– Life By Design
– Is entrepreneurship for everyone?
– Being a public speaker as an introvert
– Karma Credits
– The purpose of life
– How to scale your business
– The Wealth Hierarchy
– Dan’s morning and daily routine
– Work ethic is a weakness
Join my community of like-minded business owners: Ben’s Business Book Club
Transcript:
Okay, so welcome to Ben’s Business Podcast, Dan.
Thanks for joining.
Thank you for having me, Ben.
Yeah, Dan is a serial entrepreneur.
I think you’ve got 20 businesses.
So if I’m maybe you’ve got more by now,
your best sell and author of the new book, Karma Credits,
and you retired at age 35.
I’ve done a quick introduction of you,
but I learned about you through Chef,
who’s on your board in the property entrepreneur training
that you do, and Veer Haria, the brothers.
And it was actually Veer who encouraged me
to do this interview with you.
He says that I would like to hear what you say.
So I went and read your books and everything.
That’s how this ended up happening.
So would you like to do a quick introduction of yourself?
Yeah, absolutely.
So anyone who I’ve not had the pleasure to meet previously,
my name is Daniel Hill.
I’ve been in business for 20 years this year.
And built small and medium-sized businesses
went into property in 2012.
I’ve started systemized, scaled, bought and sold
about 45 different companies.
And they range from small startups,
a couple of employees, low costs, high margins,
up to national, international,
multi-million pound organizations.
So wherever your audience are on this spectrum,
hopefully I can give them as much value
as possible as to where they are.
I focus now mainly on angel investing
and on the property side of things, property development.
So taking larger buildings and developing them
into blocks of flats.
OK.
And do you have like a bigger vision of like 20 years,
like a life sort of vision?
I know that’s quite a deep first question,
but do you have like a sort of next steps?
Because I know that you got to a sort of checkpoint of your life.
And do you have like something that you’re looking at in 20 years?
So it’s a really good question.
I think I’m definitely at the end of a cycle.
So whether you believe in things like five-year plans
or more sort of like spiritual woo-woo stuff,
like seven-year cycles,
I’m definitely feel like I’m at the end of a cycle.
And I’m now in like the spring of the next stage of my life.
And I would say, probably not.
I don’t have these like grandiose,
I don’t want to be a billionaire or at the least at the minute.
I don’t want to be a billionaire.
I don’t want to be like, I don’t want to own 10,000 properties.
I don’t have any of those big goals.
I think the only things that I want is,
I want to be fit and healthy.
I want to be like the best shape I can be.
And I like really enjoy my life.
That’s quite a key focus of mine.
And then secondly, have kids.
I don’t have kids at the minute.
Okay, so that’s the only thing that’s in there.
I was, and go to the Grand Canyon.
There are the only things that are actually on my list of like,
my bucket list, if you like.
Cool.
Yeah, I’ve got three kids.
So that’s a new challenge in itself.
How old were you in your first?
About 29, I think it was.
Yeah, some 36 now, and I’m thinking,
I should probably grow up at some point in starting to say,
yeah, I think I probably need to get on with it.
Any words of advice?
You sound like you’re at well positioned for having children.
I think I would have maybe if like worked on my businesses,
maybe first and done the same, same order as you.
So I think you’re well positioned
because then it can be a bit camera,
rather than being in the growth phase,
well, having three children.
I just like packed on more stress.
So, yeah.
I haven’t trained enough.
I think like people, my friends either went and had fat,
like went to the uni or left school and had families.
And their kids allow like, seven, eight, nine, 10.
And now they’re sort of starting their careers, if you like.
Or some of us, like me, went and did all the business stuff.
You know, major money, set yourself up.
And then you’ve got to sort of go back and be, you know,
go back and have kids.
So you can’t have your cake and eat it.
I’m sure there’s no right or wrong way to do it.
Yeah, exactly.
Like we all have our own sort of plans and that we follow.
So we’ll show 20-year plan.
My 20-year plan to be retired financially free
and in what my version of what that is.
And to be doing more speaking, more of this,
this is my passion, like discussing ideas
and even moving in towards like a political area.
Slightly different from original,
the like original political way that things are done.
So it’s sort of to change the way that rules and laws are set.
So it’s sort of to break the rules and reset things.
So yeah, that’s a bigger goal.
Yeah, good for you.
A lot of sound at that.
I do sometimes get frustrated with politics and economics
and stuff like that.
And I think, do you know what?
I’d love to just grab it by the, whatever’s in and give it a shake.
But yeah, equally, you appreciate that.
The, the, the, the room, like if it was that easy,
someone would have cracked it by now.
I’m sure behind the scenes, it’s an absolutely nightmare.
So yeah.
So you’re staying in my own thing for a bit.
Yeah, it’s a long term thing.
Also, that’s not an easy, an easy one.
Um, so you’ve got this phrase.
You use a leaf bay design.
Could you explain what that is to people?
So life by design is, I suppose my focus is,
uh, I sort of work with people who want to make more money,
because who doesn’t want to make more money?
But ideally, the, have fun doing it or even for fun.
Like once you’ve made your money and it’s covered,
it doesn’t mean you have to stop being entrepreneur.
And equally on that journey to get there, it’s hard work.
It’s, you know, it’s a huge trade off.
But it doesn’t have to be like really painful.
And also like, there’s loads of phases of being an entrepreneur
and being an investor and wealth creation.
And the whole thing of life by design is that,
if you think about your life, well, you know, your book club, you know,
book, a book, a good book has loads of like,
really engaging chapters.
And every page of every chapter is, is a head, is a page turner.
And every chapter is completely different to the last.
And it’s, and it’s got you absolutely, absolutely gripped.
But that life by design is the concept of having that for your life.
So what we do is we say that you have, I have a life by design,
which means you designed it yourself and you live in it,
or a life by default, which is basically by the job you have,
where you live, the family, you grow up in.
And what we do is we have a 12 month cycle that we use
for our businesses and our lives.
And the life by design element is that through by the beginning,
a lot of people have new years resolutions,
we have your, what we call the year of.
Okay, so for this year, this is my year of,
and the year of car pay DM.
So it’s basically every year, you have a title,
and then you have other objectives in it.
And it’s basically you’ve designed your life,
you then go and live your life like that.
And some years are amazing.
I mean, all years are game changing.
But some of them are amazing.
And you think I’m going to keep this forever,
like maybe it’s giving up smoking,
giving up drinking, giving up,
or start your fitness journey, whatever it is.
And you think I’m going to keep those things.
Equally, you’re like last year, I sent me retired
and I went down to do like a 12 hour work week.
And my year was the year of 12 hour work week.
And it was a really high value.
I actually did a podcast episode a couple of weeks ago.
People go to the official property entrepreneur podcast.
I did one called the year of,
where I talked about my year of last year,
which was 12 hour work week.
And then this year, which is my year of car pay DM.
And last year was a really hard year.
A tough year didn’t really, I learned a lot about myself,
but didn’t really enjoy it.
So it was one of those years that you put to bed
and you take the lessons and learnings.
And now without a doubt, I’m having one of my best years
on record this year.
So a lot of what is on is being deliberate
about what you do with your life,
rather than doing it by default.
Yeah, okay, yeah.
And rather than finding someone else that you can model
around, it’s actually your own version
of what’s success as well.
100%.
It’s life by design or life by comparison.
If you think it’s all about
Ferrari’s helicopters, six packs on Instagram,
it’s like, are those people really enjoying their lives?
Yeah, I mean, maybe they are, maybe they’re not.
But it’s like, it’s what’s important.
We’re all so different.
And there’s things that are important to us
and it’s understanding what they are
and getting more of them.
Yeah, yeah, I agree.
So it’s just like taking a step further
from like vision end to actually making a plan
for that vision.
Exactly, it’s like a business plan.
If you understand the value you get
from doing a business plan,
it’s like doing that for your life.
Yeah.
And it’s so exciting.
I literally love it.
I’ve been doing it for probably about 10 years.
I’ve been teaching it for 10 years.
So I’ve probably been doing it for, yeah, a lot longer.
Yeah, well, I’ve definitely been influenced
by what you’ve been teaching all the people,
like Shiv and Veer,
because I’ve seen them live really good lives as well.
And they link a lot of it back to what you teach.
So it’s definitely having an impact on people.
Yeah, I mean, I’ve done a how long you’ve known Shiv for,
but I’ve known him since the beginning of his journey.
And if you compare who he is now and where he is now,
compared to when he started, it’s like,
if you do actually put these things into practice,
it doesn’t just change your life.
Like it actually creates your life.
And it’s like people like Shiv and Veer
are both absolutely run with it.
Veer, the other day, he’s got all this stuff saved on his phone.
Shiv’s literally living in like Valencia this year
because his live body’s on is,
make the most of it before perhaps start for a family
or something.
It’s very tangible results you get from it.
Yeah, definitely.
And it’s brushed off on me as well,
just being friends with both of them.
Good man.
So what would you say your year off is for this year?
Like if you’d think first to say to you,
this year is all about, what is it for you?
Consistency?
Okay.
So similar to something we’ll probably touch on
about like a cash flow business,
I’m building a, I’m basically making a profit business
a cash flow business.
So it’s a question I have for you later about that.
But if I can make, actually, just jump to that question
and making it, making a business
that’s not got like direct debits or stand orders
coming into my business every month,
but just like making that month, like month on month,
the same, hitting the same sales target.
You think that’s the right way to do it?
Or does it just need to be predictable
or does it need to be actual stand in orders coming into the bank?
Say, is this sort of,
there’s basically for those who have not heard this model before,
one of the models we took, we teach is the wealth hierarchy,
which means it’s free, free levels, cash flow, profit and asset.
Really, cash flow is like your day job.
And the aim of the game is,
strip down your outgones as much as you can.
So if you can survive on 20 grand, survive on 20 grand,
go out and work every day to make that 20 grand.
That’s the heavy lifting hard work.
And then with the other five hours a week,
20 hours a week, three days a week
that you’ve basically bought back by not spending the money,
you use that time to do profit deals or profit companies.
And what are you looking for really?
If you want to become really wealthy
and have genuine financial independence,
it’s not created through, there’s not many,
there’s always exceptions to the rule,
but it’s not really created through cash flow.
So cash flow is, cash flow businesses pay the salaries,
it comes in every month,
something like a letting agency or a HMO portfolio
or a subscription-based business,
anything that comes in every month.
And as long as you go to work and do a good job,
it pays the bills.
You basically just want to do that pay the bills.
Real wealth is created when you stop going from the P&L,
which is cash flow to the balance sheet,
which is all about net wealth.
And whilst you might have to go to work three days a week,
48 weeks of the year to make your 20 grand
or your 50 grand a year to pay your salary.
When you start doing profit stuff,
which might be like flipping a business or flipping a property,
you might have six months or 12 months
where you don’t make a penny,
but when that deal lands,
and you’ve not had to pay the mortgage with it,
it’s 50 grand or it’s 100 grand or it’s half a million pounds,
and that increases your net wealth,
because it’s a big large capital event.
Yeah, large capital events.
I’ll see if I can change the view here.
Yeah, so that’s the higher arcade
that you’re talking about there, is that right?
Exactly.
Were you saying you’ve got your businesses,
basically a fit like a profit business,
you’re trying to make it a cash flow?
I’ll make a couple of thousand or 500.
It’s not predictable what I’ll make on each lead that comes in,
but I’ve got a sales target that I hit every month.
So I’m hitting that quite consistently.
The last three months consistently,
and that’s why this is the year of consistency,
so that instead of letting it fall short below the target,
I’m going to hit that target every month this year,
so that I can predict my income.
Cool, yeah, and that’s probably that business sounds
like somewhere between a cash flow and a profit business,
because if you’re making new sales every month,
and that pays for the cash flow, and it is consistent,
it’s probably bashing that square peg
into that round hole and making it work.
Yeah, really, it’s like whatever you’re doing,
if you could add a repeat, let’s say for example,
I think you said you do house clearances, do you?
Yeah, yeah.
So like the minute you probably rely on every month
on getting 20 new clients, which is sort of profit,
but if you could get this mail may not be a thing
in the industry, but as to illustrate,
if you could get contracts with probate lawyers
or auction houses or insolvency practitioners,
rather than then pay you a grander house,
they pay you 500 pounder house,
but they sign a contract for 12 months,
and they pay for six a month every month for 12 months.
Yeah, it sort of smooths that out
and gives it that consistency.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, that makes sense.
So that means there are commercial contracts with people.
Yeah, it’s just the idea is that it comes in without fail.
Like, if a business is a profit business,
it’s basically feast or famine.
So like a development company,
if you’re building houses and selling them,
in a two year cycle, you might have one quarter
where you make a million pound profit,
but for the other five quarters,
you’ve not made a penny,
so you’re racking up debt,
you know, you’re living off the overdraft,
and then yeah, the money you make pays off that debt,
and then the rest of it goes towards the next 12 months.
To say that my office door knocking.
Yeah, go get it.
Sorry about that.
That wasn’t planned.
Yes, fine, man, I’m worried about that.
Yeah, so it’s basically just trying to remove
the feast and famine.
If a business is feast and famine,
it’s not, it’s high stress,
whereas cash flow businesses should be low stress,
high consistency.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, yeah, that makes a lot of sense
and I’ve had that sort of second hand from Shiv as well
about finding ways to make that sort of,
basically stand an order comment.
So at the start of the month,
your sales targets halfway there already,
they are already full.
Exactly, yeah.
It’s like a portfolio.
If you had a hundred houses,
you might have 20 leave every month
that you’ve got to get let again,
but the other idea of paying the overheads,
paying the mortgage,
is that sort of thing really?
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And I’ve watched a couple of interviews
before this one just to prepare,
and you talked about being in other industries
before getting into property.
What were those industries and like what was,
how did you make your first 50 to 100 key?
Yeah, so I actually started in property as a kid.
So like at 15, well, at 14,
I started my first business,
so I had a mobile disco company.
Okay.
Do not weddings,
birthdays, school discos, whatever you want.
You know, if it’s music to be played
and lights to turn on, I did that.
And then simultaneous to that,
I went to work on the buildings.
I was like a laborer, a roofer, a dry line,
just all the really heavy lifting jobs,
but really well paid.
So I did that.
Then I went to uni,
and then I started,
while I was at university,
I started, I had an events company
where we used to take students to Amsterdam,
every quarter and did that for about four years.
Then we got a five-year ban from P&O fairies.
So we had to cancel that business.
And I then had like a sort of,
not necessarily manufacturing,
but like customised clothing company.
We then turned that into a retail company,
and we had a few shops around,
around the not on a university campuses,
ran that for a few years,
and then came into property in 2012.
Probably the first like,
like 50 or 100 Kay would have been,
when we were talking about cash flow and profit,
when we took over the university,
the first 100 Kay year that we had,
I was probably,
that would have been like 2009.
So I was,
what’s that, 13 years ago, I’m 36,
so I’d have been 23.
So just, it was my first year at uni,
and we did our first 100,000 pound year.
And that was a combination of cash flow
from running a number of shops, right?
And then, profit,
we basically took on these contracts
that ran once a year.
It was basically,
think about a university selling clothes.
They sell them all year,
all day every year.
That’s your cash flow.
Whereas once a year,
there’s big graduation ceremony.
Yeah.
And the graduation ceremony,
you’d sell bears, hoodies, t-shirts,
mugs, pens, whatever.
But you only sell it once a year,
so you wouldn’t want to pay people’s salary with that money.
Yeah.
So we made sure the cash flow business paid for all our salaries.
But then once a year at less star,
not in a month,
third,
clip,
ports of wherever these uni’s were that we had contracts,
we would roll up with 20 grand, 50 grand,
who have a merchandise.
Right.
So they’re at four times what it cost us,
pay the uni a commission,
and we would literally,
I mean, back in the day,
cash was still a thing.
I would literally be downstairs in the,
in the Gents toilet in a cubicle,
counting out like 5, 10, 15 grand in notes.
Yeah.
It like once or twice a day,
because it was literally like absolutely bonkers.
Right.
That was my first sort of like non-property activity
that actually made good money
without getting in trouble really.
Right.
Okay.
Did there,
was there any point when you had multiple businesses at that theme
where I was,
did you go from one of those industries to the next?
Yeah, some, I mean,
I’ve sort of,
I’ve sold businesses along the way
or I’ve delegated them,
so they run by the people.
So post this goes,
which is 40 in 20s,
22 years old this year.
That was my first ever business.
It’s still going today.
Okay.
So like a friend of mine runs it,
it’s still going,
but I don’t have any interest at it,
like any ownership of that.
And then I’ve always got,
I think put other minute,
I don’t know how many companies are owned at the minute,
but I’m actively involved in like maybe one or two,
maybe a proper entrepreneur,
which are training company
and are portfolio builder,
which is our development company.
Yeah.
Those two businesses are sort of like actively involved
and all the other ones are mainly like non-exec.
So we own,
we just build an apportfolio private schools at the moment.
So I’ve started buying private schools.
I don’t,
apart from paying for them.
I don’t have any day-to-day operation on them.
And you know,
when I had the clothing business,
I had maybe two or three businesses.
And then nowadays I probably have like,
including the ones I’m like angel investor in
and I’m non-exec for probably,
I don’t know, maybe somewhere between 20 and 30,
probably more, probably like 20, 25 maybe,
something like that.
Okay.
So yeah,
as long as you’ve got the people running them,
they’re running fame themselves.
Yeah, as long as you know what you’re getting in for,
like if I’m a non-exec,
I know that I’m doing a board meeting once a month.
And that’s it.
Whereas if I’m starting a new company,
well, I don’t intend to do that anymore,
but if I was starting a company,
it’s you’ve got to appreciate that.
If you can only really have one or two companies
you’re running,
you can’t have 30,
I mean, even Elon Musk’s only got maybe four
that he’s actively involved in.
The rest, you know,
he’s sort of an advisor on investor or non-exec.
Yeah.
Okay.
And has there ever been a time
when you’ve struggled to earn income over,
you’ve always just been like a high achiever
and found business easy?
So it’s really good question.
I would say there’s definitely been periods
where I suppose there’s definitely definition
of making money as if it’s like surviving
and paying the mortgage.
Like never, I’ve never, never missed payroll once.
I’ve never, not paid my mortgage.
I’ve never had that level,
I’ve never had that issue.
Yeah.
If it’s making money as in like having a company
that consistently makes tens of thousands
or hundreds of thousands of hands a year,
yeah, absolutely.
I’ve had companies that have never,
probably never ever made a size of a matter of profit.
I’ve got other companies that will make
quarter of a million pound profit in a month
and they don’t have any employees.
It’s like that sort of comes with experience
and wisdom and like connection.
There’s in the like Ruru sort of world,
the like spirituality world where people talk about souls
and like how old your soul is.
And normally a young soul finds everything
really challenging and really hard.
And like doing anything like paying the bills
can be quite difficult.
Whereas an old soul is always surrounded by abundance.
Like it doesn’t matter what way you find yourself.
You’ve normally got a couple of quid in the bank.
People want to help you out.
An opportunity presents itself.
And I’d say definitely my life has been more like that.
I definitely wouldn’t say it’s been easy.
But I think that’s part of it.
It’s like I’ll do anything.
Like I’d empty the bins.
If the world ended tomorrow and the only job
that was going was empty in the bins,
I’d be the best bin empty.
I’d be the quickest.
I’d clean it for you as well.
I’d get a few mates to come to it with me.
Like I don’t really care what the work is.
I just like working, I think.
And I’ve done some crap jobs, like really crap jobs.
But I’ve never struggled to make money.
Yeah, yeah.
That’s interesting.
Yeah, it’s just like that follows on to the question,
do you think that anyone can do what you’ve done up to now?
Like you think it’s in everyone
or do you think there’s certain people
that they’re not built for it?
Even following your strategies that you teach.
So one of the more sort of mantras
is success and failure, very predictable.
And it’s like, genuinely, I can see in binary terms,
black and white, if a business or an individual
is gonna be successful based on what the plan is
and what they’re doing.
Yeah.
So it’s like it’s highly predictable.
It’s not like there’s a secret source.
However, there’s so many things that you need to align
in order for it to work.
Like a gyroscope, in order for it to be balanced
and it to work effectively.
There’s so many things.
I’ve been doing this 20 years this year
and I still struggle with things like energy levels,
motivation, risk and reward balance.
I can understand why some people are better suited
to being employees, so go to work.
Have your own challenges in your job,
but that’s the cap of it.
When you start to go up to the higher levels,
you really do need to have an appetite for risk
and appreciation for risk.
A mindset that can handle it.
I’m the very, I think it’s probably come with maturity,
but I’m a very stoic person.
Like the worst thing can happen.
And I’m still, I wouldn’t say I don’t care.
It’s like the whole thing of like care, but don’t worry.
I’m like very laissez-faire with it.
Like the world will be ending
and everyone around just fall into pieces.
And I’m just like, okay, cool.
So we’ve lost 100 grand on that or whatever.
Okay, right, so what’s the plan?
Where are we going?
I think it’s like, I think it would be unfair
to say anyone can do it.
I would say it’s for somebody who wants to do it.
Like really, not just says, yeah, I want to go and,
you know, build a 10 million pound portfolio.
For somebody who really wants to do it
and has got the raw burning desire,
I think it’s absolutely possible.
There’s no secret formula.
Well, there is a secret formula.
It is the blueprint that we teach.
If you follow that blueprint,
whether you want to make your first million
or scale up and be an empire builder,
or lose weight, whatever, the blueprint is there.
But the execution comes down to the person.
It’s like, how well can you execute?
And you’ll know people.
You’ll have friends or family who,
when they say they’re going to do something,
you know that the outcomes are inevitable.
They’re going to go and do it.
They’re going to win the medal.
They’re going to do that.
Also, you’ll know other people who say,
I’m going to give up smoking.
I’m going to do a diet.
I’m going to start my own business this year.
When you see them a month later, a year later,
a decade later.
And they’ve still got to fagging them out.
They’re still doing the job they hate.
It’s like, you used shivers in the example.
He’s probably someone who came to you,
but you had that burning desire that some people maybe,
it’s their wee bit further away
from taking the actions that Shiver would have taken.
Yeah, and when you break it down,
and understand about things like profile and certain profiles
are more likely to make it than others.
So Shiver’s a tempo, and he’s exceptionally good at executing.
But as long as you tell him the plan
and tell him what to do and when to do it,
and you’re there to answer the questions,
he’ll come back with it done,
done better than most of the other people,
and he just consistently executes.
And that over a period of weeks, months,
and now, I don’t know how long,
Shiver’s been on property entrepreneur,
but it must be five or six years.
You do that over five or six years,
and it turns into living in Valencia,
making X amount of hundreds of thousands a year.
It’s like success and failure, very predictable.
And he’s a very good example of someone
that is exceptional at executing.
Yeah, that’s as genius as to execute, yeah.
Exactly, it’s like tempo.
Yeah.
And you’re a steel, is that right?
I’m a creative mechanic.
Okay, the top you’ve got dynamone,
and at the side you’ve got steel.
I’m not halfway between the two.
It’s very creative, I also can sort of put things into place.
Yeah, right.
Okay, yeah, because I think like with your titles
and things on the podcast,
they can see that creator side and you as well
that you come up with these phrases.
Yeah, definitely, it’s very, yeah.
As I’m getting older, it’s definitely dampening,
but that is my sort of,
is the creative thing, dynamic problem solving, really.
Pulling things out of nowhere,
I could do that all day long.
And if you’re leaning to like the more sort of steel
introverted side,
I guess that you had to work on the right hand side,
which is the blaze,
which is like extroverted and being a public speaker.
So like, how did you find that?
Like, was that any trouble for you
to become more like outwardly?
Or was that the same?
It was horrendous, right?
Yeah.
So I’ve genuinely,
and I don’t know how publicly I’ve said this before,
but I’ve genuinely,
didn’t really have,
there’s always periods,
but in the main,
property entrepreneurs has always been
a very demanding company for me.
Right.
Because I don’t like the line like,
like I’m quite happy being in the back office,
creating all the staff,
doing all the strategy,
the idea of being like, I’m introverted,
so I get my energy being on my own.
Like, I’m literally home alone this week,
and I’m in my element,
I’m doing my own thing,
you know, et cetera,
was if I’m at an event for three days,
and everyone wants to talk to you
and you’re on stage and you’re performing,
it takes a lot of…
Yeah.
Introverted, nextroverted basically means work,
to be in with people,
give you energy or take it.
And for me,
I get my energy being on my own,
whereas someone like Adam or Josh
who hosts property entrepreneur.
Right.
They would get their energy from being with other people.
So that, for me,
it was very unnatural.
Right.
Again, a lot of the things,
but how much success do you want and how quick do you want it?
Yeah.
When I realized that having a profile
was part of raising your rate,
if you want to go up to that,
if you want to get your hourly rate
into the thousands or tens of thousands,
you’ve got to have over a network or a profile.
And as soon as I realize,
if I’m going to do this,
I really need to be a known name in the industry.
I basically signed up to 25,
speak at 25 events for a year,
for every year, for five years.
And I hated it.
I was nervous.
I was bright red.
I was sweating.
But after about four or five years,
I started to get quite good at it.
And then obviously,
I wouldn’t say,
I wouldn’t say I’m a good public speaker.
I’d say I’m a very credible person
who knows how to do things
so people like listening.
But I’ve not really enjoyed it
until the last couple of years.
Now, or probably last year,
now I actually enjoy it.
But no, it was really hard to get really hard to get there.
Yeah, yeah.
I’ve been on that.
I went through toast masters and everything.
And I totally,
I was interested to know what would be like
on a maybe steel crater angle as well.
I think I’m probably the same as you.
I’m a mechanic and creator.
Cool.
It’s the best one.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah, it actually is
because you can create things out of nowhere
and you can execute.
Yeah.
Yeah, exactly.
You just need someone like Chef to execute things.
So that we do, we start something really well.
Someone ought to shift, keep it going.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, it’s the ability to have an idea
and then actually make it reality, which is great.
Probably covered that.
So yeah, just want to talk about the book now.
Excellent.
Kind of going through it for the second time.
And I create my own table of contents on books.
So sorry for writing on your book, but.
That’s cool.
Glad you spent some time on that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like to prepare for the interviews.
So yeah, it was really good.
Very aligned with like everything.
I’m very much in the spiritual dimension
as well as the physical.
And I like the idea of you’ve got this knowledge
as like a property millionaire.
You could have wrote a book about that,
but you decided to sort of take that angle,
which is obviously more from your heart,
from your soul, from your like purpose.
So I like the fact that you took that angle.
And it’s a type of book that I would write probably as well.
Like it’s a type of, whenever I get asked to speak or anything,
I always end up leaning towards that sort of more mindset stuff
rather than just like teach people how to make money only.
Cool.
Yeah, so I liked that.
There’s a good sign.
By guy called, you know, Wayne Dyer.
Yeah, I’ve come across a few of his talks.
Yeah.
So he, I mean, he did an amazing book called Change,
Change, Thoughts, Change Your Life.
And it’s, it is game-changing book.
But he has the same, which says, don’t die
with your music and society.
Yeah.
And when I heard that, I was like,
and people have been asking me to write a book for a decade.
And when I heard that, I thought, do you know what?
In case something happens to me,
I need to get a book out of the door.
And I even, I had the publishing deal sorted.
I had the plan sorted to do it all for a business book.
And in the last minute, I thought, do you know what?
I don’t actually want to write that book.
I want to write karma credits.
Because if I die tomorrow, that will be left.
And even, you know, hopefully it will get some good reach.
And it would genuinely change people’s lives.
Well, you read that book and put into practice, you know,
say success and failure, very predictable.
If you read that book and put it into practice,
it is physically impossible for it not to change your life.
So it’s like, it’s whether people actually do it or not.
There’s the secret.
It’s spiritually impossible.
Yeah, it literally is.
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I’m totally aligned with all that stuff.
And I didn’t really expect that.
So that was quite a good surprise.
So, yeah, do you want to talk about, like, the idea of what was it?
So I was reading some of it.
And I was like, I agree with a lot of it.
But as a business owner, and I agree also with, um,
I and Rand’s philosophy of objectivism.
And I think that leads, like, that comes from capitalism as well.
And you, you said something in the book that you said,
neither am I a socialist or a charity.
I run the commercially driven enterprises that delivers,
uh, that delivers, uh, net financial gains.
So, like, you mentioned a couple of times as well that you’re,
you are a capitalist, um, but you lean into words,
obviously, uh, coming from a given value,
prospect, like, coming from that given value, um,
and then, like, I, I quote from I and Rand that, like,
it’s almost like, you know, when you, you hear a philosophy,
I’m very open book.
I’ll listen to, like, two sides.
And I’ll, I’ll then be like torn on, like, what I now believe.
So I’m, that’s why I read all these books,
because I’m, I’m constantly, I’m, I’m, I’m staying humble to keep learning
and, and changing my beliefs.
Um, in, in the, I am Rand’s book, in Atlas shrugged,
I think it was, she talked about a philosophy of objectivism.
And it’s to fulfill your own happiness as a moral purpose of life,
uh, with, um, productive achievement.
And I know that you’ve done the productive achievement,
and you’ve filled your own cup up first.
So it’s really just like that idea is like, what,
this is obviously a philosophy you embody throughout.
Well, you, well, you are a capitalist, but yeah, just wondered, like,
what your thoughts were on that, like, sort of another look.
Is that against what you’re saying or is it with it as well?
With the one that you referenced or, yes,
would you see that that’s a different philosophy or it’s, uh, it’s our philosophy,
but you’ve just added caramel credits on top of that.
I think, I’m not familiar with it.
So the interpretation of it is,
my concept of caramel credits, which is something that I’ve practiced all the way through my journey.
But I can even think back to when I was 13, 14,
or even when I had my first job when I was about nine,
just the way that I go about things is, is in, uh,
what people might think is like a selfless approach in that I’m always going above and beyond.
I’ll always try and help others. Yeah.
And I’ll always play the long game.
I’ll always leave a bit on the table for everyone else, like, I’m playing the long game,
but it’s, it’s not necessarily like a selfless charitable act.
Yes.
It’s like, it’s fulfilling.
Cause it makes me happy. Right.
So like some of the stories in the book are talking about the taxi that drove into the back of me.
Yeah, like granny, it brought drones to the back of my brand new Mercedes.
The guy got out and was just like basically an emotional wreck and said that his mum had been in hospital.
And I, I just, I said, don’t worry about the car.
I give him, he told me some guy jumped in.
So I give him 20 quid.
And it was like, I did that because to me, it felt like the right thing to do.
I don’t care about not, I don’t care about my car.
In the moment, it wasn’t relevant, like rather than look at my objective of being like, you’ve hit my car.
I’m not, you know, I’m going to have a go at you and you’re already in an emotional state.
I was more like, I’m fine.
He’s upset.
Let’s see what’s up with them and play the long game and my philosophy is,
if you do that enough and make sure that it is a win, win, win for everyone,
they don’t always get it right.
Well, I’ve got consistent track record of getting it wrong every now and again,
but the older you get, the wiser you get, the less you, less mistakes you make.
Yeah.
Mine is more about looking at what everyone wants,
putting it all in the mix, including me and making it win for everyone.
And the outcome is that over a period of months, years and now decades,
everything, sit, touch word, everything seems to play quite favorably into my favor.
Because of that.
And yeah, that’s my sort of logic.
I agree.
Yeah, I agree.
You reap what you saw.
Like if you just keep sawing every day, then it always comes back.
Do you listen to Jim Rowan at all?
Yes, yeah.
So this is Jim Rowan yesterday.
I can’t remember exactly what he said, but it was basically like,
if you turn up and plant the seed, the universal, do the rest.
Like you want to grow an oak tree.
You want to have this estate and money and whatever wealth.
So you’ve got to turn up and plant the seed, like the earth and the universe
and the planet will grow the tree, but you’ve got to turn up and plant the seed.
Yes.
That’s sort of logic of like, yeah, you’ve got to step up first.
Yeah.
Yeah, I like, I totally agree with your philosophy in the book.
And all I’m saying is that I think it was maybe things that you were reminded me
about karma and about, say, you reap what you saw.
And I think it was my own sort of, I guess,
fallen back into like maybe the wrong direction.
And this book was a good reminder and refresh that the world is abundant.
And you can’t give too much.
Yeah.
And also the, and right in the book, it’s something I’ve practiced intentionally for years,
but in writing the book, it even made me take it to the next level,
reminding me the things that I need today.
Yeah.
And it’s like the ultimate, which if I do another version at some point,
I’ll add it as the last chapter is the ultimate self-actualisation with this is
when you start to walk down the street and people you’ve never met start to say hello to you
before you say hello to them.
And like things just happen around you.
People smile at you for no reason.
Yeah.
That’s when you, you, you’ve genuinely encompassed this like positive,
yeah, aura where people just feel comfortable around you.
They feel warm around you.
They feel connected.
And I can’t even explain how it works.
But yeah, in most places now, I walk around supermarkets.
And I’m probably the only person with a smile on my face looking at people in the eye.
And before I’ve even said hello, they’re smiling.
They’re saying hello to me.
And it’s like, that’s the aim of the game.
And it just makes the world around you so much more engaging and rewarding,
rather than intimidating and challenging.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, rather than acting from fear.
And yeah, so do you think it’s easier to practise that
before you filled your own cup up?
It’s probably not easier, but I know after I mean, sorry, after.
And I suppose it’s been way coming from because if it’s a strategic move
and you understand that you read what you say, I would say you’re probably more
motivated to do it early on in your journey, because you want the outcome.
Yeah, talking there about you can’t do it for the law of reciprocity.
But when the reality is, when you know that there is a law of reciprocity,
there is a subconscious logic to that.
But equally, it’s harder to do it.
It’s harder to play the long game and take the hit on the chin at the beginning
of your journey, because it’s more expensive.
Yeah.
You know, if you’re faced with a deal that’s going to lose you 20 grand
and all you’ve got is 50 grand, you’ve got to be a real, you know,
you’ve got to take the real moral hike, you’ve got to be a real man or woman
of credit to decide to do it then.
Yeah.
Doing it now, where, you know, you’ve got the other end of your journey,
where you’ve got loads of money and actually it doesn’t matter.
Maybe logically, it’s easier.
But I would say it’s never once, because I’d believe in it so much.
Yeah.
I would never, I would never break the law.
I like this.
I learned it.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I know that if I’ve done something wrong and it needs paying for,
even if I’ve got to sell my house, I would do it because I know that.
Yeah.
Both I’ll be rewarded if I do it, but also I’ll be penalised if I don’t.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And the people, the people that make the decisions to focus on transactions
or after rather than relationships, you look at where they are over.
I know some of them from my childhood, or from, from my younger days,
who would just focus on me, me, me, take, take, take.
And I look at where they are after 10 years and where perhaps other people
who’ve not done that are after 10 years.
Yeah.
And the distance is like unrecognizable.
So it’s like, yes, it’s a significant contribution, but it is a long game.
And it was a good, I liked what you said about the,
the person in their mansion ends up in a small box coffin anyway.
It doesn’t matter how big your house is.
We will get buried in a small coffin.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Um, so yeah, that was more that the,
the, the challenges that were going through my head as I was reading this,
they were just things I wanted to bring up because it’s probably what other people
so that start reading this book, start to get challenged by when you’re,
you’re sort of moving them back towards that away from fear and towards abundance.
Yeah, I’ll say the biggest challenge as well is all of this stuff feels so awkward.
If you go to like Japan or Thailand, you’ll notice that people are like this anyway,
because they believe in spirituality and like they’re just not,
the culture’s different in England or like European countries.
It’s very strange to do the sort of stuff I’m talking about in this.
So it is like breaking the seal and just trust in the process anyway.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now, I’ve definitely found myself changing and doing sort of forcing myself to be,
um, more given, for example, what, the simple things like walking through a door,
charging through the door myself versus being conscious of when I’m walking through that door and going,
actually, I’ll just let this person through so that I get a karma credit.
Exactly.
Yeah, it makes you feel good, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, it does.
And I think it’s as well as that the book actually teaches you how to be more conscious
and you’re just your day-to-day deal.
And as you said, and that the people are just existing and just sort of like they’ve got their heads down.
And this book has actually helped me like lift my head up and see what I’m doing as well and how I’m playing a part in the world.
And it’s embarrassing.
I’ve done some podcast episodes around self-awareness.
If you want to see how bad it is, you just tune in next time you’re at the airport,
like nobody has any self-awareness that we’re walking into each other.
They’re like, it’s, I mean, it’s, it’s exhausting to see.
But I mean, I’ve noticed where you’ve done a car, you’ve done something yet.
It got a karma credit and then got a return or a benefit from it.
Well, where you’ve done something and it, apart from holding the door that’s magey feel, feel good or it’s changed the, the direction of something.
Yeah, I’ve not seen a direct impact, but that’s, that’s basically part of the playing the long game.
There’s not an example I can give you right now, but yeah, I get, I agree with it and I know that it works.
And so moving on, I’ve got a couple of other questions.
I know we’ve only got a few, few minutes left, so these are quick fire questions that I wanted to ask you.
So what’s the best like for your first hire?
Should you hire?
So what, yeah, first question is, what’s the best first hire?
And then the second question is a freelancer or an employee?
Cool.
So there’s only three types of workload in the business.
You’ve got drive in the business.
You’ve got deliver in the business and you’ve got the detail in the business.
You don’t want to go from one to two.
You want to go from one to three.
And it’s like looking at where are you, most entrepreneurs are the driver of the business.
You don’t want to bring in someone to deliver it that’s to take over the day to day front end customer facing.
And then detail is get somebody into do your books, you add them in book in your hotels, you know, paperwork, that sort of thing.
And then as far as like PA why it like paid or freelance, it all just comes down to like how you fund it.
So if you’re organically growing, probably just get a PA or an admin assistant on a pat hourly pay as you go.
Because if it’s your first business, you’re probably quite nervous about recruitment and you know, you’ve only just started making enough money for yourself.
The idea of now giving that money to somebody else is quite daunting.
But once you get used to it, like it becomes addictive and you realize that when you see your team as an investment, not an expense.
Things will scale up real quickly.
During that period, there’ll probably be more like employees in the early days.
Pay as you go hourly rate, especially nowadays, VAs, PAs, EAs, anything like that.
Just to get your confidence up and keep you fixed cost low is probably a savvy way to go.
Yeah.
Okay.
So what is the recommended first hire if it was like a freelancer?
Well, I’m on the big advocate of PAs, like a minimum wage is probably something like 10 pound an hour now.
Any job, there’s so many jobs that can be done for less than 10 pound an hour.
As soon as your hourly rate is more than 10 pound an hour, you should have a PA, an army of VAs and just get rid of that highly functional stuff.
There’s a good podcast episode on the property entrepreneur podcast called the task triangle.
Yeah.
Once you listen to that and you understand how that works, and one of our board members rebuilt their whole business based on it.
And it’s understanding that your input to a task should be the top. That’s it.
The rest of the triangles should be done by the people, but listen to the podcast that explain it.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay.
And any recommended places to hire?
A lot of freelancers.
Either indeed, although that’s more of a traditional employed role or people per hour.
Right.
Elance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
That sort of plays really.
And then you get some you get some online platforms that recruit people for you.
I probably for those roles, I probably wouldn’t use a company that I would use an individual.
Right.
Okay.
And it was just jumping back to that higher hierarchy of like the cash flow profit and then assets.
You talked about a holding company and one of your podcasts.
And so like I have a thing called a financial freedom fund.
So I would be better to put my income up into a holding company.
So like the holding company would be like the financial freedom fund.
So that we would be used to buy the assets.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So basically.
The logic is you want to work for 10 years, 20 years, make your money.
And then you want to get to a point where you’re financially independent where.
The money is called living off the steam.
Again, there’s another podcast episode that I recorded called living off the steam.
So go and listen to that.
The concept is you invest all your money in these assets and then they’ll return six or eight percent a year.
And you want to live off the six or eight percent a year that comes off your assets.
So basically you have all your noisy, you know, your clearance company and your noisy stuff going on.
And then the 28th of each month you pay your money up to the financial fortress, which is basically a holding company at the top.
And then what you do is use the funds in there to buy low risk, low return assets.
And the aim of the game is not to complete the game.
People think they’re going to run a company for 20 years, 30 years, and then sell it for 10 million quid.
The aim of the game is not complete in the game.
And the aim of the game is staying in the game.
Basically the 28th of every month, your salaries paid, your overheads are paid.
But then one transaction from every company goes up to your financial fortress.
And it might be 80 quid a month or it might be 20 grand a month.
The aim of the game is that every month you can stay in business.
You’re moving some of that hard earned cash up to the financial fortress.
Yeah.
Because if it was a phone bill or a Netflix bill or a maintenance bill, you’d pay it.
So why not pay yourself for management charge.
Yeah.
For running the company and then you build your financial fortress up there.
Yeah.
They’ll say pay yourself first.
So what’s the next steps when you have that in place?
Like when you have the cash flow coming in.
Do you go and buy, for example, a property to flip with your own cash or do you use other people’s money?
Well, you’re building this cash flow business.
So there’s 10 layers to it.
Again, all of this stuff is free.
You can literally go to the podcast.
This is an episode called 10 Layers of Wealth.
Yeah.
And what you do is you start off at that beginning when you’re making your cash flow, paying the bills.
And then you work your way up step or step through the layers.
Yeah.
And yeah, that’s that that is what you would do.
And it depends what you want to get to is what’s called a 60 second strategy.
And it means that in 60 seconds you can explain to me what your wealth creation strategy is.
Like I could explain mine to you in 60 seconds.
And that would tell you exactly what you’re doing all day.
It’s the only game in town, basically, although you’re going to work.
And you know, whether you’re running, you know, you’re running your book club and running the clearance company.
And you’ve got all these other interests.
Yeah.
That’s just the day job.
The reason you’re doing all of that is because of the 60 second strategy.
And that’s the only game in town, really.
All the rest of it.
It’s just the fun that comes with it.
Yeah.
Right.
Okay.
And what would be the, I know we talked about a hiring a PA.
What would be some other steps on scaling a business?
At first one would be don’t build businesses that don’t make money.
So some crazy like 90% of small businesses don’t make profit.
And what you want to look for is the needle and the haystack.
So a lot of the businesses I own and the businesses I’ve always had.
The rule of a niche or their crest of a wave.
And it’s like you want to have a niche business, which is a premium price point highly lucrative.
Or crest of the wave business like AI at the minute or crypto last year.
Where it doesn’t really matter what you do as long as you’re on the wave and you can hold on to the board, you’re going to make money.
Whereas lots of people are running around running business.
People are running around building businesses that just fundamentally will never ever make money.
And that’s, you know, that’s not.
Yeah, that would be the biggest thing is, is understand how to do what’s called a business model builds your business model.
And see is this thing actually ever going to make any money.
That would be the biggest tip.
And then there’s probably loads of other ones.
That’s the biggest thought don’t push something that’s never really going to bring in enough demand or income.
Yeah, you can, when I get pitched businesses to invest in or whatever.
I can tell within 30 minutes of working on them whether in five years they’re going to make money or not.
Don’t waste five years figuring out if it’s going to make money.
Yeah, figure that out before you start.
Yeah.
And what would the, what is a like a typical D for you like routine.
Do you have a typical D.
So yeah, definitely a big fan of structure.
And I know I tend to change my structure like maybe every quarter or every six months.
At the minute, it’s like I get up early.
I’m going to bed about between eight and nine p.m.
And I wake up between four and five a.m.
And I have like two hours then to have my breakfast journal, do some creative stuff.
And I go to the gym, train the gym four times a week, seven to eight.
Walk the dogs eight till nine.
Have a second breakfast about nine and then start doing some high value work about nine, ten.
And from about mid day, start to do more functional things.
One into what’s at messages.
Anything that’s on my to do list.
And then I’ll go through walking the afternoon about two, three o’clock.
Just give me a second wind.
And then on either sort of round the day off.
Normally I’ll round the doubt back three, four o’clock sometimes.
At the minute, I’m sort of loving it.
So I’m doing a few more hours.
But yeah, I’ll probably aim to finish like latest like five o’clock.
Yeah.
And then the evening just chill out.
Literally very normal play the piano, read a book.
Watch suits on Netflix.
Just do normal stuff, chill out, go to bed, then do it again.
Yeah.
And there’s always been like that structured and that order was more busy at the beginning of building all these businesses.
Well, there’s a podcast called beast mode.
An episode that I’ve recorded on the official problems from our podcast called beast mode.
And when I’m doing beast mode, I’ll literally lock out every second of my calendar from five a.m. to six p.m.
And it’s literally like ultimate product of a.
I don’t tend to do that anymore, but when I was in my sort of growth phase.
Yeah, I would work.
I mean, back in the day, I’d work seven days a week.
I’m a university, I party with my friends on a Friday night, go out club until four in the morning.
And I’ll be back in the office at half eight nine in the morning of a stinking hangover.
Right.
Doing anything I could just to get stuff off the desk.
So yeah, I try not to work as hard.
I would say I probably am a workaholic in a bad way.
Like I’m addicted to work.
So I try.
I now try to work less.
A lot of the objective thing you said about I enjoy work.
It makes me feel purposeful like.
I don’t need anything wrong with work.
If you love it.
If you have if you’re happy, yeah.
Exactly.
Like a nice meal.
If you love it, eat it.
But don’t stuff your face because it’ll make you sick.
Yeah.
And you said that work ethic is your weakness.
That was sort of what you’re explaining there.
And.
Like you know,
putting it on work ethic.
Probably my self, my sort of appetite control or self control is more.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, sorry.
I had a more thing from another podcast I listened to that you said work ethic is your weakness.
And it’s because you’ve worked up to this point where you’re at today.
Because now it’s about working smarter.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sorry.
No, you’re absolutely right.
Yeah.
If it feels like hard work for me now and actually doing the wrong thing,
that should be my team doing it.
I should be like cutting deals, raising finance, doing strategic problem solving,
not turning up and doing a 12 hour heavy lifting session.
So yes, sorry, you’re absolutely right.
Yeah.
I need to stop that sort of stuff.
And do you have been,
is there anything you’ve done wrong or regret in your journey?
I think there’s always like relationships that have not gone the way you want them to do,
like personally and professionally.
But I wouldn’t say regret them.
I had a conversation with a friend who I don’t think really appreciated what I was saying.
I think they thought like I was saying it’s in I don’t care.
It’s more like there’s a good quote which says,
I don’t lose either win or I learn.
And I don’t look at anything in my life.
Like even like personal relationships, professional relationships,
they’re all now in the main come good.
I don’t regret them.
Obviously if I could go back and change them without anything else changing,
I probably would.
But I just feel like it’s part of life.
I feel like life’s about learning.
It’s about wisdom.
You can’t have wisdom without you can’t make it up.
You know, you can’t have you can’t have wisdom without.
Those things that don’t work really say.
I don’t think so.
Not really.
I mean, even losing money.
I don’t regret it.
It’s just like.
I’m not I’m not attached to the outcome quite often.
I don’t really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No real regrets.
Yeah.
Not not not in a work capacity.
No, no regrets.
Yeah.
Yeah, don’t usually I don’t use the word regret often.
But it’s it’s always quite a good question to trigger any lessons
that you’ve learned on your journey that people can share.
Because I’m not a big believer in regret either because it’s not
something worth holding.
Yeah, I think I think the whole relationship is over transactions
over a relationship.
It’s normally ended badly.
And like that’s a piece of wisdom where if it’s a relationship
worth maintaining.
At all costs.
It goes top of the pile.
Not the bottom.
Okay.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, I think we.
That’s.
I’ve asked you plenty of questions.
I really appreciate your time and for sharing all your wisdom
with us.
How can we find you?
I know you’ve mentioned the pod.
The official property entrepreneur.
You know,
you know,
you know,
you’ve mentioned the pod.
The official property entrepreneur podcast.
Yeah.
So Instagram.
Property entrepreneur under school.
And I post a video is on there.
Facebook is Dan Hill.
And the podcast, honestly,
it’s like for anyone who’s listening to this,
it’s into business.
Or wealth creation and wants to know the simple way to achieve
complex things like financial fortress,
making your millions, stuff like that.
Just give the podcast a spin.
And my attitude is,
I’ll give it away for free.
I’ll give all the podcasts,
all the episode,
all the blueprints away for free,
just because I want people to use them.
And we don’t struggle to sell our training courses.
So I’d say just go and.
You’ve listened to them.
They’re not sales pitches.
They’re basically like.
We can.
They’re lessons that we teach.
I think just,
just Hoover mark.
Find ones that work.
And put them into practice.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I highly recommend both your book and the podcast.
Everyone watching as well.
Thanks again.
Dan.
Lovely.
Good to see you, Ben.
Thank you for having me on.
See you.
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