Redefining Success, Security, and "Enough" in Business With Gary Ashworth

I felt like I've won the lottery in later life. But with that goes a sense of responsibility and a fresh sense of purpose. There's always someone with a bigger bow to you. There's always someone with a bigger cock. The trader that made a billion in the day. And so what's that? He said, "Enough." Well, that's a profound statement, isn't it? The coming wave about AI. It's not controllable. It's not predictable. And you can't re-regulate it. I just want to give younger people permission to be great and permission to find financial security for life. How much money is enough? It's the question most of us spend our lives chasing. Yet very few ever actually stop to ask what wealth is actually for. Is it security, freedom, more time with the people we love? Or have we confused building a successful life with building a meaningful one? Well, my guest today is serial entrepreneur and investor Gary Ashworth. So let's get into it. You're at a time in your life where life has taken you by surprise. It has done. You're right in. Absolutely. Yeah. And obviously something that wasn't planned. And this is really what this show is all about. It's about, you know, you can't control everything that happens outside of your control. Your legs are controlled, but what you can do is react in a positive way and take the ball by the horns from that point on. So for you, what's unsettled you in a good way at your time of life now? Well, I think I mentioned earlier. I was on vacation a year and a half ago. And my wife is younger than me. She's 47 and never been pregnant in her life. Just suddenly said, well, darling, my shorts are a little bit tight. This was in the middle of the night. So you jumped in an all night taxi to an all night chemist. Came back and, you know, she was pregnant. And there were some odd thoughts going through both of our heads at the time. I mean, I've got to grown up children in the early 30s. I've come to the conclusion now. I've seen, actually, seen the playpen last week. And I just thought I've won the lottery. Because you think, well, perhaps I should know another bottle of wine at them 30 in the morning. Perhaps I'd quite like to be around to what my daughter down the aisle in having many years if that's what she chooses to do. And I think it does redefine what you're doing. And it wasn't something that was planned or I'd thought about. You know, miracles happen. And good things happen and bad things happen. But you just can't necessarily see them. Fortunately, that being some awful things happened. But that was one of the great ones. Yeah, absolutely. And as you said there and you mentioned earlier, it's now giving you a renewed sense of what this next chapter of life could be. And what you would now do about that. Because maybe the plans have changed and you're looking at things in a longer view. And you're thinking about how you what you might need to do to actually be able to be here, enjoy it and actually be purposefully a part of your daughter's life. I think that's right too. And I think like many entrepreneurs, I spent the first half of my life sacrificing any kind of thoughts on health to build wealth, you know, to build some security because you think let's build a safe nest for my family to be safe and secure. And then halfway through you crew, you're going, "Ah, I'm in it. Now I'm going to sacrifice my wealth to try and be healthy in the other half of my life." And actually the balance is really to try and blend the two. But I think that's hard to do for entrepreneurs because it's very hard to set the temperature to the right heat setting. You know, it's like being in a shower, you're one of those dogs that you can't quite get right. And I think it's very difficult to set that temperature because events happen, don't they? You know, business gets hard or there's a takeover or somebody leaves and you have no option but to act. And that can cause anxiety when you weren't necessarily hoping for it that particular week. If you look back on sort of where you came from, to where you are in terms of not only, it's very easy, I think, sometimes to look back and go the story arc, if you like. But if you kind of go back to a time where life was not as it was now, you don't have the same lens, you don't have the same experiences. Why do you think it is that first part of I must make more money at all costs? Like what is the more? What are you chasing at that point? What is the wealth? Is it purely security? Is it a ring fence or is it also a sort of a self drive to just to keep? I think with me it's security and if you look back and I'm a really happy childhood and a really happy upbringing but it started from being adopted at six weeks old and I fabulous parents but I think if you put me on the psychiatrist chair and hypnotize me, there is an illusion of insecurity that has come from there and I think I've tried to build a nest and some safety around that. And actually what I have learned about creating some kind of wealth and not the wealthiest guy in the world, not the wealthiest guy in this building probably but it does take away some of the worry and some of the anxiety. An anxiety is a great killer, isn't it? It's a stress, it's a terrible killer and wealth does take away some of that because you don't have to worry about whether you've got a job or not, whether you can afford to pay your rent or your mortgage and it takes away that aspect of your life. So I think it helps in that way. So I can't speak for everybody else but I think certainly insecurity was one of the drivers for me. From your perspective, because everybody's different and everyone has their ideas of it but and I know it sounds really, really, really mentured but I think it's really important for people to get this because money wealth, if we strip wealth away, just have money itself as a word. It's a loaded word. Some people have it as a negative, some people have it as a positive and some people are indifferent between. Define it. It's a currency obviously but what does it do? What does it give you? I think it gives you different things in different times of your life and it gives you different things whether you have it or you don't have it. So for me, as an immature young man growing up in sort of that just Britain in the 80s, having money was about buying things. It was about having a nice watch and a nice car and then when I grew a little bit older, I think it was about buying time, you know, time to do what you want to do, time to spend time with the people that you want to and the people that you love. So it came very much focused on time and then the older you get I think and the more complex the world gets. It's the top of the pyramid. It's about finding peace and I think that's what money isn't the only way to the top of the pyramid but I think it's one way that you can try and find a less stressful life. Isn't there an old Chinese proverb that I didn't ever understand that said may you live in uninteresting times and it's supposed to be a blessing and in my own life I don't live in uninteresting times and just every now and again I think oh quite a lot it's living in uninteresting. Do we have an uninteresting week this week? It's just for a while. Yeah just this week. Yeah it was an intersting. Yeah that would be nice but again it takes away the strive doesn't it? It can do. Yeah I think it can do. I'm not trying to push this book that I wrote last year but I asked 50 entrepreneurs an interesting question which was how much is enough? How much is enough for you? And I asked all sorts of people at different stages of wealth creation and the answer the general answer was actually really upsetting because what most people said was unsurprisingly was just a little bit more than I've got now. Right okay. So a little bit more than I've got now and actually if you think about that that's a terrible answer because what everybody's saying is I'll never be happy. Yeah because whenever I achieve I'll move the girl post a little bit and I want just a little bit more and as I rudely said in a post the other day they got cancelled was you know there's always someone with a bigger boat here there's always someone with a bigger cock. Yeah you know I think you need to define what enough is. Yes and be happy when you achieve that goal. Yeah. Don't just keep moving the on post the whole time. Yeah very very very true. I think it was in Morgan House was book The Art of Money and he talks about a situation at a dinner party where the outcome is basically I'll have something that he'll never have talking about the trader that made a billion in the day and so what's that he said enough. Well that's a profound statement isn't it yeah yeah and it's true I think we're all guilty of it in 2026 whether it's specifically money whether it's fame of some kind whether it's whatever it is we're all chasing stuff shiny objects of some kind or another but if you don't know why you're doing it kind of defeats the object doesn't it. I think it's worse than that actually it's social media it's not just youth culture demand instant gratification we all want instant gratification and we see this kind of falseness on our phones and our tablets. about what bullshit lives some people have. I mean, less the Kardashians, but perhaps they've got quite a lot to answer for really, because everybody's saying you can have it all now, Amazon will deliver it tomorrow, somebody will lend you the money to buy it. And we just think we should have instant gratification. I saw a post that Jimmy Carter the other day, and he said, we're not grateful for anything anymore. And actually it's only in the last 50 years that we've had a hot shower. Before then we had baths and before that, there were kind of tubs that people filled up without water, and the grandma used to fill the tub up without water, and I remember it being hung up on the wall. But we actually should be pretty grateful for a lot of the wonderful stuff that we've got. But I don't know if anybody has sits in the shower in the body, oh, this is fantastic. Wow. But actually, perhaps we should be. 100%. If you were out in the wilderness for a week, and you hadn't really washed, and you hadn't really eaten properly, and you'd spend a lot of energy, the first proper meal you have, it could be the plainest, awfulest meal normally you wouldn't touch, it would be the best meal you've ever had. - And even against this pie, it might be a big deal. - Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. - And you're so right, we've lost that gratitude piece. I grew up at a time where we still had outdoor toilets. So for the first, probably 10 years of my life, if you wanted to go to the toilet in the middle of the night, you learned you didn't. Because you didn't want to go outside to the toilet. Now you speak to some people and they're like, "What, an out-white? "What, that's crazy." But it's just how life was. So if you've grown up in the last say 20 years, you've seen that technology curve really ramp up really, really quickly. And I think that hasn't helped people are less patient, for sure. But in terms of entrepreneurship, I mean, it's interesting what you said, people think you can have it all. Has that been your experience at one time or another? Or does it change? Do you have to put your life out of balance in one way to achieve something and then redress the balance later on? - I think you need to give yourself a good talking to and work out what habit all means. Have it all in terms of friends, have it all in terms of family, have it all in terms of wealth? I think Stephen Covey in his book, The Seven Habits, was saying, if you're funeral, you've got someone from your work saying you was a great guy. And someone from your family saying, what a fantastic person this was. And someone from the community saying, this guy's done a great job for the community. Then maybe you've got it kind of right, really. But if you're setting the wrong goals, then clearly you'll be disappointed if you achieve them. - Yeah, that's very, very true. I think one thing that we sort of touched on, I think before we were recording, but there is a difference in terms of mindset between an entrepreneur and someone who's not entrepreneurial. I've encountered this quite often. And it's not necessarily that they actually think differently, but one thinks they don't or can't think differently. Have you encountered that? What's your take on that? The reason I ask as well, by the way, is because one seems to feel like they have more control over their destiny. And the other seems to feel like things are happening to them, not for them. - Let me just pause a second and think before I answer glibly. In the experience of quite a lot of people that I've met, I may be wrong, but I think that entrepreneurs tend to set a goal and then chunk it down and work backwards. I have a rare book about this in a while again. It's called the putting first. Begin with the end in mind and work backwards. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs set these goals. And a lot of other people who aren't perhaps so entrepreneurial will just see where life takes them. And their goal is to have a slightly better year this year than they had last year. But as someone far clever, then I said, "You know, if you don't know where you're going, any road will take you there." And so they let life wash over them a little bit. Whereas people that seem to be more focused on a goal, could be a sports goal, could be a health goal, could be a weight loss goal, could be a business growing goal and commit to the goals and write them down and monitor them or perhaps have somebody else who's helping check in on them or a coach. I know you did some coaching. And a lot of business people have coaches as well. And it's hard to think that any of the good good winner gold medal now without having a coach. So my answer would be a lot of it is goal oriented. And sometimes it's hard to have goals because you've got to have early in the morning. You've got to do things that you might not want to do because it's hard. And that comes back to this kind of instant gratification. In my experience, perhaps I've just not been a lottery winner or been lucky. It's pretty hard to run businesses and they go wrong. You have to fix them and you have to be tenacious and patient. And in my experience, it's not the goal that's wrong but the time period you associate with it is often wrong. Seems everything in my life, I do take longer. If I build a new garden shed, it takes twice as long and costs three times as much. It just seems to me that things take longer than you think. And some people are prepared to put in the graft and some aren't. You've got the goal setting, as you said. And then there's obviously the patient's piece as well because some people do have loose goals. But do you think it's the idea and the ability to hold that goal above a loss and actually just know that you're going to get there because you're not going to give up, not because you know fundamentally that that's going to happen but you know you're not going to allow it to not happen. I think the clever thing actually is to hold the big goal in one part of your head, your brain, or wherever it lives but also have the ability to see these manageable bite size chunks. I think this is probably a bit NLP like by now because if the goal seems too hard, if the goal is, I'm just going to climb every next week, that's too hard or if I'm going to lose five strokes. That's, you've got to cut things down into bite size chunks but still be able to hold the big goal in your head so you know what you're achieving when you're getting up on a rainy cheer state of train or you're coming in early to try and outpace your competitors at work. I think it's the ability to hold these short-term goals and the big goal at the same time and not everyone can do that. - No, no. And that seems to be the big difference, isn't it in terms of sort of the trajectory of life for a lot of people? You can kind of see as you said, there's a lot of people, well, and this isn't wrong, this isn't the criticism, you know, this is just an observation more than anything else. Some people will meander along. - Some people might be happier meandering along. - Absolutely. And this was something I was going to ask you in your experience, if you had that, have you come across people who genuinely, if you tried to change their nature and make them more goal-oriented, that actually it would probably make them unhappy in some way. - Well, again, I think it depends what's driving their outcomes. My dad was a big kind of influence in my life. I think a lot of boys want to impress their dad really. And he said two things to me, not neither of them were particularly pleasant actually, but they were good lessons for me. The first one was horrible thing. He said when I was 16 and flunked my own levels. And he said, "We'll always love you son. "Even though you'll never amount to anything." Now that's hard. And I can't ask him now, 'cause he's passed away, whether he was actually serious about that or where he's just trying to give me a kick out of the pants. But the other thing he said when I did start to be obsessively quite an exceptional in business, he said, "Gary, make sure you smell the roses along the way." And I think for all of us, sometimes we forget about the journey and then just focus on the destination, if that doesn't sound too corny. I know it's been spoken about a lot, but I need to remind myself sometimes, the journey's so important. Yeah. You know, if you get there, but you hate all the years that it's taken to do that, that's not a great goal, isn't it? No, no. And from your perspective, which is unique to you and what you've done, when you look back, do you feel like you had that perspective enough or do you, was that something that, you know, I'm not saying to say regrets 'cause I don't believe in regrets, but would that be something that you would augment along the way and put more into it? I would have done things differently. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that I spent, I can think of a decade when I was just a busy fool running around doing stuff that didn't have much of an outcome, really. It's all I've seen, don't have regrets, but a different question would be, would you have done things differently at your own time again? Yeah, I know most people would. I certainly would. Why do you think it wasn't the case at the time? I think you kind of just get caught up in the moment and you get caught up in what you've told yourself and what you've told other people. And I think it's a good question you've asked because I think one of the challenges that successful people have is not knowing when to give up because we're told, you know, don't give up, keep going and we hear examples and see examples rugby teams that you never check out before. for the 80th minute or the 90th minute of it's a football match. And you see people winning in the eighth minute of extra time. - Yeah, true. - But actually, there does come a time if you've given it a good shot when if you're running a dead horse, get off. But it's quite hard to know whether you've given it enough or not. And it's not something that I've learned yet. There are some things that I've just kept on going to logging up should have given up years ago. And then you never, the other things you never wonder if you're carried on going, whether you've been successful or not. - Yeah, of course. And that could obviously extend to business, relationships, all facets of life, right? - Absolutely. Should you give your relationship another try? Or if you've been getting the same unhappiness for 10 years, is that enough? When's enough? I don't know. I don't know. - Yeah, absolutely. And that's a tough one. I think a lot of people, especially people who've kind of set out goals, for success and they've measured what they want and they kind of have this idea of, I'm gonna be happier when, but I'm gonna work towards it. If you speak to a lot of successful people, they have lost people along the way. Those relationships, some of those that they had at the beginning, they didn't survive the course. Whether they were friends, family, even partners. Is that some of you've experienced or is that kind of not really your journey? - No, I've made terrible mistakes. And I'm not the guy to ask for a relationship advice. It's taken me a long time to get to the happy position that I'm in now. And I think when you are driven sometimes, it's hard to get into second position and see life through other people's eyes. And so, there've been partners I've had or CEOs I've had at work where I've been furious about something that they've done. I thought, "Oh my God, they're terrible. They've gotta go. Get rid of them, I'm sacraments. They've gotta go." And then you sack another one. "Oh, they're terrible, sacraments." But tell me you think the third one, "Hang on. Is it all them?" Or could it be a bit of me? And then you think, "Oh, actually, probably wasn't a little bit of me." Actually, it probably was half me. Oh, actually, it might have been my fault, not the air fault. So yes, I have lost people along the way. But the biggest crime, I guess, is not learning. You know, from that, just making the same mistake. You meet people, they say, "I've had 30 years experience." No, you haven't. I've had one years experience and you've repeated it 29 times. Very true, very, very true. So looking back from your, from your, let's say your work perspective of your life. What's been the biggest successes and why? I hate the word lucky, you know, that sometimes you are in the right place at the right time. And also, I started my first business when I was 21 and people say, "Oh, Gary, oh, that was brave." Have you, wasn't it? No, it was easy to set up a business when you're 21 because you don't really have any responsibilities. If you have a mortgage or, you know, fees to pay for children, whether a private school or not, you've got fees to pay for children. Of course. And responsibilities are required after them. Then it's harder to give up your day job and go all in and set up your own business. So I think it's, I think one of the things that I did right was set up early when I didn't have very much responsibility. And also I've learned that optimism seems to be a trait of slightly younger people because when you get older and you get a bit more wisdom, I think you get a bit more cynical. And I wish I wasn't a cynical as I am in some ways, but I was much more optimistic and much more gung-ho when I was younger. So that business went on to float on the stock market and we eventually sold it for 10 times the float price. And that was a good and a bad thing actually because I think the success of that went to my head. Okay. And I thought, well, I'm an entrepreneur. I didn't do anything. Sure. I'm great at this. It's just about managing people. So then I did a, with a friend, a rescue rights issue for a public company, a restaurant chain. And it's a disaster. I don't know me about restaurants. Well, what do the thing I was going around to do or something? I should have never have done that. And consequently, the outcome wasn't great. And the lesson there again was stick to what you know. So when I look back, I've had some great, great successes. I saw the business two years ago that I've been burning up for 20 years. And there's a good story there. And there's a bad story. The good story is that I sold it and it was great. And the people were happy to go with their new owner. But the bad news was, had I sold it 10 years before, it would have been worth 18 million quid more. So I left 18 million quid on the table. You do have a good neck of bringing out things in people. And don't you know? It's curiosity. You're not telling everybody that story. I'm slightly embarrassed by it. But I think it's important, though, because you know, you are at a point where you're happy to share. Because all right, I'm not saying that you would share with everyone everything that you've done. But there's so much to learn. Well, I think there's a big difference. We're in a really interesting age of information. Now everyone is worrying thinking about how they're going to deal with AI. Because there's so much information, no overload of information. Absolutely. But there's a big difference between information and wisdom. And I like to think all of the mistakes that I've made, all the rabbit holes I've fallen into, the scars that I wear in business. I'd like to think that if I can get through to people to help them understand what I've done, they won't do that themselves. Even if they hear about 10 of my misfortunes, and they all do not do that, don't over leverage, or don't trust the bank in that way, I will be happy that I've got through on North code, so that people don't make the same mistakes that I've made and fall into the same holes that I've fallen into. Sure. But there's another really big takeaway for me as well that the perspective of you failed repeatedly, and you're still here, and you're still winning, and you're still succeeding, and you're still doing things. And it's the fear of failure for a lot of people that stops them even starting in the first place. Well, what is failure? Because when I was at school, someone sent me home with a violin, because I decided I'd quite like to learn the violin. And after about two weeks of squawking through a twinkle, twinkle little star, I realised that I didn't want to do that. My parents certainly didn't want me to learn the violin, and then you learn a different instrument, a piano, or a guitar, but I don't think you fail. You're just experimenting with things. Same with sport, you know, I'll try tennis, I'll try cricket, I'll try rugby, I'll try rowing. It's not about failure. You're just sort of experimenting to find out what you like, and what you're good at. And I think, actually, the Americans, one thing they are good at is they don't get too upset about failure. You know, they dust themselves down, and just kind of get on with life. Whereas I think we put some failure in a box, but I've always learned a lot more from pain and pleasure. 100%. You put that hand in the fire, and you burn your fingers, you tend not to do it again. Absolutely. Yeah. And there's also, I think, it's not bad to have an attitude of, you know, try lots of stuff and keep what works. And then when you do find something that works, then go all in. You know, then there's a time to bet heavily, because the odds are in your favour, and you've kind of worked out. Things are good. Yeah. No, that's really interesting. I think you're right. Failure is a loaded word in this country, very much so. And the Americans will preach quite often, fail fast, fail often, fail fast, because they don't, I don't think they have the same connotation of the word as failure. But over here, we tend to fail. There is negative. It's a, you don't want to fail. Actually, as you've refrained it, you know, it's learning, it's practice experimenting. And you have to experiment because otherwise, you will never get to what really works. So it should be encouraged more, but it isn't really encouraged in this country. It's not, it's not really. But I think it depends how you frame your own experiences. You know, if you, I mean, how many people gave up smoking on their first attempt? Very, very few. Yeah. You know, it might take some people six or seven attempts to get rid of their cigarettes or their vaping. They just found another way of it not working. If you could frame it like that, but most people get there in the end, they're going to say, she's not particularly grateful, in 2026, you know, but it's not great. And so they get there in the end, but it takes a few failures for them to win. Yeah, absolutely. No, that's very, very true. And something that you said sort of resonated with me a lot there was, you were talking about your past experiences. And you know, you said that you don't know why you did go down that avenue of the restaurant side. What do you think drove that? Do you think, do you think it was a case of, I've succeeded once? I'm invincible. I can do this. Or was it more a case of, because you hadn't had the downside yet in business, that it just didn't seem like it would ever come? I think that there's a little bit of overconfidence that comes. when you gain success and when you're successful young too. You sort of start to believe your own PR and I thought because I was successful entrepreneur I could just turn that on to any industry and there certainly was an opportunity with this restaurant group. If somebody had grabbed hold of it who knew what they were doing and they stood about margins and there's all fish restaurants as well and fries and fish goes up and down all the time. Very difficult by the time you printed the menu auction prices have changed. And so again the wisdom from that is stick to what you know because probably you know quite a lot about what you're doing. I spend some time in Dubai now and I'm still I'd still be very cautious about going into business there because I'm a newbie. There are other people that could take advantage of me because they know the ropes. Yeah of course and I don't so I would still say you know be cautious about trying something new. It is interesting you've brought up to buy them. This is purely you know where we are in 2026 and you know I don't like to get too political about things on the show but it's just a general question from your perspective in terms of how you see things. If things stayed the way they are do you see that more and more wealth will leave the country and that maybe the opportunities that were once here to start and build your wealth probably wouldn't exist or how do you see it sort of see that. I love Britain. I love the country of my birth but I think we are forcing a lot of people away and in some ways the lunatics have taken over the asylum and I you know I think a millionaire is leaving Britain every 45 minutes I read so since you and I started talking yeah somebody else has gone on a plane and left and I don't think that we should punish the wealth creators because 1% of the highest paid people pay 30% of the tax and if they go who's going to pay that tax to build hospitals and schools and prisons it's easy to just knock knock the wealthy but actually beyond being wealthy you know people are creating jobs they're helping people's careers they're paying more and more tax you know national insurance and P.A.Y. and corporation tax and if you knock them and bash them all you make it's so difficult to employ people or to expensive to employ people they will go and work their magic and sprinkle their pixie dust somewhere else and I think that's been the big one of the big reasons that people are going abroad and you know this crime rates going up three speeches under attack Britain is a more difficult place to live in and do business than it was and I hope that the pendulum swings back because we need businesses and we need wealth we're not the enemy yeah yeah and actually if you look at the philanthropic work that UK wealthy people do they give billions away but billions back into the community you know we're not the devil yeah but it seems that we are a target oh we run out of money let's go and tax some more wealthy people and I suspect it might get you know worse before it gets better yeah no I agree I think it definitely the pendulum needs to swing back it is out of kilter at the moment and things are not looking great in terms of if you ask yourself the question why would a company come here to set up at this moment in time whether if they have choices they probably wouldn't because it's not favorable right now yeah I was this thing to the news on the way in there's another company dealisting from the from the stock market I think might be a big take in over by private equity our stock market's been collapsed you know we were the financial capital of the world and at one time I think we're losing our prowess and it's such a shame it is it really really is I mean you know I'm nearly 50 and in my lifetime I've seen quite a powerful nation quite a influential nation become a fraction of what it once was and in every in every capacity I think it still has the possibility to be great again it hasn't gone so far that it can't come back but things do need to change I think it is on the precipice actually it's close isn't it we've got a new pro minister this morning let's hope he does a great job this isn't a knock by the way for me on any governments I'm not anti any party I'm just pro business yeah yeah but but you know does Andy Burnham run the country or do the people that control the debt run the country who owns the debt so the central banks to the central banks run the country because without borrowing their hands are tied behind their back so I think we are quite a precarious time especially since AI is likely to take away quite a few jobs yeah we're starting to see it in some of the white color industries and we haven't even got to the stage yet where some friendly little robots come along to take away the blue collar jobs yeah and even if there's a 10 or 15% more unemployment which would be an enormous amount of people I don't know how we would fund that I think a lot of Western economies might collapse if that's the case so I think we are in a precarious time I'm not trying to catastrophize but we need to be aware of what's coming down the line if you said and again you're not you're not catastrophizing not making you know sort of crystal ball predictions but if things didn't change if they didn't go back quite rapidly to the right direction should we say where do you see this country from a wealth perspective in 10 years time does it look like a Westernized country yes I am actually hopeful in the long term but I think we've probably got a decade of challenges and difficulties as we get used to working with AI and I think there will be you know a catalog of people having to change the way they live and change what they do but I think going beyond that I think we'll be alright message I hope but I but I yeah it's gonna be tough yeah and it's you know people survived people you know people survived second world world but want very nice yeah yeah and I think we will you know there are it's gonna be yeah there are going to some challenging times ahead agreed agreed and that's something that you know again it one of the big reasons for doing this show is that a lot of people these days have quite a sort of I wouldn't say goes far to says nihilistic view but at almost quite apathetic what's the point in trying to build wealth what's the point in trying to do this because there doesn't seem to be much there anymore you know there's the I can't see that bright future I can't hold it in my hands and this too shall pass it's just a phase right the world will keep spinning well continue it's interesting is it you know I've really a post bailout musk of the day of saying he thinks there's it's probably more likely than not likely that we're all living in a simulation so we're not living in the world itself we're all in we're all in a game well if we are does it really matter would that change the way you do things but it changed the way you look after your family would it change the way you look after your community or would you strive to do the same things yeah and I I think we just strive to do the same thing so you know I think there's a big part of human nature that's that's good and there's another part of human nature there's not great there's we so we're after the football final the other day when people are fighting no one stole their children they just lost a football yeah exactly yeah put it in some perspective right it's just a it's a ball on a pitch that's what it is yeah exactly exactly or maybe robotics there's there's there are some theories but yeah so I think it's important that people put things into perspective and that's why you know I think in 2026 the way I see it most people regardless of background these days have more opportunity to create wealth real wealth quicker not easier but quicker and probably more simply than any time ever before in history would you agree with that yes I think that's right but I don't think I schools are teaching people to have those skills at the moment sure you know I wish a teacher at a school would teach someone had to write a good prompt good AI prompt rather than you know talking about the you know how much coal is on the you know strader in geography yeah and and I wish that somebody at school would teach our young children about debt and credit cards and you know so they wouldn't be seduced by these you know zero percent offers from credit card companies that suddenly turn into three percent a month after the first year when the kids have got into Hock and health and relationships and self-worth and all of these lessons rather than as you say things that actually don't make a blind bit of difference once you leave those four walls correct absolutely and because we've got the information we've learnt so much to you know we need to be giving that wisdom to the next generation you know so many things about health you know whether you believe everything David Sinclair says or not but we do seem to be on the brink of curing a lot of illnesses and helping people live ten years longer if they know what to do you know won't be just taking a pill and you know carrying on smoking you cigars and you have two bottles of clarinet every night. Exactly. There's things that you can do but things we can all do. And as you say, we have more information now than we've ever had. Sometimes that's debilitating, I think, because there's too much information. And sometimes there's misinformation isn't there as well. It's anything what you've said and you've provoked a thought in me which is, I spend my life teaching wealth creation and talk about compounding, you know, the whole thing about, you only have to double a thousand pounds, ten times to make a million. You only have to double ten thousand pounds, ten times to make ten million. That's ten good decisions in your life. How hard can that be compared to the twenty thousand decisions you make every day about what coffee during what to wear, whether to go to the escalator. But actually, health compounds in the same way. So if in your earlier life you put in half an hour at the gym three times a week and get some good sleep and hydrate, those effects compound. So 30 years later, you're seeing quite a dramatic effect just as you would if you were compounding money. Absolutely. Yeah. The dividends you collect in later life or what you put in the bank early on. And in terms of the decisions you're talking about, the ten times talk us through that process on a wealth perspective. Because there'll be a lot of people here listening and watching this thinking, okay, you've got my attention. I've got a thousand pounds or access to how do I do that? What do I actually do? Well, I didn't make this stuff up. I mean, people have been doing this for thousands of years. The wealth creators, the rubber bands of America, the JP Morgan's, they've all been doing this. But that means it's only maths, isn't it? If you double ten thousand pounds ten times, you'll make ten million. And there are things that you can do to help yourself. So if you bought a house, for example, you managed to wait a long time, 20 years for it to double in value. But if you've got a 75% mortgage on that house, it only has to go up 25% for your stake, your deposit, to double. And in this country at the moment, there's no tax on your personal private residence, assuming you live in it. And it really is your personal private residence. So that's one way of doubling your stake. And if you're prepared to put a new kitchen in and you bought it correctly and do it up a bit, you might be able to do that in two or three years. You just need to do that ten times. So, debt, understanding debt is quite important and the difference between good debt and bad debt. What do people, what mistakes do they make about debt or what do they not understand about good debt? Well, it's the same for everyone's got bad debt in terms of. It's the same word debt, isn't it? So, you know, if you're buying a holiday on your credit card or around a cocktail, some other time the credit card bill comes, you can't even remember what cocktails you ordered. Or even buying a car on credit. You're buying things, you're using debt to buy things that didn't go down in value. That's bad debt. But if you're using debt and not overlevering yourself to buy things that are likely to go up in value, it might be a small business that you see that you can improve or the owner's tired, fatigued, lazy, whatever reason. Or you see a house that you think you can improve. Then I don't think we should be ashamed of borrowing money to do that. It's just understanding debt and looking at the. You know, I often ask for what's the worst that can happen. You know, if you've got a house and you've rented it out and the mortgage rate goes up a bit, can you still afford to service the mortgage? And if you do all those calculations correctly, tax is another important thing. There's one calculation I did was if you double 10,000 pounds, 10 times, I said you get 100 million. But if you paid 24% tax every time you doubled in this country at the moment, it's about going tax rate for a lot of countries. Instead of having 100 million, you don't have 37 million, you'd have left 63 million on the table. So the whole structuring thing without getting too boring about it, no one likes to talk about tax, it's really dull. But actually setting up a business with the correct structure is boring, but it's really important. Yeah, yeah. And this is the thing that some people miss. When people are structuring their tax, they're not doing it and stealing from other people. As in the misconception seems to be, if someone over here has a lot of wealth, or builds up a lot of wealth, they're now avoiding tax, but unlike this person here who's paying full work and it's not quite as black and white as that is, it's not it's not as kind of drives them. It's not because you know, people that find a way of finding financial freedom for life and I would urge anybody to try and find financial freedom for life for themselves and their family. Often those people are spending money too, every time you spend money there's VAT on what you're spending, they're paying taxes. Often they're employing people, they're creating jobs, they're creating business, they're creating pride, they're creating a sense of purpose for tens or hundreds or thousands of people. There's a lot of good that comes with that. But we do tend to like to try and punish, envy is a terrible thing and often people are envious of people that have done well, especially people that flaunt their wealth. Yeah, yeah, I think that's. There's no likes the face rubbed in it. Yes, and I think in times of austerity that sort of magnifies, doesn't it? And also I think that there is unfortunately a much bigger barrier now, a much bigger divide between poverty and real richness. And when I was growing up, the middle class was a good place to end up, you know, you have a good life if you could get to my parents for both working class and then we'd try to get us into that middle class and my middle class house and middle class neighbourhood and that was great. But now I think that middle class is sort of disappearing really. And we've got a lot of people that are really struggling and then a lot of Uber wealthy people and we do need to find a way of some sort of redistribution if we can. But I think the way to do that is to embrace the wealth creators and tax them fairly and they'll give back. We've already talked about philanthropy, but they'll give back in terms of setting up businesses and paying more and more tax. Yeah, and obviously give them the incentive to be here in the first place and actually have the business. Yes, and then there needs to be safety. We talked about earlier in the conversation about my daughter being born. When you have a new person coming into the world, you think, well, what kind of world are we bringing her into? And where do we like to send her to school and what's the crime rate like? And should we go somewhere else? Whether it's an eye crime rate, whether it's less chance of being tacked or abused in any way. And I think we need to make sure that we have a country that is safe and fair and equitable. Yeah, absolutely. Doesn't quite feel like that at the moment. No, it doesn't feel like the country that we're up in in terms of from an opportunity and safety perspective that it once did. It very much feels like a more volatile world outside the doorstep. At the moment. It does have it. Yeah. And it is definitely a question for anyone with children, I think, is this the world or is this the location that I think that they should be raised in right now? And I think we need to also have a society that rewards people that contribute. And they could contribute in business, they could contribute in that community because it seems that we have a lot of people that contribute, but we also have some people that are takers. Sure. And if you make it easier for people to take from the economy rather than contribute to it, then you're encouraging the wrong sort of behaviour. And I think that people contribute to it, have less mental health issues and they feel that it's a pride and we should be, you know, we should be encouraging. I think we should encourage anybody. We should let anybody into the country is prepared to contribute and give something. That would be a great thing. Yeah. And it's an important lesson that you touched on there is that when you go full out in life and you try and build things and it's not just about the getting of the things, whether it's the money, whether it's the prestige or whatever it is, as you said, it's the journey along the way. It's you becoming who you can be. And that feels phenomenal. That is fantastic. That avoids yourself discovery and the people that you meet along the way and all those experiences. If you sit there and just just allow things to happen, just take, take, take, take, take without giving and without growing, you lose all that. You don't experience that part of life. You don't. And I think there's something again about risk taking that come to there. And if you just, you need me to tell you a quick story. Sure. A few years ago, I was at some American friends that came over for Christmas. And one of them said, oh, I'm going to go to a Carol service on Christmas Eve. Oh, really? Oh, good. Anyway, we did pop to long to St. Peter's church. And there was a sermon and the, and the Vickers said, and we've done a survey here of people that were over a hundred years of age to ask them what they regret. Oh, this is, this is very interesting. Now I'm absolutely memoryx. I'm telling you about it. And they'd ask these, you know, there's not much going on after a hundred is there, but they asked these people what, what their regrets were and what they would have done differently. And the overall number one thing was they wish they'd been a bit more inventive. interest. They wish they'd been a bit more courageous. They wish they'd started that business. They wish they'd moved to Australia. They wish they'd asked that boy for a date or a girl for a date. And I think that resonated with me because you don't want to be old with a blanket over your knees thinking, "Oh, I wish I'd tried that. Oh, I wish I had my time again." And now's the time to do it. And I think one of the things I've learnt being in business is they're not very clever, great people. You know, anyone can do it, really. I think a lot of people are waiting for the next great idea. Well, it's actually not about the idea. It's all about the execution. It's just doing something well. Yeah. Doesn't matter whether you're a plumber or an entrepreneur. You know, just turn up on time. Do a great job. And you'll do well. Yeah. That's a really good advice. In terms of that note, that side of things, we do have a lot of opportunities in 2026. We do have a lot of technology. You're on social media doing very well there. Do you embrace that or do you outsource that and say, "It's not my lane. I'm not going to stick to what I know and what I do." No, I'm fascinated by it. I've only been using social media for the last three or four months. So it's all very new to me. But what I've found and what I've learned is in a world of, you know, in a world of fakeness, really, where all photos can be doctored, I value authenticity of people. And in a funny kind of way, I think authenticity is the new uniqueness. So if I'm recording a minute, if I'm having a rant about something, it will be me. You know, it's authentic. People might like it or might not. And so far, it seems to have gone all right. Now, I may say something next week that's awful and gets me cancelled. It's always there. It's always the possibility. It's always on the corner. But I think it is about authenticity. You know, you just got to say what you're really believing in and holds truth. And certainly so far. It's early days. So far, that's worked for me. What advice would you give to someone if they were listening to this and thinking? I very much and already know, I understand they need to build financial freedom. I want it. I want the optionality. I want the adventure that it might bring to get it. But where do I start? Maybe leaving education or I'm in my first or second job. I'm not happy. And I'm just not sure I'm overwhelmed in what to do. What would be your best advice to me? I think a lot of people feel overwhelmed because they think it's an all on nothing thing. And I don't think starting a business is an all on nothing thing. And I think a lot of people, a lot of great companies were styled as a sort of side hustle where people didn't give up their day jobs. They did work hard. So they were working for somebody else, you know, doing their 40 hours away, doing their 95. But in the evenings that a weekend, you know, they were working five till nine. They were working on their side hustle. Phil Knight from Nike did that. I think, I think, I think Amazon did that as well. Jeff was running up business for his garage for a while, selling books. A lot of people sell up businesses as a side hustle. And then when they've got a little bit of gravitas and a little bit of momentum, then they can let their day job go. So it doesn't have to be this grand gesture where you kind of risk everything and dive into the cold water, hoping it's going to be all right. It can be, it can be a gentle start. But I would urge people to have a go. In my experience, nearly everyone can do it. I mean, not everyone can do it. But if you've got some drive and you're prepared to work hard, there isn't much work and life balance for the first couple of years, first three or four years, even, you know, see people that end their own businesses on taking ten holidays a year and whatever. That's a fantasy, really. That might happen later on when you're successful. But it is, it is a grind, you know, it's a graft. It's boring. Yeah. And is that the, is that the part of social media where it's not really showing you the reality when you see people like, as you say, ten holiday this year, just started this year. And you think, you know, more, more experienced people like yourself will look at that and go, you know, that's not true. You know, that's not reality. I watched the real, they've, we yesterday with some like at this Lamborghini. You can see the rental company sticker in the, in the window. It's not real. That's great. You know, he's rented it for an hour during someone's lunch break. Yeah. No, it's, it's, it's very hard to live up, no one can live up to a fake reality, can they? This is it. Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah. Which is, which I think we come back to, you know, let's work out what's enough for us and be happy with that and settle for that. And how, how did someone do that, you think, with this thing down today for the first time going, all right, I want to do this. How do I start to come, like, especially considering, you know, sort of cost of living, keeps going up and everything else? Where is my enough? Where do I aim for? What am I looking to be able to cover and, and then some and still live the life I want to live? That's such a different question because everyone's different, everyone has different skills and start from, from different areas. And also, when you're successful, you do raise your expectations. So when you realise that you're good at something, you know, you tend to, you know, it's business or whether it's sport, oh, I can run fast. Oh, I can get on the national team. Oh, I'm about going to go to the Commonwealth Games. Oh, I'm about going to the Olympics. It's not a bad thing to be ambitious. I think it's just a bad thing to be so ambitious that you're not enjoying that ambition. Yeah. I, I, it's, it's so difficult, I think, to give generic advice. I think you can say stick to what you know and what you, what you really enjoy and what you love because you're going to be spending a lot of time with yourself. Don't do something that you, that you really don't enjoy. You know, spending your life doing something you hate. That would be awful. And, and I would say do something that you know really well or that you're prepared to learn an awful lot about. Yeah. And, and those are the kind of people I've always liked to work on these smaller niches. I've never been a very, I've never run huge businesses with thousands of people. I've run business with hundreds of people, 600, 700 people. Yeah. And I've always wanted to find a niche that's just an inch wide and a mile deep because it's much easier to be a trusted source of knowledge about that small micro niche or even the irresistible first choice in that small micro niche. Yeah. So, if you have a business that just I'm making it up now, cleans push chairs and then they know all there is about how to men push chairs and clean them and give them back to you the next day without any sick on them. Yeah. You know, choose a niche and exploit it and be the best that you can be in that in that niche. That would be my advice. Now, you're never going to be apple or Google button. I think you'll make a great living and be proud of what you do. Absolutely. And if anyone's listening to that, you know, obviously Gary has a young daughter. He's telling you the business to get into that. Yeah. I can't see the financial model in that one. Would you err into the camp of dream big or dream bigger, but still have more realistic views? Where would you be more in? Do you think it's all these people? I think experience tells me that successful businesses aim high, successful people aim high and successful businesses aim high. And when I started studying and I did, I spent two years studying what makes businesses successful. And it didn't seem to matter. I can tell you now, they tended to fall into three camps. The first camp was at a monopoly. At the time, we studied British Telecom, we'll British Telecom were everywhere. Second time, the second part of successful businesses were ones that innovated something magical, like they invented super glue or the new mobile phone. Now that's hard to do as well. But the third group of successful businesses, the one thing they had in common was they aimed high. They set these huge hairy goals. I think it's something in that book good to great actually. Where they talk about setting big, hairy, audacious goals. I think you need sometimes to set goals that make you suck in and think, wow, can I really achieve that? And then sometimes you know your aim for the stars and you only get to the moon, but the moon's good enough. I was going to say, is that the important part? Because obviously if you aim average or mediocre, realistically, you're probably not going to hit it and then you're going to hit low goals? I think we always, just occasionally in life, we run into people that are kind of a complete monomaniac with a mission. Yeah. Yeah. And nine year old little girl who says, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. And she says, I'm going to be a doctor when I grow up. And they're so focused, they will be a doctor when they grow up. And why not? And I think it does take that tenacity and determination sometimes. And it pays off, sure, yeah, encourage it. Go for it. Absolutely. It doesn't ruin your life along the way. Well, what a journey anyway. There will be things that you learn and there will be people that you meet and the journey's what, why you do it in the first place for sure. - That's true, but you don't only be pushed to fires, interesting that was sort of whimmel than recently, and you see going back some of those child prodigies that their bodies are gonna rack with pain now because they've been pushed too hard as kids, you know, 10,000 balls a day, I think a guessing was hitting, you know, father was his coach. Yeah, you don't wanna hold a house, you children quite that much, but if they've got a passion, sure. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think it was Bob Proctor once said, "So, I asked him, could I be, you know, like the next you same bolt," or whatever he said, "I believe that if you wanted to be, "you have the capacity to, "but not everyone has the capacity "to do things that they don't wanna do." - No, they don't, but they do have extraordinary capacity for change. I have a friend Melody who lived in Switzerland, and she was, she's a photographer, and she was doing a project with an underwater diver, you know, these free divers, these mag people hold their breath for a long time and go down and come up, so I don't come back up again. And as part of the process, she was filming underwater, she started to learn to hold her breath, and she couldn't hold her breath for more than a minute when she started, but by the end of the program, she could, by the end of the, I think it was three month program, she could hold her breath for three minutes. And that's quite an extraordinary change to a human. - Yeah. - So no, we might not be able to be you same bolt. We can certainly change quite a lot. - Yeah, we are. - Absolutely. - And that should give us all hope, I would have thought. - Yeah, absolutely, and you're absolutely right. I think the world record now sits at something stupid like 35 minutes. - Really. - 35 minutes. - That's astonishing, isn't it? - Exactly. Exactly that. It's completely astonishing, and they are the equivalent of the, you know, the very much the exception, not the rule. Most people will be able to adapt and probably go from seconds to minutes, minutes to maybe five or six minutes, and you know, kind of hit capacity. 35 minutes. - Your body must be shut down completely. - Yeah, that's quite extraordinary. - You've got to enter into completely different state, I would imagine, because you have this so many things that you need to have. - And your brain must be so calm. - Absolutely. - Yeah, yeah. - Amazing. - There's another podcast. - Absolutely. - I'd love to feel like I'm on that one, please. - Yeah, of course. - I'd love to hear that one. - I don't know how to do that. But yeah, exactly. So everyone has the capacity for change and the capability to do it, you just need to have the want and the drive. - We do. - We can't all be the same, though, but we can be a lot different than we are now. We choose to be in a prepared to put in the grind. - Absolutely. - Yeah. Fantastic. - And that leaves us with great amount of hope, I think. - I think so. I think so. But in the regard as of how things may seem in the outside world, you've always got the ability to get up and make a difference that day, which leads to a brighter day and a brighter day and a brighter day and so on and so forth. And so we should never take away that these things that are happening outside control everything we do. - That sounds so hippy-dip here, and I'm out to leave. (laughing) - No, you're right. - You're right. - You're right. We can make a difference and we should. - Yeah. - Absolutely. - Because we can. - We can. - And if you can, you should. And if you should, do it. Because if everyone makes that little bit of difference, that little degree of hope and brings it into their life and that ripple effect, imagine what a better world would live in. - We would and we should. - I agree. Quick fire question for you before we wrap up in there. If you were starting out again today, completely from scratch. Now obviously I'm not expecting you to know what you don't know. But from your experience, what do you think would be an area you would start in today and why? - When I'm thinking about starting businesses up, it's not just about how profitable the business is going to be. It's about what multiple I could sell it for. - Okay. - Because if you're going to work hard and risk your money and your time and your capital and your reputation setting up a business, you want one that's going to be able to build quickly. But also, if you can build one that sells for nine times its profits, rather than three times its profits, you need to sort of think about that too. And I think a lot of the creative industries and a lot of education, a lot of AI now, a lot of online things are businesses that command great multiples. They are businesses that you can run from any country online. And I think that agility and that flexibility is something that I would certainly look for. I went to an engagement party two weeks ago in Norfolk and it was a farming community. If you've got 800 acres or 8,000 acres, you can't move that business anywhere, can you? - Yeah. - You're stuck with it and you're stuck with the taxes or whatever laws the country throws at you. So I think I would start to try and do something that was agile that I could scale quickly. And there aren't many business books written about cunning. I don't mean cunning in a bad way, though you're taking advantage of other people. But you are able to walk through the legs of giants. - Mm-hmm. - I would try and choose something that you can scale quickly and agilely build and change direction if you need to. - Yeah. - And the one thing that the new creative economy has to authors is you can get big quite quickly and you can scale quite quickly if you're doing the right things and you become well known quite quickly. - Yeah. - And I think that's a good lesson for us all. That's where I be aiming. - Excellent. And in terms of if you were starting out from scratch, maybe you didn't have much money behind you, would you leverage other people's money, would you go down the depot route or what would you sort of, what would you do if you were starting out again? - I think there are questions for when you're a bit more grown up. I think it's really hard to raise capital to start up businesses in untried areas. And I think you've got a beg steel borough from your friends and family. Really, you've got to ask the wealthy aunt, if you can have a little bit of your inheritance now please. Grandma, whoever it is, aren't he? It's so hard to raise capital and it's so hard to raise even bank debt for an unproven idea, for an unprofitable business. There are some funding pages that might help you. I always think a little bit of leverage makes things easily, easier, sorry. But you need to get your business to a certain size and it needs to be a profitable business before anyone will even consider lending you money. - Mm-hmm. - But I have a rule, whereas I wouldn't buy them on, I have a sweet spot, which I think is leveraging up 66%. I wouldn't borrow any money than that. You can borrow 10 times your stake. There are some cryptor exchange, there'll then do 100 times your stake. - Yeah. - But if you go make a bety, you might find that the asset that you've bought has gone down such a little bit, but it's completely stopped you out and you've lost everything. - Yeah. - So they have to be careful with borrowing, which is why I talk about this 66% sweet spot, don't borrow more than two thirds. But those questions are only for when your business is a bit more established. The sad truth is, you've kind of got to fund it yourself with friends and family or a partner, perhaps. I've often enjoyed working with business partners. I set up my first business with a partner because he sort of gave me permission to do it really. We were two together, rather than one alone. - Yeah. - And we had different skill sets too, which of course is helpful. So I wouldn't rule that out. - Yeah, that's great advice. And if you were someone who's maybe, you know, sort of my age, maybe sort of in the 40s, 50s, that sort of area, maybe you're looking at the horizon of thinking, I feel like there's probably more of a safety net to have in retirement from an investment perspective in 2026. Where would you be looking at this stage? - Again, I think it's difficult because money in the bank and just inflation will chivey away and bite it away, won't it? - Yeah, of course. - But I think there are still plenty of safe assets that you can buy. It's generally not difficult to buy undervalued property. A lot of people want to buy the shiny, new finished development. There's no profit in that, none at all. But if you can generally find an unloved flat or a house or caravan and rented out. Now there are tax implications that you've been paying tax on the rent that comes in. But again, think about structure in commercial property. You know, you might find a tired building that you can change from commercial to residential. Perhaps it was residential in the first place, changed to commercial and then it's come back to residential. I think they're the safest bets for it because you've got underlying bricks and mortar to protect yourself. Even if you muck it up, you can't lose too much. And along the way, it's generally giving you an income if you rent it out. I think that's the most straightforward thing to do if you're slightly older. - Yeah, gives you that sort of forgiving layer, I guess. - Yeah, but again, if you're using leverage and asset might only have to go up 25% if you're to doubling the stake. You know, if you're a tied geography teacher, that's a great thing to do. Then you can fund your grandchildren's education, perhaps. - Yeah, yeah, fantastic. What about this sort of current trend? I think it's pretty much American led, but I've seen it coming over here now with the advice of buying up sort of what they call mom and pop businesses, you know, sort of unsexy boring businesses that are maybe a generation is retiring out of and being able to buy those. And these are a great idea because, you know, know they've got proven business history but they can probably be more profitable if they were, say, digitised or if they were brought online into a more modern era. I think you've answered the question yourself. I think they're a great idea because a lot of people get a fatigued and b stuck in their own ways and you know we all know businesses you know corner shops or in any high street there are a lot of tired businesses and if you've already got an existing profit stream sometimes it's much easier to improve those businesses and you can do it quite quickly really. You might cut, you cost, you might increase your prices, you might prove the product lines, you might have an online presence, you know just a fresh, some fresh thinking. When I look at what private equity do they tend to only want to be in businesses for three or four or five years and then get out and do it again whereas a lot of family businesses have been going for generations. I spoke to Guy in South Africa last night who was feeling the burden of having to run his family's businesses and a lot of them aren't profitable at all. I'm sure with fresh set of eyes some of those businesses could be much better and much more profitable much more quickly. So I think that's a great idea. Yeah, awesome. Okay, fantastic, thank you. So anyone who's watching this today or listening to this today, where can they go to find out more about your world, about your books, about your perspectives? So you can find me, you can track me down on GaryAshworth.com. I'm easy to find. Don't buy my new book, Double Up Money Mastery. Download the free audio version and listen to it in the gym. I don't need the money. Download the free audio version and there will be some tips for free in there, the whole book's in there. I've narrated it so it's me, it's authentic but it's not James Mason's voice, booming out. But there will be some tips in there that I'm hoping will be helpful. I do want one calls on the website if you need me and I do some one to one coaching as well. So I'm easy to find but I just want to give younger people permission to be great and permission to find financial security for life. You out to yourself, you out to your family and it's a great sense of achievement once you've done it. It's really worthwhile. Amazing. Any last thoughts to leave us with today? No, I think you've covered most things. The one thing that has not disturbed me a bit recently, I did read a book called The Second Coming, that's sort of the Coming Wave about AI. And the three things I left with were it's not controllable, it's not predictable and you can't re-regulate it. So I think we do need to understand what's coming down the wire and be able to adapt to the change that we're facing and that advice goes as much for me or you as for anybody else. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. It's going to be as big as inventing the wheel or fire or something like that. I think it's going to be a lot of change. I agree. The implications are huge and we don't know, we don't know, it's constantly evolving, it's self-evolving. An unpredictable. Yeah, completely unpredictable. We have no idea what it might look like. And if you look at the last two years, from if I don't remember, but when Open AI first opened its doors and said you can now type some things into a chat and everyone was like, "Oh, try this, we try this, we try this." And then you saw the first pictures that people generated, the first videos and there was like pictures of like wheel smith with like 15 fingers and all this sort of stuff and elongated faces. And now every day, if you look on Instagram, probably one in every four or five videos you see are completely AI-generated. They are, but I think people are asking now about the ethical base of the great AI. So, Anthropic would not open the books up how much the US government paid them, some Altman did. Some people are saying, "I'm not going to use chat GDP anymore because they're not ethical." Yeah. And I think even if you're one person with not much power, you can say, "You know, I'm not doing that. I'm not going to support that." And I think we need to get a bit more ethical about our AI interaction. And so we can all do something, write to somebody or choose to use a different model. Yeah. Yeah. True. Very, very powerful as well. If we all did that, make a big difference. It would. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much for being here today. Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure to have you. And yeah, I think hopefully everyone at home will be itching to get your audio download. I know I will, but listen to it in a gym. Well, thank you for having me. It's been really interesting. You're good at this. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's been a genuine pleasure to talk to you. I could talk to you all days. And you too. Thank you so much. Thanks so much for listening today. If you've enjoyed this episode, which I hope you have, please make sure you hit follow or subscribe. That means you'll never miss the latest conversations on health, wealth and relationships, all designs that help you live longer, and love the life that you're building on the way. We've got some incredible guests coming up and some powerful conversations. And I'd love to have you with us for them. So don't forget to hit follow and subscribe. 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