What’s the secret of the wealthy and successful people? Dr. Patty Ann Tublin proudly presents Steve Sims, the Real Life Wizard of Oz and Rated Top 22 Speaker in the US. Steve shares how he started from zero. He was kicked out of school at 15, had no money, and his friends also had no money. What was the big turning point that changed Steve’s life? He changed the room he was in. If you want to change your situation, you need to surround yourself with the people you want to become. Then, be as transparent as you can be. It’s only with transparency that you can create real connections. Hungry to learn more? Join in the conversation.
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The Secret Of The Wealthy: Going From Nothing To Multi-Millionaire With Steve Sims
This is not for the faint of heart. If you are not the faint of heart, make sure you like, share, comment and subscribe to this show because Steve Sims is going to take you for a ride. I could not possibly give the full color of this guy’s personality any better than he can do it for himself. Steve is the Founder of the world’s first luxury concierge. I am going to let him tell you what that means because he will blow you away. Steve has worked with the Pentagon, royalty, presidents, A-list celebrities, the rich, the famous, and the richer unknowns. Without further ado, buckle up as Steve Sims takes us for a ride. Welcome, Steve. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this interview. I am all about relationships. This topic was written for you. Start wherever you like and I will go along for the ride.
My story is no different to anybody else.
This is so not true.
Hear me out and tell me if you disagree. Most entrepreneurs start from a point of aggravation. We are aggravated by something. We find a solution. We market that solution and find other people with the same problem. When I was a bricklayer in East London, I had no money. I had no friends that had money. I was aggravated because I was thinking at the ripe old age of 16 and 17, “Is this my life?” I left school at the age of 15.
You are not an Oxford scholar? I must have the wrong bio here.
I ended up lecturing at Harvard twice, which I still find hysterical. They kicked me out of school, but then Harvard has me lectured. I could not understand how I was supposed to get on. We were not fortunate enough because both me and you remember an existence pre-Facebook, pre-internet. I was aggravated enough. I needed to associate with richer people. This is the first mistake.
Do you mean rich in money?
That’s the thing. We can battle that down, but there are three characteristics. There are rich, wealth and success. They all look something different. If you ask a sixteen-year-old, “When you have got everything, and life’s good, what do you want?” They are all going to say things like, “I want to be rich. I want to be a millionaire.” They look at rich as financial.
When I was young, success and wealth for me was all a dollar symbol or a pound symbol. I went out and I want to meet people who have money. In the East End of London, finding people with money was not always finding the most respectable individuals on the planet. I had to change my focus. I remember reading or hearing something about true wealth. Wealth is always like, “My family comes first. I found God.” I’m thinking, “I’m not going to marry your wife and join your church. How does that help me?” I started looking for successful people. That was the thing. That was the cornerstone. We both know Joe Polish and Genius Network.
That’s how we met.
I’m a great believer that you need to change the room you are in. If you don’t like you, change the room you are in because you are a combination of the room you are in. If you are in a room full of billionaires, you only have to listen to a couple of those chats and you become a byproduct of the room you are in. I went out to try and find better rooms, and I started to have conversations.
How did you know at 16, 17 years old to do that? Most sixteen-year-olds would keep fishing in the same pond coming up empty-handed. How did you know to do that? There must have been something innate.
There was a couple of pivot points. I remember turning up at the usual pub where I would go on my motorbike. I walked into the bar. We always used to do this. I could afford just over two pints. Any of the change, you would throw in the middle of the table. You would get as many pints out of what was left on the table. You would eke it out to everyone around the table.
This is clearly pre-COVID also.
This is pretty everything. This is when I’m seventeen years old. In England, we had a much lower drinking age. I’m sitting there.
Somebody told me it’s three. It starts at three.
That’s the Italian drinking age. The Italian drinking age is three. We try to be a bit more respectful in England. I would sit there and I remember this one day. It was a Tuesday. I remember sitting in this bar and I could not afford any more beer. I was annoyed because I wanted to lose myself in a couple of drinks. I looked around the room and I thought, “Everyone in this room is a broke biker. Everyone in this room was never going to amount to crap. Why am I in this room?” That was the last night I ever went to that room.
Here’s the best thing. I could afford two and a half beers in that pub. I went to one of these new trendy things they call wine bars because I wanted to see how these rich people dealt with each other. I could only afford one beer and it was an exotic imported beer. It always makes me laugh whenever I see it now. It was a Corona with a little bit of lime on the top. That’s what the exotic beer of the time was. I could only afford one. I spent four hours drinking a tiny piece of dredge. I’m looking around the world. I was annoyed. You had met me. I’m a big ugly lad. Can you imagine me big, ugly, disorientated and angry?
I could not imagine anything worse. If I was in that room with all due respect, I’m out of that room, except for when we were at dinner at Maple and Oak.
I was in a bad way. I knew that I was not happy. In my angry mood, I would go into this room to try and communicate with people while being big, ugly and angry. It was not working well. The thing about me is I refuse to accept until I’m satisfied. Even at a young age, I’m arrogant. I was worse. Now, I go, “We can’t move that. Let’s go around it.” As a young man, I was like, “I can’t move it. I’m going through it.”
What you are saying is this is the mellow you?
Now is the mellow me. They always say, “Would you like to go back and visit yourself?” I’m like, “No. I was a walking time bomb.” I wanted to up my game and so I applied for a job. This was in the ‘80s. I applied for a job as a trainee stockbroker.
How old are you about, ballpark?
Maybe 18.
You need to change the room you’re in if you don’t like where you are because you are a combination of the room you’re in.
You are still young.
There are a couple of little things you should be aware of in this story. One, I was kicked out of school at fifteen. I was not exactly a scholar. I did not know how to do any Math stuff. I knew nothing there. Secondly, because I was angry and needed to funnel my anger into places, I was also fighting for the British Kickboxing team. I was young, angry and felt pretty invincible. It’s not a great cocktail. I turn up to this job. Believe it or not, I got the job. What they did not tell me was the job was in Hong Kong.
I believe you got the job because back in the day, I knew traders and people at those companies wanted a blue-collar kid that was hungry. The joke is, “Harvard is not always the smartest in the room, but they think they are. You can’t tell them anything because they know everything.” Let’s keep going.
I got the job. They told me it was in Hong Kong. I went back to my girlfriend at the time who I’m very thankful to say is my wife. We have been together forever. When I came back and I went, “I got the job.” She was like, “Congratulations.” I was like, “It’s on the other side of the planet. It’s in Hong Kong.” She was like, “What are you going to do? Are you going to back out or go for it?” She’s throwing the gauntlet down now. I went and I lasted two days and I got fired.
What happened? I can only imagine.
I don’t think you can. You’re right. They want hungry street people for the phone rooms and the training rooms. I had none of the knowledge that went along with that hunger. I did not know how to add up 2 and 2. I knew nothing and they had recruited about 60 people. I got swept in with those guys. They were like, “We can’t spend any energy on you. We have to let you go. We have to bring over others. We don’t have the time to train you up.” They fired me. I ended up working on the door of this crappy nightclub in Wan Chai, Hong Kong. If anyone out there goes, “I know Wan Chai,” then you were deviant and you know it.
These are little streets where all of the parties and anything that could be done wrong are done. I’m on the door with this thing. I have to quote our good friend, Dr. Sean Stephenson. He always used to say, “Has it been done for you or to you?” I remember that I had that mentality back then. When something happened to me, I will be like, “Is this for my benefit?” I noticed. I learned all of these things because I was not reading books. I was not joining any courses. There was no internet. I remember at the time that how I react to something is specified and dictated by how I see it.
If I see something as a good thing, even if it’s a bad thing, I react to it in a positive way. Guess what happens when you look at everything as positive? It becomes positive. Working on the door, I was with these two other guys that wanted to punch people, go home and get drunk. I suddenly started watching humanity. The door is a brilliant place to see how people interact with each other.
If you get a good bartender, a good bartender has got social skills beyond anything Harvard could ever teach them. I was learning this. I would walk through the club only up to the people that order in service and had a private table. I would say, “Gentlemen, are we having a good time?” I would almost act like the manager to the point that the manager used to go, “What are you doing?” I would be like, “I want to make sure they are okay.” I did not.
I wanted to get into that conversations. I wanted to get into their world. I realized one thing very easily. For me to converse with you, I have got to bring something to the party. If both people are not winning in a relationship, it’s not a relationship. I would start saying to these people, “There’s a private party going on Saturday. Do you want me to get you in?” I was trying to help them by becoming the Google of nightlife at the time.
You were the go-to guy.
I was the guy. I could say to him, “Let’s meet up for a coffee the following day.” That’s when I would be like, “What do you do? What are you getting for?” It was a podcast of the late-‘80s and early-‘90s. My parties went from getting them into nightclubs, unveiling a new Ferrari, when Cartier would have a jewelry line launch or when there would be an art gallery.
You would find out about these things because you found that out from another table of people you were talking to.
Yes, it was a network. By being a doorman, I would find out where they were working at these special events. Here was the key thing. I always charged people for the access. I don’t know if this is an East London thing. If they don’t pay, they don’t pay attention.
They don’t value it because anybody could get in or could be there.
I will be like, “I can get you in but it’s going to cost you $1,000. They would be like, “Fine.” I realized very early on that the powerful people, and especially the more powerful you got, don’t want to ask for favors because those favors accrue interest more than a mafia alone. They don’t want to be doing that. It exploded. I went from nightclubs to Monaco Grand-Prix and Gstaad Polo.
I was flying around the planet and everything from Saint-Jean-Cap-Ferrat to Gstaad to Palm Beach to Macau. I was flying around a planet, hosting and being part of the biggest events on the planet to get all of these powerful rich people into them. It was all a Trojan Horse. I wanted to have a conversation to find out why you were successful and I was not, then I would go on and implement it.
Why reinvent the wheel? There was already a formula. People love people that are honest and transparent. I will speak truth to power. You can let me in. I’m this tiny little thing. I am like the mouse that roared. When I work with CEOs and executives, I tell them, “Do you want me to tell you something that will make you feel good that everybody else is saying because you sign their checks, or do you want the kid from Brooklyn response and the truth?”
They always say the kid from Brooklyn response and the truth. It’s probably not that different from where you grew up. Nobody speaks to the wealthy and the successful people with the truth because everybody wants a piece of something. If you are honest, transparent and you call it as you see it because, in their relationships at home, their spouses don’t care. They might be setting the world on fire and go home, and the wife or the husband is like, “Can you take the garbage out? The dog just threw up. The kids are crying.” That’s the truth when they are home. They need that.
At business, it’s the same thing. Nobody tells them the truth, even people that are paid to tell them the truth. Someone like Steve comes along, all bets are off, and you call a spade a spade. That’s your brilliance with the people connection. They know they can trust you, unlike other people. If you say you are going to do something, you do it or you will figure it out.
I got to point something out for your magic and for your readers. I got a big fat smile on my face. I am thrilled that you used the word transparency and not authenticity. I hate the word authenticity because when you turn around and go, “Look at him. He’s so authentic,” you have acknowledged that the rest of the planet is not.
The beautiful thing about transparency is that they can see through you what you want and who you are. That’s a good thing. In today’s world, a lot of people are scared about doing that. It makes somebody else’s decision capability easier because they can go, “I know he’s trying to help me because he wants to have a chat with me. I know he is trying to do that because he wants me to work with him here.” That’s the beauty. Transparency should be our mouse pad, our t-shirt, our cap logo for the next five years. Congratulations. I’m very proud that you used that word.
Thank you. You probably brought it out in me. When you are transparent, there is no hidden agenda. People can see through. It is so interesting because at the dinner that you and I met, there were a couple of people I was speaking to. One of the women said to me, “You are so transparent. You are so honest.” I said to them, “Honestly, I don’t know how to be any other way. It’s who I am.” Like you, I clearly do not have the private New England boarding school accent.
It took me a while, moving from Brooklyn to Connecticut to not feel so self-conscious. I did not have any of that. Your wife was instrumental for you. My husband was like, “Patty Ann, you are smarter than all these people. You have more degrees. You can run circles around them.” It took me ten years to own that. Now, I’m like, “I’m from Brooklyn. I call it as I see it. I can call you out on your stuff.” It’s like you and people love that.
You can make more money and more impact, but you can never make more time.
It’s okay if it’s not everyone. Full disclosure, everybody is not ready for Steve. I love that because when you are trying to be all things to all people, you are probably not. Here’s the question you ask people. The first time you meet somebody, you will say to them, if they want to work with you, “What’s your problem?” Take us from there. What is that about?
I realized everyone was charging more and more money. I put up this thing, “I will solve your problems. Pay me here.” It got a little PayPal link. I had a few people that started signing up. It was supposed to be a little bit of a joke. I would phone them up. I was amazed that people were paying me to speak to them. I would say, “What’s your problem?” I’m jokingly going, “Are you crazy? Are you mad?”
The second I would ask that question, they would be like, “That’s a great question. It’s this and this. I’m having an issue here. That’s the problem there.” They were telling me. I realized that being very bold, transparent and blunt, I don’t care what you had for dinner last night. I don’t care what you have been binge-watching on Netflix. If you are involved in my sandpit, I want to know what your problem is.
You telling me your problem, we can get it out the way and solve it. The good thing is, when you become the solution to somebody else’s problem, they don’t care what you look or sound like. They have no care if you have got a pretty website or 1,000 awards. They care that you are a solution to their problem. I wanted to keep it down to that direct level of, “I’m here to solve, not sell.”
Cut through all the noise. Here’s a little bit of a challenging question in a way for you. Many times when I’m working with people, they will ask me a question. My response to them will be, “What’s the real question?” They look at me. Many times, they will tell me what they think the problem is. My response is, “What’s the real problem?” How do you handle that? When someone presents a problem to you and you know as well as I do that’s a bunch of bull, where do you go from there?
I wrote Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen. I wrote an entire chapter there on that question. It’s like you have read it or written it before I wrote it.
I did not read it, but I’m glad.
This is a strange way of putting it but I like confrontation. It gets a lot of things out of the way quick.
Get them in the discomfort to change.
It also gets rid of weak people real fast. You end up talking to the people that you can tolerate and spend time with. When people give me something, whether it be a challenge, a problem or a question, I’m very confrontational with my answer with a three-letter word. I look at them and say, “Why?” They will say to me, “We need to be doing this.” “Why?” “I want to be going here.” “Why?” I wrote this in the book. You got to ask “Why?” three times.
The first time someone talks to you, they are telling you what they think will make them sound smarter when you hear it. That does not help anyone. Number two, they will start giving you the answers that they start to feel. Number three, they will give you that reason why. By asking them, “Why?” They go, “I need to be focusing on scaling my business.” “Why?” “I need to be doing this.” “Why now? Why is it important? Why do you think that’s the reason rather than reducing your clients and charging them three times as much?”
We joke about it. We call it, “The Inner Sherlock.” We go digging to find out where the why is. We get to that why and that’s where we start working from. We never ever listen to the client’s first question because that’s not the problem. That’s not the real question. When you interview someone, you never interview someone. You interview who that person wants to pretend to be for that hour. We want to get into the why quickly.
One of the problems is people think they are addressing the wrong problem. That’s why they are not getting any traction. There’s a classic coaching where you have to ask the question “Why?” six times. I have said to people, “I would like to shoot myself.” “Why?” To me, that means you don’t know what you are doing. It’s basic coaching. You reflect back to somebody, just what you heard them say.
You got to do something besides that. What you are saying is true because so many people are living their lives or maybe, more importantly, trying to live a life they and everybody else think will make them happy. Are you kidding me? Just because my favorite color is whatever, it does not mean your favorite color has to be that. Go ahead. You reacted to that. Let me hear you.
It’s true. People are too worried about what they look, sound and act like rather than who they are. They don’t realize that while they are spending so much time trying to be this other person, the person can’t connect with them because they are not them.
They don’t know who they are. That’s the problem.
A lot of people are scared. You have got to put down to today’s world. We are in a “got you” society. We want to trip you up with what you said twenty years ago. We don’t care. We want to laugh at you when you fail. We want to cancel you when you say something that we can take out of context and disown you. We are in a society like that. A lot of people are therefore scared to stand up. In order to stand out, first of all, you got to stand up.
What do you think has changed? Do you think people have always been trying to live somebody else’s life or dream? Do you think it’s amplified because of social media?
We have always tried to impersonate those that we want to be. That has never changed. To a part, you want to emulate those that you want to become. That’s fine. I’m great friends with some very powerful people. In the moment of a tough situation, I will go, “What would Jay, Roland, Bill or Tony do?” That helps me get through. That’s a different sense to what it is now. Now has become very visual down to the point where you are not successful unless you are doing a selfie on a jet you don’t own or leaning up against a car you don’t own. We have become very superficial for fear of exposing who we are. We are going to go full circle to being transparent.
There are three kinds of people on the planet. There are those that love you no matter what you say, wherever you go. I guarantee you, there are people on this show going, “I love Steve Sims. He’s brilliant. What he’s saying speaks the truth. He’s my boy.” There are other people that are probably turned off going, “I hate Steve Sims. I never want to hear from that guy again. I can’t understand what he’s saying. I don’t want anything to do with him.” That’s fine. Both of those people are fine. The worst species in the world are the ones that you have created. Those are what I call the fences.
The chameleons.
Those are people sitting there going, “I don’t get what Steve is trying to say. I’m not sure.” That’s your fault.
If people don’t get you, you are pretty clear.
In today’s world, a lot of people are not allowing those fences to make a decision. You end up with three kinds of people in your world. You only need two. Those that say yes and those that say no. With the number of people on the planet, you can be buying beach houses every month with those that love you. Be transparent enough to push the fences off one way or the other. Why are you complicating who you are? Why are you adding confusion to the communication? It makes no sense.
Focus on aligning yourself with someone who shares the same culture, vision, belief, and commitment.
What do you think? What’s your answer to that?
It goes back to square one. Be transparent. Call it as it is, “I want to do this for you but it’s going to cost you $25,000. This will be what happens when it comes through to the end. Are there any questions? No? Fine, push here.” I want you to be as transparent and as direct. We are also in an amplified and heightened sense of aggravation. Over the last few years, you could not have made this up, pandemic, challenges, #MeToo, Asian hate, Black Lives Matter, politics, and now war.
Are the aliens landing next? You can’t make this stuff out. We are all like Prairie dogs. What is going on? We don’t have time to sift through your shiny website to work out whether or not you got the answer to my problems. I want to go to a website and go, “You do this, this happens.” That’s great. It makes it very easy for me to make an educated decision on whether or not you can handle the problem I’m in. Stop confusing people. It’s not working. In our society, it’s repelling.
People are getting confusing messages to boot. What do you find with the rich and famous that you work with? We both know they are not all that different from everybody else. The problem is they have fans all around them. They tell them what they want to hear, but all the money in the world does not raise your kids for you. It might make it more complicated. You are not sure if people want to be your friends or if people want to be friendly to you because they want access to what you have and what they can give you. What do you see as a universal quest for success?
When I was young and obnoxious, I used to look after people. I used to go out and I would be like, “Johnny, I have got to ask you. How come you are rich, and I’m not?” You can imagine that was a horrible question. The friction and temperature changed. I realized I don’t have the answers because I’m asking the wrong question. I tried that question a few times and I got nowhere. The next time I would tweak it to wealthy.
That’s when I had to get things like, “I found my wife, religion and meditation,” and all these things that did not help me because you got to find your own path. The third question I tweaked it to was, “How come you are successful and I’m not? ” That was my holy grail. That was my unload of education onto me. People would tell me about how they looked at things and how they viewed opportunity. It’s quite a few things and you are right. Successful people are usually talented with 1 or 2 things.
People like Elon Musk who’s been in 3 or 4. He is a unicorn. If you look at all of the others, whether it be Bill Gates, Richard Branson, Warren Buffett, they are all good. One may be the second one, but you usually find the second one is similar to the first and nothing more than a branch out with the right people behind them.
The rest of them are the same as us. They are normal people. I have always said, “Rich people are poor people with a lot of money.” You got to talk to them like normal people. They do have certain things that happen to them when they start getting into their flow. One of the biggest things that I noticed was a trait, a habit, a repeat within all of the most powerful people I have ever dealt with. It was how they view time. The bottom line is they know they can make more money. They know that they can make more impact, but they can never make more time.
Whenever you have a conversation with someone very successful, they are like, “What are you doing? How are you doing it? Why do you think you can do it? What’s going to be the impact? How are you going to be able to scale it? How are you going to be able to do it when you have to remove yourself from the process? When you remove yourself out, does that stop?” It’s almost like being grilled. You expect someone to put the torch on you. They want to know because they don’t care what you had for dinner last night. They want to care what impact you are generating. That was the biggest thing. They view time differently.
It’s so interesting you say that because I tell people all the time, “We are the time vampires.” We all know who they are in our life. I am amazed at the smart people I talk to. You see them every once in a while, but you have a relationship. They are not your BFFs but you know them. They ask me the same questions every time I see them. Were you not listening the first time?
I don’t take it personally towards me, but I feel like they are not truly listening. My kids will tell you. “Mom, it’s like an interrogation.” I’m like, “I want to know who you are with and where you are.” It’s part of my work. I ask questions. It’s important because I can’t assume anything. How do the wealthy successful people handle the time vampires?
They don’t talk to them. That links nicely into the relationship side. We all know the people that are like, “That sounds great. Let’s do lunch. Let’s grab that. Let’s play golf. Let’s do cocktails and discuss that further.” You think to yourself, “That’s what rich people do. For some reason, they want to have lunch, play golf and have cocktails with everyone. They are weird like that.” I discovered that I was wrong. Those people were not discussing the project. They were discussing the person. Cameron Herold talks about hiring on culture.
If you focus on aligning yourself like if you bring someone in that shares the same culture, vision, belief and commitment, if they can’t fill out an Excel spreadsheet, I can buy someone that can. Who cares? The bottom line of it is affluent successful people recruit culture. Any of those weaknesses, they bring people in to either plug that in or they teach you how to do it. That was the key thing. They don’t bother about vampires. They will disown them.
I had a friend of mine once who taught me this early on. This guy was pestering him for a conversation. He was definite that these two people were not culturally aligned. They would never get on. He took him to one side and said, “I appreciate your energy of wanting to have a conversation with me, but we are not on the same wavelength. We won’t have a conversation, let alone a relationship. You are going to waste all of this night trying to have one with someone that you won’t. I suggest with respect, divert your energy over there because that person’s going to be a lot more in alignment with you.” He was very polite and respectful.
That’s what he did. He did not see it as rudeness. He saw the guy that could help him. The weird thing was at the end of the night, the guy came up and said, “Thank you. I heard you. I appreciate you.” He was like, “You are welcome.” They did not become friends. They don’t have a relationship but it stopped him from wasting a night full of incredible people in that room.
That brings us to something else. What do you see as the biggest obstacles for people to receive your help? You vetted them.
It’s classic. The biggest problem is always going to be you.
What about you?
There are two things, fear and humiliation. People are scared of trying things different for fear of failing. Here’s the thing, rarely are they worried about failing. I guarantee you, you fail a lot, I fail a lot, but that’s where the education is. People are not scared of failing. They are scared of people hearing about it and laughing. Have you always noticed that the people that are laughing at someone else’s failure are usually the idiots sitting on their butts and never going to amount to anything? People need to go, “What would I do if I don’t care about someone giggling at me?” I’m writing a second book. I don’t know when the thing is coming out, but it’s called Go for Stupid.
It’s called Go for Stupid because I noticed the people that I got to work with not only have not cared about you laughing at them, but themselves have only gone for their goals that are in the ridiculous and stupid area. They want to have a goal that’s so ridiculous, you will laugh at it before you applaud for achieving it.
I am not a hero worshiper at all. I don’t know who the famous movie stars are. I could care less. I could walk by them on the street in 5th Avenue but care less. I love sports but they are people. We all get it. After I read his first and only authorized bio. Anyone that knows me will tell you I am the hugest fan of Elon Musk because of what you said. He defies the naysayers every time and I love it. They keep laughing at him. “I’m going to go to the moon,” and he does it. He has courage that is untethered. Is that what you are talking about?
Yes. The actual line I got about, “They always laugh at you before they applaud,” I got that from Elon when we were walking through his Hawthorne SpaceX plant. He was the guy that gave me that quote. I have been fortunate enough to spend time with the guy a few times. He is as incredible as you believe him to be.
He’s a little different, but nobody has changed the world looking through the world.
He doesn’t care. Do you think he cares? No, he does not. That’s the whole point. He does not care. He’s focused on the impact he can generate. Those people giggling are still packing bags in the local grocery store. He does not even recognize you, let alone hear you.
“People always laugh at you before they applaud you.” – Elon Musk
That’s what I love about him. He has public failures. He is what our children need to learn because we cuddle them. All success starts with failure. Fail fast. Fail forward and now, what can you learn? I have a question for you. I’m curious how you square this circle. People are afraid of fear and humiliation. However, here is what’s interesting. Since the dawn of time, people have always wanted more. Back in the day, if we did not learn to sharpen a stick to make a spear, the saber-toothed tiger would have killed us. Where’s the disconnect between people wanting more and people being afraid? You can’t achieve more without accepting and conquering your fear. Help us understand that.
Society is not doing us a lot of favors. You lived in Brooklyn and I lived in East London. We could have swapped addresses and we would have been the same folks.
We will come back in the day when it was Brooklyn. I would not trade it for the world.
You think it was rough and horrible. You got a few slaps every now and then, but it’s what made you the person you are now. We are growing up in a safer zone that is not. Everyone is holding up their phones when they attack someone, thinking that’s an invincibility cloak. We are all getting concerned about our feelings. It’s annoying.
You say about the saber-toothed. What do you think would happen if suddenly all the power went off on the planet and we would have to fence ourselves again? There would be a lot of people dead by the weekend. It would be pure anarchy and panic. The old saber-toothed tiger was a point of consequence. If you did not invent this, if you did not discover how to get over that, the consequence was you were dead. Saber-toothed would kill you. We are losing consequences now. It’s very easy for us to stand up and go, “I don’t agree with that. I’m going to protest about that. That’s not going to happen. Defund the police. Kick these people out. Let’s not do that.”
“Break those walls because I live behind the wall.”
The problem is we are living without consequence. I remember once when I went up to a guy in East London. I was an arrogant prick. The guy was there and I started messing around with him. A guy came up and slapped me in the face and knocked me to the floor. I was a kid. I got up and the guy that I was talking to was not getting riled up. He was not even the one that ordered the other guy to slap me. It was at that moment in time, I realized I messed with the wrong person in this area. There were people you messed with and there were people you did not.
Getting the slap was good for me. It could have been a lot worse. I realized what had happened. I came in the following day. I asked permission to speak to the gentleman and I apologized for my rudeness and immaturity. It all went well, but we had consequences then. You did this and got that. Now we don’t. We want to complain to the world.
The number of people that have got payouts during COVID was more than the money they ever earn. When that COVID is alleviated and we are all going back to work, they are sitting there in the house going, “I can’t go back to work. I don’t want to go to work. I like being at home.” Grow up and get out. I cannot believe how people so rapidly become weak.
It’s so interesting you say that because part of it also is everybody gets a trophy. This cracks me up. You are playing baseball. Three strikes, you are out, “Great job, Joey.” No, “Joey, you sucked. Do you want to learn?” I get the removal from the consequence. I have another little story. I knew somebody that coaches football at one of the Military academies in the States. This is years ago. I’m not going to name names. These are supposedly the best of the best, not from a football perspective, but from people. “These kids have the best physical shape ever. They had personal training, but here, weak.” I was shocked when the person said that to me. I love the Military. I don’t want people writing to me but there’s a disconnect.
We are not saying everybody.
I want you to give yourself a plug. You are hanging with Tony Robbins. What on God’s green Earth was going on there?
I have been very fortunate for the past years to speak on some great stages. I got booked. I’m doing an event with Richard Branson and Gary Vee. Out of the blue, I got contacted by Tony Robbins’ people to speak on his stage. The downside was it was in April on my son’s birthday. They wanted me in Palm Beach. I was like, “I want to do this but it’s my kid’s birthday.” I can’t do it and I love to do it. They are booking me for another day. They got loads of events, but they are looking through their calendar at the moment to see which ones can work in. I’m going to be up there with the Big T himself, which is cool.
Congrats to you. I have two more questions for you before I let you go, although I want to keep you forever. What’s the one most important thing about life that you have learned that you want everybody to know?
My dad is a big Irish lump of a fellow. He could not read the Chinese menu. He was not the sharpest tool in the shed. I remember one day, walking through London with him. I was about thirteen years old and this guy was a chain smoker. When I say chain smoke, one was in his mouth while another one was in his hand, ready for this one to run out. He could light it and then continue. He always had two cigarettes at the same time. It was one of those things.
We are walking through London. He puts his hand on me with the unlit cigarette, takes the other one out of his mouth, and did not even look at me. As we are walking, he went, “Son, no one ever drowned by falling in the water. They drowned by staying there.” He puts his cigarette back in his mouth and carries on walking.
At the age of thirteen, I stopped. I was like, “What was that?” I thought I had been consumed by a fortune cookie. It made no sense to me. He never made a comment about it. He never hinted at it. He never brought that up ever again, but it stuck with me. Every time my face is planted in the water, I realized this is my decision as to whether I stay or not. I would lay that one for him.
It’s being done for you. Here’s my next question. What’s the last book you reread and why?
It was probably The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. I like books to get my imagination going. I love reading books. I love Ryan Holiday, Jay Abraham, and Cameron Herold. All of those books get me actioning. I like books that take me into a state of dreaming. I love The DaVinci Code. I love The Dragon Tattoo books. I can imagine the gangs, the places, and unrevealing all the codes.
We need to dream and imagine more. When I get a book like Cameron Herold’s, and he’s got so many great books, the book will be shredded. Don’t ever try and borrow a book for me. It’s highlighted, circled, and torn out. That book is a workbook for me. I don’t go back to it because I have made all the comments and I’m actioning it. I do like to go back to books to take me into a faraway place.
That explains your brilliance and success. I will tell you why. When we immerse ourselves in somebody else’s story in the manner in which you said, we are imagining their reality. When we imagine somebody else’s reality, it is one of the fastest roads to creating empathy. Empathy is at the heart of a connection. You cannot have a relationship based on trust without a connection. There you go.
That makes me sound a lot smarter than I was. Thank you very much.
There’s something so intuitive about you. I do because I take myself from your working-class background. When you play streetball or stickball, nobody cares about what you wear. Nobody cares about where you are from. Either you hit two balls, pass a sewer, and it’s a double or you did not. If you don’t like it, you fight your own battles, but you got to be home for dinner at 5:00 or 6:00 and nobody cares. There were consequences to your behavior. Tell people how they can learn more about you.
I got Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen, which is my book. You can find out everything you need to at SteveDSims.com. If you like playing on social, I’m Steve D. Sims everywhere, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, probably my biggest following is on Instagram. Steve D. Sims in anywhere that you consume.
Thank you so much. I so appreciate your time. As promised to my readers, you took us for a ride. Make sure that you like, comment, share and subscribe to our show. We will see you next time.
Important Links
- Steve Sims
- Genius Network
- Dr. Sean Stephenson
- Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen
- Cameron Herold
- The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
- The DaVinci Code
- Facebook – Steve D Sims
- Twitter – Steve D Sims
- LinkedIn – Steve D Sims
- Instagram – Steve D Sims
- https://www.YouTube.com/watch?v=d20zXJAE5h4
About Steve Sims
Do you know anyone that’s worked with Sir Elton John or Elon Musk, sent people down to see the wreck of the Titanic on the sea bed or closed museums in Florence for a private dinner party and then had Andrea Bocelli serenade them while they eat their pasta – you do now.
Quoted as “The Real Life Wizard of Oz” by Forbes and Entrepreneur Magazine, Steve Sims is a best selling Author with “BLUEFISHING – the art of making things happen”, sought-after coach, Top rated speaker in the US speaker after keynoting at a variety of networks, groups and associations as well as the Pentagon and Harvard – twice!
