Latest / Masterminds Podcast / Principles Over Tactics: Vusi Thembekwayo Breaks It Down || Masterminds Podcast EP42

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Principles Over Tactics: Vusi Thembekwayo Breaks It Down || Masterminds Podcast EP42 · Masterminds Podcast

0:00
SPEAKER_07: People underestimate the value of martial arts.
0:03
SPEAKER_07: It's not about learning to fight.
0:05
SPEAKER_07: It's the discipline.
0:06
SPEAKER_07: It's the discipline of doing the same thing every day.
0:10
SPEAKER_07: I've spoken about this publicly before.
0:11
SPEAKER_07: My dad was my hero, right?
0:13
SPEAKER_07: Um.
0:14
SPEAKER_07: Losing your hero is tough.
0:16
SPEAKER_07: Losing your hero violently, even worse.
0:19
SPEAKER_07: You know, my father got murdered at 13.
0:21
SPEAKER_07: Between 13 and 15, I did everything I could to try and withdraw from the world.
0:26
SPEAKER_07: At 15, I had a teacher who discovered that I had a gift for public speaking because I wouldn't shut up in class.
0:34
SPEAKER_02: Today on Masterminds, we sit with Vusi Tempakwayo, global speaker, investor, author, and one of Africa's most influential business minds, from building multi-million dollar companies to shaping entrepreneurs across the continent.
0:53
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about one moment I've heard you talk about that are so powerful to me.
0:58
SPEAKER_02: When you met Nelson Mandela.
1:00
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, I you know, it's over 20 years ago and it's still difficult for me to explain.
1:04
SPEAKER_07: There are some people who have the grace of God on their life so much that if they walk into the room, the temperature changes.
1:12
SPEAKER_07: 100%.
1:13
SPEAKER_07: Nelson Mandela was like this.
1:14
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:15
SPEAKER_02: Business mindset, did you have right from the beginning?
1:17
SPEAKER_07: So I'll talk principles because I think principles are more important than tactics.
1:21
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
1:21
SPEAKER_07: And one of the challenges I think younger people have today is you live in a world where tactics make for great soundbites.
1:28
SPEAKER_07: In the same way social media has an algorithm, life is an algorithm.
1:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:33
SPEAKER_07: So when people want to accumulate wealth and you use tactics, the presumption you're making is that the algorithm of society at that time is the same as the algorithm of society when those tactics were relevant.
1:48
SPEAKER_07: Principle number one is you have to find when people come to an event, they listen to a great speaker, they feel inspired, then they leave and nothing changes.
1:59
SPEAKER_07: And so what we learned in our business is you have to build the tools so that you don't just tell people what to do, but you give them the how to do it.
2:07
SPEAKER_02: When you're doing something that fulfills you, you don't look for an end result.
2:11
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
2:12
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
2:12
SPEAKER_07: This is why I think if you're gifted, you must be careful.
2:16
SPEAKER_07: If you're intelligent, you must be careful.
2:19
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
2:19
SPEAKER_07: Because gifted people get opportunities to do things they shouldn't be doing.
2:24
SPEAKER_07: Once you're clear about that place where you serve the most and is aligned to your gifts, you will never compete.
2:32
SPEAKER_02: Before we jump into the conversation, I wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for supporting and deciding to watch this episode.
2:40
SPEAKER_02: But now I have a favor subscribe to the channel.
2:44
SPEAKER_02: Subscribing to the channel helps me and the entire mastermind team to continue bringing you wonderful conversations and episodes that bring you closer to being the mastermind you deserve to be.
2:56
SPEAKER_02: So join the community.
3:11
SPEAKER_07: Thanks, Richie.
3:12
SPEAKER_07: I appreciate it.
3:12
SPEAKER_02: The truth is, this is the first time I'm admitting this to anyone aside you that I just said right now.
3:17
SPEAKER_02: You were such a big inspiration for me on this journey.
3:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, I I I've grown my whole life loving to learn, loving to read, loving to watch things.
3:28
SPEAKER_02: And I always just consumed that knowledge and used it in my life.
3:31
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
3:32
SPEAKER_02: And then one day I was watching you, like you just popped up on my IG.
3:35
SPEAKER_02: That was the first time I saw you.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: Right.
3:36
SPEAKER_02: And you were speaking so eloquently, just spitting out facts.
3:40
SPEAKER_02: And I was like, wait, why is this man so learned, so intelligent, and sharing his knowledge?
3:47
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting down with everything I know.
3:49
SPEAKER_02: Like he knows more than I do.
3:51
SPEAKER_02: And I'm sitting down with the little that I know.
3:53
SPEAKER_02: Like, how selfish must I be to not share my knowledge?
3:57
SPEAKER_02: And from that day, I just woke up and said, I need to share everything I know.
4:01
SPEAKER_07: To God be the glory, brother.
4:02
SPEAKER_07: So I I I can take no credit.
4:04
SPEAKER_07: I think all glory to God.
4:06
SPEAKER_07: But I will say to you that um, you know, my philosophy around knowledge is we come to the earth with nothing.
4:13
SPEAKER_07: We will leave with nothing.
4:15
SPEAKER_07: And so all the knowledge and information you accumulate, it's just by grace.
4:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
4:22
SPEAKER_07: And uh you should definitely share it.
4:24
SPEAKER_07: That which you know you should share.
4:25
SPEAKER_07: I've also learned the more I share, the more I learn.
4:28
SPEAKER_07: True, 100%.
4:30
SPEAKER_07: Right.
4:30
SPEAKER_07: Uh, and I think a lot of people who hoard stuff don't understand that actually you gain more by letting go.
4:36
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you invite the universe in.
4:38
SPEAKER_07: So I'm glad it had an impact.
4:40
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
4:41
SPEAKER_02: So, everyone watching, please say thank you to him because without him, no masterminds.
4:46
SPEAKER_07: I'm just I'll take 10% of your YouTuber.
4:50
SPEAKER_02: For sure.
4:51
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's dive right into it.
4:53
SPEAKER_02: I always like to start by understanding what made the man.
4:58
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I want to understand growing up as a young boy, yeah, what helped shape your mindset to become the Vusi that you are today?
5:06
SPEAKER_07: Definitely my parents, um, probably the context within which one grew up.
5:11
SPEAKER_07: So, for context, my father, my father was the sensei in the dojo, my dad uh did up to black belt level um a style of martial arts called Gyokushinkai, which comes from the small island of Okinawa, and it was uh designed by a man called Masutatsu Oyama, or as we called him in the martial art, Masoyama.
5:36
SPEAKER_07: And uh, you know, he creates this form of martial arts called Gyokushing.
5:40
SPEAKER_07: My dad was going to night school um when he was kind of at the end of his teenage life, and the school he was attending night school at had uh a sensei who was teaching Gyokushing.
5:54
SPEAKER_07: Okay, and so my dad started training Gyokushing.
5:56
SPEAKER_07: The the story, actually, if you allow me to out back, is is quite interesting.
6:00
SPEAKER_07: So in my father's generation, um it wasn't common, there certainly were exceptions, but it wasn't common for uh let me say it this way for the for the average black family in South Africa, 1950s, 1960s, um the their economic life um because of apartheid was so bad that as children came of age, the sooner you could get them to work, the better.
6:36
SPEAKER_07: And so when my father was at school, this is what how my parents tell me the story, but um when you got to what we hear called standard six back then, grade eight now, in different parts of the world, it's called like year eight, right?
6:48
SPEAKER_07: You got a certificate called a junior certificate.
6:51
SPEAKER_07: And with that certificate, you could basically go and get a job.
6:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
6:55
SPEAKER_07: And if you carried on going to year 10, you got something called a senior certificate.
7:00
SPEAKER_07: And then I think if you went to year 12 or matriculated, then you know life was your oyster.
7:06
SPEAKER_07: So anyway, my dad is the oldest.
7:09
SPEAKER_07: You got a picture of the scene, it's 1960s.
7:12
SPEAKER_07: My dad is the oldest of 11 siblings, and he's the boy.
7:17
SPEAKER_07: I imagine at the time they weren't all 11.
7:20
SPEAKER_07: But um, and he's a boy, and uh my grandfather was like, Okay, you're of age now, yeah, you're 14 years old, you need to go get a job.
7:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
7:30
SPEAKER_07: And so the way my parents would tell the story in the place where I come from, in Wattville in the Eastern End, the township is kind of nestled around this industrial area.
7:40
SPEAKER_07: And so my father goes to one of the factories, eventually gets a job in the factory, um, and um his grandfather's like, Okay, you're a man now, you're working.
7:50
SPEAKER_07: But my dad had an insatiable appetite for knowledge and information.
7:54
SPEAKER_07: People think I read, people think I'm smart.
7:57
SPEAKER_07: I'm a fraction of what my dad was.
7:59
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
8:00
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, even in all respects, I think, in terms of his likability, his charisma, his diction.
8:05
SPEAKER_07: My dad had language and diction for sure, predating the average person living in his time.
8:12
SPEAKER_07: So uh dad starts getting, he gets a job, he starts going to work, middle of the day, and then he decides that he's gonna go to night school.
8:20
SPEAKER_07: And in Boxburg, there is uh there was at the time a night school, I think it's still there called St.
8:26
SPEAKER_07: Anthony's.
8:27
SPEAKER_07: And so my dad went there, and it was in this night school that he meets the sensei and uh fell in love with martial arts.
8:35
SPEAKER_07: So I'm born 85.
8:39
SPEAKER_07: By the time I'm born, my dad is like a couple of decades into training four or five days a week in the dojo, right?
8:47
SPEAKER_07: So I I come into the household where literally my my mother often would tell the story.
8:52
SPEAKER_07: She's like, she's like, before you were crawling, your dad had put a ghee on you, and he was like trying to get you to you know to do a kata or something like this.
9:00
SPEAKER_07: So so I was raised in this like routine, regimented, highly disciplined life.
9:06
SPEAKER_07: People underestimate the value of martial arts.
9:09
SPEAKER_07: It's not about learning to fight, it's the discipline.
9:13
SPEAKER_07: It's the discipline of doing the same thing every day.
9:17
SPEAKER_07: That's what it is.
9:19
SPEAKER_07: Right.
9:19
SPEAKER_07: It's the same action, it's the same movement daily.
9:25
SPEAKER_07: And by the way, think about this as a generation who are gamified and constantly changing, chasing dopamine hits.
9:32
SPEAKER_07: It's doing the same thing every day, no feedback.
9:35
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
9:36
SPEAKER_07: You know, when you go on LinkedIn or you're on Instagram, you post something, people like, they share.
9:42
SPEAKER_07: You're doing the kata, there's no liking or sharing, you're doing it.
9:45
SPEAKER_07: And so you learn in martial arts this unbelievable gift of doing routine things and holding yourself to the highest standard with zero feedback.
10:00
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:01
SPEAKER_07: In today's world, that's a heck.
10:04
SPEAKER_07: Like, most people can't go a week without feedback.
10:07
SPEAKER_07: A day.
10:08
SPEAKER_07: Most people can't go a day, right?
10:10
SPEAKER_07: You're posting a WhatsApp status, and then you're immediately looking at how many people are liking it exactly.
10:15
SPEAKER_07: You know, it's like so, so, so when you want to understand Vusi's mindset, you need to understand that.
10:22
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
10:22
SPEAKER_07: That I'm the guy who was raised in the dojo.
10:25
SPEAKER_07: My father gets murdered at 13.
10:26
SPEAKER_07: It was very difficult for me to go back to the dojo.
10:28
SPEAKER_07: So I switched martial arts.
10:29
SPEAKER_07: I went from karate, I joined Kung Fu, and I started uh doing Wing Chan.
10:34
SPEAKER_07: And I struggled with Wing Chan because of the nature of it.
10:38
SPEAKER_07: Um, but I was like, I'll stick it out a little bit.
10:41
SPEAKER_07: Played a bit with Jit Kundo, played a little bit with Wu Shu, tried a little bit of Shaolin.
10:46
SPEAKER_07: But my my nature, my style, I'm a big guy, I'm aggressive.
10:50
SPEAKER_07: It just worked with Kyokusing.
10:52
SPEAKER_07: And so I kind of switched back and I went back and have loved it my entire life.
10:57
SPEAKER_07: But if there is a single hack, it's hard to do the same thing every day with zero feedback.
11:07
SPEAKER_07: But here's the thing holding yourself to the high standard.
11:11
SPEAKER_07: Because when you're doing a kata, you know, the form is important.
11:16
SPEAKER_07: And you don't drop the form because nobody's in the dojo watching you.
11:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you do it to the same form.
11:22
SPEAKER_07: And so once that embeds in your mind, it's chiseled.
11:29
SPEAKER_07: Then you then it's in your nature, it's in your character.
11:31
SPEAKER_07: You won't change.
11:33
SPEAKER_02: Wow, that's powerful.
11:35
SPEAKER_02: It's good, right?
11:36
SPEAKER_02: Very good.
11:37
SPEAKER_02: Now I wish I had grown up learning martial arts.
11:39
SPEAKER_02: Not too late, though.
11:41
SPEAKER_02: My belly never looked.
11:44
SPEAKER_07: I wasn't gonna sing that.
11:46
SPEAKER_07: Now that you brought it up, it's never too late.
11:51
SPEAKER_02: I have to ask, at 13, your dad was murdered.
11:53
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, how did that affect you?
11:56
SPEAKER_07: I mean, I've spoken about this publicly before.
12:00
SPEAKER_07: My dad was my hero, right?
12:02
SPEAKER_07: Um losing your hero is tough.
12:04
SPEAKER_07: Losing your hero violently, even worse.
12:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
12:08
SPEAKER_07: Um I think I probably spent two years of my life withdrawn.
12:14
SPEAKER_07: Um but you know, my father got got murdered at 13, and between 13 and 15, I did everything I could to try and withdraw from the world.
12:27
SPEAKER_07: And uh at 15, I had a teacher who discovered that I had a gift for public speaking because I wouldn't shut up in class.
12:37
SPEAKER_07: And she she dared me to do the public speaking thing, and that's what pulled me out of my shell.
12:43
SPEAKER_07: So, you know, whereas for most people, there are some people who speak because there is money in it.
12:49
SPEAKER_07: Um for me, it was a form of therapy.
12:53
SPEAKER_07: It saved me.
12:54
SPEAKER_07: And it gave you purpose.
12:55
SPEAKER_07: And it gave me purpose, yeah.
12:57
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
12:57
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
12:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
12:59
SPEAKER_07: This is why, you know, I'm I'm 40 this year.
13:02
SPEAKER_07: I started public speaking at 15, competed at World Championship at 17, turned professional at 19.
13:09
SPEAKER_07: I'm over 20 years as a professional.
13:11
SPEAKER_07: In that time, I have seen so many people come and go.
13:15
SPEAKER_07: And my staying power is because this is not about money for me.
13:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, it's a sense of purpose.
13:22
SPEAKER_07: And um I don't envy anybody who's competing with somebody and the person against whom you're competing is pursuing their purpose.
13:31
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
13:32
SPEAKER_07: Because for them, uh discipline, practice, commitment isn't a cost, it's a part of their life.
13:41
SPEAKER_02: I I I tell my people, and I said this on another shoot, that currently, as I'm here, all the things I've done, of all the many things I've done in this world, this fulfills me the most.
13:53
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
13:54
SPEAKER_02: And I I come and learn more and more as I grow in life that when you're doing something that fulfills you, yeah, you you don't look for an end result.
14:02
SPEAKER_07: 100%.
14:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
14:03
SPEAKER_02: You're not chasing the gratification, you're not looking for feedback, you're doing it because you love doing it.
14:09
SPEAKER_02: You've nailed it.
14:11
SPEAKER_07: What people don't understand is, and let me say it this way: there are some things I do that at the end of doing it, I'm tired.
14:19
SPEAKER_07: I can feel that I've exerted myself.
14:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
14:23
SPEAKER_07: And then there are some things I do that at the end of doing it, I'm refueled.
14:27
SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
14:28
SPEAKER_07: I could do more.
14:29
SPEAKER_07: You're talking about the latter, right?
14:30
SPEAKER_07: And and I think a lot of people just don't spend enough time finding the thing they do that at the end of doing it, they feel good.
14:38
SPEAKER_07: You feel recharged.
14:39
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
14:40
SPEAKER_07: I was having this conversation with a uh with a young lady that I know well, and she was telling me that she sings in the church choir.
14:47
SPEAKER_07: I was like, wow, that's that's interesting.
14:49
SPEAKER_07: Why the church choir?
14:50
SPEAKER_07: We were in London at the UK Black Business uh show.
14:54
SPEAKER_07: And I was like, why uh the church choir?
14:57
SPEAKER_07: She says, Because at the end of every single practice, I feel like I have more energy than at the beginning of the practice.
15:04
SPEAKER_07: And I think most people, or not practice, rather rehearsal, but I think most people never find the thing that fuels them.
15:10
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
15:11
SPEAKER_02: I think energy is I think the whole world, the whole universe is made of energy.
15:15
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
15:16
SPEAKER_02: And everything is transferred through energy.
15:18
SPEAKER_02: And when you are doing something that's more in alignment with who you are, more positive, sure, that energy from the universe just sort of transfers onto you.
15:27
SPEAKER_02: Exactly.
15:28
SPEAKER_02: And it can keep you going.
15:29
SPEAKER_02: That's why you see somebody who's 110 and still at their same profession.
15:33
SPEAKER_02: And somebody's 35 and they're saying, I'm tired, I want to retire.
15:37
SPEAKER_02: Is because the the latter had energy drained from them every time they're going to work.
15:43
SPEAKER_07: And I think one of the interesting things about this is that um this is why I think if you're gifted, you must be careful.
15:50
SPEAKER_07: If you're intelligent, you must be careful.
15:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
15:54
SPEAKER_07: Because gifted people get opportunities to do things they shouldn't be doing.
15:59
SPEAKER_07: True.
16:00
SPEAKER_07: And intelligent people are smart enough that they can make anything work.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:04
SPEAKER_07: And so if you're gifted and intelligent, you'll get invited into an industry you shouldn't be in, and you'll be smart enough to cognize the work and actually do it.
16:13
SPEAKER_07: And then you will convince yourself this is what I should be doing.
16:16
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
16:17
SPEAKER_07: Whereas it shouldn't.
16:18
SPEAKER_07: It's, you know, it's just because you can doesn't mean you should.
16:22
SPEAKER_02: It's like the curse of the multi-talented.
16:24
SPEAKER_02: You've nailed it.
16:25
SPEAKER_02: Especially when you're very young and you can do five things at the same time.
16:28
SPEAKER_07: Oh man, preach it.
16:30
SPEAKER_02: You just don't know which one to settle on, and you may end up choosing the wrong thing just because you are better at this, but it's not aligned with who you are.
16:39
SPEAKER_07: Exactly.
16:40
SPEAKER_02: Well, how do you overcome something like that?
16:43
SPEAKER_07: Um I mean, I think you know, we we go back to what we're talking about, which is find the thing that fuels you.
16:54
SPEAKER_07: Um and ego.
16:58
SPEAKER_07: I'm busy reading the book now by Ryan Holliday.
17:01
SPEAKER_07: The ego really is the enemy.
17:03
SPEAKER_00: It is a hundred percent.
17:05
SPEAKER_07: Ego is the enemy because often the thing that you convince yourself you should be doing is the thing that's good for your ego.
17:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, true.
17:16
SPEAKER_02: What makes you feel good at like I'm good at this?
17:19
SPEAKER_02: I nailed this versus this is good for me.
17:22
SPEAKER_07: I'll tell you an interesting thing, you know, like I'll never forget early in my career, because I'd I'd always wanted to be, you know, like a banker or something, you know, because that's a that's a respectable professional.
17:36
SPEAKER_07: Yes.
17:37
SPEAKER_07: I always wanted to be like a banker who wears uh a charcoal suit with a powder blue shirt, you know, and works in a skyrise um and is part of the credit derivatives team or something like this.
17:52
SPEAKER_07: And uh early in my career, I knew a few people who actually did that.
17:56
SPEAKER_07: They were friends of mine, yeah.
17:59
SPEAKER_07: And I was always so envious of them only for them as they got older to try and do what I do.
18:09
SPEAKER_07: Interesting.
18:10
SPEAKER_07: And um it took me a while to realize that my ego was like that's the thing to be doing.
18:21
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
18:22
SPEAKER_07: But they knew that the place from which they could serve the most was if they came over to my world.
18:26
SPEAKER_07: So it took me a while to realize that my job is just as important as anybody else's job.
18:31
SPEAKER_07: And this is important.
18:32
SPEAKER_07: There'll be somebody watching this who's called to be a teacher.
18:36
SPEAKER_02: And they'll be thinking.
18:37
SPEAKER_07: And they'll be thinking, yeah, why am I just teaching?
18:39
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
18:39
SPEAKER_07: But it fuels you.
18:41
SPEAKER_07: There'll be somebody watching this who's called to be a nurse, and they'll be thinking, well, you know, maybe I could become uh, I don't know, um, a chartered accountant.
18:51
SPEAKER_07: But being a nurse fuels you.
18:53
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
18:54
SPEAKER_07: And and the lesson is you find the thing that God has called you to do, and you do that.
19:00
SPEAKER_07: That's the lesson.
19:01
SPEAKER_02: My mom's actually a teacher.
19:03
SPEAKER_02: So one of the things that made me love and imparting knowledge on other people was anytime she called me to help her with her class and stuff, and I used to watch the joy that she got from helping kids.
19:16
SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
19:17
SPEAKER_02: And I I started to feel that joy every time I was helping, and I started to talk to people around me, and I started to realize that wait, there are so many different types of joys.
19:26
SPEAKER_02: And it's a hack, man.
19:27
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
19:27
SPEAKER_07: It's a hack.
19:28
SPEAKER_07: Sorry, I'm interrupting you.
19:29
SPEAKER_07: I run these masterclasses and uh tell you an interesting story.
19:34
SPEAKER_07: So I started doing these masterclasses, frankly, out of a nuisance, because what was happening circa 2017, 2018, I'll never forget one day I'm at the office, our old office in Grayston, and I get I went into my social media and I checked my inbox, and there were what I when I mean hundreds, I mean hundreds of inboxes from entrepreneurs asking stuff.
20:04
SPEAKER_07: Hey, I'm uh raising money, can you help?
20:08
SPEAKER_07: Or, hey, I've got this idea, how do I convert it to a business?
20:11
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, or uh, hey, uh, this person says they want to invest in my business and they want equity.
20:17
SPEAKER_07: How do I negotiate?
20:19
SPEAKER_07: Hundreds, Richie.
20:21
SPEAKER_07: And I thought the first thought I had was okay, I'm gonna do a video, post it on YouTube, and people can watch it now.
20:30
SPEAKER_07: You're on YouTube now?
20:31
SPEAKER_07: How long have you been on YouTube?
20:32
SPEAKER_01: About three months.
20:34
SPEAKER_07: Right.
20:34
SPEAKER_07: Do you know how long I've been on YouTube?
20:36
SPEAKER_01: No, how long?
20:36
SPEAKER_07: There are videos of mine you'll find on YouTube, I think, from about 16 years ago.
20:42
SPEAKER_07: Wow.
20:43
SPEAKER_07: Maybe 16 or 13 years ago.
20:45
SPEAKER_07: That's amazing.
20:46
SPEAKER_07: I'm long in this shit.
20:47
SPEAKER_02: Like you deserve shares in YouTube.
20:50
SPEAKER_07: I'm I'm I was in YouTube before CTA.
20:54
SPEAKER_07: I was in YouTube before CTC.
20:55
SPEAKER_07: I was on YouTube before monetization.
20:58
SPEAKER_07: I was on YouTube before Vimeo.
21:01
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow, interesting.
21:03
SPEAKER_07: Like before Vimeo before Rumble.
21:05
SPEAKER_07: You can you can go and look online.
21:06
SPEAKER_07: There's there's an old Wussy Temberwire channel, which I'm sure you will, he's gonna crop it in here and edit it into this chart.
21:13
SPEAKER_07: There's an old Wussy Temberguire channel where we've lost the credentials.
21:16
SPEAKER_02: Wow, so you can't even get it.
21:18
SPEAKER_02: I can't even get it.
21:19
SPEAKER_07: It's got these old videos, and it's so embarrassing me for because every time I watch it, I was like, oh man, I was fat.
21:25
SPEAKER_07: We have written to YouTube, we have asked them it's like, take this channel now.
21:31
SPEAKER_07: It's got this like old like branding with the I on the VT.
21:35
SPEAKER_07: And anyway, the point is, so in my mind, at the time I thought, well, what what we'll do is I'll make a video and we'll publish it on YouTube, yeah, and people can learn and I can explain.
21:46
SPEAKER_07: And I thought, uh i if if at best, if if I do that, all that's gonna happen is in the comment section, I'm just gonna get more questions.
21:54
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
21:56
SPEAKER_07: And so I'll never forget it was a Thursday morning.
21:58
SPEAKER_07: I went live on Instagram.
22:00
SPEAKER_07: And I said to my community, at the time I probably had about hundred thousand followers on Instagram, if that.
22:06
SPEAKER_07: And I was like, yo, I'm in the country.
22:09
SPEAKER_07: A lot of you have been sending me questions asking about stuff.
22:12
SPEAKER_07: On Saturday, 9 a.m., my office.
22:16
SPEAKER_07: Anybody who has a question, just come.
22:18
SPEAKER_07: Nice.
22:19
SPEAKER_07: I said, by the way, there's going to be no pre-arranged seating, there's no booking, there's no presentations.
22:25
SPEAKER_07: It is the anti-conference.
22:27
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
22:27
SPEAKER_07: No theme, no stage.
22:29
SPEAKER_07: Just come as you are.
22:31
SPEAKER_07: I've got one condition.
22:32
SPEAKER_07: Bring something to sit on.
22:34
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
22:35
SPEAKER_07: Because I didn't know how many people were coming.
22:37
SPEAKER_07: So it's like, bring something to sit on.
22:38
SPEAKER_07: Anyway, show up that morning, close on a hundred people waiting.
22:43
SPEAKER_07: Some of them are carrying yoga mats.
22:46
SPEAKER_07: You know, that's something they yoga mats.
22:48
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
22:49
SPEAKER_07: It's something.
22:49
SPEAKER_07: Or I don't know if you guys have it in Ghana, but we have these like beer crates here.
22:53
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
22:54
SPEAKER_07: It's like a crate where they put beers.
22:55
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
22:55
SPEAKER_07: One or two people had those beer crates.
22:57
SPEAKER_07: And they were like, we're gonna sit on this.
22:58
SPEAKER_07: I mean, you weren't specific.
22:59
SPEAKER_07: You said something.
23:00
SPEAKER_07: Bring somebody to sit on.
23:02
SPEAKER_07: Some of them had uh camp chairs.
23:03
SPEAKER_07: I don't know if you guys have those campchairs when you go camping, you open it up.
23:06
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
23:07
SPEAKER_07: So it's like a director's chair.
23:08
SPEAKER_07: So we call them campchairs here.
23:10
SPEAKER_07: So so so anyway, people show up and we have this session.
23:15
SPEAKER_07: I think I still have the video, and I had one of my guys in the office on the phone.
23:19
SPEAKER_07: I said, just record a part of this.
23:22
SPEAKER_07: He takes the phone, he's walking around, it's probably like an iPhone 12 or something, and he records this thing.
23:28
SPEAKER_07: And at the end I looked, I was like, ha.
23:32
SPEAKER_07: We'll do it again.
23:33
SPEAKER_07: So we do a second one.
23:36
SPEAKER_07: And uh we do a third one.
23:38
SPEAKER_07: And by the time we got to the third of the fourth, I call a mate of mine who runs a production company.
23:42
SPEAKER_07: I said, Yo, I'm doing these things, show up with a couple of people, bring some cameras, yeah, record it.
23:48
SPEAKER_07: Because here's what I realized the people in the room were asking questions that other people who were not in the room were asking.
23:56
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
23:57
SPEAKER_07: And every question I answered had a hundred other people who needed the answer to that question.
24:01
SPEAKER_07: Vusi, how do stock options work?
24:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
24:03
SPEAKER_07: How many of us in this room how do our stock options work?
24:06
SPEAKER_03: I mean, I do.
24:07
SPEAKER_07: See?
24:07
SPEAKER_07: But if you're gonna be raising money, yeah, you want to understand how stock options work.
24:11
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
24:11
SPEAKER_07: It's like otherwise you're gonna be giving away too much equity in your business, or you won't get rewarded for the for the effort you're gonna put in.
24:17
SPEAKER_07: So anyway, so I was like, okay, cool.
24:20
SPEAKER_07: So we'll record them.
24:21
SPEAKER_07: Take them, we'll record them, gave them to.
24:23
SPEAKER_07: I had an editor at the time at the business called Sean.
24:25
SPEAKER_07: I was like, yo, edit these, take them, put them on the channel.
24:28
SPEAKER_07: Let me tell you, there are still places in the world I get invited to today because somebody saw a part of that video.
24:37
SPEAKER_07: They saw a three-minute part or a five-minute part, and we're like, Yeah, who is this guy?
24:41
SPEAKER_00: I've seen those videos.
24:41
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you see, very powerful.
24:43
SPEAKER_07: We're like, wow, who is this guy?
24:44
SPEAKER_07: And why is he explaining all this stuff?
24:47
SPEAKER_07: Um, but the original point I was getting to was sometimes you've got to stumble into it.
24:53
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, you know, it's it's it's the anti-strategy, right?
24:56
SPEAKER_07: Strategy is like, oh, perfectly, that's how it's gonna work.
24:59
SPEAKER_07: The way God has manifested Himself in my life is the strategy is never perfect.
25:04
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, that's why it says the steps of a good man.
25:07
SPEAKER_07: I've just I've learned take the next step.
25:10
SPEAKER_07: Um, but if you do that, and then talk back to the original thing I was saying, the power of it is at the end of every session, I actually want to do two more.
25:22
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because you've been teaching and teaching, oh man, it's the most rewarding thing, it's the most rewarding, incredible experience to be across other people asking questions.
25:34
SPEAKER_07: And now we do them in such a way that I invite friends who are just as successful as me, if not more so.
25:41
SPEAKER_07: And uh then, you know, they get to share their story and the people get to ask them questions.
25:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and so creating that environment where learning can take place and the barriers of knowledge can be broken down, there's no there's no, like it's hard to explain.
25:59
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
26:00
SPEAKER_02: One of the most difficult things to do in financial planning is saving and investing towards a big goal.
26:06
SPEAKER_02: Now, let me tell you my secret that I used to overcome this challenge.
26:09
SPEAKER_02: I started to do small top-ups consistently on Achieve by Petra to save and invest towards my bigger financial goal.
26:20
SPEAKER_02: For instance, when I decided to come and shoot masterminds in South Africa, I decided to top up daily, weekly, anything that I could until I raised enough to afford my tickets, my hotel, everything to bring this podcast to you from South Africa.
26:37
SPEAKER_02: So if you're like me and you want to overcome this challenge of saving and investing towards a big goal, use Achieve by Petra.
26:44
SPEAKER_02: The link is in the description.
26:47
SPEAKER_02: I think one of the things I like to say is the most selfish thing you can do for yourself is to be selfless.
26:54
SPEAKER_02: Given to others feels so much better than anything you can do for yourself.
26:59
SPEAKER_02: I uh it's a weird backwards law, sort of.
27:02
SPEAKER_07: I mean, you this is if for anybody watching this who who struggles with the concept, ask yourself why is it that all of the wealthiest people get to a point of wealth where the best or the only thing they can do to have a sense of fulfillment is to give their wealth away.
27:21
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:22
SPEAKER_02: You work so hard to earn it and then you give it all back.
27:25
SPEAKER_07: Then you you you you now you're worth a hundred billion.
27:29
SPEAKER_07: And then you say, There is a fellow who did this, I forget his name.
27:33
SPEAKER_07: He said he'd worked and he'd accumulated, I think, a couple of billion dollars in net worth.
27:38
SPEAKER_07: And then he said for the rest of his life, he's gonna spend his life spending all of his money by giving it away.
27:46
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
27:47
SPEAKER_07: Because it he realized that money is a utility, right?
27:50
SPEAKER_07: Give it purpose by giving it to others who know what to do with it.
27:53
SPEAKER_07: So your thing about give to receive is true.
27:55
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
27:56
SPEAKER_02: Let's talk about one moment I've heard you talk about that's so powerful to me.
28:01
SPEAKER_02: When you met Nelson Mandela, you talk about how that impacted you.
28:06
SPEAKER_02: And that's one person I personally wish I'd had the honor of meeting.
28:10
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
28:11
SPEAKER_02: So, what was that like for you?
28:13
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, I mean, I you know, it's over 20 years ago, and it's still difficult for me to explain.
28:18
SPEAKER_07: I imagine Jerry Rowlings was probably something like this, although admittedly he was militant, right?
28:22
SPEAKER_07: I mean, he would have had to be to commit a coup twice.
28:26
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
28:28
SPEAKER_07: Yes, that's wild.
28:30
SPEAKER_07: Um, but there are some people who have the grace of God on their life so much that if they walk into the room, the temperature changes.
28:40
SPEAKER_07: 100%.
28:41
SPEAKER_07: Now Simandela was like this.
28:42
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
28:43
SPEAKER_07: And so there there aren't words to explain what it was like to spend an hour with uh, you know, the most incredible statesman of the 20th century, you might even argue, of all time.
29:00
SPEAKER_07: Um I actually have um a friend uh Kaesam gifted me a book.
29:08
SPEAKER_07: She gifted me this beautiful book, which is in Mandela's Long Walk to Freedom.
29:14
SPEAKER_07: I want to say there were 400, maybe a bit more, a bit less, of the original copies of the book that he personally signed.
29:22
SPEAKER_07: She gifted me one of these.
29:23
SPEAKER_01: Oh wow.
29:24
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, and I've got it in my home study.
29:26
SPEAKER_07: Um but yeah, meeting meeting Madiba was life-changing, for sure.
29:33
SPEAKER_02: I wish somebody would say when Richie walks into a room, the temperature changes.
29:38
SPEAKER_02: But what you're saying about Jerry John Rollins is actually true.
29:41
SPEAKER_02: I met him only once.
29:43
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't even a room.
29:44
SPEAKER_02: He he we're at school, was a school function, and he showed up.
29:48
SPEAKER_02: And when he walked there, I felt it.
29:51
SPEAKER_02: And everybody did.
29:53
SPEAKER_02: It's like like you're saying, certain people, the grace of God follows them everywhere that they go.
29:58
SPEAKER_02: You can tell this person is impactful, you know.
30:02
SPEAKER_02: But I should let you know, you are one of those people.
30:04
SPEAKER_02: I don't know, man.
30:05
SPEAKER_02: I'm just a guy wearing black.
30:10
SPEAKER_07: I got the memo from you.
30:13
SPEAKER_02: Okay, now let's get into what everybody wants to ask when they're talking to Vucy.
30:18
SPEAKER_02: What they want to know.
30:19
SPEAKER_02: Let's get into business.
30:21
SPEAKER_02: Because aside the fact that you are an amazing speaker, you are also a very accomplished businessman.
30:28
SPEAKER_07: God is good.
30:29
SPEAKER_07: Thank you.
30:29
SPEAKER_02: Like you made over you became a millionaire when you were there.
30:32
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it doesn't matter.
30:35
SPEAKER_02: Like, how were you able to achieve that?
30:37
SPEAKER_02: We all dreamed of that when we were kids, but what business mindset did you have right from the beginning?
30:43
SPEAKER_07: So I'll talk principles because I think principles are more important than tactics.
30:47
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
30:47
SPEAKER_07: And one of the challenges I think younger people have today is you live in a world where tactics make for great sound bites.
30:54
SPEAKER_07: So, for instance, if I wanted to post something on Twitter and trend, or if I want to write a LinkedIn post, typically what you'll do is you'll write tactics.
31:04
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
31:05
SPEAKER_07: Do this, this, this, this, this, and people will share it.
31:08
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
31:08
SPEAKER_07: Because people, human beings, um, how do I explain this?
31:12
SPEAKER_07: In today's world where everything is driven by the incentive, tactics matter.
31:18
SPEAKER_07: So everybody's trying to learn the tactics.
31:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
31:20
SPEAKER_07: You know, so um our YouTube channel is on, I think, 1.2 million subscribers.
31:25
SPEAKER_07: So somebody might go, how did you do that?
31:27
SPEAKER_07: And then what I'll do is I'll lean into the tactics.
31:29
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
31:29
SPEAKER_07: You know, well, if you post at this time or you post this kind of content a day and do it.
31:34
SPEAKER_07: Exactly, exactly.
31:35
SPEAKER_07: And you gotta get your shorts right or get your reels and redirect, and that's all tactical stuff.
31:41
SPEAKER_07: But the problem with tactics is that they depend on the algorithm.
31:48
SPEAKER_07: And in the same way social media has an algorithm, life is an algorithm.
31:53
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
31:54
SPEAKER_07: And so when people want to accumulate wealth and you use tactics, the presumption you're making is that the algorithm of society at that time is the same as the algorithm of society when those tactics were relevant.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: 100%.
32:10
SPEAKER_07: Does that make sense?
32:11
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
32:12
SPEAKER_07: You're like, is this you getting this?
32:13
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
32:13
SPEAKER_07: I think a lot of people don't actually download that message, right?
32:17
SPEAKER_07: So I I I prefer to talk principles, not tactics.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
32:24
SPEAKER_02: Because I can't show you the way because the road may have changed.
32:28
SPEAKER_07: The road may have changed and the environment might be different.
32:31
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
32:31
SPEAKER_07: You know, uh today, by God's grace, we are a global business, right?
32:36
SPEAKER_07: And so there are some environments where the thing that works will definitely not work in another environment.
32:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
32:43
SPEAKER_07: And so if I was a tactical kind of guy, I would struggle because that environment doesn't work.
32:50
SPEAKER_07: I'm going to give you a quick example, then I'll come to answering your question.
32:53
SPEAKER_07: A friend of mine is a guy called Lamar Tyler, runs a company called Traffic Sales and Profit out of the US.
32:58
SPEAKER_07: Great guy, fantastic business.
33:00
SPEAKER_07: And Lamar's telling me the story.
33:01
SPEAKER_07: So he's got this business where he trains entrepreneurs, um, uh, four, five, six-figure entrepreneurs on how to scale their businesses.
33:11
SPEAKER_07: And he he does a lot of events for this.
33:14
SPEAKER_07: So we were in London the other day at Rafael's event, and Lamar's telling me the story.
33:19
SPEAKER_07: He goes, you know, I did an event in Ghana.
33:21
SPEAKER_07: I was like, Oh wow, how did it go?
33:23
SPEAKER_07: He said, So we do this event, we book the venue, and you know, we put out a poster.
33:29
SPEAKER_07: And then he says, the night before the event, something said to me, just go to your social media and go check your inbox.
33:36
SPEAKER_07: So he says he went into his Instagram and his ex and he checked his DMs.
33:43
SPEAKER_07: And it was flooded with people going, Are you actually doing this event?
33:48
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
33:49
SPEAKER_07: And people going, So can I come with money or is there like a payment gateway?
33:54
SPEAKER_07: And then he says to me, he says, you know, in the US, we're so used to online transacting that if somebody puts out a poster, says an event is happening, it's happening.
34:04
SPEAKER_07: People don't doubt if it's happening or not.
34:05
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
34:05
SPEAKER_07: And he says, I didn't realize there's still parts of the world where they where the trust economy on online is still fairly low.
34:15
SPEAKER_07: So when people see a poster, they're like, yo, is this thing real?
34:18
SPEAKER_07: Or is it a scam?
34:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
34:20
SPEAKER_07: Does that make sense?
34:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
34:21
SPEAKER_07: So if somebody was watching this and you said, How do I make money?
34:23
SPEAKER_07: And I say, Well, I run an online business, and I put out that's a tactic that might not work in an environment where the levels of trust on online is low.
34:31
SPEAKER_07: That's what I mean by tactics versus principles.
34:33
SPEAKER_07: So I'll talk three principles that have worked for me.
34:39
SPEAKER_07: Principle number one is you have to find the space where you can where you can operate for longer than anybody else and take more pain than everybody else.
34:53
SPEAKER_07: That's a principle.
34:58
SPEAKER_07: More pain than anybody else.
35:00
SPEAKER_07: Right.
35:01
SPEAKER_07: So let's explain.
35:04
SPEAKER_07: Um Michael Phelps, greatest Olympian of all time, shared the stage with Michael Phelps, unbelievable human beings.
35:12
SPEAKER_07: I'm backstage talking to him.
35:14
SPEAKER_07: I'm like, dude, you've won more gold medals, listen to this, than any other human being.
35:22
SPEAKER_07: In the history of the Olympics, to be clear, the Olympics go back to the Roman age, I think.
35:28
SPEAKER_07: In the history of the Olympics, the known history of the Olympics, he's won more gold medals than any other human being.
35:36
SPEAKER_07: How'd you do it?
35:38
SPEAKER_07: And he answered the question up just before even before I could finish answering it.
35:42
SPEAKER_07: He knew what the answer was.
35:43
SPEAKER_07: He says he spent six to seven years.
35:46
SPEAKER_07: There was a time where for six to seven years he trained every day, every day.
35:51
SPEAKER_07: Every day he was in the pool.
35:53
SPEAKER_07: Every day.
35:54
SPEAKER_07: Now I want you to hear what I'm saying.
35:55
SPEAKER_07: Not every working day.
35:56
SPEAKER_07: Every single day.
35:57
SPEAKER_07: Every day.
35:57
SPEAKER_07: He says, Thanksgiving, birthdays.
35:59
SPEAKER_07: I'm sick.
36:00
SPEAKER_07: I'm not sick.
36:01
SPEAKER_07: There was a six to seven year period where for every single day he was in the pool.
36:06
SPEAKER_02: That's powerful.
36:07
SPEAKER_07: Right.
36:07
SPEAKER_07: So what does that mean?
36:08
SPEAKER_07: The people, the person competing with him trained Monday to Thursday, maybe Friday.
36:13
SPEAKER_07: They would have showed up on Saturday for a cool session.
36:16
SPEAKER_07: They give themselves the Sunday off, have a nice cheat meal.
36:18
SPEAKER_07: Monday they show up again.
36:20
SPEAKER_07: He kept going.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: Consistently.
36:22
SPEAKER_07: It's the longer than anybody else and endure more pain than anybody else.
36:27
SPEAKER_07: That is a principle.
36:28
SPEAKER_07: If you can go for longer than anybody else and endure more pain than anybody else, that principle will serve you well.
36:34
SPEAKER_07: It doesn't matter if you're a racing car driver or you want to become a fashion designer.
36:40
SPEAKER_07: How long can you go?
36:42
SPEAKER_07: How much pain can you take?
36:43
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
36:44
SPEAKER_07: And so by the way, this is not like a cool Instagram message.
36:48
SPEAKER_06: It's like, yeah, you know, I wake up at half past six and you know, then I meditate for three minutes.
36:55
SPEAKER_06: Then I you know these things that people post is like come follow me in the day of my life.
37:04
SPEAKER_07: Come follow me in the day of my life.
37:07
SPEAKER_07: It's like I'm up.
37:09
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
37:09
SPEAKER_07: All right.
37:10
SPEAKER_07: Next I'm at the gym.
37:11
SPEAKER_07: And there's no, there's no, there's no lights, there's no camera, there's no action.
37:15
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
37:16
SPEAKER_07: This is what I meant by what I learned in martial arts.
37:18
SPEAKER_07: There's no lighting, no camera, no action, no feedback, no quotes, no quote tweets, no tag me, none of that shit.
37:24
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
37:24
SPEAKER_07: You you you you're in the dojo, you're in the studio making your beats.
37:31
SPEAKER_07: Like you've you've just gotta be.
37:33
SPEAKER_07: If you can stomach being in a dark room and not worry about what time it is, I can guarantee that the laws of the universe eventually bend towards your success.
37:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
37:50
SPEAKER_02: It is inevitable.
37:51
SPEAKER_02: It's like the universe connives to make you successful.
37:54
SPEAKER_07: The way Alex Homozy says it, and I like the way that Alex says it, he says you've got to throw so much volume of work that it is unreasonable for you not to succeed.
38:04
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
38:06
SPEAKER_07: So you've just this is a principle, yeah, right?
38:10
SPEAKER_07: Um, so first principle, go longer than anybody else, and the ability to endure more pain than anybody else.
38:17
SPEAKER_07: Most people can do one of either, they struggle with both.
38:20
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
38:20
SPEAKER_07: So if you can endure pain, you don't want to do it for too long.
38:24
SPEAKER_07: If you're doing it for a long time, you don't want to take on too much pain.
38:27
SPEAKER_07: But can you do both of these?
38:29
SPEAKER_07: That's uh the first principle.
38:31
SPEAKER_07: The second principle is to find a place where you can serve.
38:35
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
38:36
SPEAKER_07: This is important.
38:38
SPEAKER_07: It's to find a place where you can serve, and serving in that space is natural to you.
38:44
SPEAKER_07: Yeah?
38:45
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
38:46
SPEAKER_07: So the greatest poet of the 20th century, Jay-Z.
38:55
SPEAKER_07: See what I did there?
38:56
SPEAKER_07: 100%.
38:57
SPEAKER_07: Having girl problems are for bad for you, son.
39:00
SPEAKER_07: I got 99 problems.
39:02
SPEAKER_07: And a it could be children listening.
39:06
SPEAKER_07: Okay, sorry.
39:07
SPEAKER_07: You all put that in the comment.
39:09
SPEAKER_07: But um Jay-Z has lived a life that has transcended periods.
39:20
SPEAKER_07: Jay-Z is at the stage of his life where his name is bigger than the industry he comes from.
39:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:25
SPEAKER_07: His name is bigger.
39:26
SPEAKER_07: Listen to this, not than the category of music he made, his name is bigger than the industry of music.
39:32
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
39:32
SPEAKER_07: Like he's in so many other things now, Jay-Z, right?
39:36
SPEAKER_07: And I think that's an important point to make.
39:38
SPEAKER_07: Um, Chimamanda Adiche.
39:40
SPEAKER_07: So we had a boardroom, which we've converted to our studio, and the one wall on my boardroom is what I call the wall of influence.
39:48
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
39:49
SPEAKER_07: And it's all these people I've either studied or read about who lived a life that I go, that's amazing.
39:55
SPEAKER_07: You know, gal people like Alan Turing, who basically is the reason we have computational mathematics today.
40:00
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
40:01
SPEAKER_03: Right?
40:01
SPEAKER_07: But Shimamanda's on that wall.
40:03
SPEAKER_07: And I first learned about Shimamanda, um I watched a movie called Half of a Yellow Sun, which is about the a period in Nigeria when there was a civil war.
40:18
SPEAKER_07: And then a friend of mine who uh is a banker in Nigeria, then told me that she had actually funded the production of the movie with a group of other people.
40:31
SPEAKER_07: She was one of the producers, and so she gifted me the book.
40:34
SPEAKER_07: And the book's even better.
40:36
SPEAKER_07: The book's written by Chima Manda.
40:38
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
40:38
SPEAKER_07: And she's written several other books now.
40:40
SPEAKER_07: She's got a new book.
40:41
SPEAKER_07: I just got it the other day.
40:43
SPEAKER_07: Um I can see the color now.
40:45
SPEAKER_07: It's got like a mauve pink, black design.
40:48
SPEAKER_07: I can't remember the name.
40:52
SPEAKER_07: Her space is literature.
40:55
SPEAKER_07: So she writes books.
40:57
SPEAKER_07: Now she's an incredibly gifted public speaker.
41:00
SPEAKER_07: You should see her speak.
41:01
SPEAKER_07: This young lady stood up at a museum, I think it was, in Germany, and told the German people in power in the room that how dare Europe tell Africa about civility when as we speak, you've seen it.
41:16
SPEAKER_07: And she says as we speak, there are historical artifacts that belong to the people of Africa that Europeans will not return.
41:23
SPEAKER_07: Until you do that, you don't have the moral authority to tell us about decency.
41:27
SPEAKER_07: I saw that video so powerful.
41:29
SPEAKER_07: Very powerful.
41:31
SPEAKER_07: However, Chimamanda's grace is she knows the space where she serves humanity.
41:38
SPEAKER_07: And so she serves there.
41:39
SPEAKER_07: No, Jay-Z, Chimamanda.
41:43
SPEAKER_07: They both serve humanity.
41:44
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
41:45
SPEAKER_07: They just know where they do it.
41:48
SPEAKER_07: What most of us do is somebody will go on YouTube and eventually come across a vusy video and go, oh, speaks.
41:54
SPEAKER_07: I want to speak.
41:56
SPEAKER_07: Rather than ask your creator.
42:00
SPEAKER_07: That guy is serving humanity and he's using the gifts you have given him uniquely to serve.
42:06
SPEAKER_07: What gifts have you given me that I can serve?
42:11
SPEAKER_07: Because once you uncover the gifts you are given and how you use them to serve, here's the gift.
42:18
SPEAKER_07: You will never compete.
42:21
SPEAKER_07: Because you're doing it for you.
42:24
SPEAKER_07: There's no benchmark.
42:25
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:26
SPEAKER_07: You will never compete.
42:29
SPEAKER_07: And everybody who comes into your space, it's been my experience, they will try and compete with you.
42:36
SPEAKER_07: But they will not realize that you're not competing with them, you're competing with the best version of yourself.
42:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
42:41
SPEAKER_07: And once you once you unlock that, then it's a different game.
42:46
SPEAKER_07: I listened to a podcast interview between Tyson Gay and Usain Bolt.
42:52
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
42:53
SPEAKER_07: A huge sprint athletics guy.
42:55
SPEAKER_07: And Tyson Gay has a podcast, I forget the name now, but they had Usain Bolt as a guest.
43:00
SPEAKER_07: And for anybody who follows the sport, these two were arch rivals.
43:04
SPEAKER_07: Right.
43:04
SPEAKER_07: This is this is Liverpool versus Arsenal.
43:08
SPEAKER_07: Level of rivalry.
43:09
SPEAKER_07: And to be clear, Arsenal is better.
43:14
SPEAKER_07: So anyway, um I mean you can say that now.
43:19
SPEAKER_07: We're on top of the table, baby.
43:21
SPEAKER_02: So now I can't argue.
43:22
SPEAKER_07: But we're on top of we're on top of Europe.
43:25
SPEAKER_07: Anyway, so I watched this.
43:28
SPEAKER_07: One of the things I noticed was in the conversation that we're talking about Usain Bolt and his career.
43:36
SPEAKER_07: And Usain Bolt was talking about, he said something like as he was training for every single competition and for every single athletics, he says there was one competition he wasn't even sure he was going to be like competitive in.
43:50
SPEAKER_07: And then he heard Tyson Gay talking smack.
43:52
SPEAKER_07: And he was like, Oh, that's how you want it, let's do it.
43:54
SPEAKER_07: But he says he came in the sharpest at those.
44:00
SPEAKER_07: Olympics where he ran that 958 time came in the sharpest.
44:04
SPEAKER_07: And even though we saw him race in an in an Olympic season and world championships that followed that, he was chasing being that guy who ran the 958.
44:15
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
44:16
SPEAKER_02: He was chasing the best version of himself.
44:17
SPEAKER_07: Because other people are chasing him.
44:19
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
44:19
SPEAKER_07: Does that make sense?
44:20
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
44:20
SPEAKER_07: So the point I make here is once you're clear about that place where you serve the most and is aligned to your gifts, you will never compete.
44:29
SPEAKER_07: Because the best thing you will chase is you.
44:33
SPEAKER_07: Because you'll know where you can expand, right?
44:35
SPEAKER_07: So that would be the second principle of uh of wealth.
44:40
SPEAKER_07: And then the third principle of wealth is you you have to live for self-fulfillment rather than to do to show off what you've accumulated.
44:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
44:58
SPEAKER_07: And that that third one requires a lot of discipline.
45:02
SPEAKER_07: Um my experience has been the wealthiest people I know usually look like they don't have any wealth.
45:11
SPEAKER_02: Very simple.
45:12
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
45:12
SPEAKER_07: He'll be standing at the back of the room, you'll pay no attention to them.
45:16
SPEAKER_07: Let me tell you an interesting thing.
45:18
SPEAKER_07: I was at an event, I won't mention the the the publication, but a well-known international publication had this really exclusive event, and they invited uh uh a few of us less than it must have been less than sixty people and it was taking place at a hangar.
45:39
SPEAKER_07: So we'll they picked us up at our homes, and they brought us into this event, and it was taking place at a hangar.
45:45
SPEAKER_07: There's a couple of jets parked in the background.
45:48
SPEAKER_07: And um I'm chatting to the editor at large for this particular publication, and you know, I I knew I knew the editor, so we were chatting, and he said to me, he said, take a look at this room.
46:02
SPEAKER_07: I'm looking around.
46:04
SPEAKER_07: What do you notice?
46:06
SPEAKER_07: Like, nothing really.
46:08
SPEAKER_07: Well, why?
46:09
SPEAKER_07: He says, Notice how nobody here is dressed to impress anybody here.
46:15
SPEAKER_07: No, to be clear, there were people in there who were very well dressed.
46:20
SPEAKER_07: They just weren't dressed to impress.
46:21
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
46:23
SPEAKER_07: There is a major difference.
46:24
SPEAKER_07: Right.
46:25
SPEAKER_07: A person can wear a very nice tailored suit, but you can tell if I'm wearing it for me versus if I'm wearing it to make sure everybody else knows that I'm wearing it.
46:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
46:36
SPEAKER_07: Um, or as they say, you know, money talks, wealth whispers.
46:41
SPEAKER_02: Internal validation versus external validation.
46:44
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
46:45
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
46:45
SPEAKER_02: And I do think social media has expanded how much people are looking for external validation.
46:52
SPEAKER_02: Because, like when you talk about feedback, whereas at first, if I wear something, maybe it's only those in my area who will see it, those in my school, those in my workplace.
47:03
SPEAKER_02: Now I can post a picture and get a thousand likes from what I'm wearing.
47:07
SPEAKER_02: So then when I wear the next thing, I'm thinking, oh, how many likes can I get from this?
47:12
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
47:12
SPEAKER_02: And people start to chase being accepted by other people.
47:16
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
47:17
SPEAKER_07: You know, I mean, I think I want to be clear.
47:20
SPEAKER_07: I like nice things.
47:22
SPEAKER_07: My suits are tailored.
47:24
SPEAKER_07: I just want to be clear.
47:25
SPEAKER_07: Like, I like nice things, but I like nice things.
47:29
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:30
SPEAKER_07: It's it really isn't about what the other person thinks.
47:34
SPEAKER_07: It's about how I feel.
47:37
SPEAKER_07: And I think you've got to give yourself the permission to do the thing you like, um, not do the thing you think society will reward you for liking.
47:47
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
47:48
SPEAKER_02: 100%.
47:49
SPEAKER_02: So these are the three principles.
47:51
SPEAKER_02: If I want to be like goosie, one, something I can do the longest and work hardest at taking in the most pain.
48:01
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:02
SPEAKER_02: Two, something that I get to serve in a way that's genuine to me.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:08
SPEAKER_02: Build real authenticity and be able to serve.
48:11
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:12
SPEAKER_02: And three, it needs to be about internal gratification.
48:15
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:16
SPEAKER_02: It needs to be for me.
48:18
SPEAKER_02: You've got it.
48:19
SPEAKER_02: That's finding purpose.
48:20
SPEAKER_02: You've got it.
48:21
SPEAKER_02: You know, something that is not about what someone else thinks, but it's about me.
48:25
SPEAKER_06: Yeah.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: Awesome.
48:26
SPEAKER_02: So now we have the core principles to build the right business.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: Okay.
48:31
SPEAKER_02: Now let's talk about something that I hear you speak about so eloquently.
48:35
SPEAKER_02: Building systems.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
48:36
SPEAKER_02: One thing I've heard you say is business is simple, but we just complicate it.
48:41
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
48:42
SPEAKER_02: So, what kind of systems do you think we should be able to put together for a business to make sure it's effective and simple?
48:50
SPEAKER_07: Sure.
48:50
SPEAKER_07: That's a complex but simple question.
48:53
SPEAKER_07: Um and it's complex because in my mind I'm deconstructing the question as you've asked it.
48:59
SPEAKER_07: So my experience has been that the first place to start when you're people use the word loosely, I don't quite like it, but we'll use it for the purpose of this discussion.
49:16
SPEAKER_07: When you're systematizing your business, is to start with the nuisance factor in your business.
49:22
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
49:22
SPEAKER_07: So you go to the things that you don't want to do that are a nuisance.
49:26
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
49:27
SPEAKER_07: Right.
49:28
SPEAKER_07: The first thing you want to do is to hire for that thing.
49:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
49:34
SPEAKER_07: Because when you hire for the thing that is a nuisance, you buy that time back.
49:40
SPEAKER_07: But buying the time back is only one half of the of the win.
49:44
SPEAKER_07: Do you know the other half of the win?
49:45
SPEAKER_07: What's that?
49:45
SPEAKER_07: You buy peace of mind.
49:47
SPEAKER_05: True.
49:49
SPEAKER_07: So clarity.
49:50
SPEAKER_07: Clarity.
49:51
SPEAKER_07: So if I know that bookkeeping and invoicing is an important part of my business, but I don't enjoy doing it, then I want to hire for it.
50:00
SPEAKER_07: Whether I get a fractional CFO business or I hire a full-time resource, but I'm going to hire for it.
50:07
SPEAKER_07: When I do, I buy back that mental clarity.
50:10
SPEAKER_07: Now I'm not doing it.
50:12
SPEAKER_07: So the first part is to figure out what I call the nuisance part of the business.
50:18
SPEAKER_07: If you are, we've got a we've got a uh so we've got a an app that we've launched into our ecosystem of entrepreneurs that we support at school of scale.
50:28
SPEAKER_07: But I'm not a developer.
50:30
SPEAKER_07: Right?
50:31
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
50:31
SPEAKER_07: And so we've got a dev team that's worked with us.
50:36
SPEAKER_07: That's a nuisance factor for me.
50:38
SPEAKER_07: Does that make sense?
50:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
50:40
SPEAKER_07: But when it comes to the commercial side, how do we structure it?
50:44
SPEAKER_07: How do we price it?
50:45
SPEAKER_07: How do we build a value letter?
50:47
SPEAKER_07: How do we ensure that there's sufficient systems that we can maximize customer lifetime value?
50:53
SPEAKER_07: How do we gamify the app so that as you're using it, you want to keep using it?
50:58
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
50:58
SPEAKER_07: There I'm going to spend my time.
51:00
SPEAKER_07: The coding, the engineering, um, where we're going to put it, the, you know, all of that's that's not my flywheel.
51:07
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
51:07
SPEAKER_07: Now, I want to make sure entrepreneurs understand this.
51:10
SPEAKER_07: That it is not what I do doesn't mean I don't have to understand it.
51:14
SPEAKER_07: So you still have to invest time.
51:16
SPEAKER_07: You still got to make sure you get it.
51:17
SPEAKER_07: You still got to make sure you understand it.
51:19
SPEAKER_07: So for me, it's first take the nuisance factor, resource that nuisance factor.
51:26
SPEAKER_07: Once you've done it, focus your time on the thing that you're capable of at doing.
51:31
SPEAKER_07: And then for the nuisance factor, this is the third step, you have to develop standard rules for how that thing works.
51:41
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
51:41
SPEAKER_07: People who do process mapping or process engineers will talk about standard operating procedures.
51:49
SPEAKER_07: So if you have an accountant, let's go back to the accountant example, and you've brought in a bookkeeper, an accountant who's going to be doing your books, it shouldn't be the case that if you change the contents, your books change.
52:02
SPEAKER_07: The books change.
52:03
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
52:03
SPEAKER_07: Which means you need to develop a set of rules for how do we do bookkeeping?
52:10
SPEAKER_07: And having done bookkeeping, how do we move from bookkeeping to management accounts?
52:14
SPEAKER_07: So bookkeeping, t-journals, and then getting to the Manax.
52:17
SPEAKER_07: If they're also helping you with, you know, invoicing and debtor management, how do you do debtor management?
52:23
SPEAKER_07: If they're helping you with supply management on the creditor side, how do you do supply management on the creditor side?
52:28
SPEAKER_07: You, the owner of the business, have got to write the rules for how that happens.
52:33
SPEAKER_07: This is such an important thing.
52:35
SPEAKER_07: I don't want entrepreneurs to miss it.
52:37
SPEAKER_07: Remember my point earlier about how much time you spent in the dojo doing the same thing?
52:41
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
52:41
SPEAKER_07: When you do this, here's what I've learned with entrepreneurs.
52:45
SPEAKER_07: You will experience implementation fatigue.
52:48
SPEAKER_07: It will happen.
52:50
SPEAKER_07: So what ordinarily happens with entrepreneurs is they do something once, then as they're testing it, something goes wrong.
52:55
SPEAKER_07: And then they try a different way, then the third way.
52:58
SPEAKER_07: By the time they get to the fourth way, you go, you know what?
53:00
SPEAKER_07: I'll do it myself.
53:01
SPEAKER_07: Don't do that.
53:03
SPEAKER_07: You should be failing up.
53:06
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
53:06
SPEAKER_07: Right.
53:07
SPEAKER_07: And the first iteration of whatever you're doing isn't going to work.
53:11
SPEAKER_07: So, so, so systems are very important.
53:15
SPEAKER_07: Your resource, having resourced, you allocate your time where you add the most amount of value to the business.
53:21
SPEAKER_07: Right.
53:21
SPEAKER_07: So it isn't I've resourced, now I can take a back step.
53:25
SPEAKER_07: No, you double down.
53:26
SPEAKER_07: But your time goes to the thing where you add the most amount of value.
53:29
SPEAKER_07: Then you document and standardize the work that you have resourced for.
53:35
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
53:35
SPEAKER_07: So that regardless of who's doing it, it's done the same way.
53:39
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
53:40
SPEAKER_07: That's the third.
53:41
SPEAKER_07: The fourth is if you can put in place a tool that helps you do that thing.
53:47
SPEAKER_02: Perfect.
53:48
SPEAKER_07: Now.
53:48
SPEAKER_02: And it's automated.
53:50
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
53:50
SPEAKER_07: Listen, you know, we're in 2025, man.
53:52
SPEAKER_07: Some of us were working in 2007.
53:55
SPEAKER_07: When I was working in 2007, there was no Asana, no Monday.com, no Zoho, no Zero, none of the stuff, no Trello, none of the stuff that you guys have around today, right?
54:06
SPEAKER_07: So the point is, today, with a credit card and$20 a month, you can find a best of breed tool for that specific piece of automation.
54:16
SPEAKER_07: You want to do task management?
54:18
SPEAKER_07: Sure, you're on Asana or you're on Monday.
54:20
SPEAKER_07: You want to do project management, Asana, Monday.
54:23
SPEAKER_07: You want to do accounting, zero, QuickBooks.
54:25
SPEAKER_07: There's so many tools out there.
54:27
SPEAKER_07: And today, with a clever API or Zapia, all of those tools can talk to each other.
54:31
SPEAKER_05: Perfect.
54:32
SPEAKER_07: Right.
54:32
SPEAKER_07: So I say this to say your business should be run by tools.
54:40
SPEAKER_07: That's very important.
54:42
SPEAKER_07: Very important.
54:44
SPEAKER_07: So where are you keeping your documentation?
54:47
SPEAKER_07: Is it on the drive?
54:49
SPEAKER_07: Is it on Dropbox?
54:50
SPEAKER_07: Are you in SharePoint?
54:51
SPEAKER_07: Are you on OneDrive?
54:53
SPEAKER_07: Or is it scattered on your or is it all over the place?
54:56
SPEAKER_07: There's somebody watching this who's still keeping their proposals on their desktop or has them on a hard drive somewhere.
55:03
SPEAKER_07: We can't be there.
55:04
SPEAKER_07: So for sure, the minute you're at a two-man band, I always say to entrepreneurs, one-man band, you can get away with it.
55:14
SPEAKER_07: At a two-man band, you're immediately implementing Slack.
55:17
SPEAKER_07: You're moving company communications away from WhatsApp, you're now communicating on Slack.
55:22
SPEAKER_07: The minute you're at a three-man band, four-man band, now you're moving on to Drive, SharePoint.
55:27
SPEAKER_07: You're storing company information on a central repository.
55:30
SPEAKER_07: This is important.
55:31
SPEAKER_07: So the people working for you shouldn't be downloading stuff, keeping it on their machines.
55:35
SPEAKER_07: And then if somebody leaves, there's a lack of knowledge about what was happening.
55:39
SPEAKER_07: It's got to be standardized, right?
55:41
SPEAKER_07: So these are very tactical things, but the principle is important.
55:47
SPEAKER_07: Because what you want to do is to buy back your time so that you can operate at a high level.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
55:52
SPEAKER_02: That's very powerful.
55:54
SPEAKER_02: Where were you when I started implementing?
55:57
SPEAKER_07: And but I mean, you know, in school of scale, we we work, that's why it's called a school of scale in our firm, because we believe scale can be learned.
56:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:06
SPEAKER_07: Scale is not, you know, there is no place in the Bible where it says on the eighth day God invented these people who knew how to scale businesses.
56:14
SPEAKER_07: All of us are made the same.
56:16
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
56:16
SPEAKER_07: So when you're watching somebody go from a one-man band to a ten-man band to a hundred-man band, there's principles they have learned.
56:23
SPEAKER_07: And because this is the work we do, we've got clients, as you know, all over the world, from Trinidad to Ghana, from the US to Australia, we've got clients.
56:35
SPEAKER_07: So we preach the message of what we've had to do because we have to manage clients across different geographies in different sectors who operate different industries, all of whom come to us and say, Hey, I want to scale this business, but I'm struggling.
56:50
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
56:50
SPEAKER_07: And we've had we have a science and a process and a methodology of how we enable them to scale.
56:56
SPEAKER_07: But it's very, very important to get the structure right, and then lastly, to get the sequencing right.
57:02
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
57:03
SPEAKER_02: Okay, I have to ask this question because this is the first video I watched on you.
57:08
SPEAKER_02: And when I watched it, it hit me hard.
57:11
SPEAKER_02: Sure.
57:12
SPEAKER_02: Because you were talking about me.
57:13
SPEAKER_02: It's like you were looking directly into my soul and talking.
57:16
SPEAKER_02: Where you mentioned that if you can't be away from your company for 90 days for 90 days, you're not going to be able to do that.
57:25
SPEAKER_02: You're not an entrepreneur, you're self-employed.
57:26
SPEAKER_07: The fact that I can say it tells you that I know it.
57:30
SPEAKER_02: As soon as you said it, I was like, oh my God, why is he insulting me?
57:33
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
57:34
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, yeah.
57:34
SPEAKER_07: By the way, 99% of the people out there, when they first hear that, that's what they think.
57:38
SPEAKER_07: They go, Oh, this guy's a jackass.
57:41
SPEAKER_07: You know, I have people come into my section and go, Who do you think you are?
57:46
SPEAKER_07: I ain't listen.
57:47
SPEAKER_07: If you prayed to whichever God you praise, God, Jesus, Buddha, Allah, Muhammad, and then went to the pool downstairs and jumped, you're gonna get wet.
58:05
SPEAKER_07: Because the reality of water will not shift on account of your beliefs.
58:15
SPEAKER_07: Does that make sense?
58:16
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
58:17
SPEAKER_07: And so sometimes what happens with people is we we think we can bend God's principles because of what we believe.
58:31
SPEAKER_07: The 90-day test is a principle test.
58:37
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
58:39
SPEAKER_07: Can you disappear from your business for three months?
58:44
SPEAKER_02: And the business will continue to thrive.
58:47
SPEAKER_07: And here's what people misunderstand when they hear that question.
58:49
SPEAKER_07: They think I'm asking, can you take three months' leave?
58:52
SPEAKER_07: That's not what I'm asking.
58:53
SPEAKER_07: If I take leave in my firm, typically there'll be about a week, minimum two days, where I'm handing things over.
59:00
SPEAKER_07: So I'll go to my chief of staff and say, okay.
59:02
SPEAKER_07: When I say you're doing X, Y, and Z, go to my head of protocol, go to my COO, guys, this is okay, you guys good?
59:08
SPEAKER_07: You're good?
59:09
SPEAKER_07: Good?
59:09
SPEAKER_07: Okay, then I'm out.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: No, no, no.
59:11
SPEAKER_07: I mean, could you walk out?
59:15
SPEAKER_07: And something happens, God forbid.
59:18
SPEAKER_07: Just like that.
59:19
SPEAKER_07: And and and with you completely out of the picture, let me let me put it to you this way.
59:26
SPEAKER_07: You're at the office, something happens outside, you leave your computer on, your tech is still running a render.
59:33
SPEAKER_07: As you go outside, you have an unfortunate incident, and you're hospitalized for three months.
59:40
SPEAKER_07: Right.
59:41
SPEAKER_07: Does the company know how to go back and what to do?
59:44
SPEAKER_07: Does the team know?
59:45
SPEAKER_07: That's what I mean by can you disappear, not can you take leave.
59:49
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
59:50
SPEAKER_07: Right.
59:50
SPEAKER_02: That's even more powerful than I thought.
59:52
SPEAKER_07: Yeah, because it it is it's it's an it's an interruption.
59:55
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
59:56
SPEAKER_07: The question is not do you have handover systems?
59:59
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:00
SPEAKER_07: The question is, if you were interrupted from work now, would the work continue without you?
1:00:07
SPEAKER_07: That's the question.
1:00:08
SPEAKER_07: Because if the answer is no, then the first question becomes, why not?
1:00:13
SPEAKER_07: It means you haven't taken the time to document.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_07: Hey guys, if I were not here, these are the my team will tell you.
1:00:19
SPEAKER_07: You don't even have to believe me.
1:00:20
SPEAKER_07: Go and ask them.
1:00:22
SPEAKER_07: If Vussi was not here, what are the top three things you've got to do?
1:00:26
SPEAKER_07: They'll tell you.
1:00:26
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:00:27
SPEAKER_07: They know exactly what they are, they know where to start, they know who to talk to, and they know how to put it all together.
1:00:34
SPEAKER_07: Right?
1:00:35
SPEAKER_07: So that 90-day test, that test is gold.
1:00:40
SPEAKER_07: Now, most people hearing it can't do it.
1:00:46
SPEAKER_05: True.
1:00:47
SPEAKER_07: You can maybe take a week, maybe two.
1:00:51
SPEAKER_07: 21 days is three weeks.
1:00:53
SPEAKER_07: You know, then we're pushing it.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:00:55
SPEAKER_07: But what I've noticed with entrepreneurs is at the end of three weeks, you know what happens?
1:00:59
SPEAKER_07: The next cash flow cycle comes in.
1:01:01
SPEAKER_07: Now we don't have systems for who's invoicing, who's the customer, who's the contact person.
1:01:06
SPEAKER_07: Uh, how do we collect the money?
1:01:07
SPEAKER_07: Do we have an overdraft with the bank?
1:01:09
SPEAKER_07: How do we talk to the bank to extend the overdraft?
1:01:11
SPEAKER_07: Uh, who do we deal with with the tax authority that we can pay our taxes?
1:01:16
SPEAKER_07: All of those things, right?
1:01:17
SPEAKER_07: Because you, the entrepreneur, you know them, and they're sitting on your phone.
1:01:21
SPEAKER_07: So it's creating systems for those.
1:01:23
SPEAKER_07: Um, but I will say this one last part.
1:01:28
SPEAKER_07: We we have seen enough examples of entrepreneurs get it done right that we know it can be done.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:01:37
SPEAKER_02: So I've reached three weeks down the three-month journey.
1:01:42
SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
1:01:43
SPEAKER_02: Now I can do three weeks.
1:01:44
SPEAKER_02: By the time I watched your video, I was at two days.
1:01:46
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
1:01:47
SPEAKER_07: There you go.
1:01:48
SPEAKER_02: So work in progress.
1:01:49
SPEAKER_07: So we have a maturity process.
1:01:51
SPEAKER_07: In fact, what I'll do for the listeners of the podcast is I'll share with you this link.
1:01:56
SPEAKER_07: It's it's it's proprietary, but I'll do it for your for your community.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
1:02:00
SPEAKER_07: It's a test that they take.
1:02:02
SPEAKER_07: But when they answer these questions, it tells them their maturity.
1:02:06
SPEAKER_07: It tells you you could disappear for this number of days, and the company would be fine.
1:02:10
SPEAKER_01: I love that.
1:02:11
SPEAKER_07: That's only half the tool.
1:02:12
SPEAKER_07: The other half of the tool, it then says implement these things and you can extend your time by X number of days.
1:02:18
SPEAKER_07: Nice.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_07: Right.
1:02:19
SPEAKER_07: So, because it's one thing for me to tell you what the problem is, but what we learned is we had to resource how people solve for that problem.
1:02:26
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for that.
1:02:27
SPEAKER_07: It's all good.
1:02:28
SPEAKER_02: That means you're not just finding the problems, you're helping people solve it.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_07: I mean, it's what we do.
1:02:32
SPEAKER_07: And for us, we had we have built these tools internally.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:02:36
SPEAKER_07: And again, we've just realized we use them for our clients, they get an immense amount of benefit for them.
1:02:42
SPEAKER_07: But there are some functions and features in the tools where, for instance, this is what we call our diagnostic.
1:02:47
SPEAKER_07: I can give you the diagnostic.
1:02:48
SPEAKER_07: It's not going to cost me anything.
1:02:50
SPEAKER_07: But for every single entrepreneur who takes the diagnostic, it'll tell them.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_07: Yeah.
1:02:54
SPEAKER_07: You know, um, you don't have a uh project management schedule.
1:03:00
SPEAKER_07: And so you can't disappear for anything longer than two weeks because if you were to, then you are currently managing projects on Excel.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:03:07
SPEAKER_07: Go and implement Notion.
1:03:09
SPEAKER_07: And by the way, once you implement Notion, here is a user sheet on what are the things you need to improve in your.
1:03:16
SPEAKER_07: So we built all of those features into it.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
1:03:18
SPEAKER_07: Because it was important for us.
1:03:20
SPEAKER_07: The last thing I'll say to this is I'm a I'm a, you know, we love the science of what we do.
1:03:25
SPEAKER_07: So one of the diagnostic tools we have is a DNA assessment.
1:03:29
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
1:03:30
SPEAKER_07: You're gonna love this.
1:03:31
SPEAKER_07: There are six different types of entrepreneurs.
1:03:34
SPEAKER_02: And you can tell in a DNA?
1:03:36
SPEAKER_07: And you can tell it's it's like your DNA.
1:03:38
SPEAKER_07: So we have a a test that you can take.
1:03:42
SPEAKER_07: The one assessment is 60 questions, takes about 12 minutes.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_07: Okay.
1:03:45
SPEAKER_07: The quick assessment is 12 questions, takes about three minutes.
1:03:49
SPEAKER_07: I'll share the links with you for the for the community members.
1:03:53
SPEAKER_07: Take the test.
1:03:54
SPEAKER_07: Because what it does is it tells you what your DNA is, it tells you what your blind spots are, and then it tells you where you need to develop.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_01: Nice.
1:04:02
SPEAKER_07: So I mentioned these things to say the following, Richie.
1:04:06
SPEAKER_07: I've been in this business for long enough to know that people come to an event, they listen to a great speaker, they feel inspired.
1:04:13
SPEAKER_07: Then they leave and nothing changes.
1:04:14
SPEAKER_05: True.
1:04:15
SPEAKER_07: And so what we learned in our business is you have to build the tools so that you don't just tell people what to do, but you give them the how to do it.
1:04:23
SPEAKER_07: I love that.
1:04:24
SPEAKER_07: So that they can actually go and execute on it.
1:04:26
SPEAKER_02: I love that.
1:04:27
SPEAKER_02: That's so powerful.
1:04:28
SPEAKER_02: In fact, as you've said this, I'm going to have a new mission.
1:04:32
SPEAKER_02: But with each episode of the podcast, I need to find a tool or something that they are able to take away benefits from the conversation.
1:04:40
SPEAKER_07: You owe me 10%.
1:04:41
SPEAKER_07: I said at the beginning.
1:04:42
SPEAKER_02: It was 10 at the beginning, now it's 15%.
1:04:45
SPEAKER_02: But do one thing for me, right?
1:04:48
SPEAKER_02: I need everyone watching this to become a mastermind.
1:04:51
SPEAKER_02: If you had the power to stretch your hand through the camera and drop one mindset shift into the mind of the person watching, that would take them closer to being a mastermind towards success.
1:05:03
SPEAKER_02: What would that be?
1:05:04
SPEAKER_07: I heard a friend say to me the other day, even if it's not your fault, it's still your responsibility.
1:05:11
SPEAKER_07: And so I live by that.
1:05:15
SPEAKER_07: Um I would say this.
1:05:24
SPEAKER_07: There are two things to take from this conversation.
1:05:27
SPEAKER_07: First, no one's coming to save you.
1:05:32
SPEAKER_07: Nobody.
1:05:34
SPEAKER_07: Nobody is coming to save you.
1:05:37
SPEAKER_07: You are it.
1:05:39
SPEAKER_07: The life you want, you are it.
1:05:43
SPEAKER_07: The second thing I would say is this everything, everybody knows that they learned.
1:05:53
SPEAKER_07: And they are not more intelligent than you.
1:05:57
SPEAKER_07: So you can learn it too.
1:05:59
SPEAKER_07: So when you meet people who know more than you, it's not because they're necessarily more intelligent.
1:06:06
SPEAKER_07: Sometimes it's just that they are further down the journey.
1:06:09
SPEAKER_07: And so give yourself the gift of time.
1:06:16
SPEAKER_07: Find your dark room.
1:06:18
SPEAKER_07: Richie, this is so important.
1:06:20
SPEAKER_07: You have to find your dark room.
1:06:24
SPEAKER_07: You have to find your dojo.
1:06:28
SPEAKER_07: You've got to find the quiet space where you can do the same thing without seeking feedback and do it with the same level of enthusiasm and the same level of commitment.
1:06:44
SPEAKER_07: If you can do that, you will learn more, you will do more, you will achieve more.
1:06:53
SPEAKER_07: That's it.
1:06:54
SPEAKER_02: That's so powerful.
1:06:57
SPEAKER_02: I I think this is the best episode I've ever had.
1:07:00
SPEAKER_02: Oh, I know that for sure.
1:07:02
SPEAKER_07: How is this a debate?
1:07:05
SPEAKER_07: You do know I'm an incredibly competitive guy.
1:07:08
SPEAKER_07: To never say things like this in front of people.
1:07:09
SPEAKER_02: But honestly, look, they say never meet your heroes, but today that has been defeated because I'm so glad I've met you.
1:07:17
SPEAKER_02: God is good.
1:07:18
SPEAKER_02: And your mind was amazing when I was watching you on my phone, but it's even more amazing having a conversation with you.
1:07:24
SPEAKER_07: To God be the glory.
1:07:25
SPEAKER_07: And listen to our brother Prince Etanome as well as Coach of Support for making this happen.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_02: Thank you.
1:07:30
SPEAKER_07: You know, for me, Africa's home, man.
1:07:33
SPEAKER_07: I tell people this all the time.
1:07:34
SPEAKER_07: Like, there are some people who talk Africa.
1:07:37
SPEAKER_07: Nah, man.
1:07:38
SPEAKER_07: For me, it's home.
1:07:39
SPEAKER_07: There is, there are very few countries in the continent you could throw me in and I wouldn't survive.
1:07:46
SPEAKER_07: Like, if you left me in the middle of the road in Guine Conakry, 20 minutes, I'd have a place to stay.
1:07:53
SPEAKER_07: You know.
1:07:54
SPEAKER_07: And so I've been very intentional by God's grace at cultivating relationships across the continent.
1:08:02
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:08:03
SPEAKER_07: Because I genuinely believe the only way our generation can fulfill the true promise of this continent is if we come together.
1:08:15
SPEAKER_07: It's the only way.
1:08:17
SPEAKER_07: The Western project only succeeds in Africa if Africans see each other as competition.
1:08:24
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
1:08:25
SPEAKER_07: Because then they come to Ghana and they say, you know, South Africa's your competition.
1:08:28
SPEAKER_07: They come to Richie and they say, Vos is your competition.
1:08:31
SPEAKER_07: Listen, I don't need you to fail for me to win.
1:08:35
SPEAKER_02: We can all win together.
1:08:36
SPEAKER_02: It's big enough.
1:08:37
SPEAKER_02: One Africa.
1:08:38
SPEAKER_07: It's big enough.
1:08:39
SPEAKER_02: Thank you, brother.
1:08:40
SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Lucy.
1:08:41
SPEAKER_02: And I definitely know you are one step closer to being the mastermind that you deserve to be.
1:08:50
SPEAKER_02: Thank you for watching this episode.
1:08:52
SPEAKER_02: Now the Mastermind's dream is about building a community of people who have the right mindset and are ready to take their success into their own hands.
1:09:01
SPEAKER_02: So do me this wonderful favor subscribe and share with anybody out there who you believe you want to see have the right mindset to succeed so that together we can all become the masterminds we deserve to be.