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Nov. 27, 2023 - Fresh & Fit
01:14:11
How To Turn Passion Into A Business & Invest To Create Wealth!
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Time Text
Thank you.
Thank you.
What's up, guys?
We are here with Mark Tilbury, man.
We got a lot to talk about.
Let's talk about money.
Let's get into it!
Let's go.
And we are back.
What's up, guys?
I want to refresh your podcast, man.
Sorry for delay, guys.
I know we're a little bit later than usual.
I just completed a podcast interview.
Actually, both of us did.
So stay tuned.
It's going to be on probably the Strike It Big channel.
Strike It Big channel with Curtis Tilbury and the gang.
All right.
It's going to be lit, man.
So stay tuned for that.
I think it's going to drop in maybe a week or two, probably?
We'll see.
Yeah, maybe two or three, I think.
Okay, maybe two or three.
So you guys got to wait.
But make sure to go check out that channel.
I already did an interview with them before.
It did really well.
So we did a part two on there.
I go into other topics that you guys probably want to hear about.
And yeah, but anyway, guys, romo.com slash freshfit.
As you guys know, that's home base, castleclub.tv.
And also, Fresh, we have the Seal Network.
Join into that.
Brotherhood success networking all in one.
And then we have Twitter.
Yes, Unplugged Fidex, guys.
If you guys want to go ahead and see my other side that I might not be able to do in other places, check me out over there on Unplugged Fidex.
It's growing quickly, man.
We're almost at 40k followers there, man.
Let's get it to 100k.
I just made the account early in November.
So let's get it to 100k and yeah, man, if you guys want to see a different side.
And guys, we are back with the vlogs, man.
We had a funny vlog recently, time travel, to the new studio when we first got it.
Hilarious.
Me, Mo, Bills, and Myron in the car and Chris.
It was hilarious, guys.
So go check it out.
New vlog channel.
Back up.
Bam.
And we got a special guest in the house, man.
We got an OG in the space when it comes to finances.
Entrepreneur Mark Tilbury, thank you so much for coming.
I'm happy to have you.
We've wanted you on the show for a bit, but I know you guys are abroad and it was a little hard to coordinate, but you guys are here in South Florida and we're happy to have you.
Well, it's 30 years since I've been to Florida.
Not to Florida, sorry, to Miami.
Really?
30 years?
Yeah, last time I was here I was flying aerobatic aircraft over Miami Bay and I actually met up with a guy just this week, first time in 30 years, and we were doing aerobatics yesterday and it was great.
It was like...
You know when you meet your best mate, you might not have seen him for a while, and it's like you saw him last week.
I hadn't seen him for 30 years, and it was like we ended up being apart.
It was such a fantastic deal.
It was great.
That's crazy.
So you were here in the 90s.
When was the last time you were here?
I was indeed, yeah.
1993?
Miami, yeah.
Miami Vice.
Yo, what was Miami like in 93?
Well, I only really saw sawgrass area, and then we came down and did a bit of flying, but we were really based in Orlando for that particular week, so it was just a drive down for that experience.
Have you seen an enormous difference in the skyline?
Huge.
Yeah.
And the roads.
They're ripping every road up, aren't they?
And building new everywhere.
There's a lot of investment going on down here.
It's non-stop, man.
Non-stop.
People don't know that Miami, up until recently, was just kind of like a vacation destination.
No one really actually lived here.
But it's been growing significantly, especially since the pandemic.
It's becoming the center of the universe, isn't it?
Out of all the states, I think Miami's the best.
Florida's the best.
Yeah.
Honestly.
As long as you've got air conditioning, and we've got plenty of that today.
It's hot.
It is cold in here, guys.
So, we know who you are, but the audience might not.
Can you please introduce yourself to the people that might not know you?
Yeah, I'm on YouTube.
My name's Mark Tilbury.
I basically talk about finance and helping people level up, particularly youngsters.
A lot of youngsters without dads in particular.
But really, it's just basic financial knowledge.
And unfortunately, when I was young, we didn't have guys like you or myself on the internet.
There was no internet, believe it or not.
How did we ever exist in those times?
And I would have liked to have learnt the lessons all you guys are putting out now when I was younger.
So I think it's sort of partly a duty to do that from my age.
And to have life experience, unfortunately, you've got to look this sort of age.
LAUGHTER That's the only way you get it, isn't it?
So I think passing on that baton to the youngsters is a good way to go, and I really enjoy getting the comments back of how people have improved their lives, levelled up, and started to invest.
Sort of building the foundations of their kingdom.
That's what we want.
And it's a similar subject to yourself, I think.
Well, you did a good job with your son and his gang.
For sure.
Very good job.
For sure, for sure.
So a lot of people know you as a successful entrepreneur, YouTuber, many different hats.
But can you kind of take us back in time to how you became the man that you are today?
Give us your origin story.
Well, I can give you that.
I can try and break it down a little bit because it might be a bit long otherwise.
My first thing of selling was I used to fish a lot and I used to go down to my local pier.
I literally used to pull so many mackerel fish out of the sea.
Was this back in...
Where in the UK was this?
Yeah, this was in Dover in the UK, yeah.
And I used to go around my estate selling the fish, believe it or not, and we used to sell a lot of fish.
Started off 10 for a pound, but we didn't sell any, so we had to really rethink that business model.
And we found out that selling five for a pound actually worked, because 10 was just too many.
People didn't want that many fish.
What year was this, roughly?
Oh...
It's hard to remember years.
I was about 12 years old.
I actually wasn't allowed to go night fishing where you could catch the most fish.
So I used to get up early and we used to catch a four o'clock train to get down to Dover to be able to do the fishing, which was great fun.
And then really you could see that as a side hustle nowadays.
It moved on to buying and selling cars.
We used to do All sorts of different things.
Anything to earn a buck.
And obviously nowadays it's a little bit different because most people don't want to do physical things to earn their money.
So you can get online and do your digital products and things like that, which is obviously nowadays a much better way of doing things.
I mean, I've got...
I've got people that help us now, particularly with shorts and things like that, and they're earning £30,000, £40,000 a month at least, just from doing shorts editing as a side hustle.
So, you know, the money's out there for these guys to go and earn, and, you know, they can start building themselves up, can't they?
It's not that difficult.
What year did you graduate high school?
Well, I didn't actually graduate high school.
It's not the same as what it would be here.
When I was younger, you could actually leave school at 16 years old if you wanted to.
And I wouldn't say I hated school.
That's probably too strong a word.
I sort of tolerated it because you had to go.
So I decided to leave at 16.
I became a carpenter's apprentice.
I was making cabinets, staircases, that's all.
Learning to, certainly.
But I got very disillusioned with that.
I did get through with honours in my apprenticeship.
But I was given a load of really bad jobs, and most people will know my story online.
I was made to make these wooden trash bins, and I had a big discussion with the boss, and he said, no, look, we're making these for Walmart.
We're going to be making them for the next five to ten years, depending on how long the contract lasts, and that's your job.
That's what you're going to be doing.
And it comes to a point where you go, no, no more of that.
You know, there's more to me than that.
I want either the better jobs or I'm going to go and do my own thing.
Was it at that point that you said entrepreneurship is the only way?
Well, I always wanted a business.
Always.
I had a mentor when I was younger who didn't even know he was a mentor to me.
And I think that's the best type, to be honest.
He'd give me snippets of wisdom and I'd say, oh, that's great.
I'm taking that in.
And I think because he saw that I was absorbing that information, he'd give me even more.
So I always wanted to have a model shop, radio-controlled models, so aeroplanes, helicopters, radio-controlled cars, all that sort of thing.
Very into it as a youngster.
And wherever I looked, I couldn't find a complete model shop that sold everything to do with models.
That was the plan.
So I drew up a business plan.
It took me ages.
I mean, no one knows how to do that sort of thing, do they?
Especially back in the day.
What year was this?
Just so we can give the audience a perspective.
It's very hard to give years.
70s, 80s?
80s, yeah.
This is the 80s?
Probably 88, around that sort of area.
Around that sort of area, anyway.
And you made a good point about mentors.
How did you find your mentor?
He found me.
He found me.
I think what a lot of youngsters nowadays don't do, they don't put themselves out there.
I was involved with a model flying club and obviously not many youngsters were involved with that.
It was mostly adults.
So I think if you can get involved with anything like, I don't know, just caddying at a golf club or anything like that, you get to speak to the older generation, shall we say.
And, you know, if you're there to absorb information, people want to give information and, you know, absorb it because you'll get even more, you know, and it's priceless, really, just for your confidence as much as anything.
I mean, because a lot of people struggle to talk.
Well, certainly youngsters I speak to struggle to talk to the older generation or people maybe in authority, and that comes across particularly in interviews and things like that.
It's sort of like, would you like to ask me some questions?
It's like...
Yeah.
You know, it's very difficult for them.
So I think confidence is a big thing.
It can get you a long way in life, that's for sure.
So, because that's an interesting hobby.
It's something that you don't see that much nowadays.
You know, these Gen Zers don't have, you know, constructive hobbies like that anymore.
You know, building ships or, you said, model cars and airplanes.
So that's how you found your mentor?
Did he run one of these shops?
No, he didn't run a shop.
He was basically a member of the club.
He owned his own business, which was a building firm, so construction.
And he always had a bit of money on his hip, always had a nice new car, always had the best models in the club.
And you thought, well, this guy knows what he's talking about.
He's got the gear, he's got the money, he's got the life.
Plenty of holidays and all that sort of thing.
And that was all alien to me.
I never had any of that.
I'm not saying I had a poor upbringing, because I certainly didn't.
I enjoyed my childhood, as I know you did.
I had two very strong parents.
But, you know, it wasn't a high net worth.
So he made it possible for you by seeing his lifestyle.
Kind of like the modern day Andrew Tate.
It's possible by seeing somebody do it.
Yeah.
And it's interesting because you met him because there was no social media.
There was no LinkedIn or whatever.
You met him through a hobby.
Yeah, exactly.
Because those are collectibles.
Do they still hold value nowadays as far as these model planes and cars and stuff like that from an antique standpoint?
Well, still valuing, obviously, designing, manufacturing, as I do, which we'll get onto, no doubt, and selling because my businesses are still involved in all of that sort of thing.
In fact, I'm going to an event called Miami Jets in about...
Three days time and that's radio-controlled model jets and they cost upwards of 20-30,000 pounds apiece so you know that's going on locally to here and I shall meet up I certainly know there's four maybe five people that I'll meet that I know and you know it's it's such a global thing so that's smart he joined a club or you could say a hobby that has many people that for example in that area would be successful or have money because that's a very once they're rich or affluent hobby to have yeah Yeah,
and you're around older individuals as well.
It's a good screening tool.
It's good for networking too.
Especially before social media.
Just as golf is as well.
Because most golf clubs, as a youngster, you'll get in for very, very cheap money.
Once you're a member in there.
You talk to a lot of high net worth individuals.
And that's going to levitate you, isn't it?
Because you're going to get an abundance mindset.
Once you've got an abundance mindset, you know there's no limit.
There's no cap to what you can earn if you want to do that.
So take us through how you started your first business with your mentor along your side.
Well, my first business, I mean, he showed me how to do a business plan, so we went through that.
It took me a long, long time.
Lots of thought, lots of work.
Took it to the bank.
Made an appointment to see the bank manager.
Waited, I think, something like a month and a half for this appointment.
It took a long time.
Went in there, and he turned me down flat.
Absolutely flat.
I mean, I only think he gave me 10 minutes of which he was paying attention for the first 30 seconds.
He just could not be bothered with us.
And it was more like a duty that you had to do these appointments.
Now, I came out of that branch of that bank and I was faced really with two decisions.
I actually stood there and thought, what can I do?
You know, is my dream gone?
You know, because it could have been at that point.
Or do I continue and try and find someone else?
Now, I could have turned right, could have turned left.
I decided to turn right.
I walked past the next bank, which was next door.
And I thought, you know what?
I'm going to give it a go.
So I went straight in there.
I said, I've got an appointment to see the manager at 11 o'clock.
She said, you're not on the list.
I went, well, yeah, it's 5 to 11.
I'm a bit early.
And she said, well, he is free, but you're not on the list.
I said, no, no, you've made a mistake.
Went in there, secured the loan.
Nice.
Wow.
The manager actually said to me, he said, right, I believe in youngsters, and I believe in what you're going to do, the preparation's great, and I'll be your first customer.
That's amazing.
What a difference.
Wow.
So the first person you spoke to, was he like a loan officer or something?
Yeah, he was the manager of, I won't say the branch, or the bank itself, but he was the manager of that bank, and in those days the manager had We're good to go.
Fuck it.
That's nice, man.
And it was to get a business loan.
How much did they give you?
It was 22,000 pounds.
Back in the day when we got two pounds to the dollar, it was about 44,000 pounds.
40 to 50K in today's dollars.
Okay.
And when you told them the business plan, what did you tell them specifically that you think got you the loan?
I think the confidence...
He knew I'd blagged at the meeting, and he thought that was quite good.
I think that was...
It sort of reminds me a bit...
You know Suits, the start of the programme, Suits, where he goes in and blags the meeting?
It was a bit like that, and I think he respected that, and he went, you know, this guy's going to go out and do something.
If you've got the nerve to come in and blag a meeting with me, and the plan looks good, we'll go with it.
Question for you.
Looking back...
This is 30-plus years ago now at this point, right?
Looking back, what were the differences between the first discussion, where you got declined, versus the second one where you got approval?
Obviously, we talked about the confidence factor.
Was there anything else?
I wouldn't say there was any difference from itself.
I would say there was already a predetermined answer from the first one.
And the second one, I think he had a certain amount that he had to lend out to start-up businesses.
And remember, back in the day, if you wanted to sell a product, it wasn't like it is today, where you can do it online or all that sort of stuff.
Literally, you had to have a shop.
Brick and water businesses.
You had to buy lots of stock.
You'd have to have everything to be able to start up, which was quite a big step then.
I mean, it seemed like a big deal as well at the time, but when you look back, when you're young, you can take so many risks.
And it doesn't matter.
Because, you know, at the end of the day, you might take an L on it or whatever, but really you're going to win because the lesson you've learned, even from a loss when you're 20 years old, is nothing.
Yeah.
You know.
I'm taking away never give up.
And even though you take L's like you said before, if you don't give up, you keep trying.
Yeah.
Things can happen for you.
You mentioned as well having the mentor, but also in this case, did you know back then, because you're a legit millionaire now, did you know back then you were going to be a millionaire when you were younger?
Yeah.
Well, we actually did a video just recently.
When I was at school, 14 years old, we were all put into a lecture theatre.
And we put this in the video, actually.
It's quite strange.
And they said, write down the three things you're going to have.
And I wrote down, I'm going to be a millionaire.
I'm going to have a Ferrari.
And then he said, house, I'll put mansion.
And then the next thing the teacher said was, right, this was everything.
I don't know what you've written down, but they just looked at everyone and said, look, let's be realistic.
Most of you can have none of that stuff.
Wow, yeah.
See?
None of it.
And I'm sure that is to push you down while you're in the school system.
Because they don't want you being entrepreneurial.
They want you to, you know, it doesn't matter what shape you go into school at, you might be triangle or rectangle, whatever shape it is, you've got to come out as a cog to fit in the machine.
Absolutely.
You've got to become a disposable partner.
Yeah, and the longer you're in the system, in my opinion, the more cog shape you become, and the harder it is for you to actually change that shape going forward.
I agree.
Because once you're locked into a really comfortable job, and the danger is in the word comfortable, that's it.
Yeah.
You're there.
I know you were in a very secure job.
Yeah.
And I'm guessing that was really hard.
It was very difficult to leave.
Most people never leave a comfortable government job making six figures with a pension and retirement and everything.
That's what everyone says, isn't it?
I've got friends in jobs, in government-style jobs, and I say, why'd you do it?
You know, you're more than this.
And they go, oh, the pension.
I mean, if I'm going to have to work the whole of my life until I get to 66, 68, just because it's a good pension at the end, well, that's not for me.
Yeah.
I can make that pension myself.
That freedom figure can come a lot sooner if I'm doing it than way back then.
But there's a common trend here I see with millionaires.
They believe in themselves from the very beginning.
There's a level of like, okay, you know what?
I know who I am, what I'm about, and even though I'm not getting the answer today, eventually I'll get there.
So the belief is very important.
So your first business, what kind of business was it, the first one that you started, that you were able to secure this?
It was a radio-controlled model shop.
Okay.
Literally, I took out a lease on a shop.
I didn't tell you a full story there.
Basically, when I first came up with the idea, I did actually share it with a friend of mine.
Okay.
Because I was working part-time in a model shop at the time.
So I said, look, I'm going to do this and this and this and this.
And lo and behold, he stole my plans.
He actually opened up the shop, called it the same name as I was going to call it, Model World.
Which came from a BBC television series at the time because I watched that as a kid and it was imprinted in me.
That's what I'm going to do.
The world of models.
It's all model world.
And he got bored of it six months later.
Couldn't make a profit.
Just doing lots of things wrong.
And he said, I've had enough.
I'm going to sell it.
So at that point, that's when I physically stepped in because I'd secured the funding and went, right, I'll have it.
So I took the business over and...
Was there animosity there when you went up to him with that check and said, hey, I'm taking this thing now?
Well, not really.
Actually, when he stole the plans or the idea, I continued to work for him because I realized straight away that I wasn't ready at the time.
Okay.
So he'd gone ahead and done it.
I wasn't ready.
But within that six months, this is what we used to call it, I built up a little black book.
Mm-hmm.
All the contacts, all the information I needed, all the people that I needed to trade with, lots of customers.
I mean, I had so many customers.
I mean, at the time, I was actually selling, I always say this, I was selling all of my time.
So, you know, I was, what was I doing?
I was working full-time, I was working every bit of overtime I could to build up my pot.
I was buying and selling cars still.
I was teaching people to fly radio-controlled models on a weekend.
I was working Saturdays in the model shop.
So there comes a point where you can't earn any more money.
Your time is sold, isn't it?
So we just made the jump there and bought the business and improved it and made it very good.
What allowed him to...
Because you said he was more far ahead of you.
What allowed him to be far ahead of you?
Did he have more capital?
Was he older?
Did he just have more experience in that niche?
Like, what was it that...
Well, he already had a store, obviously, that I was working in.
And I think he felt...
That he couldn't fail because his income was increasing within that shop.
Now one of the reasons I think his income was increasing so much within that shop, and it might sound arrogant to say this, but a lot of it was me.
Yeah, because what I'd done is I'd mastered the skill of flying radio-controlled helicopters back at that time in the 1990s.
They were a really big thing with Airwolf on the telly and Blue Thunder and various other helicopter-based dramas that everyone wanted a radio-controlled helicopter and they were one of the hardest things to fly.
Now, once you've mastered how to fly it, you could then teach...
Which was great.
Not only could you teach, you could say to your customers, oh, look, you know, that model, if you upgraded that and put a better head on it or better tail rotor gearbox, it'll fly so much better.
It'll be so much easier for you.
They say, oh, well, can you take it away and do it?
So you take it away, you...
Charge for the spares, charge for the labor, and you're guaranteed they're going to turn up the following week for a lesson because they want their model anyway.
So it was a really good thing, and you were gathering at the time all those customers so that when you got the shop, you could take them away.
Okay, this is really interesting, and I guess I'm going into a very detailed question here.
Because you said that he didn't turn a profit before, but he was making money.
Was the store something else?
And then he switched it to the model stuff?
No, the store was, he had one store that was successful, and then he copied my idea to open the second store.
What was the first store?
It's still a model shop.
Still a model shop, okay.
Yeah, that's where I was working, part-time.
And then he opened another one.
But he opened it up with the view that it was a satellite branch.
Rather than looking at it and going, well, actually, it's one branch, it's two branches, three branches, whatever.
He just went, oh, it's bound to make money, and we can just put a bit of stock in there.
Gotcha.
He wasn't servicing it properly and the manager was very, very bad.
Okay.
I mean, I turned up there once and he was asleep.
And he was the only member of staff there.
Gotcha.
You know, that's not good.
So yeah, so he opened up a satellite location but didn't take it as seriously as the main one.
Yeah.
And you were working at the main one.
Were you going to the satellite one too?
Yeah, from time to time I worked in it, yeah, when the manager couldn't be there.
So I knew what I could do with it, that was for sure.
When you bought it, did you buy both, or did you just buy the satellite one?
No, I just bought one.
You bought one?
Yeah.
Guess what happened to the other one?
It closed down?
Yeah, of course it did.
So you ran the other one, and it started, I'm assuming, probably doing way better than the original.
Yeah.
Oh shit.
And then he just gave, did he give you the whole, like, did you just buy the rest to buy them out?
No, actually I didn't want the other one because I knew it never had the potential of where we were.
And within six months we doubled the size of the store anyway because one of the problems with the store, it was too small for the area.
You couldn't stock the amount of gear that you needed and eventually the other shop failed.
And was it like in a high traffic?
Was this in London?
Was it in Dover?
No, it was just outside.
It was in a town called Maidstone.
And this was a new move as well.
And he realized it was a good move because I said to him where I was going to open it.
It was in a garden center complex.
So, you know, when you've got, I suppose, Home Depot and that sort of place, what you could do back then is you could bolt in another store within the store.
Oh!
So that's what I did.
And actually, I ended up doing three different shops in similar locations.
And it just worked really well because you had instant footfall and it was something different.
The centres liked it because people were coming for the models and then going, oh, we want to come for this as well.
Yeah.
So it was good for both.
It spun really well.
Very good business.
Wow.
Interesting.
All pre-internet.
Yeah, I was going to say, this is all guerrilla marketing.
How are you marketing your store at this point?
Believe it or not, my biggest advertising expense was probably 10% of my profits, which would go to Yellow Pages.
Oh, Yellow Pages, wow!
How about that?
And we had, where we were, it was split by four different directories, literally split all over the place.
And then you thought, well, if I'm in those four, I need to be in these and these and these.
And, you know, before you know it, you're in 13 different directories and they were charging an absolute fortune.
But it definitely was the ticket to get people into the store.
I also bolted onto that flying all around the world.
So when I was here 30 years ago, I was competing in a competition called the Tangerine Model Flying, which actually is still taking place during the month of December and early January up in the Orlando area.
And that's what I came over here for.
And when you start competing...
Not just around the UK, but worldwide.
Obviously, you get a name and a reputation for what you do, which was competing at a very high level with radar control helicopters.
Can you explain to me how these competitions work?
Is it like, who has the best plane, fastest, races, most tricked out one?
How does it work?
Well, I always describe what I used to do with model helicopters a bit like figure skating.
Now, it might sound a bit of a tangent, but with figure skating, they actually cut a line in the eyes, and you have to do set figures around them, which is what we have to do.
And then you have a freestyle element, don't you?
So we also then had freestyle aerobatic manoeuvres.
And that's sort of what it's like, and it's judged in front of a bank of five judges.
You lose the highest and the lowest score, and that's your score.
Wow.
We used to compete all over the world.
My best positioning is bronze medal at Worlds and bronze medal at European Championships.
Wow.
There's like a whole league for this.
Yeah, I didn't quite get on the top step, but I was fully sponsored.
I used to come to the States and compete in your national championships, which was up in Muncie, Indiana, I think.
Okay.
So that was every year as well because the sponsors want you to compete in the US market.
So it's very good.
I was almost, well I was employed or certainly offered a full-time position with a company in Orlando called Miniature Aircraft and I flew and was sponsored by them for four or five years as well.
You clearly have a passion for it and a skill for it.
Do you think that passion and drive and skill for it is what drove you to beat out the person that originally stole your idea and why you were able to last longer and do better than him in general?
I think any sporting background of any sort, and I would include what I did as a sport, although people might say it's not.
I believe it is.
I think if you've got an athletic sort of mentality to compete and do well, that transfers into the business world without a doubt.
Yeah.
Without a doubt.
Yeah.
No, absolutely.
Can you give us the top two mistakes you think he made in business that made him fail?
Ignoring his clientele and their needs and ignoring the talent that he had within his staffing.
But let me add to that before I criticize the guy too much because I'm still friends with the guy now.
I had coffee with him probably about four months ago.
So I am still friends with him.
I always feel in business you don't burn your bridges.
Yeah, I agree.
You never know.
When that person's going to be able to help you out.
You know, like I would help him, he would help me now.
You know, it's just one of those things with business, isn't it?
Yeah.
Wow.
So, obviously the internet is here, right?
Yeah.
Big change.
Yeah.
Social media too as well.
Social media.
Brick and border businesses, I don't know in the UK, but the United States have kind of taken a little bit of a hit.
How have you been able to adapt and overcome with a more digitalized world?
Well, if I could have foreseen exactly what was going to happen...
The best bet for me would have been just to shut all the shops, just shut them overnight, pack everything up, start again from absolute ground zero, but with some money.
That would be the best way.
And the reason being is because I think the transition from traditional business to internet business is actually really difficult.
Mm-hmm.
But to start as an internet business is really quite straightforward.
Yes, I agree.
It sort of counterdicts itself in a way because you think, well, you've already got all the gear, you've already got all the contacts, you've already got this and that and so on.
It's got to be easy, isn't it?
But it's so different.
And while you've got one taking all of your attention, you can't really concentrate on the other properly, even with the right teams in place.
And that's why you see a lot of these companies going down, and you think, well, they should have gone online.
Well, they tried, but they couldn't.
They couldn't adapt fast enough.
And that's quite a challenge.
But now we operate...
On every platform we can, to be honest.
We have retail sales.
We have, obviously, all the internet sales, be it on all the different platforms, our own websites, multiple websites.
We also have a manufacturing side to our business and a B2B distribution as well.
So we try and cover every aspect of that side of our business.
So it's quite a change.
Okay.
You know, we're still, some people say, oh, you're still in the model game.
You say, well, I'm still in the same industry, but the industry has completely changed.
So, do you still have brick-and-mortar stores to this day?
Yes, we do, yeah.
You have one?
We actually have two.
Because of our geographical position, it's actually quite a good idea to have two.
Because the UK is a fair bit smaller than the US, People do tend to still want to visit stores to a certain degree, but they certainly want to phone a shop that they can go to should something go wrong with their internet purchase.
So for us, it makes sense to have a couple of stores.
Are they all located in the UK? Yeah, they are.
I have had a branch in Hamburg, but it didn't really work very well.
So I decided to get out.
It didn't cost me anything.
I learned a lesson, and that was a good thing.
But obviously we're not part of Europe now, so it wouldn't have worked very well ongoing.
Gotcha.
Is the original satellite one still open?
That you took from...
Well, technically it is, but it's not in the same area.
Okay.
Literally, we moved that particular set-up, yeah.
Okay.
Where in the UK, specifically?
What town's...
You wouldn't have heard of it.
It's called Sittingbourne.
Sittingbourne.
That's where we're based, yeah.
For one of them.
Yeah, and we're also over the water in Southend, which is in a county called Essex, which you might have heard of.
Oh, yes, yes.
Yeah, everyone's heard of Essex.
For a podcast, right?
Yeah, actually, yeah, that's when we did grilling.
Drilling, yeah.
Yeah, okay, all right.
Everyone's heard of Essex.
Yeah, I was out in the middle of nowhere, actually, now that I think about it.
It took us a while to get out there from London.
It was like an hour or something like that.
Yeah, it was a while.
Yeah.
The one is back for part two, by the way.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, we might go back.
Some chats real quick?
Yeah, I could read some of these chats, and then, let me get my glass here, because I am blind.
Shout out to you guys, man.
Do me a favor.
Like the video, bro.
You guys are getting some sauce right now when it comes to business, man.
Let's see here.
We got Jerome.
We need an episode on Ian Gary, 26-year-old UFC fighter that married a 40-year-old with a kid already.
He then allowed the ex-husband to move in with them and took the ex-husband's last name.
Oh, yeah.
I heard about that.
Shit's crazy.
I'd love to hear your guys break down on it.
Alright, well, we'll probably cover that at some point.
That's tough.
If you woke up as a homeless person with only your acquired knowledge over the years, how would you regain your current position considering the loss of all your connections and possessions?
Love the show, by the way.
That's a good question.
Let's have Mark do it first.
If you woke up literally homeless with your knowledge over the years, how would you regain your current position in business?
Well, I certainly wouldn't be swiping on TikTok.
I'd be using my mobile phone as a tool for business, and I think that's the advantage you've got now.
If you stop walking around like a zombie...
You know, just, you know, like this all the time and decide to use what you've got in the palm of your hand, which is a computer that's far, far, far greater than what got Apollo to the moon.
You know, use it for what it's, you know, really usable for.
And with the knowledge, I think you could...
Make the money twice as quick.
What are the top three businesses you would say a young person should get into from the internet?
I think the beauty on the internet is digital products, without a doubt.
In whatever form, I can list three different forms, but literally a digital product.
That's what you really want to get into.
Because the problems I have or had is you've got to carry stock.
Then you run out of stock.
You get a hot item.
Then you can't get it anymore.
You can't sell anymore.
So you're always restricted.
A digital product, you not only are never out of stock of it, you can sell it all over the world at a click of a button.
And you can make it relatively low cost as well.
So once people start buying it, if it starts slowing up, you can reduce the price.
You can do specials.
You're in touch with everyone nowadays.
It is fantastic.
So without doubt, if I started again, I don't know what digital product I would necessarily choose, but definitely that's the way I would go.
Well said.
Speaking of digital product, guys, DMs on demand is out, man.
Black, fresh...
Cyber?
Something like that is the code, man?
Blackfresh is the code?
Yeah, guys.
Cyber Monday.
Yeah, for Cyber Monday, I think it was Blackfresh.
All right.
Blackfresh.
Blackfresh something.
Mo will put it in the chat.
Cyber Blackfresh.
Cyber Blackfresh.
So go ahead and check that out, guys, if you guys want.
DMs on the man back out.
Wow.
Okay.
What's the next one here?
That was good.
I'm with Zucca.
What's the next one?
Oh, okay.
What's up, Fresh Fit?
Y'all are doing God's work.
This is probably off topic for this pod, but I'm 23, building 14 chicks and never finished in bed, including my first time.
Do y'all have any advice?
Stop watching porn.
You're probably watching too much goddamn porn, bro.
You got some issues.
You might have some ED issues, too.
ED, erectile dysfunction, or something like that.
Anything else?
That's it for now.
That's it for now?
Cool.
Mark, real quick.
You spent years in business.
Obviously, you have a lot of knowledge here.
What do you say is things you've learned, like two things you've learned that most people don't know in business?
Well, what I always say we've always done is to provide value to our customers.
Honest, good value.
Now, some people think that just means the best price.
And I've never, ever subscribed to this idea of being, you know, keep dropping price in all the time.
What I mean by supplying good value is, you know, you've got your experience, you've got the actual, the niceness of the environment that someone's coming into, but if you always provide good value, regardless of what you're doing, you deserve to make a profit, and you will make a profit.
You shouldn't expect sometimes to make lots of money, and in fact sometimes when you provide something for free, Whatever it happens to be, the karma does bring it back to you.
If you put it out there, good information, good value to people, the rewards come.
Do you agree with the sentiment that there's three traits, either low price, quality, speed, pick two?
Low price, quality...
Quality and speed.
And you can only pick two.
So in other words, if you have quality and speed, it's going to probably cost you.
But if you have low price and quality, it's probably going to be slow.
Yeah.
I think there's always a cost, and I think, again, with the internet, you see it all the time, particularly with dropshipping.
You order something, you go, oh, yeah, I like that red cup, particularly with the white liner on it.
I want a bunch of those.
I'll order it.
Oh, that's the best price.
You order it.
And it takes a month to come because it's come from a dropshipper.
And you think, oh, it's missed my party.
What's the point of that?
I'll never use them again.
And you will never use them again.
Yep.
That's it.
End of story.
Yeah.
And I think you generally get three chances with people when you sell to them, I think.
If you give them good service three times, they're there for life.
If you give them good service, then bad, then good, then they're not sure.
So always try to hit them with good service.
And also be consistent with your service.
I always think of the hairdresser analogy.
So you go into your hairdressers, first time you've ever visited there, and they give you a really good cut.
You think, oh, you know, that's good.
Coffee, sir?
Oh, don't mind if I do.
That's really nice.
You know, how was your weekend?
You had a good time?
You know, how's your life?
I like coming here.
The next time, you don't get the coffee.
Everything else is the same.
You know, it's good coffee.
You didn't make me a coffee.
The next time you go, you don't really want to know because he's a bit busy.
You aren't going back.
You're just not going back, are you?
So, I think good service is always the thing.
Quality is always the thing.
Wow.
You know, there is something, I don't know, I will say it, but you can't polish a turd, can you?
You just can't do it.
No matter how hard you try, you can't do it.
But if you've got a quality item, it doesn't matter.
You know, that's good quality.
I want to sell you that.
It's worth £100.
You know, if no one buys it, you can reduce the price.
And it will eventually sell because it's got quality.
If it's got no quality, it don't matter if you put a $10 note on it.
They'll go, I still don't really want it.
You know, it's true.
Quality sells.
Yeah.
And I mean, you know, because that's the thing that will last everything, right?
Because if the quality is good, but it's slow, people might wait for it if it's good enough, you know?
Or if it's expensive, well, they're going to pay for it because they're paying for the quality, right?
So, let me...
Go ahead, did you have something else?
Do you have any business stories that went bad or that went good?
To be honest, I always say I have a bit of an issue with things that go bad because I take the L on it and I learn from it and I move on and I sort of forget about it after that because I don't like to dwell on things that go wrong.
It is actually a problem because when I play golf, if I take a bad shot, I forget about it.
Now, that's great for the rest of the hole because you're not letting it get into your head.
But you get to the end of the hole, you're like, that's a five.
I go, no, it wasn't, Mark.
It was a six.
Oh, yeah, of course, that rubbish one.
And I literally, meaningly, not necessarily on a golf course, meaningly forget about it, but I do put it out of my mind.
So I haven't had too many...
I'd almost say I haven't had any issues in business where I haven't learned a big enough lesson to outweigh the loss.
And I think when you do things and you learn from the action and from the doing, you never forget about it.
You know, someone can tell you that you're doing the wrong thing, but you'll forget that.
But you do it and you learn from the L, you never forget it.
What's that?
I was watching one of your videos, and you talked about the importance of making sure that you take care of your employees and payroll is always going to be there, even at your detriment to some times where you had to take cuts.
Can you describe the importance of sacrificing as a leader for the betterment of the team?
I think your team relies on their job so much.
As an employer, you are looking at obviously an exit at some point from your business, so you'll get paid even if you don't pay yourself for a period of time.
And obviously during COVID and various other times, during various crashes that I've been through, several recessions, you're right, I have taken years of not being paid.
But the thing is, if you've always invested all the way through your adult life, you know, you've always got a safety net.
And some people say...
I don't want a safety net.
I don't want a plan B. I disagree with that entirely.
My safety net will maybe never ever get used.
And I mean, it's huge.
There's no denying it.
It's massive.
But it may never get used because it's only a safety net.
And people say, when we say to them, the price of a good quality coffee a day invested in a low-cost index fund will get you...
A million dollars by the time you're retired.
I don't want it when I'm retired.
You don't have to just do that.
There's lots of other things you can do, as you know, with real estate and that sort of thing.
So you can get ahead, but it's just having that safety net in the background.
And it builds so nicely, so easily, and if you run a 10% or 15% rule on your wages, it's away every single month.
You don't even see it.
You get used to it, and you don't even have to check on it, do you?
It's a beautiful thing in the background.
And that helps me segue into the next thing.
I originally found you because I was looking for information on index funds.
It was something that I was like, you know what?
I want to diversify.
I'm in real estate.
I got some crypto.
But I need to get something that's way more tried and true.
And we know that index funds, especially the ones that track the S&P 500, pretty much had 10% return since forever, right?
And I learned a lot about my index funds from you, which I want to thank you for that.
And it's great.
It's surreal to have you here now and be talking about it.
Can you talk to the people about what index funds are, the importance of them, and how people can get started?
Well, the main thing to remember is that it's a lot of different companies that you're actually investing in.
Whenever we speak about stocks, be it stocks or be it index funds, we always get in the comments, I don't know which stocks to pick, I don't know what to do, blah, blah, blah, and I've got to check them every day.
I say, no, look, all you've got to remember...
If you buy an index fund, it's a basket of lots of different companies.
All the major companies in the USA are in the S&P 500.
So you're investing in Apple, you're investing in Amazon, Google, all the main people, plus others.
And if there's a loss of one of those companies, you don't feel the hit.
That's the beautiful thing.
You don't have to keep checking it every day.
In fact, the worst thing you can do is be checking it every day.
I mean, we had a call today, a live call on our systems.
And it was about, well, I want to do day trading.
I'm doing this and I'm doing that, but I've lost money.
You know, what do you think I should do?
Well, day trading takes up a hell of a lot of your time.
A hell of a lot of your time.
Yeah.
Index funds investing, how much time does it take you to do your index funds?
I have it on automatic now.
Easy, isn't it?
Every month it just takes a certain amount of money from my account and invest it into, I got one that tracks the S&P 500 and one that tracks the total market.
Exactly.
So, total market's very good, but also emerging markets, I think, is very good as well, and that's the one I'm actually extending my investments on at the moment, because, you know, you've only got to look at China, India, all those sort of places which are the emerging markets.
I want a piece of that action, you know.
Can you give us a few that you don't mind revealing?
I know it's a secret a lot of times, but can you give us a few for the likes?
Well, it's not really a secret.
I mean, if you go on Vanguard and just pick an emerging markets fund, I mean, it's literally as easy as that.
Oh, so would it be fair to say this emerging market fund, it's like maybe the equivalent to an S&P 500?
It's all the emerging markets all in one basket?
Yeah, exactly the same.
So it's very, very simple to do.
But again, you're doing the right thing because you're also investing in real estate as well.
You're diversifying and it's all about diversifying.
Not relying on just one thing.
You've got your businesses.
It's all pieces of a puzzle, isn't it?
It's all about those income streams coming in.
So it's the right thing to do.
But get your safety net sorted out because it's so simple.
So for you, as far as your index funds go, you can choose to collect the dividends or you can choose to reinvest those dividends.
Automatic reinvestment.
Automatic reinvestment?
Yeah.
Okay.
And if you don't mind me asking, so during those times where you had to get the payroll, you might have not paid yourself, you got to take care of your in-place first, and luckily you had your investments in place to pay yourself, how were you paying yourself?
Was it coming from real estate?
Was it coming from...
Crypto, what was it?
Well, some from real estate, because obviously you can use those funds however you wish.
And that keeps also the investments going as well, because the last thing I wanted to do was not continue to invest.
And we also dabbled in crypto.
I mean, I've been very lucky with crypto, because I haven't really bought any of the shit coins, shall we say.
We bought Doge for a while, because obviously we saw it going up, we thought we were going to do that, and we sold it, I think, what was it, an hour before the show?
Saturday Night Live.
Yeah, an hour before the Saturday Night Live thing came on, because everyone's going, it's going to go to a dollar, it's going to go, of course it's not.
You know, if it gets to 90 cents or 95, everyone's going to sell, aren't they?
So we bailed an hour before and it was the right thing to do.
But on Bitcoin and on Ethereum, we've done very well.
That's what I got too.
Bitcoin, we bought most, I say we because I bought it with my son, we bought pre-21 quite big, which was nice.
We sold quite a lot at the top, took lots of profit.
Yeah, we're getting at what, $3,000 probably?
Just a A bit more than that, but it was still pretty good.
I think we sold first at 64, something like that.
And then we bought back in on that first dip, rode it again, sold again, and then we bought some more at the bottom as well.
So, you know, we hold Bitcoin that owes us nothing.
Well, less than nothing.
There's lucky as well.
Let's be fair.
We don't know when this is happening.
So I got to ask you this because you mentioned real estate.
Me and Fresh are both in real estate.
Huge into real estate.
And I know we had a discussion about this last time I was on your guys' podcast and we had a discussion on real estate that the whole real estate process is a bit different in the United Kingdom than it is to the United States.
And I get a million questions from people.
Hey, talk about real estate in the UK. Talk about real estate in the UK. You have some real estate there.
Can you tell the people about maybe some fundamental differences that might be between the United States and the United Kingdom?
Well, I'm not a real estate expert.
I mean, at the end of the day, I buy real estate.
I buy both residential and commercial.
Being in business, commercial property is actually a very, very good tax What?
Our interest rates, I think, are somewhat better than yours.
I think you're operating about 8% plus at the moment.
Yeah, it's around there, yeah.
Yeah, we're about 5, 5 and a half.
What?
Yeah, I know.
It's not bad, is it?
What the fuck?
I'm about to go to that kingdom, bro.
But hold on.
There's got to be a downside to that, though.
No?
Not really, no.
Do you guys get 30-year fixed loans, or no?
No, we don't get that.
You do get that in the States, which is quite nice.
But do you want 30 years fixed at 8-plus percent?
No, no, no.
But you can refinance.
I was going to say, you're going to be refinancing very quickly.
But we can get, I'll say, probably five years at that at the moment.
Oh, is it like an adjustable rate mortgage?
Yeah.
How much down do you need, though?
How much down?
Normally, first-time buyers, what are we talking, Curtis, just because you're more in that market?
10?
20%.
20%, yeah.
But you can get help to buy as well.
There's a help to buy scheme also available.
So even if you're going to live in it, you've got to put 20% down?
Yeah.
Oh, there you go.
There's a barrier to entry.
See?
I knew it.
Because in America, you could do 3.5% down if it's going to be where you primary FSA loan, yeah.
And you've got to live in it for a year, and then you put three and a half to five, and then you can leave.
So I guess the barrier to get in is a little bit harder, but you can get and enjoy some better rates.
But does that 5% interest rate last for like five years, ten years, or do you sign different terms?
Generally, you can go about five years.
You won't generally get a lot more than that on a low interest rate.
Obviously, if you wanted to sign for 6%, for example, you'd probably get a ten-year.
But to be honest, the interest rates aren't that high generally for that amount of time.
Do they ever go that high where an adjustable rate would mess you up?
The worst interest rate I've ever seen is 15%.
It didn't last very long.
It's when the UK dropped out the money control system of Europe and it went through the roof for a bit and it wasn't very long.
But is it consistently under 6% it seems like?
I think the tops I'm paying on mortgages, probably about 3.5% at the moment on my fixed.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
How many properties do you have?
I never disclose that.
I understand.
I do disclose what I earn.
That's public knowledge on my YouTube videos.
But I did say, when we started the YouTube and the interviews and things like that, my wife asked me, she said, don't disclose those sort of things.
She likes that to be private.
So, you know, I think that's fair enough.
I can agree on that.
Yeah.
I like it private.
Yeah.
I'm transparent about it, but no, I can definitely see where that would make sense.
And then in the United States, we have open laws with searching shit, so I don't know, depending on how you incorporate your business, whatever it may be.
So you said commercial and residential.
In the U.K., in the U.S., we go from one to four is residential.
Is that the same in the U.K.? I don't think so.
I mean, one of the things you have got in the States, which I think is quite nice, is the buying of duplexes.
Yes.
Multifamily.
You can buy, like, up to four.
And it's residential.
But it's classed as one...
Yeah, so you could buy a single-family home, a duplex, or a triplex, or a fourplex, and that all counts as residential.
But anything above four units is considered commercial.
Yeah, well, I think in the UK, if you buy a house, literally another house is another house, even if it's joined up.
So you can't do quite the same sort of thing.
So even if it's the same structure, you're taking two mortgages on each unit.
Yeah.
I mean, you could buy a street.
I mean, we have, in some of the towns that we, well, Sittingbourne, where we're based as a business, there's quite a lot of what are called terraced houses, and that would be like 20 houses all in a row.
Really, it's one building, all divided up, but each one you would buy as an individual house.
You can't do the same sort of thing, unfortunately.
Yeah, my brother's in the UK, and my property over there, I checked it out, bro.
It's hard, bro.
Okay.
See, there's checks and balances.
They have more favorable rates, but you have a higher barrier to enter to be able to acquire the property because you've got to put 20% down.
But it seems to me once you actually have it, because 20% is quite a bit of equity, you're probably going to cash flow very nicely.
Yeah.
I mean, the same rules sort of apply.
I mean, you're looking for 1% a month from your purchase price as a rental, if you can.
I mean, at the moment, you're probably looking at about just a little less than that, probably about 10%.
You can pretty much get that on a year.
So that's quite good.
But obviously, after...
Three, four, five years, then obviously the rent increase gives you substantially more than that.
And I think a lot of people look at what they can rent it for right now.
Versus the long term.
Versus the long term.
And I think a lot of people struggle with long term nowadays.
Well, long term, well, that's 90 seconds of TikTok rather than 30 seconds, isn't it?
Statistically, you've got to have a plan.
If you have a plan, have a plan over a number of years and stick with it.
Because, you know, on real estate, I don't know what it is in the U.S., but generally speaking in the U.K., you can almost double a property value in 10 years, almost, probably 11.
I was going to ask you that next is, Is rent very expensive in the UK, depending on where it is?
I know London isn't cheap.
And are you able, because it seems to me like you said you can raise the rents every two to three years, which I mean is pretty good.
But is the market to enter very expensive?
Like to get a single family home is like a million dollars?
No, it's not as much as that, no.
I mean, I think the average UK home is about three, and I'm guessing a little bit of this at the moment, probably about £370, so probably about $450.
That would be for a three-bedroom, what we call a semi-detached, so what you might call a two-duplex, but obviously you're only on one side of that.
Do you have any other investments other than real estate and index funds?
Any other investments?
Well, obviously the crypto.
I do dabble a little bit in stock still because, you know, it's fun, isn't it?
You know, and I do like checking up on them from time to time, you know, so I do dabble.
Although I don't like to push that side of it, I do dabble a little bit, yeah.
And I have a couple of little bits of money in.
I suppose it'd be called angel investing as well, but it's not really that yet, but I think it's going to become that.
Can you tell us what stocks you're into?
I know it's a secret, but hey!
If you're going to share one with the audience, that'd be great.
If you can, it's cool.
Everyone's got Tesla, haven't they?
Okay.
I've got Tesla.
Okay.
That's not a bad...
And a few others.
Yeah.
Because Tesla, if I'm not mistaken, isn't there a push in the US government to go fully electric?
Energy green, yeah.
And in the UK as well.
I didn't know that in the UK they're doing that too.
So I have a friend, Kevin Tobias, he sold his Tesla stock and made millions, but I think holding onto it might be even better because they're going full electric.
Wow.
Okay.
So individual stocks, index funds, you said you have emerging funds, market index, and then I'm assuming also you probably have an S&P 500 one and a total market index.
Anything else that you do?
No, that's pretty much the set, to be perfectly honest with you.
It's a safe sort of...
What's the emerging funds one, man?
I'm about to go in there.
Do you remember the code for Vanguard?
I won't remember the code, but we'll look it up as we finish.
Cool, yeah.
I'm going to start putting money in there.
So let's say...
It's all about the percentage that you put in there.
Sorry to cut you off.
I mean, at the moment, we're about...
Oh, I say we.
I mean, this doesn't involve my son, my index funds.
But it's probably about...
10% of my index funds goes into emerging markets at the moment.
And the other 90 is split between S&P and total market?
Yes.
Okay.
So 40-40 and then 10 for that?
Probably more 60-30.
Okay.
Around that sort of area.
S&P 500?
Yeah.
Okay.
How important is budget...
When it comes to being an entrepreneur.
Budgeting?
Yeah, budgeting.
Oh, extremely important.
If you don't budget, how do you know, one, what's coming in?
Secondly, what's going out?
I mean, you've got no idea.
How can you have control over something you've got no idea of?
You can't.
So it's fundamental to making any sort of money or any sort of future.
It's like having a plan and having a budget have got to be...
Right up there.
Could you put on your formula for budgeting for someone that's starting up?
For example, 20% to retirement, maybe like 50% for business, paying yourself 20%?
Well, everyone's different, aren't they?
I mean, I always say 50% for your bills and your groceries, 30% for your investments, and 20% because you've got to have a little bit of fun, go out on the weekends and things like that.
And then, obviously, the replies to that are, well, I don't earn enough to be able to put 50, you know, to do those ratios.
Well, you've just answered your own question.
Exactly.
Make more.
And people say, well, I can't make more because I'm tired, I'm this, I'm that.
I say, well, could you not earn $10 more in a day?
You know, are you not worth $20 more in a day doing something?
Of course you are.
So you can earn more.
The thing you can't do, if you...
I mean, I'm a bit like Myron here.
I like the simple math.
So say you earn $1,000 a month.
Sorry, a week.
And you want to save as much as you can.
Well, let's say you save all of it.
It's $1,000.
That's it.
It's limited, isn't it?
That's all you can possibly save.
And you can't save that much because you've got to spend some.
But let's just say you manage to save all of it.
Congratulations, right?
That's your limit.
Well, there's no limit to how much you can earn.
No limit.
So you go out and earn 5,000 a week, 10,000 a week, whatever it is.
That's where you should be aiming to go, not aiming to save absolutely loads.
So I know I use the coffee analogy for your index fund investing because that's a good analogy to say how...
How cheap it is to invest in a good index fund, but literally just go out and earn a bit more.
That's the way to do it.
It really is.
We are talking to guys here, but same effects to the ladies watching as well.
You can earn more money than you are.
I always think that if you're in a job and you're getting paid For argument's sake, $50 an hour.
Your company is charging your time at $150 an hour.
So you know you're worth more.
Go out and earn that more.
You can do it.
Yeah, you'll never save yourself to wealth.
And I think a lot of people, especially people that like...
And I had to learn this being an employee for a while with the government, is you just need to make more money a lot of the times.
You're never going to save yourself to being rich.
And if you try to do that, it's going to take you decades.
You're better off just making more money than trying to save yourself to some kind of wealth.
Right.
And the other thing I'd add to that as well, if you've got a good woman behind you, and I know this is going a bit more...
You're fine, go on, man.
You're good, you're good.
Women can definitely be assets, I agree.
If you've got a good woman behind you that looks after you, makes your dinner, looks after your youngster, makes everything else around you happen...
That is more helpful than you can believe.
Agreed.
If you get the right woman.
I'm lucky I got the right woman.
How long have you been married for?
Quite a while.
20 years married, but really together 30-something years.
So, Mark, how did you know that she was the one for you?
I don't know.
It's always a difficult thing to say, really.
I think if you can sit down with a young lady after your first date and talk about the future and your futures align, I think that's quite good.
I mean, one of the first things I said to my wife when we met was I said, look, One of the things I have a problem with is I'm very selfish with my time.
It's very important to me.
My career is important to me.
The business is important.
All the different things I do is important.
But when I spend time with you, I'm going to give you 100% of my attention.
100%.
That's my promise to you, but I'm selfish with the rest of my time.
She says, fine.
If we're building towards the future and the future that I want and the future I can see, I'm absolutely 100% with you on that.
And she helps me build it.
Or helped me build it, I should say.
Real value, man.
Yeah, absolutely.
But it's all honesty, isn't it?
At the end of the day, if you can be honest, then that's great.
What year did you guys meet?
You said 30 years ago.
So this is probably...
Yeah, 30-odd years ago.
Yeah, like 90s, 80s?
Yeah, it's got to be 98, something like that, I suppose.
No, less than that, 95.
95?
Yeah, around that sort of area.
You said it's...
Well, back then anyway.
It's all about honesty, right?
Yeah, I think it's very important because if you want to work together, then that's what it's all about, isn't it?
He's very honest.
He's almost too honest.
Oh, what?
Well, my girl?
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Well, women do give up.
what I would say is a proper wife.
Yeah.
You know, my wife worked in the bank.
She could have gone on a career structure through the bank.
So she's obviously stopped that career structure.
Now, she might not have wanted to have gone on, that's fair enough.
But to rejoin the workforce after looking after your child and nurturing your child, she has lost all that time in the workplace.
She's never going to recoup that money.
She's never going to go back in on the amount of money she would have got.
So that's because she's helped build your career and your business.
And she worked within my business as well.
And she still does to this day.
She does payroll on some of the businesses.
And I think that's really important.
And it's a teamwork.
I agree.
I think if you're an entrepreneur, you need to involve your woman to some degree with the business.
I think for women.
And it's really important for them to feel like they're helping contribute and help something.
And then like, yeah, she's becoming an asset, you know, versus a lot of guys, you know, some guys don't want to do it.
They're like, I don't want to.
I want to keep my girl away from her, whatever.
But then she'll be bored because she'll be sitting at home all day if she doesn't have a job.
So, Mark, I'll consider you a model dad.
Someone to follow and learn from.
What did he teach your son?
I guess the most important thing you taught him.
The most important thing you could think of.
We'll probably go back to his magic, I think.
What?
Curtis went through a stage of really enjoying doing magic, card tricks and all that sort of thing.
And I would say one of the most important lessons I taught him was when he was doing that.
He showed...
I quite like magic.
I know how the tricks work that he was showing me.
So I'm quite harsh.
And he'd show me the trick.
And he'd say, I'm really good at this, Dad.
Look.
Do-do-do-do.
I'd say, right, yeah, it was good.
But I could see how you did it.
So it's not good enough.
And he wanted to be able to go to kids' parties to perform.
I said, look, if I can't see it, how you're doing it, then it's great.
And I will tell you it's great because I can't see it and I know how you've done it.
You're that good.
Then when you go to parties or whatever, no one will be able to tell.
Then you're good enough.
And I think that was probably a harsh lesson.
I'm looking at him now.
Or quite hard to take as a youngster and probably look like a critical dad.
I think that builds a certain amount of excellence in what you're doing.
And if you can build that excellence, then that's good.
He was very good at swimming as well.
He rarely mentions it.
Just every other podcast, pretty much.
But he was very good.
And he'd say, oh, I won today.
I said, okay, that's good, but, you know, would you win against the region?
He'd go, well, no, because they're faster than me.
He'd say, well, okay, well, now you're second or third or fourth to the region.
And then he'd say, I've won in the region.
I'd say, well, that's really good, but would you win in the county?
Well, no, because they're really fast.
So it's all about those targets, isn't it?
You can be great for a minute.
I think the worst thing a parent can do is when their kid brings home a painting from school and it...
And it sucks.
Well, it's a shit show, isn't it?
I love it!
I'll put that on the fridge for a day.
It's the wrong thing.
I think, okay, you can be overcritical, and sometimes maybe I was.
But I think you've got to nurture that spirit.
And he wanted to make money.
He left school at 18.
He didn't go to college-stroke university.
Through his own choice.
And I think that's because he had confidence.
He knew what he wanted to do.
And when all of your peer group, I mean, everyone in his year went to university.
How strong a move is it to say, I'm not going.
I'm going to start a business.
And he did.
And that's great.
And I'm very proud of that.
Yeah, that's great.
I mean, yeah, and I think that's the difference between the masculine and the feminine.
Like, your mom's gonna be like, you know, because moms, I would say, have the...
The unconditional love that they have typically is to their children, right?
You could bring a shitty painting, you cannot do so well in the game, score the least points, you lose.
I still love you, you did great!
You know, because to her, you're her baby no matter what, right?
But the dad kind of comes in like, son...
I love you, but that was fucking terrible.
You gotta do better.
And that's the father's job, is to kind of hold you accountable, let you know that there are winners and losers in life, not like, I love you no matter what.
I mean, of course you let them know that you love them, but it's like, no, bro, you can do better.
You were trash.
You sucked it up just now.
And they're like, damn, okay, I need to go practice.
That might be the driving force for them to go at 6 o'clock in the morning and shoot some more hoops or work on their magic tricks or whatever.
And I think also something that's really important that you reinforced in your son is having a hobby, man.
Kids nowadays don't have fucking hobbies.
You ask them, what do you do in your free time?
We don't know what the fuck they're doing.
And it's just like, what the hell's going on?
And I think magic is fucking awesome because it's a social thing.
You can show it to people.
It's a skill base.
It's something that not a lot of people can do anymore.
Yeah.
And, you know, we need to cultivate, you know, people just having hobbies again.
Like, people don't have it.
And people are very boring nowadays.
It's like, what do you do for fun?
When asked, like, Gen Zers.
I hang out with my friends.
What the fuck?
Like, okay.
Do you have, like, any interests or hobbies?
TV. What?
And also, I think it's a mistake as a father to force them to do the hobby you like.
Yeah, for sure.
So, for example, if you're a fisherman on the side and you take your...
Okay, take your son.
But if he doesn't enjoy it, he doesn't enjoy it.
Yeah.
They've got to find their own enjoyment from the hobby that they enjoy.
And obviously I love flying model airplanes.
I still do out full size as well.
I just love everything to do with aviation.
But my son's not interested.
So you could force him when he was young.
You say, no, you are coming.
You will enjoy it.
And I've seen it happen a lot of times.
But I said straight away when my son was born, I'm not going to go down that route.
It's not right to force someone to enjoy something.
That's amazing.
That's great.
Okay, I read some of these chats, and then we'll close out because I want to keep Mark by the past his bedtime.
What up, FNF and Mark?
Love all the value you guys give to us.
Question, though, I got a 752 credit score, but around 30K in debt student loans.
Should I pay off the debt first before acquiring a business credit to splurge on assets, real estate, stocks, business, etc.?
I'll let you take that one.
What do you think?
It's always very difficult with student loans because people say it's free money.
I always think free money holds you back and sometimes getting rid of a debt is like getting rid of a chain around your back.
I know in the UK people say, well, it'll be gone by the time I'm 30, it'll be erased or whatever.
I don't see that happening.
Oh, the UK forgives loans?
I think they're saying they're going to, and whether they do or not in the future, we'll see.
But they can change that policy, can't they?
Anytime they want.
I think it's like, literally, it's having an anchor, you're throwing it over your back, it's stuck in the ground, you're trying to get through, and if you can get rid of it, get rid of it.
That's what I would do, but then...
I'm back in the dice.
College American loans, that's the one type of loan you can't get rid of.
Even if you declare bankruptcy, they're still going to keep your college loans on you.
But you made a good point.
My mentor always told me, having debt is like a cloud over you, a dark cloud.
And even though you're not thinking about it every single day, it is still there.
So when you go to buy a house or go buy a property, it's still there on your status.
So it's kind of like, Get rid of it.
Get out of there.
Clear mind.
Focus on investing in yourself.
What amazes me as well is people go and buy a property, and they're all at the point about to sign for it, and then they go and buy a new car because they go, oh, I can get a car.
What will be other credit?
And then they go to buy the house, and they go, oh, mortgage has been turned down.
You go, oh, come on, guys.
Everything's based on credit score nowadays.
That's the golden rule.
That's the dumbest thing you can ever do.
I'm really glad that you mentioned that.
Guys, if you're going to buy a house, do not apply for a credit card while you're in contract.
Don't buy furniture either.
Yeah, when you're under contract, do not make any big purchases.
Do not apply for a new credit card.
Do not rent or lease or anything.
Don't do shit.
Close a deal, then you can go ahead and open up these new credit lines.
Because you know what's funny?
People go and get a credit card, run up the furniture, buy a sofa, a bed, For the new house, yeah.
Sorry, sir.
Declined.
Yeah.
I had a second-hand sofa.
I had a second-hand counter with a black and white television on it.
My mum and dad bought me a microwave and the people that sold me the apartment left the bed.
Wow.
And there was no way I was doing a line of credit for anything.
I saved up the money to buy my furniture.
That was it.
There's no way.
No way.
You've got to build a business.
You don't want that.
Yeah.
100%.
So yeah, my friend.
And the only credit I could say that doesn't keep me...
Sorry, the only debt that I have that doesn't keep me up at night is the real estate debt because all those houses cash flow, which means my debt service is done, I don't got to worry about shit, and I'm able to make money at the end of it, even with vacancy, guys.
So real estate is the only debt that I would say that's...
Acceptable.
And inflation-proof.
And inflation-proof, absolutely.
What's your goal now for real estate income, monthly?
100k a month net profit is what I'm shooting towards right now.
What's your current real estate income?
I'm not allowed to tell you that, unfortunately.
You told me you kept up your number!
How about units, man?
Are you guys asking me if I'm not worth it?
How much I make?
This isn't fair!
Goddammit!
Strike it big!
What I always say, it's not rude to ask, but it's rude to expect an answer.
Fair enough.
Okay, that's fair enough.
He's good, he's good.
Yeah, he's good, he's good.
He's witty.
Pending.
I'm a mortgage broker and need to network primarily with female realtors.
What are your opinions on the best way to platonically network with and maintain relationships in this regard?
Ah...
Well, do you know what?
We don't have realtors in the UK. We have estate agents, and it's a completely different thing.
Oh, okay.
So, unfortunately, I can't answer that question any better than...
Well, Myron can certainly answer that question, I think.
Yeah, pull it back up.
Let me look here real fast.
Mortgage broker, what are your...
Okay.
Dude.
This is simple, man.
Watch the episode that we did with Roger about this because he talks about real estate and networking and stuff like that.
But dude, just keep it simple.
Be respectful.
You know what?
Every time you see her, envision her being a really hairy dude.
Done.
But also, there's a common trend here.
Right?
That's easy.
Just envision her being a really hairy dude.
You know what?
Envision her being Mark.
You know?
No offense.
Or your grandma.
And you'll be professional.
But no, this is easy because, okay, I understand what they actually want as female realtors.
They want clients.
If you can bring them clients, you build that partnership with them, they trust you, they believe in you, and they want to do business with you.
It's pretty simple.
But again, having your grandma look so you don't get turned on by them, I guess.
Yeah, absolutely.
Anything else?
That's it.
That's it?
Cool.
Cool, man.
Yeah.
Mark, thank you so much for coming, man.
Seriously.
Very educational.
Learned a lot.
Yeah, man.
Thank you very much.
A lot of gems in there.
A lot of gems in that conversation.
Where can people find you?
Where can they find you?
They can find me on Mark Tilbury, be that in YouTube, be it anywhere really, TikTok.
I have been known to be on there a little bit.
So just look us up, marktilbury.com as well.
We're also just launching the 2K Challenge, which is a very big deal for us.
Where we're going to be offering mentoring sessions with individuals.
Also, a meal for 50 winners.
So, not just one winner, 50 winners.
They're all going to be invited to one night out with us.
And also, there's two lucky tickets to go to Dubai as well.
Nice!
Get on the 2K Challenge.
It's all in the Discord.
Get on board.
And hopefully, you can strike it big.
Yeah, absolutely.
Guys, here's Mark Tilbury.
Please check him out, guys.
Verified, I've watched his stuff.
I learned index funds from him, so check him out, guys.
We'll catch you guys back here for Fresher Fit After Hours with some lovely ladies.
Love y'all.
Be back in a bit.
Chris, call it what time?
10.30.
10.30, ninjas.
We'll see you here in about 50 minutes.
Peace.
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