mentored over 50 recruitment businesses and I believe over 75,000 followers on LinkedIn so I’ve been on the game for a

long time I’m quite pleased in 47 people don’t say I which is good I’m curious why is vision and purpose the first

thing you cover when you talk to your clients well it’s born out of my own experience every time we got to a milestone it felt like an anticlimax 10

million 15 million 20 new office new watch new car new house whil that all sounds great I wasn’t really on the

planet you’re speaking to the worst person when it comes to this if you looked at my calendar you would shout at me cuz I was in the mind of I have to do

everything it’s a common thing with most of my CEOs they’re doing lots of things averagely the trick is to

do for those that don’t know you who is Chris oconnell Chris oconnell um 25

years recruitment experience uh built and sold loads of recruitment businesses my podcast host myself now mate got a

couple of kids like a bit of LinkedIn trying to keep it real basically oh amazing I said that like that cuz you

open your podcast like that and I thought that was quite interesting to flip it back to you a little and yeah you’re been a humble as well there like

you got mentored over 50 recruitment businesses and I believe over 75,000 followers on LinkedIn so I’ve been on

the game for a long time and yeah I believe that business you sold was Val like 25 million pounds I believe you

said like the big one so yeah yeah talking huge track record and also like

in terms of tenure like we we’re talking decades now so yeah I’m quite pleased

and 47 people don’t say I look it which is good um I can give you a bit of back

background into it or if you want um but yeah I’m 25 years in recruitment but um

still learning always always learning perfect so with this podcast I’d love to just

get into more the business side because if you’ve mentioned over 50 recruitment businesses that’s over 50 CEOs that’s a

lot of different perspectives and I’m sure you’ve learned a lot over the years and also I’m very curious about the

decision to sell your business I’ve heard a bit about it from listening to some podcast of yours then also that

process of then becoming kind of the CEO but then you’re going through a sales phase and I’m also curious about

doing that for myself like of my business so it would be curious to hear your thoughts on reflection on like if

you do anything different so for everyone at home we’ll just get into a bit of everything in terms of like just business so my first question is the

first thing you cover with your CEOs I’m curious like why is vision and purpose the first thing you cover when

you talk to your clients well it’s born out of my own experience so you know I was a millionaire at 26 27 so a bit of

background um I was S3’s worldwide top biller anyone who doesn’t know who S3 is

1.5 billion pound business 4,000 Consultants I knocked it out the park there was bilding a million Cod a year

made them loads of money made had loads of promotions left set my own business and in eight or nine years got it from

nothing to 25 million qu 100 staff three offices but every time we got every time

we got to a milestone um it felt like an anticlimax I got to five million 10

million 15 million 20 new office you know I’d buy a new watch a new car a new house and whilst that all sounds great I

wasn’t really on the planet so and when that business got taken away from me which I’ll happily talk about in a bit

more detail it massively not me for six so it forced me to look inward it forced

me to do loads of work on myself and forced me to actually understand the importance of purpose so the reason why I think it’s

important is because I’ve I’ve lived and breathed not having a purpose to the point now where I think you can

have purpose and profit in that order and in fact for me that’s the only way

you should go so I I I am tasked usually by my clients my CEOs to help build grow

and scale their business headcount profitability all that kind of stuff but and I ask them why and more

often than not they don’t really know so I get under the skin I ask them most different questions and usually it’s to

spend more time with their family and stuff like that um so I just I just believe the purpose is such a power

Mount um thing without it when you do hit these Milestones it’s meaningless

and when it’s meaningless what’s the point really you no no that relates I

always like to see number go up I think there’s a lot of men that like that and I think there was an element of this

like it’s nice to see the number go up it’s like value I’m a good man I’m doing the correct things but then when it

happens you’re like okay next so I had a goal this year to hit 10 grand a month and I hit it and I’m like okay I just

now change that number nothing happed and I’m reflecting on what you said like

spend more times with your family that’s actually very different to scaling and building a profitable business like

sometimes you could potentially go faster if that wasn’t a concern because then you could be 247 and do different

things but if that’s the goal then obviously changes the strategy quite a bit I think you can have both those when

I was doing it you know um it was 99% of my thing all I all I ever thought

about was work when I talk to anybody inside work outside work that’s all I talked about it’s quite boring person

really but but I was sending emails at 2 or 3:00 in the morning to my team and kind of but what I ended up sacrificing

relationships with my children relationships with my with with girlfriends and I I I kind of lost my health and I was drinking and kind of

like and I think that um what I’ve learned actually is that what you do what you do outside of work is just as

important as what you do of work so um going to the gym and that sounds obvious but eating the right stuff doing the

right things and it’s actually spending a little bit less time working in the midst of the business to improve my

overall well-being outside of the business means I can execute better in the business as well and that’s everyone’s Utopia isn’t it to have have

the sort of the the life Harmony and um I think it’s really important that you

look at your business you look at your relationships at your purpose look at your spirituality and you look at your Purp

personal development as well so I like to I like to personally I like to be learning and growing I like to listen to

podcasts I like to listen to watch documentaries and expand my knowledge and have good people around me um was I

think a lot of people even people who are running their business um if they haven’t got good

people around them and they’re not doing stuff to enhance their own personal development they become resentful and

actually it’s not a enjoyable experience so whilst money and profit ability is

obviously important you got to pay the bills do not get me wrong I think you can have wealth in different ways and

actually um by doing stuff that you wouldn’t ordinally think would make you

money can make you money so but this podcast is is is is something I just I I want to do because um if it helps one

person it’s great but as you know hosting a podcast it’s as an example I’ve done near 100 as a host um quite

timec consuming lots of energy not easy to produce and they’re quite costly but it’s this is a long-term play where my

my own podcast has brought me a lot of credibility around me being able to Showcase my skill set so it’s about

having different different ideas basically no I’d agree and yeah you’re speaking to the person who literally did

account-based podcast I’ve done over 200 interviews before as a recruiter and yeah 25% of people interviewed later

became a client so that was a very numbers game but now with this podcast again very similar to you to be fair

like long-term play but one of my guests referred me a client it was my first ever client so like that’s already paid

for all the podcast production bills and the podcast for me open so many doors I can pretty much speak to most people

because I can either speak to them about the podcast or like LinkedIn ghost Runing and I think yeah this connects a

lot to what people like if people listen to this like looking to start a business everything doesn’t have to be linear

like you can yeah doesn’t have to mean like okay I’m

in this day and age sorry to interrupt you in this day and age like LinkedIn is a brilliant example you know only three or four years ago I couldn’t really even

spell L I didn’t believe in it didn’t agree with it I was already outbound on the phone wait a minute as a recruiter no way so wait so five years ago you was

not on LinkedIn as a recruiter and you made millions of this is j z recruiter

saying crazy crazy crazy uh but then I just I I did a couple of posts a couple

of videos or webinars and I went went from like nothing to getting 2 3 4 million views a month you know up to

75,000 one one post gots 21 million views 300,000 likes 10,000 shares I

think it’s one of linkedin’s most viral posts but what what I’m saying is now I think because I’ve built quite an authority on

LinkedIn uh I swear by the by you know I don’t I don’t have to pitch myself anymore because clients just as you know

well know clients will just come to me and go I’ve seen on in when can you start kind of thing so it’s things like

things like that in recruiting or any sort of business at all I think the way the landscape of the market is now 10 15

years ago you could get away with selling the size of your company and what the company can deliver and all this kind of stuff there’s no kind of

personality whereas there’s individuals and companies that five or six people in the company that are billion dollar

unicorn businesses you know because they’re doing the right marketing doing the right branding they’re putting themselves out there um and it’s

grasping the metal you know I’m I I don’t particularly I never used to like being on video but now I love it and I

think it’s uh it’s something think that unless you start embracing these things but I I

actually find you know LinkedIn was the perception of It kind of quite corporate thing but I think now it’s like it’s

it’s like selfies and it’s it’s it’s very kind of quite personable actually

as a platform do you not think yeah I think you’ve actually probably seen that change more than I have because you’ve been on here longer but yeah I

definitely saw a difference of like last year versus this year I think that changed a lot and also I think the

pandemic changed a lot where after the pandemic there was a definite

need for connection I felt that when I was at Evolution that was the reason

they pivoted to video calls and podcasts because of covid and that completely changed the entire business and I think

it was that desire for connection and now LinkedIn is kind of what Facebook was when I was a kid but on top of that

still because it’s people who are usually actively working or looking for a job they’re just an El of like okay

what am I gain from this post so for me my favorite platform for that Reon like I enjoy the personal side like my post

today was a very personal post about bringing people together but I think similar to what you said before I don’t

have to sell myself now so I just Infuse a like one line of authority like I scaled my ex or I have seven clients and

that might be enough to see someone to view the profile but the personal story

based on what you said earlier you can have a very small business and because people buy from people it just changes everything that that’s how I won on

LinkedIn in terms of I mean I’ve got three pillars in my content recruitment well-being and Leadership but I I told

my story in a very open way I’ve been very vulnerable I’ve been very raw about my stuff on LinkedIn and that has actually brought me so much business but

I’ve kind of had a relationship when I fall in love with LinkedIn and Out of Love LinkedIn what I mean by that is I I

fell into the Trap of occasionally posting just for the likes or just to just to get that Community feeling which

I think is important now now I’ve completely changed my my mindset about

my intention for LinkedIn it’s about adding value to my audience and commenting on my um my ideal audiences

posts as opposed to you know I think it’s really important how you use your

time and with with LinkedIn yes yes you can I’ve built so many good friends with LinkedIn as well but um I think you need

to be careful that it’s difficult trying to convince I say a business owner for their team to use l

I mean that’s something that you might be able to answer because I think the average CEO would see LinkedIn as uh the

employee wasting time just chatting to people but there’s there’s ways that you can use LinkedIn to actually generate

business as well isn’t that yeah for sure I mean I did a boot camp on it so I go St for 7 CEOs so they do it for

founder based marketing and I also did a boot camp for a i gaming studio funny

enough for the HR team and a lot of it like the first session was literally saying okay this is personal branding

and this is why we need to do it cuz if they don’t have the buying it doesn’t matter if I give them the Playbook and

through that boot camp I’ve tried to make it really really tangible in that like we had to get a post out and then

review it on Friday and then do better next week throughout that month and literally the first post that the head

of HR did went decently viral 100 likes loads of views and she started new conversations and this is like the first

time the head of HR of this kind of I gaming studio can bring more eyes to the content and then the head of recruitment

was doing post relevant to the devops engineers that they need to hire for example exactly so yes they could be

wasting time messaging people but if we doing content add value similar to what

you do it’s so much benefit just more eyes on your jobs more eyes on your service it’s no brain there needs to be

a strategy behind it doesn’t there basically that’s massive yeah I have a

big notion board which whenever I show like oh my God this is so oriz like I feel like if you treat LinkedIn like I

need to write something today and then you think of an idea then you post it that’s such a high mental energy way that’s what I used to do but when you

just have those three pillars like you have or just always the mindset of okay who am I trying to benefit here it’s a

very sub set of people we don’t have to over complicate things and those guard rails just make things easier but it’s

shocking to see that even people in in sales companies you look at their Linkin Banner doesn’t say anything about what

they do their intro or their or their bio or their about section it’s it’s it’s God’s sake it’s your shock window

you know if you can’t get that right you’re in trouble it’s just the basics like that are actually so important aren’t they yeah and for me this is very

exciting because like opportunity you’re already making half a million a million a year and you’re not have a simple

thing that says what you do you can get an extra client so I have some coaching clients and I just changed the banner

and we refreshed he’s like building wish list with Tik Tok yeah that’s what he does and he got like nine meetings

booked yeah was it’s now very clear what he does he did like two posts and he was

a very in demand service like amazing so like all that took was just changing the messaging totally it’s also it’s also

amazing to think that the amount of people that lur that don’t comment and like that do actually see your post I

was having dinner last night this guy come up to me Chris how are you never met him before I’ve seen you on LinkedIn

it’s not even in my sector I watch all your stuff I absolutely love it he never liked or commented at all I I get that quite a lot I don’t mean that in a bit

what I’m saying is that it’s just a great opport to get yourself out there but um if you don’t do anything

nothing’s going to change so you kind of you kind of kind of got to do it haven’t you really yeah agreed and that’s

happened to me too and I think it’s an important reminder that impressions are real people too like as if they’re

especially on LinkedIn because on Tik Tok or Instagram I feel like it’s even more like that’s just a YouTube view

that’s just a person but like on LinkedIn this is someone who’s probably got a job disposable income a real human

being so like they matter but I I I think impressions are really really important but I used to get like

thousands of likes and comments per post my engagements Dro down but my actual leads have gone right up on my lead

conversion so I I I actually look at I I measure it on leads versus light here

that’s really important you know yeah 100% I think the LinkedIn algo has

actually improved yes people are moaning about lower Impressions but typically there

are people who don’t actually sell a service because like when I ask the people selling something they’re like oh yeah leads have gone up but the likes

have gone down okay great isn’t this good but we like to see number go up so sometimes it’s like no

E I want to come back to one of the questions I asked which was you mentioned that we can build a

business and have the purpose first and profit second and then you mentioned about not wanting to work all the time

and this is hits home for me so in April 1st I’ve started my business and I pretty much just did

12 hours a day for two months like I just did it and when I look back I

probably want to I wouldn’t take that back I tried to enjoy it and not like I

wasn’t stressing but like recently like after doing it for a couple months like okay bringing more people on but I

wouldn’t take that back and I’m thinking if someone’s looking to start a business do you think that’s necessary that you

have to work super hard cuz you did this too and you had success so I mean you

you have to work hard but I also think that you can work smart you can also work too hard as well I think I’ve

suffered burnout four times in my life I should learn I’ve now learn how to avoid

that before it happens I the way I the way I’ve always done it and this is why I applicate to a lot of my CEOs I get them to do like a

weekly plan so we we we prioritize what are the most important things on a weekly basis and then we segment our

time and we say there’s 2 hours there 4 hours there what I found is when you give a particular amount of time to a

particular thing you end up focusing on it and nailing it so it’s just it’s just about making sure you’re organized your

you’re you’re you’re planning your your day and your week out and there are times where you’re going to have to work

your socks off but also actually weaving in an hour to go to the gym or go for a

walk in your weekly plan can be just as important as doing that next task you take that step away you do your

meditation go for a walk you do your gym whatever you come back you you execute the task a lot better

sometimes it’s about maybe understanding what you’re really really good at and massively drilling down on that and

stuff that you can’t do if you do have the money or the finances or the people around you delegate those tasks or put

them to a different part of the week as well so I think it’s just just not trying to do everything um communicating

having good people around you but yeah I think working hard is really important but if you’re organized and you plan your week I find that you can you can

manage it better whereas if if you’re disorganized as a business owner I think actually it’s such an underrated skill

so planning your time is so I I would say it’s not time management actually it’s task

management you know you really speak so you’re speaking to the worst person when

it comes to I just think ah what’s my priority oh yeah I’m going to just throw myself at that if you looked at my

calendar you would shout at me um it’s pretty much just cools in whites space I’m trying to get better so like today

but I’m like cuz I was in the mind of I have to do everything so okay I just have to do everything now I’m getting to

a stage where I’ve hired my brother he’s going to be doing Outreach I have someone helping me with writing and then

I should become the sales and marketing team and the operator so to speak but

I’m still not there yet because the training someone to do the way I would

want to do it I feel like is the most difficult thing in the universe like that is very hard so like wonder if you

have any advice on that it’s a common thing with most my CEOs that they come in and say oh and they start moaning

about their team or they can’t go from they can’t get from ex they’re they’re basically what I call painting the ceing

they’re doing the marketing doing The Branding doing the Ops they doing the sales they’re doing absolutely everything so they’re doing lots of

things averagely the trick is to do the three to five things you’re excellent at

brilliantly and everything else you’ve got to try and Trust other people to do it there’ll be there’ll be some

situations where people can do it actually better than you and sometimes you’re going to have to accept there’s

going to be people that can’t do do it as good as you but they can get it done which frees you up to do the other tasks

so you’ve just got to accept that and you in order to grow you’ve got to cut the open strings and sometimes they might [ __ ] it up but as long as they

learn and grow otherwise if you if you keep doing the same thing expecting a different outcome you’re not going to get there so that’s just that’s just a

trust thing that also comes down to your ability to coach and meet people as well

and give clear instruction and set clear expectations as well um does that make sense it does my followup question is

that clear instruction part I find difficult mainly because I’m on a hamster wheel I feel like I potentially

need to set time aside to build that statement of process wonder if you have any advice when it comes to giving clear

instructions to someone who wants to help you like what is there any like three principles I need to remember so

what I tend to do is is is try to do a situational based thing so look we’ve got this this this issue coming up this

is how I would do it coach them through it how how do you how you ask them to regurgitate that back back and uh then

say right so we’re clear that’s what you need to do let’s have a cash up call in two days time to check in so it’s the

followup of that or if I have a meeting with somebody I say so um just give me a

summary of what what the key points are from this meeting if they can’t do that like [ __ ] they haven’t listened if they have so what I want to do is just drop

me an email with the key points on so what I’m trying to say there is have the meeting give the instructions somehow get it in writing in email so what I’m

going to do is going to summarize the actions of this what you need to do I’ll pop an email over to you so then then

it’s kind of documented and then follow it up so that’s the most important thing is hold people don’t mind the

accountability if it’s done in the right way um so my advice is to try and document stuff follow stuff up get them

to get them to repeat back what you’ve instructed them to do and ask them look is there anything anything that I’ve

gone through that you don’t understand anything you’re not sure about because in a couple of days time we’re just going to have a checkl meeting on that

if we can execute this’ be brilliant I like that that followup part was

missing from mine because it was more like implied but then there wasn’t a Time deadline for it so I think that

followup yeah is a very key puzzle piece yeah and I think I think I think the difficulty you’ve got is a lot of CEOs

they fear they fear that kind of level of organization and you know familiarity

breeds complacency if you’re too familiar too loose with your communication and your instructions

their execution is going to be the same mhm yeah you need to rip off the

Band-Aid get that process lovely um before I move on you

mentioned you wanted to potentially get into that because you’ve had some tough times I I’ve listen to some of your podcasts

and like we do not have enough time to talk about it but that built some resiliency um I just wanted to ask you a

question and the form of like from your experiences like what did you take away from it now that you try to pass on

well I think that um it’s never usually as bad as

what you might think so to give the audience and the listeners some sort of context about there’s five or six

there’s more than that major things that happened to me first one was my mom abandoned me second one was my stepmom

used to abuse me third one was my oldest child was taken away from me the fourth

one was I lost my 25 million pound business the fifth one was why the two children

were taken away from me I’ve had massive stuff happen to me like massive massive

massive stuff but I always think that it’s not what happens to us it’s how we

respond and that’s a lot of people say that but um I’m much more calm now I

don’t get stressed about anything so I think all those all that adversity has massively taught me how to how to manage

conflict how to manage stress so I think um sometimes what we think is bad at the

time and it is can be the best thing because it is it’s conditioning us and helping us out in the future so I’m now

a much better leader now than what I was back then so and this is why I’m doing this is why I’m advising CEOs now so I

actually think that adversity challenges struggles and Trauma to an extent

they’re lessons and they’re good lessons that if you harness that in the right way I see it as a gift I see it as the

universe teaching me actually we want you to be more because you can you can help others with it so there’s always

there’s it’s always my maner is what can I learn from this I I used to be a bit of a

victim but when things when things happen to me now it’s not it’s not the thing it’s how

I deem the thing to be um more often not

negative happens to you is for a positive reason that’s that’s how I view things yeah I agree we or you learn like

I really like those words it’s it just works it really does curious now

so there’s an element here where I feel like you kind of have to go through it to learn this lesson but I wonder if you

could go back and tell old Chris who hasn’t been through let’s say the third or fourth major event like how what

would you tell them from the recent ones that would hopefully like give them that insight to potentially prevent

something I would say this two Shall Pass um and whatever happening to to you

now how you’re feeling now you know you’re not going to feel like that in the future so I I would say um I love

you Chris actually what I mean by that is that I I never really had anyone tell me that they love me my parents you know

treat me really badly loads of stuff happened to me but the moment I started to to actually change my narrative

around what I was saying thinking to myself and actually cuddling myself and

talking to myself in a good way remind myself I’m a good guy I start to attract the right people the right business

so instead of if I instead of thinking I was an inferior and not

worthy uh I started to think I I am worthy and everyone else thought that as

well so I really honestly believe what you think is what you get

honestly so I would tell younger Chris mate I think you’re a superstar I think

you’re brilliant you you’re deserving of abundance you’re deserving of wealth you’re deserving of love you’re deserving of success and you deserve it

and you’re good enough all that kind of stuff and just be like that like you would do with your own if

youve got kids you that’s what you say to your own so it’s it is like me talking to my own son and I’m I’m I’m

the father of myself yeah for sure I feel like people will rise up to their expectations so if

they don’t expect they can be a superstar then that’s going to be their ceiling right so I think whether it be a

dad or a friend or like yourself like you really need someone to think that you can do it and I think there’s a part

of this that we do with our clients sometimes I had one client who’s super

super successful but every now and then they say something like a limit in belief based on an assumption I like

wait why are you assuming this based on this two interactions have you spoken with every single person no so we can’t

make this assumption like having that understanding that yes that’s happened

but like that doesn’t mean that’s the ceiling and we’re never going to break through totally and it’s more often not

the thoughts that you have the negative thoughts that you have in your head that aren’t actually yours that sounds really bizarre that there are things that

you’ve been you listened to or been filtered into and always try to treat it like as if you’re in some sort of

courtroom where you are should so you’re thinking I’m not worthy I’m [ __ ] I’m not good enough then the judge the judge

will say to use so is that really true what evidence do you have of that and

more often when you quiz yourself there’s no evidence to to even prove what you’re thinking and that sounds a

bit kind of weird but when you actually break it down all the thought thoughts in your head they’re not evidence-based

thoughts they’re just stuff in your head that you’re allowing to manifest so if

you can if you can manifest all these negative thoughts you can manifest the positive thoughts as well and if you had

a choice what would you choose exactly and sometimes even if it’s wrong

I think the positive thoughts you just have to choose it like yeah there’s an element of not all your thoughts are

yours like what with what you said like you really need to have that locked in like who actually gave you that belief

and there’s this saying which I really enjoy is you can be a cynic and right or you can be an optimist and Rich and even

if it’s sorry or you can be like wrong an optimist and wrong but then also rich like yeah if there’s two

buckets we can be in we’re in The Optimist bucket that things are going to go well just naturally attract those sort of things even if it’s not the case

and the other way around it’s just like the if you tell someone to look for red cars they’re going to see more red cars

and if you tell someone the market is [ __ ] oh my God then you’re going to look for things that are going to match that

and then do actions which won’t help you but that that’s also about the whole pleasing people people pleasing thing

and setting boundaries I used to be terrible I used to be a really good for people pleasing and a really bad boundary set now honestly I’ve gone

completely the other way I I climbed out kandora recently which which helped with this oh congratulations yeah thank you

that wasn’t easy um but mate like I I think I talk about energy right um we’ve

got a joint client Savina it’s 1111 she talked about energy and 111 all that kind of stuff and I I think I think

energy is such an important thing um and if anyone is disrespecting me now or

or being disingenuous or whatever I used to get really affected by it now doesn’t bother me but I I don’t block them or

anything like that sometimes I do but I just casually remove myself don’t even entertain it and when when I start

removing or shedding these bad energies from what is actually like it’s amazing and then all these good energies come in

so what I’m trying to say here is that that plays a huge part you know if you’re if you’re feeling you have to

please someone to get half happiness or validation that person isn’t right for you and you’ve got to so I I used to

like I still do to inent I’ll be be honest with you you know you know when you do a post on LinkedIn and you are affected by it by its

Effectiveness you know why is that you got to look at these kind of things right so what I’m trying to say there is

that um the only person that can really make you happy is is yourself and what you think of yourself

so if you ask me what success is mate um it’s the impact that I have on other

people how I feel about myself on any given day if if if I feel good and I

feel healthy and I feel positive for me that’s that’s that’s wealth that’s success I could be driving a Lamborghini

and [ __ ] hating myself so it’s all that kind of stuff right yeah absolutely

I want to reflect I was in preparation for this podcast obviously snooping on your LinkedIn and I found an amazing

post which I want to do some quick fire get your thoughts on if that’s okay okay

all righty so you’ve made Seven Points here I want to go through them one by one so Point number one you’re only as

good as the team around you can you expand on that absolutely so as an example

um when I first started my big business we got it up to a couple of million quid we had about eight people and we walked

into this uh 6 6,000 foot office that could hold like 900 people walked in

there and one of them said so which bits ours I said well all of it late so we had this massive belief that we would

knock it out the park but anyway we were kind of plateau we’re doing okay and I hired this this girl to head up our

public sector team and we went from 2 million to 11 million went from seven staff to like 30 about 18 months

absolutely skyrocketed it and without her without her knowledge or experience or leadership you know Al Another

example I’m a great driver motivator you know salesperson but I’m not very

necessarily that good at operations when I hired my coo my operations guy again

enabled me to like pass the stuff I wasn’t very good at so my friends as well as an example it’s

been well documented I’ve been very open that my histo some of my historical friends love party I used to love

partying drugs drink all the time i’ I’ve moved away from those friends now

and I’m in a completely different mindset so I think um know what your strengths are

play on them understand what your weaknesses are and don’t be afraid to hire people that are

better than you in other areas but if you’re if you I think you’re only as

good as your friends really if your if your friends are supportive and you know that you’re learning from them and your

partners and if but if you’re not that drags you down as well so I think hope that answers the question yeah it does

and I’ve tried to really Implement that in my life when it comes to like I

always try to bring people together and I’ve noticed such a big difference in everyone when you get people really

really dedicated whatever they’re doing even if there’s not much correlation then when you put everyone together it

changes everything and then to your point um you’ve kind of answered the second Point as well like play to your

strengths and delegate the rest I can imagine I’m in that stage now where like I need someone come in and do some

operation stuff and I can do it it’s just if I could just do more be stuff I

can imagine the that would happen so yeah I’m excited for that feeling most CEOs are like that we we’re egomaniacs

man you know we we believe we can do everything better than everyone else I i’ I struggled with that I still struggled with it a little bit although

I advise people myself as well it’s like you know you give someone a task and then within three Nan seconds you’re

over there checking how well they’re doing it’s like M youve got you’ve got to allow them to do it you got allow them to and the way we learned was doing

it repeatedly and if I look at a post I did two months ago I would say that’s garbage but two months ago I would have

done the same two months before that and I think I need to yeah just really yeah I’m I’m very open about it is because

I’ve actually just hired my brother which was interesting when you said like yeah I hired him last Monday and when I

did the post I had a couple American comments saying bad idea haha and it was

there is a consensus like you know you don’t mix business with family that that’s a common thing so my solution to

this was like okay if I just make it Revenue share so it’s more partnership that way the incentives are aligned and

then when it came to the cander part I started reading a book called radical cander which I’ve heard and we basically

started listening it to together and then that’s actually just really helped so it’s only been two weeks but working

together in a coffee shop and then yeah after I gave information I asked did I

give that in the right way and then he actually did the same back like did did I do that in the right way and then we’re correcting each other so we’re try

I’m trying to do that with the right intentions in mind but surrounding yourself with good

people I feel like I’m cheating by getting my brother but I still yeah I can I can I can know there’s going to be challenges of course but I’m trying to

work through it I love that and that whole radical cander piece I think a good employee whether they’re Junior to

you or senior to you or or good a good partner a good friend won’t tell you what you want to hear they tell you what

you need to hear that’s the difference it’s hard

that’s what you that’s what I found with my with my CEOs right although I’m their client they don’t mind reporting into me

I’ve got such a neck where I I will literally call them out but because I know that’s what they need and that’s

what they’re paying me to do and I think I think don’t hire the expert and tell them what to do kind of situation right

so that radical cand of thing is if you want to make a book recommendation you’ve done one the brilliant one day I think people should listen to that watch

that book yeah no it’s a good book it made me realize like a lot of good books I saw someone did a post about this

recently it’s like 80% stories and 20% the actual things you need to do I feel like people really need to see the

message through someone else’s actual story to actually make it resonate like the rapper is very important similar to LinkedIn like I’ve pivoted now to be

more 80% story maybe 20% takeaway and it’s starting to resonate more and actually get more engagement I feel like

people just need to see the example and the point you made there we can go on

all day to be honest but the fact that you tell your clients what they need to hear even if you know risking offense I

feel like I’m quite similar like I want to I basically think okay if I’m the CEO of their business what would I want happen cool so I just try to feel like

it’s mine and you mentioned on a podcast I just listened to that you treat your CEO’s businesses kind of as your own and

I have a question about this because I feel I’m at seven now if that got to 20

and I still had that mindset I can imagine my mental energy battery draining because I’d be that empathetic

feeling so I wonder have you got any experience with that any thoughts on that yeah I learned the hard way with

that I became an adviser four or five years ago and you know at one point got

I think I had 15 16 clients within those clients it wasn’t just the C I was dealing with the operations I was like

80 people to the whatever and it was just mate I just ended up losing my mind and getting burn out and kind of

learning the hard way but as as I’ve gone along I think I’m um the more the more kind of straight talking I am with

my clients the more kind of like get into the Nu of the issue I can take on

more so I think like any Rel if if you want better term [ __ ] for or or or afraid to it always comes up in the end

anyway so you’re better off addressing it and grasping the n and go look fundamentally it’s a bit like with my

Discovery calls you know I don’t get many tie kickers now people wasting my time because I’ll say to them what what

are the three or four things you want you want me to do and if if they if they start blaming other people or what I

know I can’t work with this guy so kind of like just I’m one for um not being

direct but just being just being honest about it just tell me what’s wrong tell me tell me what you’re good at tell me what you’re bad at and I’ll tell you if

I can help you or not you know um simple as that really I think I think most CEOs

although they have the title of a CEO right they actually want to have a project they want to have ownership and

actually what I end up doing is taking some bits off them and saying mate that’s not your fa let him do that or

let me do that you do this you master it let’s check in every single week and believe it or not they actually like it

because they feel they’ve actually got some ownership and some purpose themselves most CEOs they’re lost because they’re not really they haven’t

really it’s more like firefighting I feel huh I feel like they after a while

become firefighters which is more reactive absolutely yeah then you know they they

almost feel like they almost feel like this franchise from their own business which is never never a nice thing so no

it sounds like sounds like hearing from you like there’s a solution there right you want to get get guard rails and get

that purpose like there’s one thing I look back on you know when I was an employee that structure is nice and I

feel like as a CEO actually like oh I have now got a weekend to work amazing and I have the evenings to work amazing

and I can instantly see if I work more I know I will perform more where yes I was

in a commission based role there’s only so much I can do at Sunday night I hit today like I know I can do stuff that

will move the needle so I think just bring back the benefit of that structure or potentially removing some of the

responsibilities uh yeah that definitely seems like a good idea MH point three embed a business

development culture as a norm and I would love for you to speak on this from a business perspective yeah also like

recruitment yes but in general as well I feel like this is a very big thing missing of course I think I think

whether it’s recruting or not I think when the market is good when your Market is going well it’s very easy to to kind

of get complacent because the phones ringing people are giving you jobs or projects or briefs or all that kind of

stuff but um my experience tells me having worked through five or six

different s sessions you know um that doesn’t nothing lasts forever it’s always a cycle so it’s having mentality

and the mindset of you know it doesn’t matter how busy we are where’s our next one coming from you know things can

change in an instance so having having a culture of um being

reactive uh I think that ends up with your team then being a little bit

complacent with their delivery with their attitude with the existing clients

as well but if you turn it around and say yes we need to deliver on the clients that we do have but we what what

what new opportunities can we bring what new ideas what other ways can we get business it’s I I think having that

creativity that mindset that that that outbound mindset uh is how you grow and

scale your business because you don’t want people just to be audit takers you don’t want people just to deliver the

projects that you’ve got on well you do you want some people like that but you need people to take you to the next

level to challenge you how El and I think it’s I think it’s a cultural mindset thing that’s so important in

general right um unless you just want a business that you know the plateaus and that’s fine as

well but most people don’t most people want most people want a growth mindset you want everyone around you so onless

say business development I mean it’s more of a growth mindset as well all that kind of stuff so important yeah for

sure I think this is possible to sorry not possible like this makes sense when

someone’s new to a business to instill that mhm I wonder how do you restart growth cuz I feel like you’ve been

through that phase what I feel like that’s a difficult part of this so true I mean there’s a lot of clients that

have come to me now that I’m advising because uh when the market was good two or three years ago there was all fine

but because they’ve been conditioned the last two years just to sit there and wait and wait for the phone to ring what

I’m having to do is unwire their thinking remove some of the self

entitlement and say you know um it’s

it’s it’s it’s about understanding who you are understanding what you want out

of life and getting their mindset right so removing the self- entitlement

removing the fact that I mean in most sales businesses people are pay paid a

basic yeah and they’re paid commission some of some of these people are just sitting on the basics and and they’re

not driving it so a lot of it is a mindset thing reminding them that when

the times are good of course we’re going to support you of course we you’re going to get roles and project and brief found in but right here right

now you know you have to you have to be proactive so um I think people can get

delusions of grand and forget that actually the support the training the operations the infrastructure the

management time is is is is a lot and reminding

them not how lucky they are that’s the wrong it’s not easy setting up a business it’s not easy hiring people

it’s not easy having all this operations and infrastructure and I think people people underestimate that and that’s why

there’s more sers out there at the moment than there ever has been which is good but I think people realize how difficult Cur or running own business is

it’s not all Blitz and blammer it’s not you know as what as I do it’s not 9 to5 it’s it’s not so it’s kind of like doing

it in a way where you want to work with them and you’re

brok from your deal say look we’re are continue to give the support the leads the companies and

everything else but you got to come from you as well man you’ve got to step up and do these things as well yeah I think

the explanation of what you said like all the things that are in support they

cost x amount of money like I think that was told to me at my last job like just for you existing is like two grand a

month so we’re not making money unless you generate like let’s say four or 5K a

month and then having that kind of fire is like okay well I’m literally seen as a cost centor until that happens and I’m

like all right so I need to fix that I think just aligning the incentives that way and I think that incentive sometimes

it’s from a high level perspective like if you have someone who’s just a sorcerer or just does the delivery in

your business and they’re not in charge of Revenue generation activity that’s where it can get a bit scary in my head

um yeah but you do it also do it in a way whereby on the other hand you know

the incentives are huge as well you know there’s different ways that we we incentivize these people it’s not about

making them think they’re a cost in but it’s making them understand that um it’s

a team it’s a team thing we’ve all got to pull our weight excuse me no agreed the next

question I have is get to know your team how do you actually get to know

your team like know with capital letters yeah yeah yeah well I think that it’s

about being a bit vulnerable being a bit open and having one toone to your team

yes about business yes about what they’ve been doing but talk to them on the level about some of the stuff so how

I’ve done it is just sometimes I’m I’m a mental health first aid a mental health Advocate now

I’ve had my own own back in the day my own mental health challenges and I’ve been very open about that I’m not saying you walk in there hot in your sleeve and

you start breaking down your people I’m saying look sometimes I have bad days

mate sometimes I’m I’m not there I’m what I’m trying to say here Mr or Mrs employee or colleague or cooworker uh if

you’re struggling I’m here for you I want you to talk to me you know I I don’t want you to feel as if if if you

it’s just having those is those human to human conversations man and so I I think

a lot of people think that they can’t do that cuz it’s it’s too familiar or it’s kind of breaking the professionalism if

you do it in a way where you’re on a level with these people and look I know the difficulties you’re going through um

let’s work together on this you can work wonders I think just being open being vulnerable you get up

same back I feel like that’s possible more in an office environment I wonder

how would you try to create more moments in a remote environment CU I feel like you’d have to kind of as a CEO really

proactively try to arrange moments where you can have those conversations yeah it is more difficult to build this sort of

culture or Rapport or vulnerability remote but I would look

at this comes back down to team development and followup so I would be advising you to say what

training learning development program do you have in place is it structured are you following up what check-ins are you

having with your with your team and and once every so often organize a nonwork

conversation but it’s in the diary every six weeks we’re going to have a chat

about family kids business life what you want at life personal development it’s not going to be at work at all

and that could work wonders as well yeah great idea I’m writing that down amazing

before we close off we have some time but I want to cover these two points but I have so

many questions so we can do these rapid fire you work for your team not the other way

around yeah yeah yeah see this took me a long time to actually uh not just

believe but actually put into action because you know I I I I if if someone

actually went to the toilet I would like want to chop the heads off I you know have a day off you can’t have

a day off like but I I soon realized that um you know that that was wrong so soon

realized that um when your business is going well uh it’s down to your team

this is the mentality you need to have when it’s going badly it’s down to you so I worked with a a business partner in

the past and when anyone left his attitude was well [ __ ] him you know

whatever and I said no mate what let’s look at ourselves what could have we done better so obviously there’s lots of

instances where the person you’re working with or people you’re working with they aren’t performing they should have gone or they’re not doing the right

they’re being bad ultimately A team’s a reflection of its leader right so I

think that you’ve got to have the mentality of um serving your people

because if you give them the right it’s about giving them the right tools the right confidence right motivation and creating Future Leaders so without

without your team you Haven got business yeah AB absolutely and working

for you te not the other way around in the context I like the statement you made of when

the business is doing well because of them and when it’s going bad because of me and it’s like the two words that will

make you rich is my fault I feel like that’s just a very good example of that you know accountability man accountability absolutely even if it’s

you’ve got to make them think it’s their idea you got to make them think it might well be but you know

glor yeah yeah the CEO that’s sort of going around saying look at me all the time I mean that’s not going to it’s not

going to help anyone is it no absolutely not amazing it’s a marathon not a Sprint

feel like it’s interesting this one’s I’m going to ask you from a personal perspective here

cuz I feel like I sprinted to get here and therefore I like where I am why should I

not keep sprinting like I’m I’m having that battle every day in my head like I’m trying to actually close the doors and

systemize things but then I have a little bir in my ears like just go for it I’m sure it’ll be fine no I I I think

being Dynamic and wanting to get things done quickly is a good thing but I pretty much guarantee you in five years

time you you’ll look back on yourself and think you a completely different person then to where you are now I’m 47

right I feel younger in my head physically that I than I did when I was

25 I feel I feel as if I’m more ready

to achieve more things now than I was 10 years ago because I’ve got more skills

I’ve got more uh experience I’ve got more Foundation I can execute things a

lot better so because I’ve i’ I’ve done well I’ve lost stuff you know I thought

I must be this by this actually there’s so many twists and terms in this life how old are you mate I’m

26 ly hell mate did you not know that did you did you think

I young enough to be my son mate I think you’ve got so much time ahead of you I mean Gary Gary Bay says it a lot doesn’t

he about this patient and it’s such such a such a skill so I think that

um uh slow down to speed up sometimes I think sometimes we can go so quickly

that we actually miss opportunities as well so I think it’s about I think it’s about knowing when to go fast and when

to go slow as you go fast all the time time I guarantee you’ll hit it wall so hard you won’t be able to recover yeah

in time no I’m trying to take like I have made the decision like Mondays in Fridays no meetings yeah try to I try to

stick to that and then like Wednesday morning is like zoom out strategy and

yeah just I’m trying to I’m taking these advice I’m trying to internalize them but it’s still that

little bird is like you can go faster come on how do you feel I know you asking the questions but how do you feel about you the transition from being in a

9 to5 to this now 99 times out 100 like I would well

personally i’ never be able to go back to 95 I think but yeah I’m very lucky um

in the sense that I’ve had an experience of working on myself before so I used to be professional Gambler so oh wow yeah

so I made hundreds of thousands gambling during uni and that was very much lore

of large numbers so bet on this if I do it with

mathematical like certainty and I don’t be stupid it will make me money so I was doing that while at Uni and then I got a

job because I was very very unfulfilled I was like I’m just making money I’m not learning so then I got a startup job

just to learn and it was actually costing me money I was that annoying guy was like telling the boss like this is

opportunity cost he’s like shut up like just just go to work yeah fair enough so

the transition from that to work I really enjoyed cuz I got a purpose I was actually helping people it was nice yeah

and the reason I kind of changed was mainly because I felt like I hit my learning ceiling so I became top biller

um at my previous company and I was like I want to go build a gym in Cypress like

just do something else like it was just completely different then what I ended up doing instead is they offered me a

remote contract so I could work here in Cyprus and only do business development I was like amazing I get to do the part

of the job I like and remote and more of as a contractor so I did that for six months and then just during those six

months I was told like oh you should do employer branding that was the thing they told me to do I was like oh maybe I

should do that so then I was like all right I’ll give it a go gave it a go week one everyone said no like I had 12

calls lined up I was like I’m going to sign one everyone said no CU um they weren’t hiring so then I pivoted

into personal branding for people that sell to the games industry which is what I was doing before and then that all

changed there so to answer your question on like how does it feel it feels amazing like I’m very happy but I’ve had

a very unconventional path is because I’ve had the mentality and savings to be

like I just need to keep doing this and have enough conversations and also I did a post recently and I was writing out

everyone who’s helped me so far and it was literally 15 people like 15 people from LinkedIn and I’ve either paid them

in one way we had onetoone coaching so I’ve had I’ve basically spoke to the four top ghost rting agencies I’ve got

one toone attention from um someone called Jacob pegs who literally we every Friday we work together so speak to

people like yourself I have my own podcast and I ask them these questions and I try to take everything to heart so

it’s not easy but I’ve tried to make it as easy as possible by just getting as

many people who can just call me out hold me accountable yeah brilliant that’se man so you’re you’re developing

yourself along the way which is exciting is it no no I really enjoy it and it’s just I try to prioritize that learning

part like if I’m just learning then good things will happen yeah absolutely

amazing I’m going to get emotional now I just saw a question I have prepared like what do you love about what you do like

why do you get up in the morning well I think I used to get a buzz out of doing recruitment deals and

I still do yeah but then I used to get a buzz out of coaching and training my own people which which I did now I’m

coaching training CEO so I think do I do what I

do I I honestly feel that I do have a purpose my purpose is to impart my gifts

my knowledge and experienceing as many people as possible I enjoy getting the feedback from my content I enjoy getting

the feedback from my clients and I feel as if I’m adding value feel as if I’m changing people’s

lives for the better I’m impacting their lives and obviously the money is nice and the recognition is nice but I’m

proud of myself for the first time in my life I haven’t really had that so I feel

as if from very very humble beginnings and difficult Beginnings I’m

building I’m now a man what I mean by that is I’m I’m an important asset to

this world and I’m loving growing and developing and

teaching other people I feel that’s that’s that’s that’s that’s a good purpose a good reason to be alive you

Agreed 100% like my I think the biggest purpose you can have is just either

raising the Next Generation whether it’s your kid someone else’s kids your teacher or just imparting knowledge

because that is just the reason I think we’re here and I think with what you’re doing it’s just such a you get to do

that every day which must feel amazing thank you man I really appreciate coming you coming on the show is great no

really enjoyed it so before we close out I had one question because you mentioned this on a previous podcast and I’m just

very curious you said you wouldn’t rule out another business or having a portfolio of businesses I’m just curious

like what does the future of Chris look like have you thought about that well

it’s a great question mate um you know top biller a massive company built a 25

million pound business I’m now seen as one of the top advisers in recruitment so everything I’ve done without being

bigheaded I think has been pretty decent what’s next I I mean I love being an Ned

business coach I love doing it but there’s only certain number of days in the month I can’t clone myself so where

do I go with that so I’ve got some equity in some businesses I quite like to help them sell that so I get some eoy

there but I’ve Lov my podcast um I think there’s bigger things

out there for me I think I think there’s things I’m doing some sort of leadership courses as well but I don’t know I think

I I want to do something like on a more global scale whether it’s TV or or something I don’t I haven’t quite

thought about it yeah but I I naturally there’s going to be something that’s bigger and better maybe I need to I mean

one thing I haven’t done mate is Go on stage I I think I

everyone’s told me that be an absolutely phenomenal speaker Chris I’ll will sort this out like like this this is not that

I’ve been on stage you have to be on stage like this is Nob brainer that needs to happen right well I need to I

need to so that that’s that’s why I think I really man it’s happened that’s the I’ll have a look at your profile and

see if it’s optimized for speaking gigs because I bet we can make some changes that’ll be good if you can do that for me that’ll be absolutely awesome and you

can help me break my fear of it as well I think once I’ve done one on two I’ll be all right but yeah I’ve always had a fear about that but people people just

say mate I’m I’m a bit of a I’m wasting Myself by not doing that right yeah you can literally help more people that’s

the way I see all these things like it’s actually you being very selfish that you’re not on stage that’s the way I try

to like position all these scary things because if you’re not you could potentially change so many more lies if

you they can see you on stage and in person and right now we’re on stage we might be seen by a couple hundred people

but we’re not thinking about it because we’re just I can see you on the screen but it’s very similar what we’re doing so yeah 100% I want to talk to you about

that amazing Chris we’ve come to the hour thank you so much I really enjoyed this made some notes um but yeah where

can people find you and check you out yeah linkedin’s the main one I do a little bit on inst and Tik Tok but linin

is the best way website is BAS mindset.com but mate absolutely loved it thanks for having me on the show and you

know congratulations on everything you’ve done for a mere 26 years years old no no it’s my pleasure and yeah it’s

Chris oono everyone and base mindset fantastic thank you