Episode 133 – Steve Sims

---

Automated Transcription

---

 

Steve Sims 0:00
I noticed so many people. And this is one of the things that made me giggle. They say go for the impossible. You know, why would you go for an impossible it’s like saying drive through a brick wall or go for what can’t be achievable by calling something impossible. You’ve already created a barrier in front of your mind. You’ve established and identified, that’s impossible. So just by say, hey, go for it. But it’s like saying, go for that full stop, go for that end that you can’t go any further. I have a different look at it. I always say go for stupid. What’s the most ridiculous thing that you can possibly imagine and dream and go for that. And the way that I translated that into business was I would always listen to what the client wanted. And then ignore it. Never give a client what they asked for, give them what they lust and desire for.

Richard Matthews 0:57
Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

Welcome back to The HERO Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have the pleasure of being live on the line with Steve Sims, Steve you there?

Steve Sims 2:00
I am pleasure to be here.

Richard Matthews 2:02
Awesome. Glad to have you here. Steve, for those of you have been following along with our travels. My family is currently in Fort Myers, Florida and Steve, you said you were coming in out of Los Angeles. Is that right?

Steve Sims 2:12
I am. Yes sunny LA or it will be.

Richard Matthews 2:14
Will be later this afternoon after the marine layer rolls off. Right? So what I want to do real quick for those of you who don’t know, Steve, after reading his introduction myself sounds like he’s the kind of guy you might want to know. But so basically, do you know anyone that has worked with sir Elton John or Elon Musk has sent people down to see the wreck of the Titanic on the seabed or close museums in Florence for private dinner party and then had Andrea Bocelli, serenade them while they eat their pasta. You do now because that is Steve quoted as the real life Wizard of Oz by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, Steve Sims is a best selling author with bluefish, the art of making things happen, a sought after coach and speaker at a variety of networking groups and associations as well as the Pentagon and Harvard twice. So with that really interesting introduction, Steve, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what it is that you do now? What does it you’re known for? Who do you serve? And basically, what do you do for them?

Steve Sims 3:14
Wow. So there’s two answers to that single question, what I did and what I do. For 20 plus years, I had the most recognized on experiential concierge firm that only looked after billionaires. So I looked after people that own things like countries. And my job was quite simply just to make them more interesting. They would come to me and I would do things like get a drum lesson buy Guns and Roses guitar lesson by ZZ Top, have a walk down the red carpet with sir Elton John is Oscar party, anything that they could think of and afford. I was basically the Make A Wish Foundation for people with massive checkbooks. And I did this for 20 plus years. Anyone that’s ever known me or see me now sees me as this guy who is riding around on motorcycles, tattoos, eyebrow piercing, can’t believe I’m the guy that will turn up to to a billionaires home. And, you know, take swipe his credit card for three quarters of a million dollars for a fancy weekend. But that’s what I did. I was probably the most connected, unknown guy you would have ever met. Three years ago, that kind of changed. And I was asked if I would write a book. And I declined because the book was going to ask me to name names of all the rich and famous and richer and more powerful people. And quite simply if I did that, I’d be dead by cocktail hour. So they then came back to me and they said, well, would you like the book on how a kid the left school at the age of 15 went into a Brick Lane firm in East London, and is now working with sir Elton John and some of the biggest events and people in the planet. That I got behind because I could now use that to help other people get out of the way of themselves. bluefish in the book came out, I didn’t expect it to be a best seller Didn’t we didn’t even have a website. That’s how bad I was, we did not expect it to take off. It kind of did. And it produced a monster. And now I run Sims distillery.com speakeasy, and I speak literally all over the planet, to entrepreneurs and people that really need to be able to think and act differently, to get the clientele they want. And as I’ve always said, if an East Lake, East London bricklayer can be working with the Pope, you’re already out of excuses. And so that’s what I do now.

Richard Matthews 5:47
That’s that’s a really amazing story. So I’m curious then, how that actually happened. Right? So we talk on this show about the origin story, right? Every good comic book hero has an origin story. So thing that made them into the hero they are today, we’re gonna hear that story. Were you born a hero? Were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to work with billionaires? Or did you start a job and eventually moved to become an entrepreneur? Basically, how did you get into the business of helping billionaires have cool experiences?

Steve Sims 6:16
So I think for a start, that no matter who we are, what we look like, where we’ve come from, what part of the planet or what name we can drop in, in a cocktail party. Entrepreneurs all share the same dream and the same gene, sorry, not the same dream, the same gene, the same molecule, there’s some kind of DNA that connects all entrepreneurs. And I swear, if you cut it in half, there’d be that little purple blood cell that runs through entrepreneurs or something. I’m not saying you do that, but I just believe there is. And it’s that add, I call it the aggravation gene, the moment that the entrepreneur looks and goes, why are we doing this? Why Why can’t it be done better? And usually the people who say no, are their bosses, and their bosses are not entrepreneurial. So I don’t think you ever learn to become an entrepreneur. I think it gets revealed to you actually have always been an entrepreneur. And it’s just now your time to shine. My pivotal moment in my life was I left school at the age of 15. Raised in East London never had any money often thought I was poor. And I ended up working on my dad’s building site. And then one day I walked up the ladder with some bricks from a dad. And as I got to the top of the scaffolding, the first guy next to me was my dad. Next to him was my uncle, his brother, his older brother. Next to him was my two cousins that were in their late teens and mid 20s. And then next to them was my granddad in his 80s. Now, I was about 16 years old now. And I could see basically every generation Yeah, roughly up until my granddad, I saw my future. I saw my entire life in front of me. And I froze. It scared me and I went down to see her a bright time. And I ran over to my dad and my granddad, of course, I’m 16 year old, I will jumping around you know, can I pumped up and I’m like, granddad granddad, did you ever think you’d be doing this at your age? No, I come from an Irish family. And I’m still to this day stand to my granddad didn’t smacked me in the nose for that comment. But he didn’t even look at me. He literally just a blue, a blue into his tea. They call it down. And he said to me, and I’ll remember this until the day I die. He said, Son, if you don’t quit today, you’ll be me tomorrow. And it was like, wow,

Richard Matthews 8:47
Wow, that gives me chills. Yeah. Like all up in my arms.

Steve Sims 8:51
It did the same for me. I was in a busy caravan with a load of people trying to get warm on a British lovely rainy day on a building site. And the entire caravan went quiet to me based on those words. Of course, as soon as I came out, I ran up to my dad told him I had to quit. He looked to granddad, look to me anyway. All right, you can quit fighting. And then I do what all entrepreneurs do. We jump out of the frying pan into the volcano, we just end up getting into a ton of things that don’t work first, don’t make sense, aggravate us even more. And so I started a journey of trying to find out where I could fit. And the funny place was that I found where I could fit in my darkest hour. Now I wanted to get away You know, we’ve all heard this story. You are the combination of the five people you hang around with. What I’ve always said, I’ve always said you are the room that you’re in. Now I’m a member the most weekends I was in a biker bar with a bunch of full ass bikers, and that’s what I was. So I literally ran away, I got the chance of a job from London in Hong Kong took it got fired after a couple of days. I’m now the other side of the planet with no support system whatsoever. Because I’m big and ugly, I ended up getting a job, which was a very easy one for me as a doorman on a nightclub. Okay, now I thought this was my darkest hour, I’m now on a nightclub paid to punch people. Yeah, that was my job. You know, I just saw this is my this is, I couldn’t get any lower. But you know, the funny thing is working on the door of a club, you suddenly get a beautiful view of humanity, you get to see the couples that are turning up on a date. There are people that are turning up to celebrate a contract, or a birthday, or getting married a hen night a badger, or you get to see different dynamics of people, it actually gave me a beautiful place to basically voyer different styles of people, the rich, and those who couldn’t afford to really be in there, the tiny girls and one of the merrier rich guy, the guys are one of the celebrated a new job, whatever, I got to see every quest that I that I wanted to. You get to see the whole spectrum of humanity. It was amazing. And so what I realized, again, I’m very, I’m very, very simple. And my wife often says that I you know, by far, I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed. But you talk about hero, my wife has always said my superhero power is the power of ignorance. I learn in nuggets, and sound bites, and I action those repeatedly. Now, I said to you earlier, you are the combination of the people that you hang around with, as I say you are the room that you’re in, I needed to be in a room full of rich people. So how can I make that happen? Now as a doorman, and this was like in the early 90s, I knew where all the best parties and clubs were. So I became the Google of Hong Kong nightlife. And I only shared that information with affluent people. And then I would start closing the club at like midnight and having a private party afterwards. And only inviting rich people. Why? Because I knew poor people couldn’t afford things. Because I was poor. I knew what it was like. So I only invited rich people. And I was very focused. If a person was poor, like a millionaire. I didn’t want them at the party. But if they were billionaires, and they owned yachts, and they owned companies, I would invite them. And I did a lot of my marketing by fax. And I just literally started throwing cheesy little parties that turned into penthouses that turned into yachts. They ended up be working for people like the Grammys, the New York Fashion Week, Formula One in Monaco. And I just kept on pushing. And along the way people would say hey, can you get me to the front of the queue for this limited edition Ferrari? Or can you get me introduced to Sir Elton John? Or can you close down a museum for me because I want to do some really quirky for an Italian meal. Yeah, all these wish fulfillment things came along the way. And I just became the man that can but you have to understand. I never went out to launch a concierge firm. In fact, I don’t want to talk about it. I don’t want to promote the name. Because it was never what I wanted to do. This was a Trojan horse to get me to have a conversation with a billionaire. And to understand one thing, why are you rich, and I’m not. That was the only thing I ever wanted to know, whatever the pedestal or whatever the platform I needed to keep you vested in their conversation with me. That was all it was, it was a platform, hey, you want to you want to meet, you know, a rock band, you know, you want to meet Steven Tyler Eversley Yeah, I’ll make that happen. But we need to have a lot of conversations. And that was the only reason. And now I’m able to take what I learned. And that’s why I train that within within my groups.

Richard Matthews 14:09
That’s really fascinating. So did it have an impact on your own personal wealth, then that as you started hanging out with more billionaires, that it lifted you out of poverty? Yeah. How could

Steve Sims 14:19
it not? How could it not, you know, you suddenly realized that there was a standard that they lived at that your your your income followed. And there’s always this saying that people can like live within your means. Okay? And if you hear that as a kid, live within your means, you know, budget accordingly, live this kind of life, you know, that never allows you to taste things I want you flown business class or first class. You can’t fly economy because he’s too cramped. You get off the plane, you’re all tight. You’re all angry. You have to take a day to work. I can literally get off a plane if I’m going from here to China, and as long as I’m comfortable business or first class, I can have a meeting in the car from the airport, because I’m all ready for it. So you’ve got to learn the standards that you want to live out. And then you’ve got to understand what do you need to do. And the first thing you’ve got to do is focus on the quality, not quantity of client. Now, you’ve got to understand, during this time of me building up this this concierge business to get these rich people I picked. Absolutely picked and I think for 2004, when money was fallen out of the world, I picked a 93 clients. But on average, we were around like the high 40, 48, something like that. That was all the clients we had. But when that billionaires, it really doesn’t you can be you can be buying a house on the beach when you’re dealing with five billionaires. So these people, I noticed one thing, they never ever argued with me on money. They argued with me on value. So I learned very, very early on, that people don’t want to discuss the price tag. In fact, I will tell you, if you’re having a conversation and someone’s moaning about the price, then you’ve done two things. One, you failed to attract the one client that could afford you or two, you failed to demonstrate the value. Because the trick, if you want to call it a trick, or hack or secret sauce, you’ve got to make the client feel as though they got away with a bargain, you could have charged them twice as much, and they would have paid it. So demonstrate the value. And then at the end of the value, and this is what it’s going to cost for you to receive that demonstrate the value and then reveal the price tag. Never the other way around, never get into a conversation on money, get into a conversation on value.

Richard Matthews 16:53
Absolutely. So I find I find that like infinitely fascinating, especially the idea of whole, you know, living within your means because you hear that so much growing up. And it’s one of the things that has always bothered me. And I’ve never wanted to live that way and don’t To this day, it’s you know, one of the reasons we mentioned earlier, my my wife and I travel full time, and we have been for several years, and we’re working on buying a yacht so we can travel the world and all that other fun stuff. And to me, it’s always been more beneficial. Or at least it’s helped me grow my business when I started thinking about how to expand my means not live within them. Mm hmm.

Steve Sims 17:29
Absolutely.

Richard Matthews 17:31
And so it’s always been a matter of like, what what’s the next thing that I want to to do? And then what do I need to add or grow in my business to accomplish that thing?

Steve Sims 17:42
Well, I’ve always it’s funny. You know, I raced motorcycles. So you know, you’ve always looking forward and on race cars on race motorcycles, you don’t have mirrors, you don’t care about what’s behind you, but everything I do I actually move in reverse. So and I mean, absolutely everything. So if I, if I want to achieve a certain goal, and I want to achieve a certain lifestyle, and I want to receive a certain standard, I first of all, identify what is that standard? You know, what do I want? What do I want to buy? Well, I like that watch well that watch is $35,000. You know, can I afford it? One question? What do I need to afford it? That’s the question you got to look at. And then you work in reverse. Yeah, you’ve just got to work out what needs to happen. If you’ve got a goal, and you can fixate on it, then you can go Okay, what needs to happen for me to be able to buy XYZ or to do XYZ, well, I need to be here that’s really close to that. And then I need to take another step back, and you walk your way back. I was in Nepal. And I was at first camp, which is the base camp of Everest. And I was with some clients. And I was with a climber. And I was in Nepal for completely different reason. But I’ve gone over just to see base camp because I thought it’d be really interesting. And there was one of the guys there who was also kind of like in our base camp, and there was a seasoned climber. And the guy was like, How the hell are you gonna get up there? And he was pointing up to the top of Everest. He said, I’m not, I’m gonna go over there. And then I’ll work out what I do need to do next. And it was Basecamp, which basically we could, we could all walk through. So he wasn’t looking at the size of the elephant. He was looking at the little inch that he just had to digest first, I don’t have to go there. I just have to go there. And I’ll go from there. You know, so I noticed so many people. And this is one of the things that made me giggle. They say go for the impossible. You know, why would you go for an impossible it’s like saying drive through a brick wall or go for what can’t be achievable by calling something impossible. You’ve already created a barrier in front of your mind. You’ve established and identified, that’s impossible. So just by say, hey, go for it. But it’s like saying, go for that full stop, go for that end that you can’t go any further. I have a different look at it. I always say go for stupid. What’s the most ridiculous thing that you can possibly imagine and dream and go for that. And the way that I translated that into business was I would always listen to what the client wanted. And then ignore it. Never give a client what they asked for, give them what they lust and desire for. And bottomline if it is, if you can give a client what they asked for, then guess what, Amazon is building up a program to put you out of business. Because we’re in a transactional society, Siri, Alexa Amazon transactions, human beings, we create, we disrupt we dream, and AI can’t do that. So that’s where you got to focus on listen to what the client wants, ignore it. And then give them what they actually dream for. That’s when you’re going to keep a client. And guess what loyalty comes by you doing that it doesn’t come by you are pointing some kind of point program.

Richard Matthews 21:16
Absolutely, I know, it’s one of the ways I approach all of my clients is, is always trying to figure out what the next thing that they could want. And helping them get that. And it’s been, it’s been a tremendous boon for my business. But just to your point of, of, of learning to expand your means and getting into things I remember, like my, my favorite sort of story of our travels is actually this RV, where in my wife was pregnant with baby number four, and we were in a much smaller RV, and we didn’t have room for all, all four babies, once you know, the fourth one came along. And I remember we’re sitting there, it’s December, and I was like, the baby’s gonna be here in March, and we don’t have a big enough RV for the baby. So I started, started this whole program, I needed about 20 $26,000 to get travel to go pick up this coach to buy this coach to get the down payment for this coach and to pay for the baby and all those things. And I remember sitting there in like, right at Christmas time going like, Hey, we need to get all this stuff taken care of. And I was like we don’t you know, $26,000 is it at the time was a lot of money to come up with in three months. And we managed with some client works, both things got really creative with it. And within a month and a half, we raised the $26,000. Bought the coach flew out, pick it up, came back had it all ready to go before the baby got here and continued on with our travels. Because it’s you know, it’s it’s never about like what you can you know, like, like, What do you say, if you limit yourself to what you think you can do? Or, you know, I you know, I can do this, right? It’s a matter of like, what’s, what’s the impossible thing? Let’s just go you know, you’d call it an impossible this stupid thing. Yeah, go go for stupid and just make it happen. And you realize, you know, you don’t really have any limits. Now you can make anything happen.

Steve Sims 23:04
Absolutely 100%. You, you got to try. You see, when we lay in bed, we dream. And we have no restrictions we wake up and then we allow other people to give us those restrictions. If you want to, if you want to dance with the Rockettes if you want to throw the first pitch in a baseball game, go and do it don’t like some idiot. There’s never achieved anything tell you you can’t do it.

Richard Matthews 23:26
Yeah, absolutely. So but one of the things that’s I think, really vital to that is is both is knowing what you want, right? actually having a desire and allowing yourself to like to to I don’t know, like internalize that you actually are have desires and you’re worthy of actually fighting for them.

Steve Sims 23:46
Um, I don’t want to disagree with you on your show. Um, but I do disagree. See, the trouble is nine times out of 10. We don’t know what we don’t know. Yeah, I launched a Facebook group called an entrepreneur’s advantage with Steve Sims. It’s a free Facebook group, to basically expose what other people achieve and what other people go for. You see, a lot of people’s parameters are based on who else is in that room. So the first thing you’ve got to do is get yourself into a room of creative disruptors, people that go, hey, these are your barriers, but these are mine. And the funny thing is, when you think you’ve reached the height of your of your achievability, you suddenly meet someone that’s less intelligent than you, but is achieving more and you go, how the hell are you doing that? But when they’re in your room, when they’re in your group, then it gives you permission to go well hang on a minute, my barriers, my ceilings are way too low. And the dark thing is when you start doing and it’s the same with me. If you’d said to me when I was 19 years old, working on the door of a nightclub, hey, you’re going to be working with Elton John and Bocelli in the Pope. I’d have been like, are you? Are you? Are you mental, you know, there’s something wrong with you. Um, but when you start achieving things that while you’re your force and your passion strives you through, but in the back nagging part of your head, you go, Well, I’m not sure I can achieve this, and then you do. And then you do it again. And then you do it again. Before long, you start realizing that nothing’s unachievable. And that’s where the beauty comes in, you suddenly become empowered. And again, that’s the entrepreneurial nature. You know, I guarantee you’ve been broke because you’re an entrepreneur. entrepreneurs get broke, you know, we try something we get laughed at, we try something else, we get ripped off, we get hated, we go broke, we make money, we go broke, we make money, we go broke, we go broke again. And then we make, but along that journey, we learn the empowerment of what needs to happen. So when you do sit down and go, okay, baby number four in an RV, which for argument’s sake you just, I can’t even put that in a words. How rediculous that sounds but you turned around when, okay, I need this, this, this, this this? Now, let’s make it happen. Okay, people are still sitting there going, when am I gonna get it? When am I gonna get my break? When is someone gonna give me an opportunity? When am I gonna be given something? We’re not in a gifting world. We’re in a world where we’ve got to position ourselves, and we’ve got opportunitize, everything that’s available to us. We’re in COVID at the moment, you’ve got two choices, play the game that no one knows the rules of yet, or sit down and binge watch Netflix and just gradually, slowly die. So those are two choices at the moment. And I’m surprised at how many people have taken option number two,

Richard Matthews 26:45
Far more than I would have imagined. But I also you know to to your point of being in a room full of people who are pushing you I have a whole group of people in my life that every single one of them has grown their business and grown their grown their their life as a result of this Coronavirus. So you can certainly choose option number one. And there’s a lot of people that are and I think those that do are going to have have really huge businesses at the end because it’s you know, it’s dramatically changing our culture.

Steve Sims 27:14
I absolutely is I’m stunned at how many people think that I can sharpen their tools when they’re on the battlefield. When there’s not a fight, that’s when you learn how to fight, that’s when you perfect your fighting skills. Because when the fight starts is too late. What’s going to happen is a vaccines gonna turn up, the thing’s gonna bloody disappear, we’re gonna become immune, I don’t know. But one of those things are going to happen. And we’re not going to be having this conversation about COVID next year. And when the when the green light goes on, and the curtains are pulled back. And we’re all allowed back out into the world. Those people that have been benefiting and focusing and sharpening their tools during COVID are going to have an unfair advantage to conquer those people to suddenly go, Oh, we can go back now. They’re going to be in first game for the first lap. And is that gonna get lost?

Richard Matthews 28:05
Yeah, one of the things that I did early on with my group of people was I put together a training that I put out for free and I was like, hey, everything is shut down right now. now’s a good time to work on perfecting your business systems, all the little stuff that makes your business run, like here’s how to build them and make them stronger, or make them you know, work really, really well. And I did some training with a bunch of people on that, which was super fascinating. I’m doing the same thing in my business. It’s like, Hey, you know, everything’s slowing down when it slows down, work on work on things that are hard to work on when it’s going fast. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And

Steve Sims 28:35
that’s the beautiful thing. You see this COVID COVID is a fantastic opportunity. See, when you’ve got a recession, there was still people in business, you know, the rich getting richer buying, you know, cheap homes, cheap cars. But we had everything stopped now. Now I know, in past recessions, I would go out and negotiate and purchasing things, because they had inventory. Well, because all the factories were shut down. There’s no inventory now. So we are in a completely strange environment. We’re not just you have been shut down. But also your competitors have been shut down. So it’s been a brilliant time for you to be able to go Okay, fold your arms and go. Hi, how am I doing? Is this where I was supposed to be five years ago? How is my trajectory been? How is my focus? What baggage Am I carrying? It’s a great time to spring clean your mind and your business to be prepared to be leaner and stronger when you come out of this.

Richard Matthews 29:37
Absolutely. And it’s it’s a it’s a unique opportunity. Like I don’t think anyone has seen anything like this before to have like everything just sort of stop. No one has. To give you the time to to make changes. And I think I think we’re going to see to you know, your old clientele, more billionaires and multimillionaires created as a result of this and probably any anything we’ve seen in the past

Steve Sims 30:00
Yeah, one hundred 100% No one’s ever seen a pandemic before. Even from the people that have the Great Depression, most of those are dead or not in a position where they need to worry about work on a day to day basis. But the bottom line of it is, we’re in a disruption now. And there will be other disruptions, recessions, political upheaval, a virus, whatever, new monetary system.

Yeah, exactly. There’s gonna be other disruptions that come along, there’s habits that are being formed now, which are going to dictate how we look at things in the future. So there’s a whole world of distraction distortion, which correct creates has to become uncomfortable. A good entrepreneur, a focused entrepreneur, is comfortable with being uncomfortable. And that’s what you got to focus on. Don’t care about what it’s called, or the title, when the next little disruption comes along? If you know how to get your head straight on this, you’ll be fine for everything else.

Richard Matthews 30:56
Absolutely. So I want to talk a little bit about your superpower, right? You mentioned it a minute ago when we were talking but you know, every iconic hero has a superpower, right? Whether that’s a fancy flying suit made by a genius intellect or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky. In the real world, heroes have what I call a zone of genius, which is either a skill or a set of skills that you were born with, or developed over time that really energize everything else that you do, right? It connects everything together for you. And the superpower is what sets you apart. It’s what allows you to help the people in your life, slay their villains, right and come out on top in their own journeys. So with that sort of framing, what is your superpower?

Steve Sims 31:32
You know, I would love to say that it was one of those that you mentioned, I love a super suit that made me look slim. That would be cool. When its just it’s ignorance. It’s it’s really, as a kid growing up in the in the 90s, we didn’t have all the social platforms to validate how inadequate My life was. So I didn’t, it’s a good way of putting that. Yeah, I didn’t notice these things. I didn’t know anything about it. So I wasn’t scared of it. I was ignorant to it. And as I grew up, and I started communicating with rich people, because they were rich, you know, I wasn’t scared of them, you know, I would just have conversations, me and them. And so I was very ignorant. I’ll tell you a story. And I didn’t know the impact this story would have on me until later on in life, which is, you know, most common with pivotal moments. But I had gone into this pub with my two buddies, and we were playing, we were playing the you know, the pocket, the pocket bank account kind of thing you know, where you put your hands in your pocket and kind of try to work out how much money you’ve got in there and how many beers you can buy. And there’ll be three of us and maybe. We call that the hip National Bank. HMB Exactly. And I remember, you know, usually there’d be three of us. So we’d all be able to buy a beer, maybe we’d be able to buy with all of our collective money, maybe two more beers and just divide it between us, you know, but it was that kind of thing. And I used to hate that. And I walked into this bar one night with my two buddies. And there was this guy in our local local area of London, that he owns the local supermarket, and he owned the local gas station. Okay. Now in my little area, my little pocket of rough London, this was like walking in and seeing Richard Branson in your room. You know, this was like, the Almighty businessman. This was a, this was a guy that you knew about in your area, but very rarely saw him, you know, cuz he was he was too big for us. There was our pop. And my buddy was like, Oh, that’s so and so he’s filthy rich. He’s very powerful. He owns you know, suit mark. And again, that’s him. And before I thought about it, I walked over to him, and I went, hey, you doing your son? So my name so you don’t know me. But I just thought I’d come and say hi. And we started chatting. And I thought to myself, if I want to be rich, am I going to get rich by talking to broke people? Or am I going to get rich by talking to rich people, but I will. I had no fear of having the conversation. And the funny thing was, as I’m talking to the guy, the guy was just bad water drink and he went on get a beer. I like cheers, man. Yeah, I love a beer and he bought me a beer. This was like me getting an Oscar. You know, I got a beer. And I have not had to pay for it. For me, that was a major win. You know, I felt like I was gonna have to give a thank you speech. And I’m sipping my beer. And I literally turned to the left of me to talk to my buddies to wonder why they hadn’t been offered a beer. And when I turned around, I noticed they were leaning up against the wall. At the furthest point of the pub, looking at me. Now they had that beers that they had paid for I’ve got a beer that I hadn’t had to pay for. I’m now talking to a guy that has business knowledge and has money, has the cars has girls around him. I couldn’t understand why those people hadn’t walked over. And I had, it made no sense to me. Why you would pin yourself again, literally pin yourself against the wall. So as to be the furthest possible what point you could be away from this guy. My intellect was if you’ve got something and I want, I’m going to talk to you about it. If you know something, and I don’t know, which is pretty much everyone. I want to find out what it is if you’ve got some secret sauce, and I haven’t, I want to know what your source is and it. My wife jokes that I’m a 54 year old four year old. I’m the guy that walks up to anyone going, how did that make you feel? How did you do that? Why is that important? And I will ask the question. And so I think my superpower was the fact that I had no fear. And I’ll name drop and give you a little story The validated that to me as the years went on. So I was doing an event with Elon Musk about five, maybe six years ago, just before NASA took him on as a client, okay, or vice versa, you know, depending on which camp you look at, but when when Elon was privateer within the space industry. And I was down in SpaceX down in Hawthorne. And I walked him through Hawthorne, to because we had a room full of all these billionaires that were going to meet Elon, I went over to get him and I had two of my clients with me. And one of the clients was just happy to be in the vicinity of Elon Musk, and the other one wanted to have a conversation with him. So as we’re walking towards the room, where all the other billionaires were, my client wouldn’t shut up. He was trying to engage Elon in a conversation and Elon is not a very conversational guy, he doesn’t waste chit chat. And my guys, oh, how did you do this? or What did you think about it, and just to a point, actually verging on getting annoying, and I thought to myself, I’m gonna have to lean over in a minute and just tell him to shut up as we’re walking through the SpaceX plan. And he turns around, and he says, Hey, Mr. Musk. Um, how do you feel about NASA publicly taking on because there have been a report that they had taken on this group, there would spend all that time basically taking the piss out of whatever Elon would tweet, you know, and would basically ridicule him for being in the space industry. And he said, Yeah, how do you feel about the fact that NASA has now come out that publicly, they’ve got a group that just like to diss anything that you say, within the space industry, and Elon didn’t even break slide didn’t even look at this guy. I was annoyed at a question. But Elon turned around, he said, you know, as an entrepreneur, they always laugh at you before they applaud.

And I really, the thing I noticed was, any entrepreneur, first of all looks at the source of the comment. If you are getting ridiculed by the largest space industry in the planet, the actually focus on you, then maybe you have something, you know, and totally, absolutely exactly be so successful, that you have haters be so good, that people steal your shit and replicate it. You know, that’s when you know you’ve got don’t look at the negative in it, look in the positive at it. And people will laugh at you always before they rejoice and applaud. And I’ve had it I’ve had people that when my book came out, because I worked for authors. And because I had put events on for companies and had these very, very well known influences and thought leaders, I had a lot of these people as friends. When I came out and started just saying what I thought the amount of them actually tried to get me to shut up. Because I was actually calling it as it was. And the amount of times I would see someone, there was a thought leader that was sitting on a jet that didn’t even take off just so you could get the selfie of him on a jet and go strive for your goals. And you too can have this life and that life was fake. And I live in Hollywood, there’s an airport up the road where you can literally rent an hour and be the jet for any kind of filming. It won’t start up. It’s hot as hell in there on a hot day because there’s no air conditioning, but they will take pictures of themselves on that plane. When a bunch of girls making out as though they got a private jet. And that kind of bullshit. I was just calling out and I would get people constantly going Steve, you know, you know the way the game is played. Now we’re like, No, I don’t. If you’ve got it, talk about it, but if you’re faking it, shut up and move on. And and that’s what I loved about Elon. Elon looks at the person that’s saying something before he listens to what they say. And if the person is inadequate, there’s taking a jab at him. Suck on that he doesn’t even listen to it. But if someone’s got value in substances having a go at him, or complimenting him, that is sort of a compliment, or it’s a compliment.

Richard Matthews 40:22
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a it’s an interesting way to look at everything that’s going on, right? Because you want you want to be working in such a way that you’re unignorable. Right. And I know that’s. Absolutely, and that’s the way that I’ve gotten all the cool relationships I have in my life with with people in my industry. I’ve always been about like, how can I become unignorable to this person? And generally then you know, it’s it’s some some way of providing value to them. But you know, that’s just networking stuff. But when you become unignorable good or bad, right, it’s generally means you’re doing something right.

Steve Sims 40:54
Yep, absolutely, absolutely.

Richard Matthews 40:58
Cool. So my next question for you then is the flip side, right? The flip side of your superpower is your fatal flaw. Right? So every Superman has his kryptonite, and every Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. So you probably have a flaw that’s held you back, right? In business, something you struggled with maybe like, for me, it was things like perfectionism, which kept me from shipping products before, you know, I wanted to tweak them a little bit more or a lack of self care, which means I let my clients walk over me when I was a younger entrepreneur. And I think more important than what the flaw is, how did we work to rectify it over the years so that you can continue to grow in your life in your business. So people who are listening might learn a little bit from your experience there.

Steve Sims 41:36
So at the ripe old age of about 12 year old, I shoved myself on someone else’s moped head. And I learned the glory of two wheels. And I’ve always been on motorcycles. I’m 54 year old now, I’m, I’m here in my studio, which is also my garrage. And there’s 19 motorcycles around me, and I don’t have a car. So I absolutely love motorcycles. And I’m always wearing a black t shirt, black jeans, you know, it’s just me nine times out of 10, you’re seeing me with a crash helmet in my hand. There was a point about seven years into my business when I was dealing with billionaires. Now seven years, I already had some powerful people, I already had a great apartment. And so Life was good. But something suddenly triggered in me. That made me think the visually I didn’t look appropriate, I didn’t look adequate, I didn’t look credible. So I went out, and I bought tailor made suits. I bought a 50 grand watch, I bought a Ferrari. And I started turning up in this suit to events that I normally would just pull up onto a motorcycle, put the crash helmet on the bar, and then get on with the event, I now started turning up in a suit and stuff. And there was one big party that I attended in Monaco that I drove from Geneva, I was living in Geneva at the time, I drove down in a Ferrari with a suit, all looking really pocket and beautiful. And I did the party, and I came back. And I’d had my wife take loads of photographs of the event. And there was photographs of me all over this Ferrari in a suit. And I know is one thing glaring. I wasn’t in that picture. The car was some fancy burger in a suit with an overpriced watch. Someone tried to show off, was in that picture. It wasn’t me. And I got very depressed about it. And I thought to myself, you know is it me Is it the world is something changed is my marketing, my messaging, my branding, and I’d never focused on branding. And a couple of nights later was an event that goes on in Geneva that I’d gone to an every month you would go to this event and for the last few months, I’ve gone to in this suit. And I thought to myself something must be I’m going to go because I liked the barman, he made me good old fashions. I’m going to go and I’m going to maybe try and work out what’s going on. So I turned up at this event. In a matter of drink now I turned up back on a motorcycle in my black t shirt. And the last two times I’ve been I’ve been in a suit turning up in a Ferrari. And you know, when you go to these events, there’s always people that you know, maybe their first name, but you know nothing else about them. You know, they’re not your kind of person. But you know, they’re like, hey, John, and that’s as much as you know, and that’s as much as the interaction ever is. So there was this annoying guy that used to go around chatting away where I didn’t take a liking to him. It wasn’t my person. And I’m at the bar. And as he walked past he went, Steve, and I went, I kind of mean what his name was, but it was probably John or something like that. Oh, and hey, John, and he turned around and he said these words when I wasn’t seeing you here in four months, man How you doing? Now I’d never ever missed this event, never missed it. But the second I changed, I was invisible. People didn’t see me. Because I wasn’t relatable. I wasn’t flaws at all. It wasn’t me. And I realized I had spent months exerting energy on being somebody that I wasn’t. And I realized that night, I’m not going to waste that energy just like an iPhone, you know, it runs out of power, why? Why waste the power on something that’s not relevant. So I decided at that time, I was never going to spend an ounce of energy on being anyone else that I wasn’t. So I got rid of the suits, got rid of the car, went back to the motorbikes. And it was a very powerful six months of my life. But I realized I was not going to sell out me My only valuable asset.

Richard Matthews 45:50
So question is, did you keep the fancy watch though?

Steve Sims 45:53
Actually, I, I did for a little bit. And then I sold it and bought two motorcycles.

Richard Matthews 45:58
There go to motorcycle. See, that’s it. That’s one of the things that I’ve always like, I don’t struggle with it now as much as I did. But when we first started traveling, right, I’m because of that, because this thing that I’ve always wanted to do since I was like 12 years old, we have a pretty minimalist life, right? Like I I have, I have a grand total of three shirts, right three button up shirts, that and that’s it, right, and I have four t shirts, one of them got stolen the other day, I’ve got now I’ve got three t shirts and three buttons. That’s it. So if you watch this whole show, I think this is you know, we’re right around Episode 150. I’m wearing the same one of two or three shirts in every single episode. Right? It never changes, because I’m just like, I’m a minimalist. And always and always, like, it always bothered me when I was earlier in my career, wondering what other people think about me if I’m actually looking the part and realize that at some point, it doesn’t matter, right? Because they’re not thinking about you. They don’t give a damn, they care about you know, about your relationship with them and how you interact in their story. Right? The impact. Yeah, the impact that you have on their life. And that comes from the experiences you have together, right. And it comes from the impact you have on their life and that kind of stuff. And that’s, that’s so much more important than you trying to fit yourself into some mold you that you think they want you in, right? Because the reality is, is they’re not thinking about you that way. Right? They don’t give a damn.

Steve Sims 47:17
Yep, totally.

Richard Matthews 47:19
So yeah, that’s a it’s a really good, good point. So my next question sort of follow on to that is, once you’ve sort of made that realization, and started to just sort of own who you were, how did that realization impact your business in your growth.

Steve Sims 47:34
So I lost a lot of clients. And that’s not the word you want to be hearing. But I lost a lot of people that fell in love with the fancy gear in the suit in the Ferrari, that I had no relationship with. So I lost those, I started panicking thinking, should I go back to my suit. But the funny thing was, I noticed, I had a connection with the clients that remained with me because there was a me and them relationship, it was superficial with the other people that are bought into the Ferrari guy. So it was easier for me to deal with these people than it was for me to be someone else to deal with those people. So I found that my life got easier. I got more relaxed, and being by being relaxed and easier, I was impossible to misunderstand. And therefore I attracted those that I can connect with. You see, I love there to be too I either like to aggravate or attract, okay? I like to relate or repel, I want to make them a trigger. That you can turn around and go, I like this guy, I’m gonna stay in the sandpit or I don’t like this guy. I’m out of here. Both of those responses work well for me. Okay. And, and I take no disrespect. In fact, I’m thrilled that that’s the way it actually is. So there was a small time where I lost all of the superficial clients. But over a six month period, I was three times up. And now I wake up in the morning, and you talk about your shirts, I’ve got a long line of black t shirts. Okay. And I just literally go I shot hand up t shirt on, you know. And that’s it. So I just put a black t shirt today I got a black hoodie over my black t shirt because it’s a bit chilly here. But that’s it, it’s very easy. And I have no energy to worry about trying to be someone else.

Richard Matthews 49:25
That’s one of my one of my things, all of my pants and all of my shirts match. So it doesn’t matter what I put out at the door in the morning, I just wear it. So so I think that it’s actually a really powerful point, the whole idea of being attracting and repelling people because it’s something that I’ve talked with all of my clients about is learning how to we in my business. We talked about building a heroic brand, right? And, and what it actually looks like to build heroic brand because a lot of people that I work with are educators and their, you know, their authors and their speakers, those kind of things we’re talking about, you know, building themselves up as heroic brand and one of the things that we talk about is finding out who you are, what your personality is, and then picking the pieces of your personality that are really you and learning how to turn those up, right? How to amplify yourself, right? And when you learn to amplify yourself and amplify the pieces of your personality, that really like speak to you, what that does is it creates that dichotomy, right? It creates that dichotomy of the people who are going to love you, or the people are going to hate you. And that that’s a magical place to be in, where we’re, your, your personality or your brand, whether it’s just an individual or your business’s brand you want, you want the kind of people who like you know, they put up the tip jar, and they say, you know, do you you know, if you like apple, put it in here, if you like Android, put it in here, you want that kind of dichotomy for your brand, right for people to look at and be either love him or hate him because that that’s a powerful place to be for your, for your business. And it’s fascinating to me that like you, you discovered that through through this really fancy bit of you know, buying Ferraris and fancy watches and things.

Steve Sims 51:00
Yeah, yeah, I found I found that where I didn’t fit. And that’s very valuable.

Richard Matthews 51:05
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s a it’s a hard pill to swallow too, because, right, like, we grew up thinking like, you know, what, is it Mr. Rogers Neighborhood? Do you want everyone to be your friend kind of thing? And that’s, it’s just not real life? Nope, nope. Cool. So my next question, this will be interesting is your common enemy. And generally, we put this in the context of your clients, right? The people that you work with, so every superhero has an arch nemesis, it’s the things that they constantly have to fight against, in their world. In the world of business, it takes a lot of forms. But generally speaking, in the context of your clients, it’s a mindset or a flaw that you constantly have to fight to overcome with them. Right, so that you can get them, you know, the results that they’re looking for. Right. So if you had your magic wand, you could just bop all of your clients on the head, right? When you started working with them. And, you know, get rid of that mindset, what would that be for you? What’s the common enemy, your arch nemesis,

Steve Sims 51:55
so to speak, um, I think my arch nemesis is becoming like everyone else. You see, it’s easy. You’ve got these social feeds now. And there’s a reason it’s called a feed, you got to feed the bloody monster. So you’ve got to make sure you’re on social, you’ve got to make sure that you’re always saying something of impact, you’ve got to make sure you’re always posting. Because if you don’t, you’re competitive is. And you’ve got to make sure that you’re not posting for posting. So you can very easily just have like, 30 brilliant memes. And just everyday is like being a man you want to be, you know, you can do this or go for go, you’ve got to make sure that you’re not just becoming like some kind of meme toilet paper have no impact, and effort. So I think it’s I’ve seen some people that I think have a smart there, because they realize they’ve got to feed something and like all entrepreneurs, I can say to you, you know, what is your favorite drink, and you could go into glass of wine. And I could say to you, okay, five o’clock every night, you’re gonna be given that glass of your favorite wine. Bottom line is, I reckon maybe you’d go about six days before you get aggravated to that has to be at five o’clock, because entrepreneurs, we strive to conquer, and to control. But we don’t like it in reverse where it’s controlled in us. So even if we like something being told, we got to do it at five o’clock, as an entrepreneur would start doing it to five, or would start doing at five past five, we would start fluctuate in it to gain that control back. So when the social feeds are telling us we got to populate it. I think the downside is that it’s very easy to lose your true spirit and momentum, passion, voice tonality, when you have to start doing it. So you’ve got to be careful of not becoming a joke in fake meme in this world of fake gurus.

Richard Matthews 54:00
Yeah, I think one of the ways that I’ve personally dealt with that, one, I totally get the whole, you know, if they tell you to do it, you don’t want to do it. Because every time I see a road sign, I’m like, I just want to break the road sign because it’s there. Right? Like break the rules go the wrong way on the street. But the the, with, with the being real on the social feed, I’ve found, at least personally, that you have to not look at the feed as the thing that you’re trying your thing that you’re trying to do. Right, you have to actually live life, right and have experiences and meet people and build relationships and build cool things. And let your feed be a reflection of that. Right? If you’re trying to, if you’re trying if you’re trying to just make the feed or original life, then it’s it’s it’s horrifyingly bad for yourself and then for also building an authentic, you know, audience.

Steve Sims 54:51
It’s gonna go wrong. Yeah, it’s gonna go wrong. 100%

Richard Matthews 54:54
Yeah, that’s cool. So, then my next question for you is the flip side of your common emnemy, which is your driving force, right? If you’re coming into me is what you fight against, then your driving forces what you fight for. So just like Spider Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information, I want to know what it is that you fight for your mission, so to speak,

Steve Sims 55:16
style, um, it’s weird, but I, I try to fail as much as I can. My fear, which drives me, my fear is that I would be the same person next year that I am today, I need to strive to achieve, to grow, to experience to taste, to feel, and I want to constantly push those things out. So I, I’ve noticed that if anything stands still it gets cut down, I go stagnant, and it dies. So my my focus is to always strive to grow. I remember someone saying to me before that the definition of Hell is to meet the man meet the man you could have been. And I don’t ever want to meet the man I could have been. I want to be the man that I am.

Richard Matthews 56:08
Yeah, that’s a that’s a really powerful thought, right to meet the man you could have been? Yeah, it was Joe

Steve Sims 56:13
Polish. It wasn’t me.

Richard Matthews 56:15
I was I was just, uh, last night before before bed, I went through and pulled out a whole bunch of essays I’ve written over the years, and was looking at stuff from like, before I had gotten married like 12 years ago, and reading some of the things that I had with my wife and going over some of the stuff and it was just, it was fascinating to me to see, like, who I thought I would be, and who I am now and realizing that it was like, because of the stuff that I was striving for. I hit and exceeded all the dreams I had for myself five years ago, which is crazy. But a lot of that comes down to realizing that you just have to constantly be striving for something right? I tell people that, uh, you you have to, you have to be satisfied with your where you’re at. And you have to be satisfied here and like be content, but you also have to have somewhere where you want to go right, you know, be satisfied and have a journey. Right? Yeah. Because it’s, it’s, it’s the experience of actually living and going out and doing things and striving for something forward that grows and do you know, the better person?

Steve Sims 57:16
Absolutely, absolutely.

Richard Matthews 57:20
So my next question for you, then is a practical question, right? I call this the heroes tool belt. And it’s, you know, like every superhero has their awesome gadgets like batarangs rings, or web slingers, or laser eyes, or you know, like Thor big magical hammer, talk about top one or two tools you use in your use in your business that you couldn’t live without could be something as simple as your notepad or your calendar, to your marketing tools for your product delivery, anything that you think is essential to getting the job done that you do now.

Steve Sims 57:47
So there’s two things that you just named one of them. One of them is my pattern pen, I love to write things down, not type them, I will type them after I’ve written them down. But I have a notepad in about three or four places in the house and a pen. And I’m just constantly writing things down. So my pad and my pen and notepad are integral for me to be able to come up I’ve got one here. And I constantly have to be able to go and do that. My second thing, maybe the weird one is a motorbike. When I’m on a motorbike, I can’t be drinking a cup of coffee, I can’t be answering the phone, I can’t be given anyone a lift anywhere, because most of my bikes just got a single seat on them. So I’m free. And when I’m free, I’m able to lease set and then come back to the world and then get back into it. So it’s that escapism. So it’s a notepad to be able to influence what I’m going to do. And it’s my motorbike to get me away from everything for five minutes. So when I get back, the priority is clicking the place.

Richard Matthews 58:48
That’s awesome. Yeah, I can’t do the notepad thing. So I write it down. It’s gone forever, like in my head is just lost. So I do. I have a little notepad I keep in my phone, because I’m there actually there, but I have the same kind of thing. Like I was to take notes on it. My little free thing is kayaking, right? Because, you know, I got my little one person kayak and we travel, I stick it out of there, and we go out for a couple miles only by myself. And it resets resets everything. So it’s a it’s a powerful skill. And it’s also one of the things that I wish more entrepreneurs had in their life. I call it giving yourself permission to play, right? Because you have to we for whatever reason, I’ve noticed a lot of entrepreneurs really struggle with this idea that like, I haven’t worked enough to earn my playtime, right, and they don’t realize that learning how to actually integrate play into your life. And I know that’s a simple word to use for it. But you know, recreation, those kind of things are actually what’s it’s sort of the foundation for doing good work. Right? Yeah, it is. Yeah. So you have to find a way to integrate that into your life and give yourself permission to play. Um, because then you can go out and actually do good things make an impact in people’s lives. Speaking of heroic tools, I want to take a few minutes to tell you about a tool we built that powers the hero show and is now this show’s primary sponsor. Hey there fellow podcaster. Having a weekly audio and video show on all the major online networks that builds your brand creates fame and drive sales for your business doesn’t have to be hard. I know it feels that way. Because you’ve tried managing your show internally and realize how resource intensive it can be. You felt the pain of pouring eight to 10 hours of work into just getting one hour of content published and promoted all over the place. You see the drain on your resources, but you do it anyways. Because you know how powerful it is hack you probably even tried some of those automated solutions and ended up with stuff that makes your brand look cheesy and cheap. That’s not helping grow your business. Don’t give up though. The struggle ends now introducing push button podcasts a done for you service that will help you get your show out every single week without you lifting a finger. After you’ve pushed that stop record button. We handle everything else uploading, editing, transcribing, writing, research graphics, publication and promotion, all done by real humans who know understand and care about your brand, almost as much as you do. And powered by our own proprietary technology, our team will let you get back to doing what you love. While we handle the rest. Check us out at push button podcast com forward slash hero for 10% off the lifetime of your service with us and see the power of having an audio and video podcast growing and driving micro celebrity status and business in your niche without you having to lift more than a finger to push that stop record button. Again, that’s push button podcast.com forward slash hero. See you there. You’re listening to the hero show, unlocking the power of influence and success. Cool. So only a couple more questions here for you. Next one is about your own personal heroes. Right so every hero has their mentors. Frodo has Gandalf Luke has Obi Wan Robert Kiyosaki has Rich Dad, Spider Man has uncle, Uncle Ben, Who were some of your heroes? Were they real life mentors, speakers, authors, maybe peers who were a couple years ahead of you, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far,

Steve Sims 1:01:49
I have a great belief that we should listen to everyone. If it doesn’t resonate, then then you know, walk away from it. But it’s amazing how so many people have an opinion that can help you and they may not even have anything to do with your business. I am very fortunate along the way to have friends like Joe Polish Jay Abraham. So I’ve got some high profile friends. But I still stay in touch with some of my boys from London. They just have a way of getting into me. And asking me questions that challenge myself. You know, I got Joe polish and Jay Abraham, but I’ll give a shout out to Colin West. And he has written a book and he hasn’t, you know, spoken on stage. But he was it’d be as much of an influence on how to be a man as any of the other celebrity friends that I have. So I would say those people.

Richard Matthews 1:02:40
Yeah, it’s always fascinating to me when I asked that question, because one of the things that strikes me is everyone has those, quote unquote, normal people in their lives, who wouldn’t even suspect themselves that you might look to them as a hero? Yeah. And and yet, you do, right. And I have those people in my life and everyone does. And the thing that’s always it always reminds me of is to remember that, like, you probably have people in your life, or I have people in my life that are looking up to me as a hero. And am I acting in a way that I actually deserve that? Right? It’s sort of my own personal reminder, you know, to myself that, hey, people are looking up to you, whether that’s my kids or my wife, or people in my business, there’s people who look up to me and I might act in a way that actually is deserving of that recognition.

Steve Sims 1:03:22
Yeah, Joe Polish calls it the first domino. You may be the domino to someone else’s lineup. So yeah, he talks about the domino effect. He’s very good at that.

Richard Matthews 1:03:31
Yeah, absolutely. Cool. So, um, last question here, then, is your guiding principles. It’s one of the things that makes heroes heroic is that they live by a code. You know, for instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever brings them to Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, when I talk about top one or two principles that you use regular in your life, maybe your principle you wish you had known when you first started out on your hero’s journey back when you were 16. On that bricklaying does this. Yeah.

Steve Sims 1:03:59
Um, okay, I think I’ve only got one. And ask yourself the question, would you be proud to meet you in the street. And so I always want to be the man that would be proud to meet, you know, I want to be honest, I want to be straightforward. I want to call it as it is, I want to be impossible to misunderstand. I want to be a true north as much as I can. So always strive to be the man that you would be proud to meet.

Richard Matthews 1:04:28
That is a really good way to say that. And, and it’s, you know, ties right into that, you know, first domino, right? You want to be the kind of person that, that you’re happy to be be around, but that you’d be you would invite yourself to dinner. Right?

Steve Sims 1:04:43
Yeah, yeah. There you go.

Richard Matthews 1:04:46
Cool. So that’s basically a wrap on our interview. But I do finish every interview with a simple challenge that I call the hero’s challenge, and I do this selfishly to help myself get access to stories that might not otherwise find. So the question is simple. Do you have someone in your life and your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story? Who are they? first names are fine. And why do you think they should come and share their story here on the hero show? You have probably a big list. First person comes to mind. Yeah, that’s

Steve Sims 1:05:11
that’s a tough, that’s a tough thing to come up with. And that takes some thought, is one of those things that I need to reflect on the conversation we’ve had the arena that you’re talking to. So I’m gonna hold back on that until I’ve actually previewed my list a little bit more, I don’t want to suddenly go, Oh, well, but you know, and then go, well, hang on a minute, Barry would be better off. So that needs a little bit more thought than an instant that can be a knee jerk reaction. That is, that is totally fine. I

Richard Matthews 1:05:12
I don’t generally have a lot of people who have the kind of network that you have. So that’s, uh, you know, I’ll let you I’ll let you slide on that one. So So in, in comic books, there’s always the send off, right? There’s the crowd of people at the end, who was cheering on the hero and clapping them, you know, thank them for their work. So as we close, what I want to do is find out where can people find you? Where can they light up the bat signal, so to speak, and say, Hey, Steve, I really need your help. I’d like you to either come speak to my group, or I’d like to read your book. You know, who and so more importantly, than I think, you know, where they can find you is who are the right types of people to raise their hands and say, Hey, Steve, I’d like some help me.

Steve Sims 1:06:20
Well, I’m looking for creative disruptors that are aggravated, where they are now. They can find me on my entrepreneurs advantage Facebook page, they can go to steved sims.com. And it’ll have all the links to everything from Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, but I’m really easy to find a stevedsims.com, or any of the social platforms around there. But if you’re comfortable, if you’ve settled, then don’t reach out. If you’re aggravated, and you think there should be more. And again, I said earlier that you are the combination of the room, if you want to make sure you’re in the right room, then get in my rooms. You may want me personally, so you need to head over to Sims distillery.com for that. But other than that, and entrepreneurs advantage is usually the best bet.

Richard Matthews 1:07:05
Awesome. So thank you so much for coming on the show today, Steve, it has been fascinating getting to hear your story and it comes to things that you’ve done in your life. So thank you for coming on. And before we hit this little stop record button, you have any final words of wisdom for our audience?

Steve Sims 1:07:20
Yeah, let’s finish it off with my dad. My dad once said to me, big thick brick, British builder. He said to me one son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water, they drowned by staying there.

Richard Matthews 1:07:34
Good. Thank you very much, Steve. I really appreciate your time today.