Daniel Latto #6 - property investor, content marketing expert and Dad

00:00 In this episode of Team Super Dad, I speak to Dan Latto, number one podcaster, property investor, entrepreneur, digital marketing expert, and all-round good guy. He shares his experiences of being a dad, finding love and creating a successful life in Spain. Enjoy. Roll theme. Welcome to Team Super Dad. Real dads creating their best lives ever. More time, more money, more fun. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad. Hey, welcome again.

00:39 It's Johnny Jensen here with the Team Super Dad podcast. Great to have you here with me wherever you are in the world. Good morning, good afternoon. Let's crack on. And this week, it is an awesome interview. Daniel Latto is a podcaster, an entrepreneur, a property investor. He has his own digital marketing agency business. He's now got a new venture starting where he is buying into people's companies and helping them create more value and success for themselves and their team, which he'll explain more about. Certainly better than I am. It's been an awesome week for me. I have my kids at the weekend.

01:19 We've been out to Brighton to see my dad and my cousins over from Chicago. Swimming badges for the kids as well, a mile and 800 meters. So milestones and successes all round. I hope you've been having a great week. If you've got your kids, then make sure that you enjoy them. It's not always about doing amazing things. They just love routine and fun and to feel loved. And if you haven't got them, well, I hope you've been working on your goals and getting yourself fit and healthy, hanging out with friends, maybe falling, well, perhaps not falling back in love, maybe at least dating and finding someone to hang out with. If you are new to the Team Super Dad podcast, then welcome. Welcome.

02:03 This is the program and community for dads rebuilding after divorce, separation or loss. I mean, all dads are welcome, but particularly if you're going through those challenges, if you've been through those challenges, that's really where the vision for Team Super Dad comes from. It's about the rebuild. It's about creating your best life ever. And today's interview really does reinforce that message. If you've tuned in before and you are now enjoying the Team Super Dad podcast, Welby, please be sure to make us a little review or leave us a like somewhere, comment, share, like, review. As soon as I get some iTunes reviews or

02:43 what do we call it, Spotify or what do I? I listen on Breaker actually. My favorite podcast app on my iPhone is Breaker. Excellent podcast app if you've not tried it out before. But yeah, the reviews and the likes and the shares are the lifeblood of this podcast. So please pass it around amongst your friends and family, other dads that you know, and let's look to make it as successful as we possibly can. I'm growing the community. The Facebook page is getting ever bigger. And the more that people contribute to that, the less it requires me to be the one always starting the conversation.

03:18 So please don't be shy. Come on over and comment there. And if you've got questions for the podcast or you've got ideas for people that should be on, if you want things that we want to cover, then please feel free to post those in. You can find me on Team Super Dad HQ on Twitter and Instagram. And just search up Team Super Dad on Facebook. You'll find the group and the page. Daniel Latto is an inspiration. I'm really pleased to have met him. He gave me a lot of insight from this interview. The first half is very much about his challenges through child court and his experiences of his time with his children and the impact of that on the other side.

04:00 And in the second half, we get into the entrepreneurial stuff, how he started his own business, how he's moved to Spain, works just 15 to 20 hours a week, and how he's really created a life of abundance and success for himself. I hope there's as much in it for you as there was for me recording it. I will see you on the other side. Enjoy. Awesome. Dan, welcome to the Team Super Dad podcast. Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be asked and to be on and hopefully I can help people going through some of the stuff that we've been through and we've come out the other end and hopefully we can, you know, we can help be the voice or the light if you like at the end of the tunnel for some people.

04:47 Still going through that. Yeah, exactly. And that is the inspiration for all dads, really. There's a lot of lessons to be learned by the shared experience. But more than anything, because I'm so aware of this in a lot of the single parent groups I'm in and different. dad forums. So much of the conversation is misery. I'm lonely. I'm broken. He's an ass, she's a bitch. It's never going to get better. And I think we can all relate to that, but out of Team Super Dad, the mission I'm on is to have people realize that our best life ever is tomorrow and is the day after. It's what we say it is and how we create it. And my experience was really asking that question: how am I going to fix this?

05:32 How am I going to fix this? And that's where that's where Team Super Dad came from. It's the idea that we have these superpowers, which actually is just getting through life. But it's when we realize what those powers are, we can actually really use them. And I do like my comic books, so there's quite a lot of real-world analogy in that. And the team part is about the fact that when you're on a team and you've got people to support you, to learn from, then it's a much more positive journey. Absolutely. So, Dan, tell us, introduce yourself, let us know where you're from, and what's your family structure like, and then we'll dig into your story. Okay, so I'm from Leeds, 47.

06:15 I had an easy paper round. I look young, I get that. But it was a needy paper round, that's why. But in the last six years, I moved to Spain, which is amazing, by the way, and you're contemplating moving to Spain and you can't because you've got kids. I flew back every two weeks for four years to see my kids. So it's definitely doable. And the benefit of doing that is, you know, I mean, I'm in Southampton tonight and it's raining last night. It was sunny. We had a barbecue at the weekend. I mean, it was amazing, you know. So I've been in property for about 20 years. I run a digital marketing agency as well. And I'm here in Southampton to buy a business. We'll go into a little bit more about it later on. But when I found myself single, I was 37.

06:59 I had two kids. They were four and 18 months at the time. And I was 37. And I was a broken man, you know, like we all have been going through that. And then you've got family court stuff. And then we had to deal with some child abduction from mum. So we had that to deal with. And then we've had, in the last 10 years, we've had 36 court appearances, 34 of which are mum trying to stop dad, two of which are because the kids went missing. So that stuff's been pretty horrific. And all that time, you've got to still operate. You know, you're not allowed to get angry, not allowed to get mad in court because it's perceived as being aggressive in some way.

07:38 And yet, when my partner gets upset and she bangs on the table and she calls the judge a joke, that's totally fine. But if I get upset, it's aggressive. And, you know, all this stuff that men specifically have to deal with when we're going through separation. So I had a couple of things to help me. Okay. Number one was a mate called Dave. We've all got a mate called Dave. Rumour is that you're only ever nine feet away from a Dave. It's probably a Dave upstairs. A Dave upstairs, yeah. And a Dave next door. So you're only having nine feet from a Dave. So Dave helped me understand. He said to me, he said, look, in 10 years' time, and here we are 10 years' time.

08:20 In 10 years' time, as you look back at now, you want to decide, number one, how you've behaved, how you've reacted. Okay. Number two, who do you want to be? What is the man that you want to be? And number three, where do you want to be? And so, you know, it kind of goes and it goes out because you're so upset and you're so angry about the situation and the uneven playing field. You know, you're trying to play uphill, aren't you, with base I found? And everyone's against you, the social workers and the judge and the police and the school, everything. And so it's very difficult. So that was one thing. I had a good friend called Dave and we've all got good friends. Number two was I was 37, I've got two kids and I'm a broken man.

09:04 And I'm thinking, who's, you know, I need to get into a relationship or not a relationship, but I needed to get out there. I needed to date again. I wanted to feel attractive to the opposite sex once again. And my self-esteem had gone, my self-confidence, my ego had disappeared. You're to blame for everything. These are stories that we tell ourselves, right? So I thought, okay, and then my ex started seeing somebody and that hurt too. Even though it was me that walked away, I was like, Dan, you can't just stop moping around. You've got to do something. So I started going on dates. So a couple of months later, I was going on dates and then I got serious about dating.

09:45 So because when I met somebody, I wanted to be not fixed because that takes time, but I wanted to be whole again. I didn't want to be this broken gym. jigsaw that they're going to fix, if that makes sense. I wanted to be fixed so that the person that I met who is also fixed and then together we're more powerful than our parts. So I went on lots of dates, basically two a day for 10 days, 12 days, whatever it was. Which is really funny. And I had a system, you know, I'm a systems guy, but I wanted to test, you know, like I'm in a t-shirt.

10:21 Don't wear t-shirts. Get yourself a black shirt or a white, you know, button-down shirt, blue or black jeans with trousers, with like a suit jacket and a nice belt. And that was the uniform that you're supposed to turn up in. And I was testing chat up lines and I was testing jokes and testing, you know, what you can say and what you can't say. I've not been dating for 10 years. I didn't know anything. And so I went off on all these dates just to get some practice in. Where are you living? Where is this up in Leeds? Up in Leeds. So the funny thing is, I'd always take the date to like a slugger lettuce in Leeds. And so I'd be walking in, and the guys behind the bar were like,

11:03 is he some kind of giggler? So that's what happened. And then I went on this date and I met this beautiful blonde woman, beautiful. I'd already decided the sort of person I wanted. I wanted tall, blonde, ambitious, six pack abs. And I went on this date and I met her. And I walked back to her car and I walked back to my car and got in my car and went, my gosh, I'm going to marry this girl. Yeah. First date, that's what I said. And that's who I live with. Wow. I'm trying to write notes so I can come back to some of all this awesome stuff you're talking about.

11:43 And so, oh my gosh, I want to go back a bit, but first of all, I want to hit this dating subject thing because it's important. Oh, no, I've not. I've not, I mean, I've not been on a date since I split up with my ex. That's four years ago. Why? I the truth is, I'm just a bit scared of it, to be honest. Yeah, that's okay. And so was I. Yeah. Petrified. Shakingly petrified. And you meet a girl and you go, wow, you're nice. And she goes, thanks, so are you. And you're me? Yeah.

12:26 Me? You must be mistaken. You know, because that's because it's been not beaten out of us, but it's crept out of us. Our self-confidence has crept out of us. And when I went on those dates, it wasn't about meeting the girl I'm going to marry. It absolutely wasn't about that. That's just a consequence of me going on dates. I went on dates to understand that I'm an attractive individual once more. And I still am today. And we've been married six years, got to get that right. And you kind of forget that you're still attractive because it's just normal, you know. But when you first break up, you feel so unattractive to everybody who would want to be with me.

13:07 And we are all attractive to someone or many people. And you don't find that out unless you've got to be in it to win it. You've got to buy the ticket to win the lottery. Yeah. And you were meeting, was this pre-dating apps, I guess? This is. Pre-date. We met on match. So it was matching. Oh, okay. Just early days of dating apps. Yeah, yeah. Definitely not Pinder. Definitely not playing. I'm trying to think of all the rubbish ones. If you want plenty of faith and you're not serious about dating, pay for pay for and the quality of the people. They're not just out for one thing. And if you're after one thing, that's awesome too, by the way. But if you're after a long-term relationship or you want to just recover some confidence and it's not just some kind of, I was going to call it cheap, but I don't think it is cheap.

13:52 You don't want a one-night experience. You want something more lasting, then you will pay for it. And when people go, I'm not paying money, I'm like, well, how serious are you about finding somebody to spend the rest of your life with? Because it's not that serious. Yeah, I know. And also, what I'm taking from this is I've spoken to a variety of dads with significant degrees of success. And one of the things that is consistent across them all is that no matter what they're talking about, they went at it with a plan and a strategy and momentum and consistency. And it's that whole kind of, how do you get fit? Or how do you improve your health? Well, you eat right and you exercise. And then it's like, I don't want to do that.

14:38 Is there a tablet? Is there an easier way? And the reality is that actually the practices of success, whatever it is you're striving for, they're there. but someone's walked that path already. It's for the rest of us to actually emulate it. Now, interestingly, if I hadn't have gone on all those dates before I met Louise's wife, before I met Louise, when I did meet Louise, would I have messed it up in some way? They're about like the practice sessions until you meet the right person. Yeah, and everybody wants shortcuts: finance, health, wealth, relationships, kids, everybody wants shortcuts. There are no shortcuts. Very few people have them. Zuckerberg, probably, but like he's a one in a trillion.

15:19 Do you know what I mean? Well, one in seven billion, I suppose. But he also had to be at Harvard. Like, yeah, there's a degree to which he'd invested, his mum and dad had invested, surely, but he still has to pass the test. And that meant from some kind of 10 years old, he was studying above-average levels. Absolutely. Yeah. And that overnight success doesn't exist. Yeah. Have you listened to the Elon Musk interview with Joe Rogan? Do you ever heard of it? Joe Rogan. I've listened to it and I watched some of the good bits on the internet as well. He goes, Well, to be honest, I just invented. Oh, I just come up with ideas. The difference with me is I make them happen.

16:01 It's brilliant. Absolutely brilliant, Blue. And so I've got a mate who's out of a relationship and he went out and dating and there he's kind of fallen into some level of serious relationship. Were you quite clear in your mind that, okay, well, this is, I'm meeting people, I'm enjoying going out, I'm not going to commit to anything here. It was, were you upfront with them about it, or it was just more like a mission in your mind about it? No, I'd not really express that to anybody else. I was just long for the ride to see what happened through dating. And the consequence was that I just happened to meet the right person.

16:42 Yeah. So that was kind of like just the result of it. But like I say, if I'd not have gone through that, I wouldn't have had that result. So you have to go through it at some point. Yeah. And, you know, one of the funny things for me was going on dates and then listening to the horrific dates that these women had been on. You know, men turning up in track suits, a post office worker inviting them around to do their post office run with them, some stuff. And he's just like, what? What? Why did it keep going thinking that that's a thing to do? So it was, I knew that if I met the right person, I was serious about settling down again because that's what I wanted.

17:20 But I had already designed in my on paper first, well, in the head first, and then on paper, I designed the type of person that I wanted. Because the previous relationship, I kind of fell into it. And so I wouldn't have chosen it, but I fell into it. And then you kind of find yourself trapped, and then you're thinking about breaking up. Yeah. And then a grandma died, and then you can't break up. You know, then you wait. For me, she got ill. We had babies. Exactly. And you know what? I've realized is I, in taking responsibility, because that's something I'm big on, is about taking responsibility for things. And in the midst of the fire, it felt I found myself blaming quite a bit.

18:02 And I know now that was where I was at in my mental health and the sheer distress of it all. But I was blaming quite a lot in that drama, the circumstances and the illness and stuff. In coming out of it and taking full responsibility, what I've been able to see was my now ex-wife was almost identical in sort of personality and life issues as the previous long-term relationship that I had had and hadn't gone very well. So bugger me, it's no point getting annoyed at your ex-wife if you picked someone who was identical to a previous long-term relationship that had not only not worked out but had left you utterly depressed.

18:42 Like that's the level of responsibility that we all have to take if relationships are broken down is, and I said it in a group the other day. I said, I asked her out, I had sex with her, I proposed to her. Like, how much responsibility do I want to pass on to someone else for this wedding and the marriage? But, you know, did I actually start it? Yeah, yeah, I did. Yeah. Yeah. And interesting question, actually. Because I found this guy on YouTube. He's got a channel called Entrepreneurs in Cars. He's a good guy. You should check him out. He was saying he was chastising someone about the speed at which he had introduced his girlfriend to the kids.

19:25 I'm not asking you to share the ins and outs of your family, but how long did you do before you introduced what has now become your wife to your kids? So it's a good question. So I'm sat in a car and I'm saying to myself, oh my gosh, I'm going to marry this girl. We go on a second date, electric, just electric second date. And then third date never happened. She went back to a boyfriend. So her boyfriend had cheated on her. But she said, I felt the responsibility of making sure that that relationship was over. Which you've got to respect on some level. Do you know what it pissed me off? But you've got to respect that at some level.

20:04 And if this is what I want in a person, I can't then complain when they're powerful and responsible and confident. I can't then complain about that because that's what I wanted. So she went back. It didn't work out. She split up again. We started dating again. She went back twice. So then I'm just like, okay, I can't do this. So then I met somebody else, Miss Fitz South Africa, might I add? Oh, yes. We started dating, and that was fine. And then Lou, my now wife, she sends me a message and she says, It's over, we're done.

20:45 And I'm like, well, I'm in this relationship with this other woman. We just started dating, really. Not a relationship, but we started dating. So that was about 6 p.m. And then about two hours later, Miss Fitz South Africa sends it phones me and says, Look, Dan, I'm really sorry about this, but I just don't think it's working. And I'm like, okay, thanks. Bye. Yeah. She was like, what? But okay, bye. Bye. But that opened up. So I went back to her and said, well, you'll never guess what's literally just happened. And it's like the stars aligning. You know, this is meant to be. Imagine getting in your car and saying, I'm going to marry this woman.

21:22 So, so we started dating again. So I was then very wary of introducing the kids because I didn't want this to happen a third time. And every time she would have to speak with her ex about the house, for example, I had two dogs, not kids, but dogs, but of the similar kind of thing, you know, I was always nervous about that in case it happened again. And it never did happen again. She needed to check. She checked twice and it just didn't work. And because he was still cheating on her, basically. And he hadn't changed despite what had happened in their relationship. So I would say it was about four months. Yeah, four months. Yeah.

22:06 And this guy was saying, you know, not less than six months. And I think if you're going to be with some, if you're serious about finding someone to be with, then four months, it gets to the point that I can't speak enough in it, done it yet, but it gets to the point where it becomes weird. You're actually trying to keep the two things apart. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then it's weird because then you're like, oh, this is my friend. Yeah, yeah. You know, what do you mean, friends? You know, so it's a bit weird, really. But yeah, so I was just nervous about that. But she's a school teacher as well. She loves kids and she was desperate, but she's really wanted a child, you know.

22:44 And one of the criteria for us to continue dating was that it has to be serious. I mean, she's 40 now. This was what, six, must have been nine years ago or so. So she was 31. And then you've got a biological clock. She wants at some point to have a child. And I'm like, I'm not having any more kids. Kids equaled pain for me because of family court and everything that had to go just to simply see them. So I was really kind of put off by that. But I knew it was a make or break kind of thing. And I just had to sort, I had to resolve my own issues surrounding kids. You know, at one point I'd made a decision that women are all evil.

23:27 That was one of the decisions I made. And then I was like, I was, you know, I did a lot of personal development work. I'm like, dude, how's that going to help you in 10 years? Having that attitude. Yeah, and what are your kids? Is one of them a daughter? Is one of them a girl? Your kids? I've got all girls. All girls. So, yeah. So I said this to someone else the other day. They were asking me, Am I anti-women? I was like, I've got a daughter. Like, even if I was that way inclined, how am I going to respect and honour my daughter if I don't absolutely love women? It's crazy. But this is about recognizing the path that you're about to go down because it's always a choice. Stuff happens to us. And it doesn't matter what happens to us, it's how we react to it.

24:08 So Victor Franklin, Victor Frankl, man's search for me. Yeah. It's not, you know, prison camp, not what happened to him, it's how he handles it internally. It's not the external stuff, it's the internal stuff. We make decisions about who we're going to be, how we want to behave, how we want to react. And we might have to use certain skills and strategies like pattern interrupts and that kind of thing to calm down and reply the next day instead of instantly, you know, move off text messaging with your ex and move to email or or handwritten letters because it takes you a lot longer to, and then you've calmed down a little bit. You know, WhatsApp is too quick, you know. So I made a decision I didn't want to be that person.

24:50 It took some work, and it's very easy to become that person. And I've seen men do it, and it's kind of self-harming in a way. And it's not a good thing. But I had to work out this internal thing: kids do not equal pain. Kids equal love and laughter and light. And I've got a four-year-old daughter now with my wife. And she epitomizes everything that I think kids now are: love, laughter, light, joyfulness, playfulness, excitedness, giddiness, being silly, you know, all that stuff. So I was lucky not to go down that path, I think. Yeah. And that boils down to responsibility, I believe, when

25:31 we talk about dads here, but it can be anyone. You look at what you are giving off into the world. And for some people, that's a bit woo-woo, and they're like, oh, yeah, I don't believe in anything. I'm an atheist. I'm all science. You know, kind of like, well, okay, but clearly, you know, when you walk into a room, there's some people who you drawn towards, and there's some people who give you a shudder as you go past them. And I truly believe, in terms of my kids, that energy that I get, that I buzz off from them, has to have come from me. They're not going to be the kind of people that wake up in the morning and want to go and play or run or when we go swimming, they want to stay there two hours unless I've encouraged and created that space for them to be like that.

26:14 So I think that's an important message for dads, particularly dads who perhaps don't feel like they've got enough money to treat their kids or do the things that they see other parents doing. Kids love to laugh. They want to feel loved. Let me tell you something else. Yeah, there's a guy called Dave Diggle, and he wrote some books that involve metaphors for children so that children can understand about breakups and that kind of thing. I was chatting to Australian chatting to him. It's like a bestseller on Amazon. You should get the books are very good. I'll look at it. Dave Diggle, yeah. Dave Diggle, yeah. And he was saying it's not the quantity of time, it's the quality of time. And it's not even the amount of presents or gifts. They just want that, Dad, look at this.

26:55 I've made a dinosaur out of toilet horse. Wow, that's amazing. That's what they want. They want reassurance. They want to be told that they're proud of them. Regardless of what happens, you're always going to be their dad. Nothing can change that. Social service can come along and try and prevent any access and contact because of what mum says. That's happened to me. It doesn't change the fact that those kids are still my children and I'm their dad. So Isabel, who's the eldest, she's 14 now. She's gone through self-harming. She's gone through two suicide attempts because I've not been in her life. And now I'm back in her life and suddenly everything's aligned again. Funny how that happens. So mum succeeded in getting me out of her life.

27:39 And then, you know, for two years, she's gone down this very dark path, alcohol, drugs, and all of that kind of thing. And then now I'm kind of back in her life again. She's back on a straight and narrow. And it's like, you know, kids need dads. Or certainly a father could. Because this applies to stepdads too, by the way. And grandparents too. Yeah, definitely. Kids need the structures in place, regardless of what happens. I'm not going to go into the suicide stuff and all that kind of thing. But the middle one, who's 11 now, she won't speak to me, not even on the phone. And it's just parental alienation. And you know what? It's okay. I'm all right with that. I'm 47.

28:18 We're going to live till 97 at least. You know, the average age is increasing. I'll deal with that when she's 16 or 18. I've got 40 more good years or bad years. I've got 40 more years to handle that. And fine, I'm not going to see it from 11 to 16 or whenever she wants to make contact. I'm okay with that internally because I know I'm in a long game. Like Dave said to me, in 10 years' time, who do you want to be? So let's extend that in 20 years' time. When I'm 60, what sort of dad do I want to be to the 11-year-old who's then 25 with a child, maybe? What sort of granddad do we want to be to them? So, like, obviously, it's important and it is relevant, okay?

28:56 But it's also irrelevant. She's in good health. I expect nothing bad will happen to them. And then we can fix people later on. We can fix it. But, you know, like my situation was one of the worst situations I've ever heard. Child abduction, kids trying to kill themselves, self-harming, all that kind of thing. And as a dad who can't be involved because mums poisoned everybody around you, you have to sit on the sidelines and watch it. It's very, very difficult. But in that happening, there are lessons to be learned. There are always lessons to be learned about self. So like. and I'm not a Buddhist, but if I was to be a Buddhist monk and be contemplative about what are the lessons that I can learn from this, patience, love.

29:48 When you do see them, you don't, you're not dad telling them, you do this or you do that. What would you like to do? How would you like to handle that? Yeah. Well, if you handle it this way, this might happen. If you handle it this way, this might happen. You've got two choices. You can continue with the self-harm. Where do you think that will end up? Or you can stop that and go down this path, get back on your studies. And where do you think that it's your decision? It's completely up to you. And so that's turning the child who's 13, 14 into, okay, I don't want to go down that path. I want to go down and get my results. And that's the path that she's chosen. And she's chosen that because I'm back involved and I'm not telling her as a dad, you must do this.

30:30 Nothing to do with me. What would you like to do? And there are lessons that I learned. And it's really hard as a dad. But I had to learn it because I'm sat on the sidelines and I can't affect what's happening to her. I just have patience and hope that she'll come through it, which she did. And then I can get back involved. And were you frantic for, you know, in the early period, whether it was six months or two years, did you find yourself frantic and desperate? And I've got to fix this. And if I don't, that's, I know that's the experience I went through. And I know a lot of other dads do. And if you miss one contact, that's it. You're never going to see them again because that's what you're basically told in court. You know, I flew back every two weeks for four years.

31:13 That's 210,000 miles. So if the moon's out tonight, I have a look at the moon. That's where I've flown to. That's literally the distance. And I think it's 240,000 kilometers closest thing. So I've flown to the moon for my kids. I can say that. Nobody's impressed by that. Except for the dad. So she works okay. But yeah, I've flown every two weeks and I was petrified if I made, you know, I missed a flight once. I was desperate to get another flight. And looking back now, I would be just like, oh, I missed a flight. Let's deal with it. And for any dads. Sorry, Dane, say again.

31:51 It's not a quantity. It's the quality of the time. Yeah. And for any dads facing the court process, what could you because my experience actually when I went in when I when I got and fortunately my ex and I it was it was challenging but it wasn't horrific and and eventually I have after two trips to court got got 50 50. But what was what was offered on what was offered to start with was the classic two one night and then two nights and then come back and stuff and like the bare minimum type thing and that's what I fought against. But as I speak to a lot of other dads now that who are looking at the court process, they are feeling like I did was, oh my gosh, they're all against dad.

32:33 It's going to be a nightmare. I'm really anxious. It's going to cost too much money. Can you reassure anybody about that at all from your experiences? No, I can't. I'd love to say everything will be great. Yeah, but I can't. It cost me £85,000 over eight years, $10,000 a year. Yeah. And then 36 times in court, 34 of which was mum trying to stop me seeing her children. Two were me because the kids had disappeared. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I saw my doctor about depression and they referred me to an NHS depression thing about bipolar. And it turned out I wasn't depressed. I was just living with an asshole. Yes, I heard that on the podcast the other day.

33:17 It was hilarious. Before you think you're depressed, check you're not spending too much time with an asshole. That absolutely was it. So I self-diagnosed as potentially bipolar and I went through that. So then they ask for all your medical records and you're like, yeah. And then guess what happens? When you go to your GP, it's brought out and it's used in court against you. So I want to tell guys, no, go to your doctor if you're feeling depressed. I can't say that. I would suggest not seeing your doctor. I would suggest you pay for private something that's off the record and you tell nobody that that's what you're doing. I'd love to not say that. But my experience is not that. Well, yeah, you've had an experience that's been like the flipping razor edge of it.

34:00 Yeah, yeah, yeah. And thankfully for me, even as tough as it was, it wasn't quite that bad. So I guess, but the one thing that you've said, which is consistent with me, was one of my mates, and I've got this structure I encourage dads to follow. It's called Your Fantastic Four. Again, another comic book reference, but get four dads around. It doesn't have to be dads, actually. And actually, if one can be a woman, that's great because you get some balance. But four people you can count on and you can call them and you can dump on them. but they know that they're there, that that's what they've kind of signed up for in a way. And then the fact that you've got four of them means that not one of them is always getting it.

34:42 Oh, I think you've frozen down. You're back. Yeah. I was just saying that the fantastic four, it means you can dump on them, but because there's four of them, you're not always dumping on the same one. And one of my friends, Colin, he's a single dad, and he said to me multiple times, Johnny, it feels like every single thing that happens now matters. But trust me, there's a longer game afoot here. And one way or another, the more consistent you can be. And he was telling me from his point of view of the same thing, the court and the fight. And now at 14 and 16, his girls have basically said, Daddy, can we come and live with you?

35:23 And he doesn't say that as a triumph. He just says it as an example: I kept being myself. I kept giving them a good time when they were with me. I kept playing it straight back. It's not about spoiling them. It's not about beating on the parental alienation against the mum. He said, and just one way or another, that's where my girls got to. And in the fire, it was really like, how can I possibly think that way? But like you said, we've got another 50, 60 years left on the planet to foster that relationship and that love. So I'm in front of two solicitors and a barrister and the judge. I remember he's little old me. And I'm like, and bear in mind, this is legal aid. You know, this is all paid for by the taxpayer.

36:05 And so I was up against legal aid. And in the end, we had to go for the other side being a vexatious litigant where they just take me to court for nothing. So just to pull me out from Spain, cost me a lot of money in hotels and staying over and all that kind of thing. And so the judge finally gave a vexatious litigation for two years. A day after it expired, I'm back in court. And the judge is like, I can't believe. So you've gone, you're back in the court. And that's, I don't know your ex, I don't know if she's a legal genius or somewhere in amongst all this. But to me, that sounds like there's a legal firm who's saying, well, now what you want to do is this.

36:46 Now, where does that have any legal right in a civilized country? Yeah, money, yeah. And that just says it's broken. It's broken. It is broken. But then I've got a friend of mine, she's a client friend, and she's going through completely the opposite to what I've gone through because she's female and he's got a very, very expensive barrister, you know, like thousands a day, and they win. And that's not right either. A lot of conversations I get into, it's like, you know what? This isn't about male or female. This is about two parents and the right for them to both parent their child. And that's where the legal system has to change.

37:29 I wish, I pray, I don't know what version of that it is, but you think in a decent society, we can get this booming Brexit nonsense out the way. We can get back on with some proper legal stuff and change the law around separation and child court and contact because it costs millions. I read upwards of £100 million in the UK for this machine. By the time you factor in doctors and social services and legal aid and barristers and the whole machine just to function and serve this process crazy. It costs more than because it costs the lives. Yeah, it does.

38:11 Kids committing suicide, dads committing someone, anybody taking their life. Yeah. Yeah. Well, listen, let's change gears on that a little bit. So, you know, business-wise, you're pretty successful by all accounts. I understand you've got quite a successful property, you know, personally, you're involved in property. You've got courses and communities you're evolving around property. Then you've got your digital marketing stuff. What's a bit of the background of your business journey?

38:47 And let's look into that as an inspiration for dads listening. So when I was 26, I always knew I wanted to get into property. And I've been researching it for about five years, and it took five years to buy my first one. And what are you at this time? Just a skint bus driver or you own your own business or what are you doing at 26? I'm working in a business on the phone earning £15,000 a year. And I went from £15,000 to £100,000 in four years. So anyone can do this, basically. Anyone can do this, but you have to be a bit of a job whore. So you've got to go to a job, you get the job, and you work there for three months

39:31 in those three months you're sending out your CV and they say, What do you do? And then you get a better job, and then they go, you know, you do that for another three months, and you send out your CVs, and then you just do job after job after job. So to get from 15 to 100, I think it's five jobs in that period of time, and I ended up working at Dell on a hundred grand a year, under thirty, and everybody else was like my age now, you know, 47 now. So it was very stressful, but it was a hundred grand a year, so I took it. I've got five GCSEs, no, not degree educated at all. Some people watching us going, yeah, it's obvious.

40:14 But I have had that work ethic, and I had the reason why, which was I hate my boss. I still hate my boss, and that's I'm my own boss now, but anyway, so that was my why. I just wanted to be able to wake up when the sun woke me up, not an alarm clock. That was that was to me one of the big things, one of the big keys. And so I knew that if I could earn more money, I could put that into something that would generate cash. And I ran the numbers a million times before I could buy my first one because I'm like, why are more people not doing this? You didn't compute why it was obvious to do it, you know, and it still is today, by the way. It still is today.

40:53 Because my idea was, well, if I can buy 10 properties and I make £150 a month every month, there's 1500 quid. Well, I only earned 1500 quid at my current job, so I would never need to work again. It was obvious. Yeah. And I'd tell everybody, and everybody would laugh at me, you know, oh, you shouldn't do that. Oh, no, you shouldn't. And it's like, you know, you should do that. We should all be investing in assets that pay income into our bank account. And today, my assets work harder than I do. I work maybe 15, 20 hours a week across what, three businesses really, my property portfolio, my digital marketing agency, and a new business, which is why I'm in Southampton tonight, which is either buying the whole business or buying or

41:43 getting given a 25% of somebody else's business for free, and then we help turn it around and then we sell it back to them. I mean, I work 15 or 20 hours doing those three things, and we do it because we've got teams in place, we have systems in place. And again, I wouldn't be doing any of this if all that bad stuff hadn't have happened. And so this is how it ties in. I have to be grateful for all that bad stuff. I have to be grateful for all the awful stuff in court because unless I decided who I was gonna be, who I wanted to be internally, do I want to be a nice guy or do I want to be a nasty guy?

42:20 I want to be a nice guy. Well, what does that look like? Well, how about we help tenants and we help them move in and actually we're really nice as landlords. Let's try that. Oh, that's nice. And then digital marketing, what's the biggest problem that people have? Getting clients and just being visible. What if we could help them? Yeah, let's do that. That's nice. And then the next one is businesses that are struggling or the owner wants to get out of, wouldn't it be nice to take over their business or buy it in some way so that they can then move on? And so in the middle of all those three things, I see myself as if you take a stone and you stood on a shoreline of a pond and you throw the stone into the pond, the ripples, I'm the stone, the ripples of the people I have direct contact with, but the ripples don't just stop after a few feet, they go on

43:08 forever and eventually the Peter out. But so last night I met the business owner and I met his son, his son's eleven, and I said to the business owner today, because that's we've been working on it, I said, I'm not thinking about you when I'm helping your business, I'm thinking about your boy. And I can see him kind of tearing up a little bit. I said, so the way that this affects the experiences that I've had with my kids is that if I not have gone through what I've gone through with my kids and as painful as that was, but the decisions that I then made about the type of person that I wanted to be,

43:45 I wouldn't be now helping these people in the way that I am. Yeah. And so I'm grateful for the experiences that I've had as painful as they were because they've made me the man that I am today. And if you've not decided as a person who you want to be, that should be your first step. And then you take the actions that will allow you to do that. Well, beautifully teed up there. That is the both the first section of the rebuild programme, which is reconnect, and then the second section of the rebuild programme, which is building blocks. So thank you for that. Thank you for that, Dan. Dan. But the important thing I hear out of that is really being conscious of your values and how the experience has left you ready to take, you know, to push ahead.

44:33 Yeah, massively so. So, I was just talking to the wife a few few weeks ago, and we were talking about the lost decade. And I mean, the lost decade from a financial point of view. You know, think about this. In the last 10 years, I met this beautiful woman, this beautiful person. We got married, way out of my league, by the way. Don't tell her I say that. No, way out of my league. We got married. We moved to Spain. We've got a four-year-old. We live next to the beach on the med. She's a teacher. She loves a job. Wouldn't give it up, regardless of how much money we make. I'm doing what I love.

45:12 We've got good sets of friends. I work out. I do, I work whenever I want. I work not a huge amount of hours. And yet, I had to go for all this negativity in order to get there. And it is worth it. But it's only worth it if you decide who you want to be and you make that your reality. But it all comes from you making that decision not to be that old you, but to be who do I want to be? Who will my kids be proud of when they're in their 30s and go, you know, my dad, he flew, he flew, you know, twice every month, bearing back. How did he even do that? Like, it was just me going on holidays hard work. You know, how did he do it every four flights every week? And they will get to the stage where they're going, that's amazing.

45:56 I didn't realize. You know, so and for someone who's a bit skint in this moment in time and they're not really enjoying their job, you know, quite often when we find ourselves in this and we're looking at myself included, it's talking to other dads. The internet is full of it. You could go and be a share trader. You could go and be a property developer. You could set up a digital marketing business. You've done two of those things. What would you say to a dad who's really reflecting on they don't want to work because they need more time with their kids? They don't want to commute because they've got to now have a pet co-parent. What would you say to a dad who's almost panicking about how they can create the job and the income they need?

46:41 That's a great question. So if you're self-employed, you've got more flexibility if you're running the business right. Most people don't run the business right. So a self-employed person says, well, I can work anytime I want. And I'm like, yeah, all the bloody time. And so if you get it right, you can go to your kids' sports days and you can pick them up and look after them for days that are ill. But you can only do that if you build a team around being self-employed. At most, I'd say, what, 80% of self-employed people are sole entrepreneurs. So with my digital marketing company, if I sell you a package, which is a 500 quid or a thousand pounds, let's say I sell you a thousand pounds a month package supposed to do your content.

47:23 I'm not sat creating content. I've got a team that's designed to deliver what I sell. Yeah. So, and this business is only 12 months old, by the way, like officially 12 months old, anyway. So we're growing that business quickly. We're taking on new clients, but it's not me that's doing the work, which is why I'm only working 15, 20 hours. I have a team that does it, and it's the methodology in which you create your business. Most people create themselves a job, and that's it. What you want to do is create yourself a team that you can retire out of, if you like.

48:01 In my property business, we run it the same. So I run my property business, which is a substantial amount of properties in Leeds from Spain using a substantial means 60. Because people are like, what does that mean? So it's 60. So I run that using a cleaner and two handymen. The cleaner, she does viewings for me. It's just someone's little old gran, you know? She's just someone's granny. I tell the parents, when you're going to do a viewing, I'm not there. I'm away. My cleaner's going to do it. She's called Debbie. She's really nice. She's someone's little old gran. Be nice to her. And she closes more business than anything. She's super grand. She's so

48:45 underwhelming when she turns. She's just really lovely and nice. And she's not a salesy person. And she's just homely. She's someone's grand. She's my grand. She's your grand. She's everyone's grand. You know what I mean? She's lovely. So it really disarms people and haven't got their barriers up. So she closes business. I email the tenancy agreements to her. She prints them out, gets them to sign them. Everything's done from afar. If there's a problem, I send a handyman in. If it's a bigger problem, we send a boiler man in, depending what it is. just run it. You know, I'm not out fixing boilers and painting a windowsill, and I've got a team. And this is where most small business owners fail is because they don't have a team because well, nobody can paint that wall as well as I can.

49:27 Nobody can fix a boiler as well. It's ridiculous. Of course, they can. Thousands of people can do it. You just choose not to. So this is the problem that most small businesses have. And so we've just systemized it. Like I systemized going out on a date. We systemized fixing boilers and taking on new clients and creating, I don't know, 228 videos a month or whatever it is that we create. We create a lot of videos and a lot of images. We've got a lot of clients and businesses growing. So if you're a dad and you're looking for more money, first of all, being self-employed will give you some flexibility as long as you systemize it with a team. The second thing it will do is it will help you on your tax.

50:11 So you're going to pay less tax potentially because you can offset more stuff, right? Yeah. There's another issue there, which is to do with how they calculate child support agency money and that kind of thing. And I know what that's like. They're just basically, it's all right for dads to go live in a bed sit as long as mum's lifestyle isn't impacted at all, which is crazy. Surely it would be better to keep dad alive than him kill himself in a bed sit. But society doesn't seem to think that right now, otherwise the law would change. So it helps on that. It just gives you that little bit more control. But you have to do it properly. And most people don't run a business properly. And I'm not saying that everything that we do is perfect because it, of course, it's not.

50:54 We come across problems all the time. We're like, shit, I didn't know. It didn't even occur to me that that would be a problem. You know, that's life, you know. So you have to run it properly and you run it properly by understanding there's four parts to a business. There's attraction, which is basically marketing, however you want to do that. There's conversion, which is how are you going to sell that person whatever it is that you're selling. There's delivery. How does the product get delivered? And then there's accountability. We call it ACDC. Accountability is a silent A because it should be accountability, but it's the ACDC thing. That's how we push it. So it's like on the attraction, that's me going live on Facebook.

51:36 You're in this right now and you're attracting people in. What's your conversion mechanism? That's the next bit. How are you then going to deliver it? So one of my products is a property sourcing training business. It's £97 a month. And we have people paying £97 a month. They might stay a year or three years or whatever. It's up to them. But they see me on Facebook going live talking about property. So that's the attraction. And they go, how can I get involved? And I go to this link and they look at the website. That's the conversion mechanism and they can click buy. Well, what's the delivery? Well, the delivery is my 89 videos showing you how to buy properties below market value.

52:16 So I record the videos once and I never have to record them ever again because that job is now done. So in that business, all I have to do is I have to run the marketing aspect, which is the attraction. The website does the conversion and the website does the delivery. So all I have to do is go to life every day. Yeah. It attracts more people in. That's it. And something I've taken from what you've said, which is to correct me if I'm wrong, but you're not the kind of person that gets stopped by worrying about it if it's gonna if it's gonna be right first time. No, completely. And lots of people are. I suffer from that a little bit myself, to be fair.

52:57 Yeah, so this might offend you. So that's okay. I'm ready. So, no, no, that's no good to me. I'm a perfectionist. What does that even mean? Like, how perfect? 100% perfect? Are you 100% perfect? Are any of us 100% perfect? We're all flawed. Everything we do is flawed. My car is flawed in some way. It's got dents all over. You know, it's like there is no such thing as perfection. It's this unicorn that we think is the epitome of there is no perfect relationship. What does that even look like? Brad Pitt and Jennifer, what's his call from friends?

53:39 Well, what happened to them? Jennifer. Britney Spears and that dude that broke up when they were young, whatever. Not Justin Bieber. What's he called? Oh, yeah, okay. Oh, blaming me. Yeah, I could picture it, but I can't remember it. Let's ask Google. Soundtrack. By the way, for those people listening to this, if you're shouting out the answer right now, you need to like, you know. Oh, yeah, yeah, totally. So, you know, that would that should be. be a perfect relationship, but it's not. Um, Brad Pitt, and who's the one who's who's in Tomb Raider, the woman in Tomb Raider? Oh, yeah, Joanna Joe, Jolie, yeah, that was failed, there's no such thing as perfection.

54:23 So, look, I would rather you get this stuff out and it'd be wrong, and someone goes, You got that wrong, right? Thanks, I'll fix it. You only get told that once, that's fine. Um, I'd rather you do that than not do anything at all. Yeah, and then I've got another idea for you, which you've probably heard as well. I would rather qualify people out, I would rather people hate me right now than me get them on a phone call to qualify them, and then they decide that they hate me. Yeah, because that's wasting my time. Like, some people are going to hate me, some people are going to love me. So, let's let the haters hate. That's fine. You've qualified themselves out. They'll never do business with me.

55:04 That's perfect. Now, I've got all these other people. Let's say it's 50-50 or even 70-30 or even 80-20. 80% people hate you. Doesn't matter. Look at Donald Trump for goodness sake. Yeah. 50% of the population. Grant Cardone said this. He said, You know, if I can make 50% love me, 50% hate me. Heck, I could be president one day. Yeah. That's what Donald Trump did. So you're better putting out your content. Let people hate you. Great. You've qualified themselves out. You better never do business with you. But those that do like you are reinforced because you're authentic. You're original. There's only one you. And, you know, people go, I've got a podcast and it was rated number one on iTunes.

55:45 And people are, I couldn't do a podcast because of how I sound. I sound like this, for God's sake. Northern clang. I've got this list thing going on. I can't say three and three is both the same word. F-R-Double E and T-H-R-Double. I can't say that properly. Yeah. I dated a girl called Roof. What? Like on a... I can't say it. I've had a number one podcast for them. So. What do you mean? There's every excuse under the sun. All of them are irrelevant. Just get your stuff and get it out there. People are going to hate you. That's fine. People are going to write bad stuff about you and they don't know who you are. Awesome. Write as much as you want. I don't care.

56:28 Yeah. And that's the for dads, any person to be fair, dads, teenagers, mums, but for dads that we're talking to, never been a better time on this planet to tap into what you love doing, what you're knowledgeable in, what you're passionate about, what you see someone else doing, and go out there and find out what they did to get where they are and just start copying it, emulating it, creating a version of your own, but that is based on they did that and it worked for them. Chances are it's going to work for me. There's a line in Star Trek and it's in The Next Generation and it's called Encounter at Farpoint.

57:05 It's the very first episode of The Next Generation. And there's a line in it where Captain Picard says, if they're going to damn us, let them damn us for who we truly are. And that's where you just step up and be the person that you truly are. If you've gone through family court, you feel like everybody hates you anyway. So let them hate me for who I truly am. A powerful, confident individual who kicks ass to get what I want and keeps on kicking ass until I get what I want. And through doing that, can empower other people to get what they want. If you're going to damn me for that, good luck. Wow. Yeah. And every dad should have that statement up their sleeve, ready to, you know, ready to say to themselves in the mirror or when they're brushing their teeth, whatever they're having a crap day, that kind of empowering statement about themselves to really remind them who they are at heart and who they're going to be in the world

58:01 is so important. It sounds like whether that was practiced or straight from the heart or something that was really obvious to you because you're so clear on your values. That was so easy for you to say because that's who you know yourself to be. And I didn't always feel like that, but it starts with a piece of paper and a decision and probably two columns. Who do I not want to be? Angry, spiteful, misogynist, hateful, regretful. Who do I want to be? Powerful, confident, funny, playful, lovable, egotistical sometimes. I think ego's a great thing. Too much of anything is bad, obviously, but ego's still good.

58:45 And it starts with that list, and you've got to get the piece of paper and do the list. I've done a lot of personal development work. I've done Tony Robbins, a friend of mine, Chris Howard, in America, he did my NLP. And we did, you know, me and my wife did a training course called Design Your Destiny, which was very, very powerful. And to do that with a partner, as well, even more powerful. I've walked on burning hot coals, I've broken arrows with my throat, you know. Yeah, we've done all of that. And me and my wife, you know, those bar those long bars, yeah, yeah, the barbend, yeah. Yeah, we've done the barbend. Me and my wife did that together. And it was a when we look back, it's a demonstration of how powerful we are as a unit moving forward.

59:27 Yeah, yeah. How we want to share our values with our daughter. That's incredibly powerful. And it starts with a piece of paper, one step after another. We all feel like crap sometimes. I wake up today and felt like crap, or yesterday, or the day before. And it's impossible not for anybody. Tony Robbins wakes up and feels like crap some days. It's natural. Totally fine. There's no such thing as perfection. But there is such a thing as being consciously aware of who you want to be and working towards it. Do you get there immediately? Of course you do. Is it a 10-year journey? Longer. It's a lifetime journey.

1:00:08 And I'll, you know, I'm 98, I'm on my deathbed. My new wife, Miss Romania, who's 24, is stood next to me. And, you know, I'm looking around and I'm like, okay, what am I going to do next? No, that's just the nature of who we are, I think. But for me, it's about starting with a simple decision: who do I want to be? And then doing your damn best. You're going to make mistakes along the way. And it's okay to make mistakes. We're all human. Yeah, so powerful. And the PS to that is that's who your children, by virtue of watching you in action, that's who they aspire to be.

1:00:49 So it's a very powerful legacy to pass on simply by your actions. So, you know, when I do the podcasts, usually I'll pick a person that I've had a conversation with and I'm talking to them through the podcast. But in the back of my mind, I know that when my kids are older, if I die, the legacy is those podcasts. So these are all the things that I want my kids to know. Yeah, yeah. And share your podcast so people can go and find it if they want. Yeah, so it's on the website. So daniellatto.co.uk. If you type Daniel Latto into iTunes, it'll come up with my podcast. Up to like 370-something podcasts, which is tough going, by the way, I've got to tell you.

1:01:32 Well, I run the London podcasting community. That's how I met Andy. And pretty much the number one measure of success for a podcast, like what's it take to have a successful podcast, is keep bloody going. Do you know why Andy has a podcast? Go on, tell me. Because somebody had a go at him for not having a podcast and told him you need a bloody podcast. And I am that somebody. Right, okay, yeah, got it. I was like, if you're a butcher, you should have a podcast. And he's like, a butcher? Yeah. I've got this leg of lamb. This is the wine that you should have with this leg of lamb.

1:02:14 You put it in Gas Mark 5. Yeah. I don't know. Four hours. I don't know how you put lamb. We're going to call it Prime Cuts and drop in some hip-hop beats to that podcast as well, I think. That would be like totally unusual. I was like, people do podcasts on anything. Can you find a podcast on knitting, for goodness sake? Yes, there's a podcast on knitting. So it must work. The more niche, the better, to be fair. And that for me is, there's a lot of dads' communities out there and stuff. And someone said to me, Wasn't there a danger if you talk about dads rebuilding after divorce, separation, loss?

1:02:52 Isn't it a danger you're just going to get stuck in the misery of that? And it was a valid point that she said, but I'm really clear that there comes a point, because this has been my journey, where after the drama, there's like a ground zero. We go, all right, okay, now what? And that's what my game is. That's what it is for me and myself and my life and my children's life. And it is the game for the Team Super Dad community. It's that moment where the dad consciously says to them, now what? And that's how it came for me. I was up a mountain. How am I going to fix this? And as I kept asking that question, I was like, okay, all my life experiences, a bit like the foot on the firewalking, the personal development, the divorce, the deaths, the mum when I was losing my mum when I was a kid, all of it.

1:03:39 You suddenly go, what if I was given all of this as an experience to then give back to others? And that's where Team Super Comeback. As ridiculous as this question sounds, the question is: what is the gift? What is this gift that I've been given? Yeah. Tony Robbins. Robbins says, What if your worst day was your best day? Yeah. And then, and people go, What? How can my worst day be my best day? Well, my worst day was my kids being abducted by a long stretch. I've had others that are quite close to it, but that was the one. And when I look back at that now, that was my best day because I would still be in that path of beating myself up and all that kind of thing.

1:04:25 Instead, that was the trigger for me to go, I'm not putting up with this. Let's be the man that I've always known I am. And so that was how I turned my worst day into my best day. And every day since then, I've been grateful for that. Because now the life that we lead, you know, it's not perfect, but we're definitely heading in that direction. That's the direction that we're going. We never get to perfect, as we said, but you know, that's my learning. That's my gift. And I've been fortunate to receive that gift. And not many other people have got that gift. And I'm not saying you should go out and find that. No, but it's so because it can change. But I think that's such a in the sorry, I'm quite moved by that, to be honest.

1:05:09 Because I've had those dark days, you know, you've been through them. I've been through, like, I can pick them and that precipice type flipping, looking over the edge. And if you can say to yourself, actually, what if today was the start of everything? What if this awful day was the best day? And that's that's not what it's not even a what if it is yeah and change the change the language around it okay I'm gonna make this worst day my best day these are the days that I'm gonna make the decision never to feel like this again I'm gonna step forward in a powerful way I'm gonna do the things that I said I was gonna do last week I'm gonna get them done and I'm gonna have even

1:05:47 more powerful things the week after and boy in one year's time when they see me they'll be like wow how did that happen yeah check everybody's advice that's the gift that is awesome and that's when I say we're gonna create the best life ever I've been challenged on loads of this stuff about Team Super Dad and I was like well no actually create your best life ever is about tomorrow being better than today and next week being better than this week and that's that's how you create your best life ever so so thank you for that as well that's a massive uh I would question why are you even listening to somebody else's opinion I don't believe I am but you know people around me you know ask and so so I'm like no actually it's about this and I feel confident I've got answers and I've and I'm ready to ready to to to feel actually um invigorated by such questions because um it's it's it's I think I'm up to stuff

1:06:41 that on the one hand is is exciting for for on the other hand it's it's it's challenging people people are people naturally worry you know like is is is Johnny doing something crazy again but I have to be I have to be resolute in that but let's say you were doing something crazy yeah like what something crazy to me is working until you're 65 and you get a gold carriage clock and you die at 67 that's what used to happen that's crazy like in my life like I'm in Southampton tonight it's raining why why do we live in rain we've got spin there that's crazy why would you do that why would anybody live in the UK when it's the Spain and the

1:07:20 Spanish lifestyle and going swimming in the sea on Saturday morning but I did it for 40 odd years yeah crazy is different things to different people I think working you know nine to five for a boss you hate I think that's crazy and for most people that's the norm and that's okay and so I did a podcast by the way called You're Crazy Is My Normal. Okay. It was an episode, was it? Yeah. Okay, I'll search it. I'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. Yeah. As an example, you know, working 15 to 20 hours a week. Someone said to me, you know, how many hours do you want to work? And I said, oh, about 20.

1:08:00 And I, oh, gosh, I don't think I could work that many. And they thought it was very funny, you know, because it's supposed to be 40. But that's my normal working week. And there's this Netflix in there. And was it your crazy where are you on the crazy scale? Was that the episode? Could be. That's what thrown up. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Where are you on a crazy scale? Crazy's great. Crazy is where all the fun is. You know, like, all the good girls go to heaven. I don't want to go there then. I want to go where the bad girls are. That's where I want to go. Where are all the fun people?

1:08:38 You're like, you know, the problem is the norm. And in society, if you were to take a bell curve about what people's attitudes are, and everybody had the same attitude right in the middle of that bell curve, how dull is that going to be in life? Yeah. I would rather be at one extreme over the other, and I think I kind of do that. Yeah, no, and when I speak to people in these interviews, you look at successful people, and they're actually percentage-wise, they're a small percentage of society. Um, and they do they both challenge themselves, they challenge norms, um, and reassuringly, the things they do are quite consistent

1:09:21 across those successful people. And it's that expression: um, to do was it you've got to do what other people won't to have what other people want exactly. And if you keep doing the same thing over and over, expecting a different result, that's you know, like marrying the same person, by the way. It's all right, going back to the top of this conversation. I think that's my dating conundrum is a fear of picking the wrong person again. But I'm on the case there. I'm, I'm gonna, I'm, I have a bit of a plan. Actually, I'm just gonna take a leaf out of your book and turn it into a proper plan. I would also add something onto that, and it's we call this a values elicitation, and I think it's something good to end with, really.

1:10:07 Yeah, so values elicitation talks about so let's do it with you in the context of your next relationship, Johnny. What are the three things that are really important to you as values? Yeah, yeah. Um, she's got to be fit, I think, like fitness is something that's that's part of her life, cornerstone. Um, she's got to be uh have a positive mind and spirit, okay, and she's got to be tactile, she's got to be a very touchy person. I don't just mean sexually, you know, she's um, I'm a kind of person that that thrives off holding hands, kissing someone in the morning. Um, and I've been in relationships with people that weren't like that, and it and it just eats away at me.

1:10:49 So, so I can say that really clearly: those three things: fitness, positive spirit, and tactile. So, you basically need to date yoga teachers or physios. Um, they're very tactile and kinesthetic, as we would say. Um, and so it's like, where do those people hang out? Yoga, physio training courses, whatever, right? Yeah, that's where you need to go hang out, and you need to join yoga groups and physio groups, and anything else that's to do with tactile, um, like Zumba teachers, or yeah, okay, anything like that. That's like fish where the fish are. Sounds awful when that, but it's true, right?

1:11:29 No, but why go? I got roasted by a couple of people on Facebook because I posted my kind of vision board thing, and one of them's got a section there, girlfriend and wife, and um, and it's and it's got a list of a list of these things, and it really pressed the buttons of a couple of women. Um, and I was like, listen, the fact that it pressed your buttons probably means that you're not the one, and that's okay because someone out there is the one for you, but but you're not going to be for me. And somebody reading that could be the one, yeah, yeah. And so, why listen to everybody else? There's another saying, um, I wouldn't come to you for advice, so why would I listen to your opinion?

1:12:11 Yeah, I love that something else as well. Like, I'm internal with an external check. There are some people who are internal only, and we know those are very, very selfish. And there are people who are external with an internal check, and when they're external, it's always about what other people think. And they'll always wear makeup and they'll never leave the house without me. So, and then it's just external, and they're they, you know, they have to be wearing beautiful gowns all the time or fully made up and have poops. It's always about what other people think, not what they think. And so, you should you should work out where you are on that scale.

1:12:52 So, I'm internal with an external check, I'm a bit crazy, um, but I check every so often, but then I usually don't pay attention to what the external says anyway to do what I want. So, maybe I'll be more internal. So, go find somebody who's internal with an external check. That for me is the ultimate. Um, your head screwed on properly, but they also respect other people's opinions. That's probably more so than I do right now. But you've got a good line of values there that's written down, and now we've got those, and they're just three values. If we went down to ten, you could tighten up on where you would find the ideal person for you. Yeah, and it's not even about looks because, like, if you married, let's take someone, let's take Beyoncé, let's say you adored Beyoncé in 15 years' time.

1:13:38 It's not Beyonce's looks that deteriorate in any way, just as it's not my looks that deteriorate with my wife. It's just my wife's used to me. She can't remember if I'm good-looking or not. If I'm married, Beyoncé, I can't remember in 15. Is she good looking? Everybody else fans. She must be good looking. Yeah, yeah, yeah, she is. Convincing yourself. The looks thing is irrelevant. Anyway, it's about who do you want to be with? Who do you laugh with? Who do you want to spend time with? Who can you be crazy with? Who can you pull funny faces and say silly things and whatever? That's what a relationship is. And the look side is irrelevant. So you need to hang out with

1:14:15 people that are exactly like you've said in those values. It could also be runners, triathlon people, people who do the Spartan race, anything like that. Yeah. So now you need to hang out with those people. Make it so. In a Star Trek reference, I am also a big next generation fan. So we're on the same page there. Well, Daniel, this has been awesome. All your businesses, they can be found at danielatto.co.uk, correct? Yeah, absolutely. The new business for us is where we help business owners retire or we help them sell their business.

1:15:01 And we've got lots of different solutions for that. And so that'll be up and running in the next couple of days on the website. But all the property stuff that's up there, all the digital content that's up there, all the podcasts that's up there. But you can just go find me on Google or whatever. You can come and join me on my Facebook page and make contact and give me abuse or tell me you love me or whatever. The abuse I don't listen to and it gives me energy to feed off and create more crazy things because I enjoy that. So yeah, I'm all over the place. I'm not a difficult person to make contact with. I'm very open and friendly and communicative. And we get people who come to me and say, I've got this problem and I've never spoken to them before.

1:15:43 And we get all sorts of problems. I mean, literally, all sorts of problems. And we'll help them. You know, I don't care. It's like you ask for my advice, you'll get my advice. You might not like it, but I'll tell you. You know, there's a Yorkshireman in you there. Well, that's what I was going to say. You know, I've been introduced to you in the last six months. I've been on a bunch of your live streams, you know, enjoyed your content and listened to your podcasts. And I'd have said all those things. So you've nicked my acknowledgement from me. But I just want to do want to acknowledge you for being such an open and generous person. And it's evident that the love you give out to people is coming back to you in abundance.

1:16:22 So I really respect your knowledge and experiences that you've shared with us this evening. I know that they're going to be a tremendous value to other people. And if we all can go through life and doing that for others, then the world will be a distinctly better place. So thank you, Daniel. Thank you. I appreciate it. Good stuff. I shall press stop on this. Thanks, everybody. See you in the wrap-up. Wow, that was an awesome interview with Daniel Latto. Thanks, everybody, for listening in, especially those of you who are here to the end, the fabulous 20% crew.

1:17:02 If you have enjoyed this podcast, this interview, then please remember to like and share and rate us in iTunes. I can't wait to read out the iTunes review of the week. And if you are interested at all in creating some of these results that Dan spoke about in the interview in your life, then be sure to come over and look at the rebuild program. Talk to me about the rebuild program. It's the foundational course inside of Team Super Dad. It's a five-week group program. And the beta launch of that is happening right now. So I would really love to welcome you onto that. And let's look at creating the life of your dreams, reconnect with your vision and goals, your values, and then really put that into play and achieve exactly what you want for your life and your children and your future relationships.

1:17:51 And yes, I will be working on my dating subjects. If you haven't been to the website, you want to know the address, then it's teamsuperdad.com. And of course, Team Super Dad HQ on Twitter and Instagram. And search us up, Team Super Dad, on Facebook. I can't wait to see and meet you all as this program and community grows. Thanks again for listening. Johnny Jensen, this is Johnny Jensen, and we are Team Super Dad out of bay. This has been Team Super Dad. Find us at Team Super Dad.com.

1:18:31 Join the rebuild program and create the best life ever for you and your children. You are not alone. You're on Team Super Dad.