The Simplest Way to Make Your First $1Million (Investing Guide 2025)

It's not a sprint to get to your first million or your first 100,000. You know, it's more of a marathon. You know, if you put the process in place to be able to get there, you will eventually get there. You just got to trust in the process. This man is a multi-million dollar CEO, and he's done it in months. Let's meet Tilbury.

Young people, they're really impatient, and it's like they're just fast-tracking their way to earning as much money as possible, as fast as possible. Yeah, overnight success for me is 5 to 10 years of hard slog, putting everything in place to look like an overnight success, because they've taken those hits, they've taken those Ls, and now they know how to fly. I don't think some people are cut out for it. It doesn't suit everyone. It might be that you're an entrepreneur, and you can run a business—fantastic. But what was one of the failures that you experienced that taught you the most? That's a, that, that's a good question, 'cause it's a very, very hard one to answer.

Um, what's up, guys, and welcome back to First Things First. We have a special guest today, Mark Tilbury. How are you doing? Absolutely great. Well, how could it not be great? It's sunny Dubai. It's absolutely gorgeous, and I get to meet you at last, Mike. And it's been a little while. We've been trying to put this together for some time, but as you're based out here, a little bit difficult. Today's the day. Today is the day. You're like one of the OGs in the game, in terms of my life entrepreneurship, because you've been doing it for a long time, probably more than anybody else I've had on this podcast. So you've clearly got a lot of wisdom to, to share.

Well, I hope so. And, uh, I think the difference I have to a lot of people is, um, the number of years that I've been sort of doing my own thing. So I would say probably from about 14 years old, I've been doing side hustles and various different businesses, and, uh, you learn as you go, and, uh, that's what it's all about. You can't buy experience. You know, when you've got experience, you're going to look something like this, and not necessarily like yourself, you know, it's age and, um, hopefully now I've got to the age that I can pass some of that information on to youngsters and help them on their journey.

MH, at what age did you decide to start sharing that knowledge? Uh, it's about four years ago, uh, that we actually started the YouTube channel. And it's primarily because I thought that a lot of the stuff I knew was now being taught in schools, which it isn't. And that actually came as quite a shock to me. We were on a skiing trip, and I was talking to about four guys around the table, younger guys, and two hours the conversation went on, almost like a podcast it was, and, um, they were lapping up the information. I said to my son afterwards, "I can't believe that they don't know stuff. It's basic stuff." And he said, "No, it's not taught." Um, and my son was a videographer at the time, uh, we made a decision that we would, you know, try and do some YouTube and get this message out to the youngsters to help them out. And COVID hit, and Curtis's work dried up, so we really pushed into the YouTube, and, um, it seemed to work, you know, it seemed to hit a, you know, to a point. And I think there's, um, a little bit of, "I can't ask my parents, 'cause they won't talk about money, so I'll listen to what Mark has to say," and it seems a bit different.

Um, we also took the, the risk of going on to TikTok as well. Now, I went to China. I do a fair bit of business in China, and everyone's on this thing called TikTok, and I came back and I said to my son, "You know what, you know, we could complement this by being on TikTok." He said, "I'm not having you dancing on TikTok." Had the same, that's not for you. And I said, "No, no, no. Let's just put the message on there and see how that goes." And, you know, 7.4 million followers later, it's, it's been a great success. And obviously that's fed some of our YouTube success as well. Um, so yeah, it's very good, very enjoyable, and it's nice to get the recognition from people when you meet them, and the fact that they're doing well because they've implemented some of the things that you've spoken about. Yeah. If, do you tend to notice there's a specific demographic that's following each of these platforms?

Um, well, it was very male-orientated to start with. I mean, we were probably about 95% male audience, and now it's about probably about 82% approximately, so female audience is starting to follow. Um, it is a younger audience, that's for sure. So probably from 18 to 24 is our core audience, um, but again, the audience from 24 to 32, 34 is growing fast. Yeah, so that may be the biggest growing area at the moment. Yeah. One thing I've noticed is they tend to kind of grow with you, 'cause when I started off it was a lot of people who were similar age to me, and now they're kind of between 25 to 35 plus. Yeah, yeah. Well, my message really is for, for, for anyone, 'cause I believe everyone, um, can make better financial decisions. Everyone, without a doubt. And if they think like a millionaire, then that's going to change their life for sure. And obviously the younger you start, the better, but realistically, you know, if you implement any of my tips at any age, you're going to turn your life around for sure, as long as you commit to it. Yeah. Even yesterday, just doing some prep, I was going through all the videos, and I was like, "Ah, yeah. I think a lot of it to do with the spending." Yeah, I haven't, I mean, I look back at my, the past 10, 15 years, I definitely haven't been good at spending or saving.

Well, you've probably been good at spending a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I, I feel as though a lot of that spending has been investment into myself and the personal brand and just getting myself into situations that have helped me out. And I've always had an abundance mindset where I've thought that, you know, money is going to come my way if I just, if I, I'm not afraid to spend it. I feel like if I spend, you know, some people can spend more, and they can get it back in return. Yeah. Well, you see a direct link from what you spend to what you earn, um, and if you can see that direct link, I can understand that. But you should always look at the safety in that aspect as well, because you obviously, there is an abundance. People are led to believe there's a bucket of money, and that's how much there is, and you get a percentage of it, and that's all you get, because that's who you are. But there is an abundance of money out there, but quite often that abundance is only there for a short period of time for a particular person. So, you know, you've got to keep one investing in yourself for sure, if you feel that that money can be, uh, recouped, um, but also look at a safety net as well, because at the end of the day, you know, it doesn't matter that you put a safety net there, whether you use it or not, but if it's there, it's a good thing.

What do you feel as though most 18 to 25-year-olds are wasting their money on? Um, everything. I mean, it's always the next shiny thing, really, isn't it? With 18-year-olds, I think it's, um, it's driven a lot by social media as well, because obviously look at their heroes on social media, such as yourself, and you are living a very nice lifestyle, and they feel that they've immediately got to live that lifestyle. And of course, the thing is, it's not a race. It's not a sprint to get to your first million or your first 100,000. You know, it's more of a marathon. You know, if you put the process in place to be able to get there, you will eventually get there. You just got to trust in the process. Yeah. Do you think I'm flashy?

Um, I, I think your, um, your business has to show a certain amount of flair, and that's part of the message, isn't it? You know, and young guys have to have, have someone to aspire to, and I think you are someone that people aspire to. You know, you, I don't want to sound the wrong way, but obviously you're very fit, you got the, you know, right body, you've got the right lifestyle, and that's very aspirational. Yeah. But sometimes I think there is a disconnect with youngsters that they feel, um, these aspirational people are too far away, and they can't get there because they feel it's got to be instant. Yeah. Um, and I've not many met many people that have had overnight success. Yeah. Overnight success for me is, you know, probably 5 to 10 years of hard slog, putting everything in place to look like an overnight success. And I think your story is probably similar to that as well.

Um, I mean, you can, you know, tell us more about it. If you go back to my very early videos, I was living in a terrace house in Newcastle, doing my meal prep every day for years. It was like quite a humble lifestyle for sure. And I think that's, that was one thing that worked for me, because everybody could relate to it. Yeah. But then the moment I moved here to Dubai, and things start to get a little bit more flashy, I noticed there was a few people who were like, "Oh, I can't watch you anymore, because I just can't relate to it." But I, I think one thing I've done is I don't overly do it in terms of flashing materialistic things. I don't think you'll ever see me do that. But in terms of quality of life and lifestyle and surroundings and environment, that's definitely on view. Yeah. And you enjoy that lifestyle, which is great. And it is something to aspire to, the lifestyle that, that you want. And we were chatting before the podcast about my lifestyle and whether I could move out here, and really the Dubai lifestyle isn't really for me. I like it in bits and pieces. Second time here, I'm sure I'll come over again, maybe every couple of months, you know, it's a, it's a nice place to come to, but I enjoy my setup, you know, and it's everyone's an individual, and you've got to look at what your goals are to try and achieve those.

M, I'm curious to know what you like to spend your money on. Like, do you, do you splash out on yourself? Um, well, I do like, I like, as I say, holidays. I love, um, I love skiing. I used to love motorsport, to the extent I was into motorsport, so I'd race in Fiesta Cup, Clio Cup, on the touring car package, um, I decided to retire from that, um, but when I retired from it, I, I sponsored a young lad called Jake Hill, and that was 10 years ago, um, and he's been gradually going through, through the process of getting better and better as a racer, and last year he won the British Touring Car Championship. His number, he's always raced as number 24, and Jake won in 24, and that's really, really cool for me. So I'm almost racing through him now. So I, I spend my money there. Um, I spend my money on my hobbies. I race model airplanes, you know, 200 mph model airplanes, travel the world doing that, and thoroughly enjoy it. We're in, uh, Abu Dhabi at the end of this year, so we go to the Formula 1 Grand Prix, then we race our aircraft the following week. Quite a big event. So, you know, there's lots of things I enjoy doing. Love golf. Yeah, as you know, golf can be expensive. I choose to be a member of a local club that's not that expensive, but very inclusive, nice to, you know, enjoy the company of people, but that enables me then to go and play all around the world. So wherever I go, I take my clubs. I had a lovely game of golf with a friend of mine, uh, two days ago here. That's it, John Bualoi, who won, uh, well, he won, um, but there is a technicality to that win. But I haven't played for, I've played one game in two months because the weather back home is atrocious. I was going to play last weekend, and the course was waterlogged. Yeah. You don't have that problem here. No, no. But you do have a problem trying to play in the summertime though. Yeah, too hot, isn't it? Yeah. But that's when you come back home. Yeah. What, what do you call home these days?

Home? I'd probably say home is here, for this is the base for now. Yeah. Will it be the home forever? I don't know. Like it's, uh, I think one thing I like about my lifestyle now is I can pick up and relocate if I choose to relocate, depending upon my mood or where is the place to be. So yeah, as a, as a single guy who's focusing on his career, I think this is a good place to be. Might not be the best place to be, because I know I'm here, it doesn't necessarily mean, oh, everybody has to move to Dubai. I think there's actually already quite a lot of people here, and I don't want any more people here, 'cause the traffic is terrible. Yeah, yeah. So there's other hotspots around the world which I think if you want to make it in business entrepreneurship, just go to where the money is and where the, the buzz is. Um, in the summertime, base tends to be more so Europe. Yeah. But there's usually 3 months of travel. That's fully understandable. I mean, just the sunshine makes a difference to your day. I mean, I used to do quite a lot of business in California, um, and just getting up in the morning, putting your sunglasses on when you go, I mean, it's just automatic here, and it's automatic in California, and it just gives you that buzz in the morning. And I think that's hard to be, um, and you can't really get that at home. No, because you, it's the odd day where you get that buzz, and you do feel it, but you don't get it all the time, whereas certainly in these sunnier climates you get that, "I want to get out there," you know, might even encourage me to do a bit of fitness as well. You know, that's the thing with, with me, I prefer to stay at a lower body fat percentage because it just helps for business, the videos, literally everything. But when I was living in the UK when it was colder, it was, it was so hard to stay leaner because you're always like, you got three layers on. There's no real motivation for you to be leaner because nobody sees it, and you want to be eat a big stew or hot pot because you want to get some warmth into you and some carbs. So I noticed for, for me and what I was doing, it was just, it wasn't the spot for me, and particularly when it comes to filming content, like I, I like to shoot a lot of content outdoors, and first 6 months of the year in the UK you can't really do that, so it was, it was a bit problematic. But I did love, I enjoyed being in London, like it's especially back in before COVID, I feel like it was a def, it was a better place. We were struggling with our short videos to be honest, you, it gets so cold and dowy that it's not great. So we went to New York and did, um, a load of shorts just recently, but that was even colder, but at least you had the iconic sort of backgrounds to film in front of. But when you come here, definitely gives you that inspire, oh sorry, inspiration to just flick that switch and do so much more.

I think young people, if they're a little bit lost, and they don't know what to do, I would always suggest to them just try maybe living somewhere else for a little bit. Now, this could be maybe against the advice which you give, because it will come at a cost, like you've got to pay to get yourself there, then you, you're instead of maybe staying at home for a little bit and, you know, staying at the parents or whatever, you've got to go and get a place for yourself, and, you know, say for example if you wanted to go and live in New York, that's going to cost you quite a lot of money. Yeah. But just having that taste of living in a different city, different environment, different people, it can be quite good for, you know, getting some inspiration or figuring out like what are the things you like and don't like. And when you are young, you really do have that freedom where you can kind of do whatever you want. You don't really have any responsibility. I mean, a lot of that I do actually agree with. I think anytime you put yourself out your comfort zone, you're, you're stretching yourself, and if you're stretching yourself, then you're, you're turning yourself into a better person, more rounded, you know, more worldly wise, um, and you get to meet a lot of people as well. And of course, as you're aware, your circle of friendship, that, that's the biggest gain that you can probably get, because let's face it, if you're, you know, surrounded by five losers that say, "Oh, I wouldn't invest, you're going to lose your money," then you're not going to invest. If you got five better-off people, wealthier people around you, say, "Yeah, we all invest, why don't you?" Well, you're going to invest, you know. So that, just surrounding yourself with more, you know, knowledgeable, wealthy people, people is the way to go. And also, I think there's a, a bit of a thing that you leave education and think, "Right, I'm done. Bln, I know it all. I'm at the top of my game. There's nothing else I need to, to learn here. I'll now go and work and do my life." Um, but I think you got to flip that and, um, learn something new pretty much every day. Yeah, you know, and if you don't, you, you're going to get left behind. And it's a bit like, um, you getting some antivirus software in your head at times because you've got to get rid of all that outdated, older knowledge and reboot everything and go again. And, you know, I look amongst, you know, some people I know, I wouldn't necessarily say in a friendship group, but some people I know, and they're, have they learned anything since they were 30? I doubt it, you know, and now they're struggling with internet banking. You know, how can you struggle with internet banking? But they're struggling with it. They're struggling with everything, all the technology. Oh yeah, they don't care about us. They're leaving us behind, and they're shutting all the branches of the banks and this, that, and the other, but they haven't, you know, done a, a reboot, you know, they haven't tried to keep learning through their lives. And that's why it's a marathon, it's not a sprint. You know, just keep working on the process, keep improving yourself, you know, exactly as you say with fitness, you know, if you stop today, you're going to lose what you're known for, aren't you? You are going to lose it over time. And it's exactly the same with knowledge. You've just got to keep reading, keep listening to people, surround yourself with people that know more than you, you know, that's the best way of doing everything. And even in running a business, accept that you, you're not the best at running your business, you just happen to be the person running your business. You might be the figurehead for it or whatever it is, but every good business needs an incredible team behind them, and I have to say I have an incredible team behind me, and I could do what I do without them, you know, and that is very, very important to remember. Yeah, it's not all about the figurehead, you know, how Elon Musk would never have got rockets up into space if it was just Elon Musk making rockets, where he needs these youngsters that have all the new ideas and a new energy to be able to create that, to make that happen, to give them an environment to make that happen. That's what he's done, you know, and that's really important. Do you know what? I, I think he even has a team tweeting on his behalf, because I have no idea how he has the time to do all the things which he says he's doing.

Yeah, of course. When, when you, I want to know a little bit about the, the first few, uh, entrepreneurial ventures that you had when you were younger, 'cause I don't want to go all the way back and you repeat your life story again, but to summarize, you, you left school when you were 16. Yeah, I left school at 16, but as I said, I would say the journey started from about 14. I think we should all start talking about money, yeah, from about that sort of age group. And as I say, there's barriers up against that, but you've got to break through those, and, you know, either watch good content or talk to your parents and find out what went wrong in their lives, 'cause generally something's gone wrong in their lives, and if you repeat the same process they went through, you're going to get the same. And if you want to break that, you've got to do something a little bit different. But it was a different time back then for, for you. I mean, there was no YouTube. Yeah, totally different time. Yeah, no Amazon. Yeah, no internet. Yeah, yeah. You know, you had to, if you know, once I started investing at 18, I had to phone up a stockbroker and, yeah, buy, buy, buy, sell, sell, sell. You know, it's a totally different world. That's why you have to keep rebooting all the time to keep up with the technology and the way things change. Um, so, you know, I always say try as many things as you can, yeah, when you're young, you know, from 14, get out there, you know, if you can get a Saturday morning job, you, it doesn't matter what you're doing, you know, you can be making coffees, you can be working at McDonald's, flipping burgers. Eventually you will find out what you don't like doing, all right? So we can discard those, can't we? And you find out what you do like doing, and also what you're good at, and also where the money is as well. So if you get yourself like a Venn diagram, you've done all these jobs, so you get a Venn diagram, you, you know what you're good at, you know what your passion is, and you know where the money is, right? So if you got one thing that goes into the middle, into that sweet spot, so I know say for example, um, you like YouTube, um, and you're good at producing videos, and there's money in it, there's the sweet spot. You've got it from all three areas. That's, that's where you are, and that's what I did, you know, when I started my first business, I was, you know, good at communicating, um, uh, so that made me good at sales, so you got your sales covered. Um, I was passionate about, uh, flying radar control helicopters, which at the time was very hard to do, and not many people did it, so that was my passion, and there was money in it. So the, the three combine, and then you try and twist it a little bit to make it different from everyone else. And by working in a, a model shop for a while part-time, I could write down all those different things that they were doing well, like, "Oh, they sell well," or, "He's a good customer, get his number," and all the rest. But the important thing is not writing down what's good, it's what's bad about the business that you're working in as well, and really drill down, ask good questions, you know, you're only going to get good answers if you ask good questions. So the quality of your questions determines the quality of your answers, and you can learn so much from a small business that you'll never learn in a big business, yeah, because you're just a number there, whereas if you're in a team of, let's say, 10, 15 people, you can learn everything about that business, and then all the bad things you can make sure that you can improve on those. And it's, it's not about inventing the wheel here when you start a business, you know, the wheel's already been invented, you're just tweaking a few spokes, and that will make your business unique. I mean, Uber didn't invent taxis. Yeah, I just invented a better way to do it. Yeah, you know, still a car, still a driver, but a better system, you know. So you're not inventing the wheel. Mhm. Same with Airbnb as well. I've seen you exactly, they own no property, yeah, and yet look at it, that's enormous. So the, the model company was one of the first ones you started that actually had some degree of success.

Yeah, I, I mean, I did lots of different things, lots of different businesses. I say most of them were successful, but not really scalable, and that's the important thing. So obviously service-based businesses that you operate around your local area are not that scalable. They're good for fast, they don't cost you much to set up. So car washing rounds, all that sort of thing, don't cost much to do, but they do bring in, you know, money, um, so you can scale, you can't scale that, sorry. Then you're go to selling products locally, again very hard to scale. So it's all about gradually moving along, gradually building your worth, and changing how you're operating as you go through life. I'm trying to think of the, the first few things which I did when I was, I think the, the very first was, this is when I was a teenager, my, I needed a bit of pocket money, my dad was not going to give me any pocket money. He's like, "You can work for it." And that is a good thing. Yeah, that is a good dad. Yeah, yeah. I'm like that. I'm sure you do the same. I, I, uh, I to clean everybody's shoes, so me and my brother played rugby, so I had to clean the rugby boots, I had to polish everybody's shoes, I had to mow the lawn, and I had to clean my dad's car. So doing all those things, he would give me my pocket money. Then I was a gardener temporarily, this was in between university during the holiday, I would just go and garden people's houses, which is all right. It was very labor-intensive, but it was like decent bit of cash. Y. And then I remember one summer, this was probably the most tedious job I ever had, it was working in a warehouse, and I think it was, it was, uh, these wine glasses that were sold by Asda. They'd made loads of them, but they made a mistake on the labeling which said like three for two, and they didn't want to show that, so they basically needed people to put stickers over that label so that no one could see it anymore. So what, there was me, a couple of friends, and some, a couple of Polish people, we would basically unpack crate after crate of these boxes of wine glasses, and there was six of them in a box, and we had to put a sticker one side, sticker the other side, put it back in the box again and again and again, the whole summer doing exactly the same thing. And all these jobs you've done, you find out what you don't want to do long-term. Yeah. But they also help you with your interaction with people, because again, social media is stopping a lot of this interaction, so, you know, everyone thinks they got thousands of friends, but actually they haven't. Yeah, you know, and all this thing about meeting people and socializing, I would say if there's one thing youngsters lack at the moment from my, you know, what I see, is that social interaction. Yeah, you know, with real people. And I think that's invaluable to be honest, because meeting people is, is always going to be important whatever you do. Yeah. And being like, just punctual as well, just showing up on time for something, looking presentable, and like you said, just being able to have that communication and people skills, because everything, there's so many people who immediately become self-employed, and they just don't really understand how business works. Well, I was saying on the punctuality, you know, early is on time, on time is late, and late is just not acceptable. Yeah.

You know, you should be early. You should. I mean, we were here 15 minutes at least early, sat in the lobby, thought about having a coffee, you know, make sure we’re ready to come up and be here on time. I think it’s very important; it shows respect for your guest, for your host. Sorry, um, some people can get away with it. I mean, some people have probably earned the right. I mean, I won’t name names, but some people can be late purely because of the, you know, the what they’ve built up, the credibility they’ve built up. But I think realistically, it shows it shows a lot of respect that you’re on time, so much, and it’s it’s underrated, should we say?

Yeah, and I I also have had my fair share of uh, with this and other things. Just your time is valuable; you don’t want to be wasting your time waiting on other people.

No, for sure. It’s one of the reasons I go to the gym and I train by myself. Soz, I’m like, look, I I don’t have the time to be waiting around for people to show up and to be talking during a gym set, and it’s like, I need to go when I’m available to go, and I go get it done, and I smash that hour or whatever you’re going to do and uh, get back on, get on the treadmill.

I’ve noticed as well, a lot of people, especially young people, they’re really impatient, and it’s like they just want to immediately go into the the first job being their dream job and fast-tracking their way to earning as much money as possible, as fast as possible.

Yeah, that’s for sure, which I feel like, I mean, yeah, good for you if you can manage to do that, and there are ways to do that, but I think a lot of young people just need to go and do some shitty jobs just to get a feel for it. I think the trouble is that is pushed by social media again, isn’t it? It’s “follow your passion” and all the rest of it. Uh, what if your passion has no end money to it?

Yeah, you know, one of my passions is racing cars. Well, you know, all the will in the world, even half the Formula 1 grid don’t get paid as drivers; you know, they’re there via lots of sponsorship and everything to get them into that position, so you’re not going to earn a lot of money. Yes, it’s glamorous, and it’s a lifestyle and all the rest of it, but realistically, you’re not going to earn long-term wealth out of it. So you know, passion might not be the thing that that you you should go for straight away, cuz passions, once you’ve got your financial um, situation sorted out, you can follow whatever passion you want.

Yeah, so I got my finances sorted out, my business sorted out, everything ticking over nicely, I went motor racing. I got, yeah, everything’s sorted out; I can go and do other things. You know, you can follow your passions once everything’s sorted out. Now, obviously, if your passion happens to tie in with your business, that’s very lucky, and again, take my business for example; I was very passionate about flying model airplanes, and I’ve flown all all around the world um, but I wasn’t going to get paid for it; that’s what I saw, and I thought, I’ve got to get myself into the model industry if I’m going to enjoy my passion and use some of my passion towards my business. Um, so yes, you can say I followed my passion, but firstly it was business, and I always separated my own hobby, as it were, my own enjoyment of the hobby, separate from the actual physical business. Business was business. You know, you can be friends to everyone, yeah, all your mates down the M Flying Club doing great deals and everything, but you’re not going to survive, are you? So I think separating that passion from your business is is quite important, but sometimes you get a bit of crossover, which is good.

I think for me, I realized that my passion was going to the gym; I just loved working out, but I never saw myself being a teacher or a coach, and I can’t say that I am the most passionate person ever about educating or teaching, but it turns out that I was quite good at it because first of all, I knew how to do it myself; I liked, I just loved going to the gym, and also because I’d built up so much experience with coaching people on a one-to-one basis for years. Yeah, when it came to educating people online, I was actually quite good at it, so that kind of worked out for me. And then, obviously, as you said, once you get your finan finances sorted and you’ve got like a decent stream of revenue coming in, then you can maybe, which kind of like what I’ve done, and there’s there’s things I’ve tried which worked, then other things which I’ve tried which have not worked so much, but that that’s the the rule of business, isn’t it? You know, lots of things won’t work, um, and there is a definitely a fear culture out there as well, um, and I think, you know, while you’re young, you can take so many risks; it’s it’s unbelievable because you’re going to bounce back, you know, and failure is drummed into in school as failure. Well, I always look at it as a lesson, you know, it’s a free generally it’s a free lesson. Okay, if you lose a bit of money, it’s cost you a little bit, but it’s cost you a little bit to learn a lesson, yeah, and you’re not going to do it again; you know, you you you’ve learned from it, and you can move on from it, so don’t be afraid to fail. You you look at all the richest people in the world, all the people that you look up to, they’ve all failed multiple times, multiple times, you know, and that’s what makes them successful because they’ve taken those hits, they’ve taken those L’s, and now they know how to fly.

What was one of the failures, failures that you experienced that taught you the most? Oh, that’s a that that’s a good question because it’s a very very hard one to answer. Um, I I think going into business with someone in Europe that I really didn’t understand him enough, and he only brought perhaps what I brought. Oh yeah, and I think the lesson I learned from that was that you need to bring someone into a business that complements what you do. So say you’re a baker, for example, and you bake the most fabulous cakes in the world; you’re brilliant at it; everyone looks at your cakes that sees them; they’re the best; can’t believe it; I want them, and you can sell them locally if you can’t market them; you can’t sell them if you’re not good at marketing, so you need a marketer. Yeah, you need someone who can run a business, so that’s when you bring in that partner that’s good at all those things. You don’t know how to bake and got the first clue, but knows how to sell them. Yeah, you don’t want someone else who’s also going to be an amazing baker; it’s like, yeah, what’s the point? What’s the point? You know, you can invest in a in a partner that brings all those complimentary things to the party. And if you said that’s probably a regret of mine, that I didn’t initially have a partner when I started out that complemented what I didn’t know how to do. So a lot of those lessons were hard-learned.

How old are you at that point? Uh, well, I actually physically started my first shop, so let’s say Brooks and Mor Store, at 20, so it’s pretty young really. I did an apprenticeship as a carpenter and joiner um, up until the age of 20, and I got a bit bullied; I couldn’t get the jobs I wanted. I won various awards for, you know, the my time within the apprenticeship, which no one else had ever done at the the company I was with, and I thought, hey, here we go, all the big jobs. I love making staircases; in fact, it’s not so much I like making staircases, I like going to a house that’s really awkward to put a staircase in, so let’s say a listed building that’s particularly awkward, you know, very quirky, and working out how you can get that staircasing not only to fit and do a good job but to look the part. Yeah, now making it is the other thing which is fairly enjoyable, but the design of it, that was it, and that’s where I thought my my my life was going; I was going to design really upmarket staircases, furniture, all that sort of stuff.

Staircase connoisseur? Yeah, you know, well, there’s a lot of money in it. I mean, I made a staircase before I left uh, working for that particular company with, you know, not just me, a team of guys are making it, and the staircase was uh, £29,000. Okay, now that was, oh, that was the best part of nearly 40 years ago, all right? That’s a lot of money; you could buy one and a half terrace houses for that amount of money at the time, cuz I always remember they were 19,999 for a terrace house at that point. Yeah, and this staircase was so big they craned it in through the roof of this London house, and to see that in place and then to talk to the guy who owned the house, and that was inspirational. Again, you’re getting out, and you’re talking to people, and he was the first person that said to me, look, you know, you yeah, thought, yeah, I asked; I always ask questions, you know, like, how’d you get so you don’t have to go to work and how are you playing golf in the middle of the week? He said, well, you’ve got to get your money to work for you. Yeah, if you don’t get your money working for you, you’re working forever; you know, you’ve got to build your own dreams, not someone else’s. Yeah, it’s very important.

So does that come down to having the right team or pursuing the right type? Yeah, I think you build a team, don’t you? You build a team as you go forward, and um, you know, that that’s the important thing to get the right people around you. It takes time; you know, you get the wrong people, and you know, you can have a team of 12 people, and this has happened to us, I know about six years ago; I won’t say names, but we had like a rotten apple within the system. Yeah, and that can disrupt the whole thing; it’s amazing, absolutely amazing how much it affects morale, get-up-and-go, everything about the business. So you know, the first rule of thumb is if you feel you need to sack someone, you should have done it yesterday. Yeah, don’t linger. Okay.

Have you have you gone into a business partnership with anybody else since that? Yes, I have. Yeah, I’ve had a a couple of successful partnerships. I mean, I have a fabulous partnership with my son currently, um, but I had a partnership a few years back that was successful. You know, there’s no way I could run, and I was I was also partners with my dad as well at one point because he he ran one of my stores, and another store I opened was we’re in partnership with another guy. Um, he decided he wanted to go his own way; he did unfortunately go his own way; it didn’t survive, um, but when it went down, I knew he was a good guy; he just didn’t have the business experience. He then came back and worked for me um, until he retired. So you know, never burn your bridges either is a another golden rule as well, particularly if you know they’re good people; you know, good people are hard to find.

How does that dynamic work with your son because I I like the idea of that because it’s something I would quite like to do when I have a son, hopefully one day, but you’re kind of going into partnership with someone who doesn’t have a whole deal of experience, so it’s almost like you’re, I’m curious to know how it how it works, cuz no doubt you’re mentoring them quite a lot on everything, but at the same time you’re a business partnership?

Uh, well, I would say in the early days, yeah, certainly your your mentor in a fair bit because it’s uh, it’s all about business and the things you shouldn’t shouldn’t do, what you what you what you might want to achieve. I mean, I remember him coming to me when he he left school uh, cuz he didn’t want to go to university, which I think it’s a very very brave decision when all your peers have pushing you down that route. He 16 or 18 at the time? Uh, he was 18 at the time and decided not to go, and he stopped and set up his own business, and I said, well, look, what are you aiming to make a day? And he told told me, and I said, nah, no, no, son, you you you’re off off the mark; you’ve got to be looking, and he was very he was so upset, so upset. And I think the trouble with parenting, you can you can go, oh, well done, yeah, oh, well done, son, well done, that’s brilliant, fantastic, but you’ve got to be realistic. You know, his skill set is worth more than he’s pricing himself at. Now, obviously, you can do free jobs, and I get that it’s very important when you’re starting out, get some testimonials, get some free jobs done so you can show what you’re capable of doing, but then you’ve got to find your value, and if you’re valuable, you should be up in it all the time, just keep up in what you’re charging, and at the point someone says no, well, they’re thinking about it; you’ve got two decisions: were they your sort of client? Did you want them anyway? Or is it that you’re just getting to around that point of value where you should be? You know, within a year, he was up to £1,000 a day, you know, on the jobs he was going to, and you know, okay, I wouldn’t have said that to straight away to get to that area, but he’s capable of that. Yeah, you know, and and seeing that capability, I think you’ve got to be strong. You know, I I think parenting is very hard, which you will find out at some stage; you know, that they always say there’s no handbook for parenting. Well, in actual fact, there’s probably thousands, um, but none of them are necessarily a blueprint for it, um, but I think praise, word, praise is due, but not praise just to keep your kid happy. I mean, sometimes the the best parenting is being quite hard and quite harsh. Yeah, I I just recently saw a post online of um, a prisoner on death row writing, I don’t know if you’ve seen it; he’s written a letter to his mother. Um, I know it sounds like sort of passing the buck a bit, but it was like, when you didn’t pick me up on this, when when I stole this from the shop and you said I’ll keep it; it’s not worth taking it back, and you know, when dad wanted to tell me off and you said he couldn’t, and then you split up because of the rows we had, you know, all those things are hard parenting, but they should happen, but that led him down the route he ended up on. Um, and I I think it’s important to be, you know, fair. I I always remember um, my son son’s passion when he was younger was magic; absolutely loved magic, and I like I like magic; I know how a lot of it’s done, but I still enjoy it because you can, if you can’t see how it’s done, and you know how it’s done, that’s good magic. Yeah, a good slight of hand, and he’d show me tricks, and I’d say, yeah, yeah, yeah, it’s good, but I could see how you did it, so you’ve got to practice on that, and again, it’s upsetting for, you know, you you give a bit of praise; it’s good, but it can be better, and I think eventually appreciate that because he was doing kids’ parties, and you’re only good enough when when I can’t see how you’re doing it; you are good enough to go and do that in front of anyone, and you get to that stage, and yeah, you are good.

Yeah, I would imagine one of the most difficult things about parenting is if you grew up and you didn’t didn’t have anything, no didn’t have anything. That’s for sure, and then you you almost think, oh, I want to give my children or my son everything I didn’t have, but then if you give them too much, then they don’t have that drive; don’t have, I I’ve noticed as well, if I’ve ever been if I’ve ever got money for whatever reason for not really having to work for it, I just don’t value it that much.

Easy come, easy go. Yeah, I mean, my son wanted to start his videography business, and he needed a laptop. Now, look, I could go and buy that laptop for and give him the money, go and get it, whatever, um, but what did you learn from that about business? Not a thing. Yeah, so I said, well, you’re going to have to sort out how you’re going to do that; you’re going to either have to wait and earn the money, oh, but I’ll lose money cuz I got this job; I need it for, said, or you going to have to borrow the money, or you’re going to have to, however you’re going to, or get an advance on the job; you’ve got to work out how you’re going to do it because that’s that’s that’s your lesson to learn. Now, he always says, I could have just given it, but but but I shouldn’t just give it; it’s better to learn the lessons of business along the way, otherwise you miss them.

Yeah, yeah, and what’s the point in missing the lessons because they’re they’re crucial? Yeah, yeah, it’s like someone winning the lottery and go, yeah, I’ve made it; I’ve made it. Well, you can’t make it again. Yeah, whereas if you learn all the skills and you’ve made a million and you lose it, well, you can do it again because you still got the skills. In fact, you do it quicker the second time.

Yeah, I went through one of your posts where you rated some of your income streams based on how difficult they were to basically achieve. I think you you started off number one, personal brand; that’s one of the easiest things you can start. Yeah, and I think everyone should have a personal brand; you know, you get out there and and be very careful of it as well because everything you post is there forever; someone’s got a snapshot of it; someone’s, you know, taken a a picture of something you’ve said, or it’s filed away somewhere, and that can come back to bite you. So your personal brand is really important, but that’s a problem though, cuz a lot of young people are idiots; like, they were posting things which they probably going to haunt them later on. Like one of the things I’m quite happy about was when I came onto the scene; I think he was probably about 26, so I I know for sure if I was pumping out content as an 18-year-old, I would have probably said or done some stupid things, and it’s a shame because, as I say, it will haunt you for the rest of your life. And one of the things we made sure of again with my son was, you know, you can only you you can be online; you can be on Facebook at the time and various other things, but you cannot swear; you cannot swear. Oh, you’ve got to think about what you’re doing, but if you swear, you lose your device cuz we’re not having it. So that makes you thoughtful of what you’re saying rather than because once you’ve done it once, you’ve sent it; that’s it; it’s out there in the ether forever. Yeah, so that was that was quite a crucial stage, and I think also, and I’ll probably get a bit of hate for this, but youngsters probably shouldn’t have um, you know, the power that they have in their handheld devices at the ages they have them. I mean, I’d like to say 16 is probably around the age they should have it, but let’s be, you know, good or bad, and say 14, but they’ve got them at eight; I mean, they’ve got access to everything, everything.

I think as well, if you are young and you’re on those devices and you somehow figured out a way to get a lot of followers very quickly, that is probably not the best for your mental health, yeah, or the way that I don’t know, the world works because you automatically, a young age, have a lot of attention, and you might not have even done much to to get that attention. I mean, they used to say that we didn’t talk about mental health as much back in my day, which is true, but then I don’t think there were as many problems back then, and I think it is definitely a thing now where it’s it’s more of a thing for sure because you hear it all the time; it’s, you know, it’s in your employment laws and everything to to make sure that you’re you’re being careful with people and and not upsetting them and everything else because it’s definitely a thing without a doubt. I mean, you never had, you know, several million friends online that suddenly turn on you and tell you you’re ugly. Yeah, you know, you might have had the school bully, but you knew he was a school bully telling you that, so didn’t really matter, did it? Cuz he tells everyone that. Yeah, so that’s one of those things. Um, you can’t get comfortable in yourself, can you? With social media; that’s another problem youngsters have; that they’re not comfortable in themselves. I think they’ve got to change to fit in. I mean, you’ve got to be comfortable with who you are. I mean, I was tall, ginger, lanky, loved playing with model airplanes; I mean, come on. Yeah, come on, me, model airplanes turned into my business, you know. Uh, I was tall and skinny, so I’m not too fat now thankfully, so that sort of kept on, but I’ve lost the ginger hair, so you know, there’s your blessing. Yeah, yeah. You you mentioned the the model airplanes; you you said number two was the eBay store. Yeah, so is that still? Yeah, it’s still very big. Yeah, yeah, we do a lot on eBay, and we buy um, a lot of, I always say failing businesses or or there’s a lot of people retire within my niche that can’t necessarily sell their businesses; they just want to pack up, and I’ll go in, and I’ll offer an amount for the whole lot; sweep the floor; they’re done. In that same niche, within that niche. Yeah, so it can be, you know, it’s a quite a wide niche, so it can be diecast models; it can be radio-controlled models. You know, and I think sort of within that niche, there’s a few things that come in from outside it, but that niche for us is is quite good.

Yeah, basically eliminating the competition you want to take. Well, I I think competition’s good, but I don’t think you’re eliminating it. I mean, I’ve actually had people on eBay though, not I wouldn’t say eliminating the competition; no, there’s plenty of competition out there. I mean, the biggest competition is coming from, you know, direct uh, to customer competition from the manufacturers, actually, big competition; you’re not going to crack, so you’ve got to be aware of that, and that’s again, that’s part of flipping the script as we go along, um, but no, it’s um, I’ve I’ve had people literally break down, cry cuz they got so stressed with their businesses by the time they get to retire, what to do with it, and they’ve had all these hassles and stuff, you know, we clear it through, and they’ve literally broken down with, you know, joy that it’s it’s all over at that stage, you know, so that’s good.

You want Amazon as well? No, Amazon doesn’t really work very well for us; we we’ve tried a couple of different ways of selling on Amazon for for us; it doesn’t really work, um, and but for other things, it’s fantastic, so it just depends what you’re into.

Why doesn’t it work on Amazon? I just think it’s just the model space just doesn’t seem to work; people aren’t searching for it, not really; they might search for a main product, but because we sell so many small component parts, it seems to work better on eBay, and eBay is an amazing search engine; I mean, essentially, it is a search engine, and it finds everything we’ve got, so you might have one part that you would never sell in a million years in your shop; you put it on eBay, and there’s someone in out of Mongolia that goes, oh, that’s exactly the bit I was looking for; bam, and now it goes.

You know, I wonder, you know, a lot of these people who are selling stuff on Amazon, they probably underestimate eBay; like it’s still, yeah, I yeah, I I think it’s very good; I think Amazon’s very good, but they they do sort of serve as slightly different markets. I think you say eBay is older. eBay is older. Yeah, I think definitely, yeah, cuz I remember when I when it first, it was like the place, yeah, to go when I was in my 20s, early 20s, and it was it was fun then; it was like so unregulated; you literally sell anything you wanted to sell. So I remember I kind of got into, I guess it was dropshipping very early on; I knew nothing about how anything worked; I just knew at that point in time there was a demand for Ed Hardy clothes, so I found uh, someone that was was selling it somewhere in China, and I was like, oh, I’ll just literally buy from because it was it was cheap there; I was like, I’ll buy it from China; I’ll just ship it to these people who are buying it from wherever they were buying it from. Yeah, anyway, I didn’t realize until, you know, a couple of weeks, a month later, that these cuz I never saw the clothes; they were they were replicas; they were fakes. So obviously, what I was doing was highly illegal cuz I was selling fake uh, merchandise. So I mean, I made a lot of money very quickly, but then eBay were very quick to be like, hey, this what you’re doing is illegal, so they actually um, they kind of blacklisted me, so I didn’t have my eBay account anymore; my PayPal was blocked, and it’s a shame really because I think I had the right idea but just the wrong approach and just a lack of understanding of how the actual world works. But I remember, yeah, there was there was definitely back then; eBay was the place to be.

Well, one of my team had a very successful eBay site, and he knows eBay inside out, which is really good, um, and he was uh, he was really into his gaming, and again, it’s one of those situations where you say to yourself, I’m not going to earn money from gaming, you know, I’m just not at that level where you can earn the money, but I know about all of it, and I know that these sticks are better, and these paddles are better, and so he set up a store on eBay, and within a year, he’s doing a quarter of a million turnover, which is very very good. Now he’s come to work for us, so um, but it’s it it works, and and I think the thing with eBay is it has got expensive; it has got forgotten by some, but for others, it it’s a go-to place. Um, I think if I was buying furniture, I’d be looking at Amazon perhaps and other sites, but and maybe not eBay, but for certain um, you know, products, it’s it’s very good.

Yeah, you know what, my my dad, he gave me a really good idea when I was young; this is when I was a teenager; he was like, look, you know how to use eBay; why don’t you go around the neighbors’ houses and ask if they have anything that they want to sell? And obviously, at this point in time, I had a lot of free time. Yeah, so there was a guy who lived across the road from me who actually had a he had like a corner shop, but he had this garage basically full of crap, yeah, which wasn’t being sold; he hasn’t got the time to try and sell it; he’s not of time, and he actually had this old till system, this massive till system in the garage, and he was always complaining about it just taking up so much space. I said to him, look, why don’t you let me try and sell it, and then you can just give me a little cut from what the selling price is, and anyway, we we sold…

It and it actually got quite a lot of interest, and the bids went up, and it sold for like £15,000. And then you probably find someone wanted it for parts or whatever it happened to be. And it's it's the perfect cell; they couldn't find it anywhere else. That's that's really good for for people, especially the teenagers who do have a lot of time. You'll be surprised how much junk people have, and they just want to sell, and still there will be a demand for it somewhere. Why would I say, as a as a side hustle, that's something you can certainly do and you know, expand it a bit? Go around the local trading estate, you know, go to the local plumbers' merchants; they might have a cold tap and not the hot tap. You know, they can't sell it on its own; no one wants it, but you put it on eBay, and you've got the time to do it because time is is is your tool when you're young; you've got plenty of time. You know, just get listing, get selling, and you can do it on a commission; you can do it on, or "I'll buy that pallet off you." I mean, you buy pallets from Amazon, can't you? Have returns, you know, sometimes your quid's in, sometimes not so, but yes, a good certainly a good side hustle to get involved with.

We'll get back to the podcast in a second, but first of all, I want to say a massive shout out to Bionic. I have been using their supplements for the past four years. I never knew what supplements I needed to take; I'd always go into the pharmacy and buy a load of random bottles and end up popping pills all day every day, not having a clue if I was consuming the vitamins which I should be consuming at all. But Bionic came to save the day. They are a tailor-made supplement company that will put together your own specific formula based on your activity, your gender. I have Bionic Pro, where I get the blood test done every three to four months, and based on that blood test, I get my own personalized formula. For those people who don't want to do a blood test or don't have access to that, then you can go with Bionic Go, where you just have to fill in a short questionnaire, and based on that question, uh, you will get your tailored supplements with a surprisingly high degree of accuracy. So stop the guesswork, sign up to Bionic, and ensure that you remove those deficiencies and build up your immune system.

And go back to that list; we have number three was the stock market. Yeah, yeah, that one's kind of less. I've been investing since I was 18, you know, so it's definitely been very very good for me. It tends to be less sexy because of the, you got to be in it for the long run. Well, you can you can day trade, which is rather sexy, but very high risk, but my strategy is always long-term, and I I invest heavily into uh index funds, which are very very straightforward for me. The less I do, the less I touch my money, the better. You know, think of your money like, I think we did this in a video, like a cookie; the more you handle it, the more it crumbles away. So if you can lock it away in a tax-advantage account like an ISA or IRA, all your gains are tax-free. Leave it for a you for a while; it's going to be worth a fair amount of money. And again, time is on your side; the younger you start, the better. And for the cost of a coffee a day, you can be a millionaire. You you if you can if you can get 10% per annum in growth via an S&P 500, for example, which is what it's averaged over the last 40 years, you know, you are a millionaire; that's your safety net. Yeah. Now I get a lot of people say to me, say, "I don't want a million when I retire." Well, that's not that's not your only thing you're doing; that's that's on the side; that's your wealth building, yeah, and it's very very important just to keep that chicken away in the background. The less you have to do, the better. And if you get into the habit of setting a certain amount every month that you can afford, ideally a percentage of your wage, so as your wage goes up, you increase it, you've got that safety net for you forever. Now my safety net, I probably never have to use it; it becomes generational wealth for my family. So yeah, I was going to say you I we've still to this day not touched it. I don't touch it. I made the rule that I didn't want to touch it; I thought I'll put it away, I won't touch it. Yeah. You can always crawl out the gutter if you know there's something there. Yeah. A lot of people don't talk about the psychological effect that can have on your happiness and well-being, knowing that you in the worst-case scenario, it's there. Yeah, because when you don't have it and you you literally have nothing to your name or you're even in the negative like that, you can't stop thinking about it, and it ends up stressing you out every single day. Like I've been there before, even with um, you know, in early stages of life when I'm not been very good at tracking my money, when I have been in a situation where my expenses have been more than my income, and I've not I've literally had nothing else to my name; it doesn't feel good at all, and you you you trying to do everything you can possibly do to get yourself out of that situation. Well, a lot of people say, "I don't understand understand how to do it," and I do several walkthrough videos of how to to to set up an account, open a brokerage, you know, do all these things, but realistically, you know, you just got to take a morning off or a day off and look after your finances and sort it out; it's all it takes for the rest of your life. You know, a morning, a day, maybe if it takes you longer, and you will work it out. You know, use the videos we put out there, work through it gradually, bit by bit; you will get there. And once it's set up, perfect.

This is on your YouTube channel? Yeah, yeah, there's lots lots of different videos, you know, walkthroughs and things, so it's ideal. What's your thoughts on having a wealth manager or somebody to do it for you? Well, if you got a wealth manager, you got charges, and and the beauty of an index fund is it's um passively managed, so you've not got high charges; your charges are like generally 0.01 of a percent; it's very very small. So if you invest £10,000, for example, you it's costing you about a ten; it's not very expensive; you very very cheap. Whereas if you got a wealth manager, he's going to charge you upwards of 1% to a bit more; it might not sound like much, but if your growth is 8%, well, you're losing a percent of that. Yeah, but you're not losing it one year; you're losing it every year, so it accumulates for 40-odd years, so it becomes a big amount. So that 1% might equate to £10,000 less at the end or more, you know, it's it's a significant amount. So I think you can do lots of wealth management, and that's great. I mean, I mean, I'm not a financial advisor; I just talk about what's worked for me. Yeah, um, so you might be in a position where you want wealth management. I mean, you might be Mike, you know, that well, I've been I've been toying with the idea. Yeah, that's that's how it works, but it doesn't really affect your safety; that all those other things you can do are you should do anyway, you know. And if you got an excess to that, and ideally, I mean, I always say, you know, 70% of your earnings is going to you know, go towards your living expenses, your rent, your food and bits and pieces; 20% you should be investing; you should be investing. I mean, I was always told 10 when I was younger, so a minimum I've ever invested or put away is 10% of what I've earned, minimum, and that's growing um, and so I'd say 70% on living, 20% on investing, and then 10% is for the fun stuff. Yeah, do stop you having fun now. Yeah, you know, but you're securing yourself later on down the line as well. Yeah, it's like delayed gratification. Yeah, I guess, but as I say, if you don't have to touch it, you don't have to touch it; it's you know, generational wealth at that point, which is great.

Uh, next on the list was your the brand product range, so that's this Centy UK. It is. Yeah, basically um, this started in school; I was 14 years old in a geography lesson, and I said to myself, "I can't afford the model airplane I want to buy; the kit's too expensive for me to able to buy it," so I designed it, just drew it out, went to the woodwork class, cut a load of the plywood parts out, went home, built this model, and it flew really well, and it's called the Right, and um, always had this design in the back of my head that I maybe I should manufacture it um, and it got to the point where I had to really do my own product range so I could control the price and the quality and everything within that range within the space I'm in. So I flew to China to find a manufacturer, 'cause that was the place and probably still is to to manufacture that sort of product. Didn't understand a word of Chinese; had had a card with "take me to the hotel," "take me to a toy fair." Um, could have said anything to be honest; I didn't know if I was coming back. "Take me to the Red Lake District," didn't have that one. Yeah, could have come back with one kidney missing, you know, I just didn't know. But again, it's taking yourself out your comfort zone to make things happen. Yeah, and um, I was fortunate to meet a lot of great manufacturers, and then some, you know, a couple of them invited me over to Shenzhen, so I got an internal flight to Shenzhen and went in their factories and went, "Yep, you are the guys I need you to manufacture my product," and then you find other products as well that maybe aren't that good, you know, like a glass with a hole in the bottom; it looks brilliant, but it does quite work, so it just needs adapting. Oh, right. Now that's perfect, so I could adapt a lot of products as well and make them better and make them good enough for our market, and that's the quality control aspect. So did that require a a lot of upfront investment? Um, well, it's like anything, you know, as you go through your business and you're building your wealth, I was able to organically grow that, and I just read *Shoe Dog* just recently by Nike, the the founder of Nike, and very very similar story. Okay, that's a multi-global brand, but the story is very similar; you know, you you stretch and you rob Peter to pay Paul, and you know, it takes home, then you get to a point where you think, "Is all this going to implode? You know, I'm selling so much gear, but I've got no cash flow," so there are times where you may need to borrow to push your business along. Um, I'm very organic; I like not to borrow if I can help it, but sometimes you've got a borrow to make more. Yeah, and that's what it's like, but that's a good book; anyone wants to read it, very very good. And that's it's that still ticking over nicely? Yeah, certainly is. Yeah, yeah. And then you had retail stores. Yep. I wanted hundreds; I thought, you know, "I'm going to dominate, Tom; I have hundreds of shops," which is what a lot of people think, and then obviously you've got to rein that back because of the online side of things. Yeah, especially the UK death of the High Street. I mean, you look at it now, and there's there's barely anybody walking from London like everywhere else is very quiet. Yeah, it's decimated really, isn't it? But the retail stores we have are uh put in the right positions that they work very well um, and believe it or not, from time to time, I jump behind the counter, and I'll sell. Like last weekend, I wanted to play golf; the course was waterlogged, like, "You know what? I'm going to go stand behind the counter, see what's going right in the business, what's going wrong, say hi to some of my older customers that have been coming in for years," and I really get a kick from that. Yeah. In fact, I still when someone comes in and they want let's say a model eror plane that everyone wants a Spitfire, you know, it's not the right airplane to buy first off; you're going to if you can get it in the air, you're going to crash it. So when you can explain it from a point of experience and you explain all the right things to buy, "This is best because of this; this is best," and you put all the deal together in front of them, and they go, "Do you know what? I'm going to buy that," that's still a kick. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's amazing, is it? Yeah, yeah. Whether it's a block of flats for multi-millions or whether it's a you know, a model airplane that someone's taken your advice on, the kicks are the same. Mhm. My grandpa used to collect them; not ones that had a motor and flew, but they were the ones that you would buy, be loads of different pieces, and then you would assemble it, and then you would paint it yourself. Still very, in fact, it's a growth part of the industry at the moment because obviously a lot of people got small homes or small spaces, so it lends itself quite well to that, so it's is a growth part; it was a declining part that's now bouncing back. Yeah. And then the the last two, residential real estate and commercial real estate. Yeah, which were these are more difficult to kind of get into. Yeah, they are. I mean, you you can get into residential real estate by buying in a re or in a a buying group um, and you get into real estate by you know, finding pro uh finding properties for investors as well, and that's quite a big um industry in itself um, but I like buying property; I I I would see property as a very tangible asset, you know, I'll drive past the properties I own just to go, "Yep, that's that. Yeah, that's that," you know, "not on fire, still," yeah, "still working, rent still coming in," and you you know, you you can touch it; it's real. So I do like I do like property for that reason. Um, yeah, it's very very good. I could have done a lot more with prop than I have um, but again, because I am u a little averse to borrowing, I do borrow when I need to um, I could have heavily borrowed, but then you can look at the flip side of that and the recessions I've been through, which is I think three major recessions, could have toppled me had I overextended, so you got to weigh weigh up the scales. Would you say you're more risk-averse? I am definitely more; I'm not risk of I'm I'm borrowing a okay, which which I think is slightly different. Yeah, because what we said about the um, you know, the feeling of having achieved something or owning something; I like that; I like that. I think that our ways like buying your own property. A lot of people say you should rent your property, not buy your own property, and I get it; the math works if you're not going to you're not going to live in it for seven years; you're going to be moving around. Absolutely. What what is the point in owning it? But if you do want to own it, the feeling of "This is paid for; this is mine; no one can take this away from me," that I think outweighs sometimes for me the the maths of doing it a different way. Yeah. So would you advise youngsters in the UK, for example, to try and get onto the property ladder or hold off a little bit? Um, if you're buying to to rent as in buying to rent it out, I think it's it's a good way of going about it. Yeah, because you know, you've still got your mobility then, haven't you? And people do like to be able to move around um, so that is not a bad investment in my book. All right. Now again, math-wise, it might work that others are better, and my son is a little bit against buying his own property, for example, but if you're buying to rent it out, I mean, essentially your tenants are paying for your building that you're buying um, and say, for example, if you had a house in the UK currently that someone's renting from you and paying the mortgage for for you, then you you're always on that ladder; you're always rising with that tide, aren't you? So you've always got something to go back to, so I quite like the idea of that um, but obviously if you're if you're going to be there for 5 years or less, you know, the maths actually doesn't work out at all; you know, you're much better off to rent; much better off as long as you invest your deposit, you know, that that's how that all works. You can't just go, "I'm better off renting; I'm going to spend all my money." You know, you've got to look at that deposit you would have put down on a property to buy and invest that because that's what makes the difference; the fact that that's increasing in value in the background, and that deposit will always then be big enough to use as a deposit; otherwise, it's losing value.

You said in one of your reels, three of the worst businesses to start: number one, clothing brand. Yeah. Number two, uh, why do we need any more clothing brands for God's sake? I mean, most most of them fail. I mean, obviously if your influencer-led, then it can be a good thing, but I I've done it; it's it's not easy. Yeah, there you go. The rank always when I was up and come in the rag trade was the hardest thing to be involved in, and that's essentially what it is. So um, trade, yeah, that's what it was called um, but the the clothing industry is difficult; it's very very it's weird because everybody still wants to do it. Yeah, they see the people that have done it and got it right and maybe lucked as well to a certain degree, and they're selling out on every drop, of course they want some of that; I want some of that. But who's going to buy Mark Tilbury's range of shirts? I don't know, probably one, but sounds cool. Yeah, I've had a lot of youngsters DM me and message me about wanting to start their own clothing business; I'm like, "Do you do you really know what you're getting yourself into? Like you have to live and breathe this," yeah, and you're not going to see the payoffs for a very very long time, if ever. Yeah, and the initial cost just to get the stock yeah and everything else up and running is is stress. You just look at one item of clothing; one item, doesn't matter what it is, let's say a a a sweater or a a hoodie, for example, well, it's not one, is it? That's one design; right now, you need what? Five sizes? Yeah, really probably at least five sizes; how many colors? You need four, y four, five. So how much inventory is that? Mhm. Well, you're done in, aren't you? Yeah, unless you can pre-sell it; if you can pre-sell it, then of course you go into that and and that's a a totally different um animal, but you know, normally you can't pre-sell everything. Uh, you got number two, restaurants. Yeah, they're always closed. Did you ever dabble into? No, no, I thought about it; I thought about um starting, you know, with franchises like McDonald's or Costco. You spoken a lot about franchises in the reels. Yeah, I think um there is definitely money to be had, but again, it's not my area of of of what I say I'm comfortable with and I know. So you could should go out your comfort zone, but you know, I think there's a link, but before I'd get into a restaurant, you know, there'd have to be something else first before I I I got close enough to a knowledge base that that would help me in there. And the problem with restaurants, particularly independent restaurants, is everyone goes to the new shiny restaurant. Mhm. And as soon as the new shiny one opens, the other one's tarnished; see that all the time here in D. Yeah, of course, there's a new hotspot which is relevant for a couple of months, and then people get bored. Yeah, and they go to the next place. Yeah, and that's how it works. Yeah, and it's very unfortunate because you know, you can be the best chef in the world. Well, let's you could be the best chef in the world for certain, but you won't necessarily have the best restaurant because you don't how to manage it, how to promote it, and all the rest of it. Most of the best restaurants have the best team behind them, promoting them and and and doing all of that sort of stuff, but most people that start a restaurant are good at cooking or good chefs. Yeah, and that's not really the direction. So would you would you say that if if you wanted to get a taste of that world, it would be better to start? Well, I'd say really with a side hustle, and that's why I saying you need a link in between. So say, for example, you want to get into running a burger joint. Yeah, yeah. American diners are us, say really. You you almost want a burger van first, just to get used to it, test test all the recipes; why is your burger so much better than all the other millions of brilliant burgers out there? You know, find that niche; is there enough profit in it? Mh. Now when I go to Brooks and Morar and make a restaurant for this with all the added costs of doing that, is it still profitable? Yeah, and I think people just think, well, you know, "cost me cost me a pound to make it; I sell it for two pound; I'm going to be in profit," but you got to sell a hell of a lot of burgers for that. Yeah. If you were going to franchise any brand out there, what would it be? Um, I'd have to say I haven't looked into it enough enough. What would you go for? Oh, maybe I I like burgers; in another in another life, I would have set up a like a a burger chain, you know, like Five Guys and Shake Shack. Well, they're both doing very well, but I think if giving it a bit of thought though, I think I'd go more the healthy route, purely because purely because that's where the youngsters are nowadays; they're all on the health kicks and um doing the gym work and everything, and I think there's probably probably a shortage of that. Joe & the Juice, that's one that's very very good at the moment, so that is yeah, that's expanding rapid. Yeah, yeah. I would go for Danone in Barcelona, actually; in some uh some European cities, there's a place called Honest Greens. Oh, okay. I don't know if you ever been there. I heard of; they've got a couple in Barcelona; I think they might have started in Barcelona, Madrid, come in New York, weren't they? Yeah, they're going idea; they're going to open one in London as well. But anyway, it's like the best healthiest food; it's so delicious; just it's so fresh, and whenever I'm traveling to these places, I eat there like every day. But there's nothing like that in here and in a lot of other places. Well, you're adding the value because of the health and also the convenience, aren't you? Because we started off the conversation with you saying when you started, you had to prep all your meals and probably couldn't go back to doing all that again, you know, and it that convenience is where you're adding value, and if you can add value to a product and deliver that to millions of people, yeah, what a business! Yeah, that is the business; all about adding value. The last one you mentioned was day trading. Yeah, I don't really like day trading; I think um the only people that seem to be making money out of day trading are people telling you can make money out of day trading. Um, it's very very difficult. Um, I I think you have to be very very very knowledgeable um, and if they were really honest about it, um, most people wouldn't want to go to the extent that they need to go to for day trading. I've done various videos on day trading; some of them won't be available yet um, but it's a very very tricky, difficult business that's made to sound easy so they can sell a course on it. Yeah, and that is a shame; I mean, that's you see so much of it now; so many people selling courses, y people who have made a bit of money who are then teaching other people how to make money, and it's just like this yeah weird cycle that seems to be happening at the moment. Exactly. Now I mean, we come or I should say I come from a a um a place of I got helped by a mentor, you know, he helped me and uh I try not to get too emotional 'cause he's not with us anymore. Um, he's a great guy, and you know, he didn't even know how much he was helping me; I did. I do get emotional talking about him um, and that was what clicked four years years ago because I thought, you know, "it's time to give that back." Yeah, give it back. Mhm. And that's what we do. How did you how did you manage to find somebody like that in your life? Um, I don't I think they find you really. Yeah, I think if you're a social person, put yourself out there. Um, don't be afraid to talk to people; talk to people. You know, people can't be a shy youngster; you've got to get out there, you know, all this knowledge is there, isn't it? Mhm. And um, I guess he just latched on, you know, and I latched on to him; he always had a flashy car, you know, but he deserved it because of how he worked; always had a bit of money on his hip, you know, this is the thing; always had the yeah. I wasn't necessarily the best; used to rally cars as well, you know, you think BL, you know, this is a guy, you know, and anything any nugget he threw my way, it was like, "That's God!" Yeah, I remember that; I'm not going to forget that, you know, and that's what you need; you do need that without doubt. And we have a lot of followers and subscribers that are from one-parent families, predominantly that's the mom, you know, they've got no one to ask. Yeah, no one. I don't need to be looked up to; that's not what it's about, you know, just making sure that you know they're not missing what they should have had as youngsters. Yeah. I think one thing I notice when I if I meet younger fans or do meetups or whatever, they tend to be quite timid. Yeah, like they're not they're not confident, and they're quite shy, and you can tell they're they're kind of stuck in their own way, and it was reminds me of me in a lot of ways when I was younger; I was I knew I had potential, but I was like stuck inside of my own shell; like I needed to just come out, but I found it very difficult 'cause I wasn't very confident; I didn't feel like I had much to offer the world, and it was it was a long journey, hard journey to kind of get out of that and to become the person that I am today. And I think a lot of people, they see the end result now, and they think, "Oh, yeah, but it just must be easy for you," like it's you know, you can speak on camera; you can you're good at communicating with people, good at talking, but it was all skills which I had to develop, and I had to put myself out there in very uncomfortable situations yeah to become more comfortable. And like you said, if you if you're too afraid to ask for help or have conversations with people, then that's going to limit quite a bit, so you just got to go for it. And youngsters are getting more and more locked up, aren't they? You can't go out there.

Might be a weirdo down the park. Well, when I was young, we went down the park; we knew who the weirdo was, so he didn't bother us. We knew who he was, you know. You just got to get out, talk to all the people around your local area, you know, get known.

MH: Speak to people, you know, and and surround yourself with the people that you know are good. Yeah, you and don't be afraid to change your friendship group as well. I mean, some for some reason it seems that yeah, your people you meet at school have got to be your friends for life. Well, that's not the case. Yeah, you know that. I mean, making the break out to here, some of your friends, I'm assuming, would have been left by the wayside, so to speak. Yeah. Stills, and and that sort of hurts a little bit, but your friendship group changes, and you shouldn't be afraid that because one leaves, another comes in. You, you call friends. I mean, I would say five.

Mhm. All right, and that that's my core base. I know who they are; I know I can lean on them; I know that if they need help, they can lean on me, you know, and and that's my core base, and then lots of associates, some coming in, some going out, and that's how it works.

MH: How have you found it now with obviously the rise of your fame on social media? When it's like, I imagine at this point now you probably got more people than ever trying to reach out to you, yeah, either to do business together or just wanting your time, wanting advice. Yeah, how are you managing that?

Um, well, it is a little difficult, um, because again, when we started, it was to help as many people as we can, and when it gets to a certain number, it becomes very difficult. It becomes very difficult to answer all of, well, we don't, can't answer all of the messages and all of the DMs. It's, it's impossible. Um, so at some stage, we will have to narrow that to the the serious guys that want to start a a serious side hustle, um, or serious invest in, or really want to get niched down. So that will happen, have to happen. And whether that's in a a membership or some form of community that we can get together, then it has to happen, because that way I can then still help on a one-to-one basis, and that's where the real help is. Yeah, without a doubt. So, so that that will happen at some stage, I think.

Yeah. What's your thoughts on the current state of the UK at the moment and starting a business there? I, I think there's always room for businesses, absolutely always room for business is whatever business you name, there's it's, it generally, it's come up when there's been other competition against it or bad times. Bad times will come and go; good businesses will ride through. Um, but starting a business just for the sake of starting a business is a bad thing. You know, you've really got to research what you're doing, be good at what you're doing, um, aim it into the right place, and if that needs mentorship to do that, then seek that mentorship out. And if someone says, "No, no mate, you shouldn't really, shouldn't be going for this," listen, because there's reasons for that, cuz there's reasons why everyone's done the way it's done. It's just whether or not there is an alternative way to do that thing that's been done and whether that will work. Yeah, and there's basically, there's four, four main types of of business you can have: a service-based business, um, which is basically, you know, selling or helping people in your local area, very very cheap to set up; um, you can have a a product-based business that's local again, so selling to your local people, but there's problems with that, very hard scale, but they're all stepping stones, you know, you can get onto a a global platform, so you're selling lots of products on eBay or on Amazon, you know, doing Amazon FBA. Again, all very scalable when you get to that stage, um, or you can look at service again, but do that online, and that gives you the global reach, but also gives you the profit margins that you might be after. You're more in the 80% profit margins rather than with products, probably down to 20%. So really, it's all a gradual thing, you know. If you jump straight into business, "I'm going to start a business tomorrow," that's not a good thing. If you work on it, work your way through and look at it as a marathon, not a sprint, then I think any time is a good time.

Yeah, I mean, I started right in a bad recession when I opened my model shop. People said, "You're absolutely mad," it was a massive recession. What year was that? Oh, well, it's 40-odd years ago, 40, seven years ago. There you go. Um, so, no, 37 years ago, get it right, 37 years ago, and they said, "You're mad, there's no room in the market for another model shop, there's plenty of model shops out there, you, you, you, you're absolutely off your trolley, you, you open it in a garden center complex. I mean, how mad is that?" Well, it turned out to be the best thing I ever did, because yes, it was a recession, but I wasn't taking wads and wads and wads of money and then hitting a recession and going, "What's happened?" I was taking what I was taking and going, "Well, that's what I take, right? Let's improve on that, let's improve on that." So it got better rather than getting worse going into a recession. So actually, people say you shouldn't, you know, start in a recession; actually, it's not a bad time. It's like buying individual stocks while the market's down; it's quite a good time to be buying. Yeah, or generally because the market has a a habit of bouncing back, so you're getting at a discount. So certainly, starting for me during a recession was a good thing.

What would you do if you, uh, you go back to being 18, 21 years old, you know everything you know now, but you have no business, not a penny to your name? What would you do?

Uh, I would do online service-based business, yeah, without a doubt, yeah, because that's where the high profits are, as we've mentioned. You can make a lot of money on it; um, it's accessible worldwide. If you do a good job, you can't go wrong. Yeah, that makes sense.

Um, a little bit on portfolio diversification strategies. I want to talk about how, what, what are the the absolute basics that people should understand when it comes to doing that? Well, that's quite a loaded question. Do you want to refine it a little bit?

Um, I guess more so on the the the stocks you want to invest a little bit of money, okay? Where should you put it? Well, I don't think you should invest in um individual stocks when you start, for sure, because there's a lot of work that goes into looking at individual stocks, or there should be. You can't just do it on a gut instinct. You've got to get rid of um the emotional thing; it's it's got to be a logical step. So index funds are the way to go. Now, if you want to diversify, the S&P 500 is 503 companies currently; that's pretty diversified, so. And you're looking to earn somewhere, hopefully, around 8 to 10% per annum. Yeah, you can then diversify a little bit more. So I have about 60, 70%, roughly, in S&P 500, then I have an all-market fund. Now, that's everyone in America, all the businesses within the whole market. Okay, that's about 20%, and then another 10, 15% will be in an emerging market. So again, still an index fund, but it's an emerging markets fund, so that'll be uh countries like China, India, places like that, because you know, they might not go bang and grow, but I don't want to not be part of that if it happens. And to be fair, it's performing quite well at the moment, so that's quite a diversified portfolio just within index funds. Then I personally do a little bit of individual stocks, but do a lot of research before I do, and also do a little bit crypto as well.

Oh, I was going to ask you about that. Well, it's quite exciting, it's quite sexy, bit of fun, it's done quite well. Yeah, can't gra— I I would have thought you would have been more against the crypto. I'm not against crypto; I I'm very for technology; I'm very for future thinking and moving forward. Um, I don't invest in meme coins. I have done, but not really interested in them. It's a bit like day stock trading, you know, you know when to get out of those. Look, it's still a a substantial amount of money, but it's only about 5% of my portfolio. So this is the thing I think people don't really understand. Now, if I lost all of that 5%, is 5% of my portfolio worth, yeah, I can take that; it would st— I wouldn't like it, but I can take it. But if you put 100% in or 50% in of your portfolio into something that can disappear, that's not so good. Yeah, so just be sensible; remember it's all about the safety net, keep that safety net ticking away in the background.

Yeah. Where do you see the the future of entrepreneurship in the next five to 10 years? Hopefully, being celebrated in the UK rather than looked down upon. To be perfectly honest, I mean, America has always looked at entrepreneurs as being beacons of hope, yeah. Um, it's it's quite weird as well, cuz most entrepreneurs are looked at as weirdos at school, you know, for whatever reason, and then celebrated once they make it, you know. So I I think um hopefully celebrated more. I think things like um Dragon's Den are helping, you know, which is Shark Tank in the states. I think that helps the entrepreneur spirit because they can see the the entrepreneur trying with their idea, trying to get capital, all trying to get it there, and then they see the results in the shops. I mean, we had um a case very recently um with uh Perfect Ted, which a matcha-based product, I don't know if you've seen those, uh, which is obviously an energy drink without the caffeine, um, and we're pretty good friends with them. We went to their launch; they were on Dragon's Den; we even went to the airing of Dragon's Den in a big cinema in London because they invited us to them, and we podcasted with them, and they're doing very, very well. So if you can get the right product and be driven as an entrepreneur, that's great. The the thing I don't believe you can be is taught to be an entrepreneur; you've got to have it in you. I think you have to have it in you; you can learn a lot along the way, but there's a certain element, and that's why not everyone should start a business, and that's why we don't say to everyone, "You should start a business to become wealthy," just manage your finances; that's the easiest way for you to be able to become wealthy. It might be that you're an entrepreneur and you can run a business, fantastic. Let's help you along the way, superb, but it doesn't suit everyone, and that's a mistake to think. I think the same thing about being an influencer or building a personal brand, like a lot of people like the idea of that, but I don't think some people are cut out for it or can deal with being in the spotlight like that.

Yeah, I think there's a difference between influencer and personal brand, because I think you can build a personal brand um that helps you in lots and lots and lots of ways that are way pre-influencing, yeah. Um, so, you know, I think everyone should really look after their personal brand; I'm quite adamant on that, um, really look after it, because this is the future; everything is going to, everything's going to be visible, so just look after what you're doing as a personal brand, and it's a good way of getting yourself out there as well. I mean, when when you go for a job, an employer is going to look at your personal brand, and if your personal brand is just a few posts on Facebook telling someone to whatever, you know, that's what they're going to see, and then you're going, "Oh, don't know why I didn't get that job." Yeah, it's like you're the new and improved CV, yeah, like they're going to, of course, or or the new and worsened CV, you know, it depends how you're looking after it. Yeah, the way I kind of decide if I'm going to collaborate or do business with somebody is I'll obviously go, I'll check, I'll go to the Instagram, what kind of stuff are they posting, yeah, what's their engagement, what's the following, have they also got other platforms which are popping off, like it's because that's going to reflect on you at the end of the day if you employ someone. So yeah, I'm sure they'll bring out a law at some point you can't take that into account, but we'll see, won't we?

Yeah, yeah. What, what else have you got planned for the rest of this year and the future? Um, well, as I say, I would really like to to knuckle down to being helping more people again, because when we first started, we could physically help so much more on a one-to-one basis. So if I can get that um up and running where I can help more, filter through a little bit more, that's really important. Um, a lot more traveling, yeah, um, because we've got um lots of people in lots of countries that would like to do meetups and and that sort of thing, and again, that's getting back to that one-to-one, isn't it, where you know, they can come along, we can, you know, give them a little bit of help, a little bit of guidance, even if it's just a rallying call, you know, sometimes you need that, don't you, when you're out there and you're young and you're trying to to go forward, someone to say, "You know, you, you have got this," yeah, you know. I, if I went back to myself at times, you know, I I could have done with that, you know, "You, you, you've got this, don't worry about what they're saying, you know, you know, do your thing, you know, you know, do do what you're doing because you're different; you'll end up with a different result." Yeah, if you're the same, you're going to end up with the same result everyone else gets, and generally speaking, that's not actually what you want; you're trying to break out of that, so you've got to be a bit different.

Exactly, you know. You remind me a lot of Simon Sinek, a good friend of mine, yeah, in terms of like what you're doing, the message you're spreading, and you're just, you're just out there to help as many people as possible.

Well, you can only, you can only try. I mean, Simon is a good friend; he's got a very good message; um, he believes everyone should just quit their job and start a business of their own, which, as I say, we've just spoken about, not everyone is suited to starting a business; some people will work for other people and do very, very well, and as long as they're investing on the side, they are going to have a great life; they're going to live their passions and everything. So I think there's there's more than one way to to to living the life that that Simon puts over that you get by only starting a business, um, but he's a good, got a good message out there, that's for sure.

Yeah. I see you've got your your notepad there; have you got any questions for me?

Um, well, you know what, I I've had a couple of um um comments on Facebook, not Facebook, on uh Instagram and various things and on my DMs recently; they're saying, "Mark, you're getting a bit porky, son, can't be having that," you know, the old shirt starting to go. So I've either got to go and find a new tailor, which I'm not sure if you'll be able to give me a number for, actually, I do have a number for that, but I think the better option is, so I can still fit into my normal clothing, is maybe you should um sort out a fitness program for me. You know, I'm 57 years old; don't want to wear the bones out too much, so what do you reckon I should be doing?

Well, I would first of all ask what it is that you're doing at the moment. Uh, I play golf regularly, as regularly as I can, and I do walk, I don't buggy, um, and I prefer to walk. Uh, I ski, love skiing, um, which is fairly energetic, and I can ski all day, no problem at all, and reasonably fast. Son's slightly quicker now, slightly, I have to admit it, because it's facts, and it's so annoying; it really eats me up inside, to be fair. Um, but what's going to happen when he starts making more money than you? Well, that won't be too long the way he's going, and that's great, isn't it, you know? So you can celebrate those things; that's great; means I've done a good job, so I take all the credit. Um, so yes, I can ski a full day; I would say I'm relatively fit, just got that later middle-age spread; it's just starting to occur. So I I would say probably start doing some form of resistance training; doesn't have to be a lot, could even be twice a week, maybe three times a week, you know, when you're staying at these hotels when you're traveling, most of these places will have a gym uh somewhere on one floor. You've also got your gym at home; all equipment is nice, shiny, and new and not used.

Yeah, yeah. So very simple uh training split, full body sessions, three times a week, doing proper compound movements, and then it would just be a matter of, you don't have to do any ridiculous cardio or anything like that, you don't need to. I think if you're doing the resistance training, tweaking your diet, so the diet is fairly good; I I have to be honest, I I I probably overeat, that's the problem, but the the the contents of the diet is fairly good. But you hit on protein; now my wife's very on that at the moment, so it's a couple of eggs every morning, for example. You probably need more than that though, really.

Yeah, well, the thing is, as as you get older, the protein requirements get higher as well. Okay, so the general rule of thumb, um, one gram per pound of body weight or around like 1.8 g per kilogram. Okay, so you don't accidentally eat that amount of protein, so you you would need, there need to be some degree of planning, probably ideally eating three to four times per day, a decent source of protein uh in each meal, and then like you said, it's just, it's not just, don't overeat. A lot of what the Japanese people do, and you don't see any fat Japanese people, is they they eat until they're around 70 to 80% full, okay? So they're they're they eat enough but not too much, and then obviously avoiding desserts, avoiding junk food.

Well, I'm avoiding the sugars for sure and the desserts because, you know, my age, you're looking at the possibilities of diabetes and things like that, but you really don't want to go down that road, so I'm uh I'm already on the anti-sugars; I've cut out all the Cokes and all that sort of stuff as well, so mostly water, coffee. I do like a coffee, do like a tea, but mostly water.

That's fine. So doing that, not overeating, and then um you don't necessarily have to track, but when you do, I always recommend some people crack at least once in their life so they can understand the numbers. Yeah, so like we, you look at a plate of food, okay? How many grams of protein is there, the carbs, the fats, total calorie intake, and then you you start to understand, "Oh, maybe, yeah, I've been overeating, or I've been overdoing the fats or underdoing the protein." Most people usually underdo the protein, and then a very underrated form of cardio or just a method of burning calories, just walking. So you probably do a decent amount of walking.

Reasonable. Yeah, it would just be a case, again, once, twice, three times a week, going on the treadmill, you probably have a treadmill at home, you put it on an incline, 11, it's harder then, though, isn't it? It needs to be harder; can't be holding on to the handles, and then do that for 30, 40 minutes. Yeah, you know, then if you watch something on your phone at the same time, the time goes by pretty fast. Literally, just those little tweaks, you'll be burning more calories on a daily, weekly basis, just pulling back the amount of food that you eat, and then that'll that'll sort out.

Okay, so I've got to make the sort of commitment to my fitness.

Yeah, that you've got to make to your finances.

Exactly. Yes, my portfolio commitment.

Yeah, it's a deal. There you go. Made on a, we can't go back on that.

Awesome. I appreciate your time and for coming on. Um, where can people find you?

Uh, you can find me at uh Mark Tilbury. Basically, type that into anything, and you will find me. Um, that's it really, isn't it? Just Mark Tilbury on YouTube's the best way because um there are lots of free lessons on there; it's it's all free; just look it up, and I'm hoping it'll help you along your way, you know, life is a journey, not a destination; enjoy the whole trip.

M, and it's a it's a long one, it's a great one if you let it be.

Wise words. Thanks very much.