And having gratitude for that, because a lot of people don't get that opportunity to wake up tomorrow.

Yeah, 100%. And it's. You've got to focus on your mental strength and it can be straining. We've all been there. I've lost sleep. And when it's kind of like, you know, Thursday and I've got payroll tomorrow and I've got no money and I'm trying to work out what credit card I can run to be able to cover payroll. And, you know, I'm on my third red letter bill. We've all been there. Those are what earns your stripes to be able to call yourself an entrepreneur.

Yeah. Gosh, this is so incredible. Where do you want people to find you? Where do they start? They want to find you get your book Blue Fishing. And where do they find that? Where do they find more about you? Where do you want them to go?

I'm a terrible plugger, as you notice. I didn't even name the book because I didn't want to, you know, be advertising.

Right. Blue Fishing.

The book is called Blue Fishing the Art of Making Things Happen. And that's on Amazon and everything. If you're in the us, if you text the word sims, which is S I m s to 345345, that will get you on my email, my text list. But if you just visit steved sims.com then you can see my videos and my rants and I, I send out emails going, well, this pissed me off and this is why it happened. Or this happened and it was really good and I learned from it. So I love to share. So that's the best places to find me.

Amazing. And then on social media, are you on Instagram, Facebook, all of them? Is there one you focus on more than the other?

I'm on Steve D. SIMS and again, it's 1M in SIMS on Instagram and Facebook. I don't do a lot on Twitter. It just ends up being the same stuff. But I don't check it as much. But the Steve D. Sims is on Facebook and on Instagram.

So awesome. Thank you so much, Steve. This was super empowering. Amazing. I learned a lot I know listeners did. Thanks for being here.

It's been a pleasure. Thank you.

Thanks for leveling up with us today. Please share this episode if you found it helpful so others can join in. And don't forget to hit that subscribe so you don't miss out on future shows. And if you would leave me a five star review. I appreciate those so much. I read all of them and it's how I know that I'm giving you information that you find valuable. And come interact with me over on Instagram at Natalie Jill Fit I read all the direct messages and comments over there. Make it a great day. Creating everything from nothing.

Sam.