Fatherhood, Freedom and Rebuilding feat Lee Smith

00:00 Most men talk about success. The real wisdom lives in the comeback. In the first Comeback Kings episode, Lee Anthony Smith shares his lowest points, talks about his rebuild and the focus that turned him into a deal maker who helps others find freedom. Role theme. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show, where modern dads discover how to create the true riches, relationships and results they deserve. Get your high value man blueprint and join our community at highvalue manproject.com. Let's go. Hello men. Welcome to the Johnny Jensen show.

00:41 It is me, Johnny Jensen. Yes, founder and head coach at the High Value Man Project. It's been a couple of weeks, I think. Well, no, 10 days, certainly. And I apologise for that. But sorry, not sorry. I have been building out our new school group. If you've used school, if you've heard about it, it's basically a community app with a coaching sort of section classroom, loads of community engagement. Basically, all the things that you might associate with perhaps a Facebook group is now off of the bloody FB in somewhere where you've got much more control, privacy, and it's just great, actually.

01:21 So if you go to highvalumanproject.com forward slash group, that will get you in there. It's free at the moment at the base camp level. You can get into inner circle. There's a founder rate in there. So all the stuff that we talk about on this show is available in there. In this episode, we're going to be interviewing another guest, an awesome guy called Lee Smith. Lee Anthony Smith. I got his name wrong so many times because it's three parts to it. It's three parts to it. And it's just confused me. Where have I put it? Where have I put it? I can't even find the show notes I made. What have I done with it? Have I pulled it out into a separate?

02:02 I can't even find them. Now I feel really self-conscious that I'm going to get his name wrong. Anyway, we recorded it a couple of weeks ago and that's why that's basically happening. I'll look it up whilst I'm rabbiting onto you. He's a dude. We met each other on LinkedIn and we got talking. He basically is a businessman. He now buys and sells businesses, Lee Anthony Smith. I did get it right. I did get it right. It's just that his name's Lee. The Anthony bit is random, but apparently there's another Lee Smith. I don't know whether he's a gunman or a porn star, but anyway. Yeah, so Lee's a dude, basically, a dad, couple of kids, different mums.

02:44 There's a whole divorce story in there and sharing about what it, you know, how he came to be in both those relationships. A bit of fun about a curious early career business that he alludes to that I think I guessed it. This happens quite a lot on podcasts. The most random thought comes into the top of my head and I just say it. And then the guest goes, yeah, that is what happened actually. So anyway, if you tune, you know, keep listening and you will hear the random business that I guessed, which I think I was pretty, pretty close, actually. If you lived in London in the 90s and ever used a public phone, then you might have an idea of what I was talking about.

03:27 So the Comeback King series, I had an idea for doing this years ago. And it's all about the journey and the experience of men who have come back, no surprise, from some kind of adversity or challenge. We interviewed Mark Ormrod. If you go back in the podcast, I think it was probably when it was the Team Super Dad podcast, but go back a bunch of episodes. I'll just search Mark Ormrod in my show listings. And he's a classic one, a soldier, got half his flipping arm and both legs blown off in Afghanistan. And it's incredible his comeback story and what he's creating now in this new life kind of is a new guy, new body.

04:10 He could be pretty miserable and down about what happened. And yet he's created a whole new life. And Lee is an example of that as well. He now, as an investor, buys and sells companies, turns them around, does whatever, brings in other partners to lead them. And it's, you know, that's great. And that's like kind of where we're at today. But we have to remember it's the journey. It's the lessons we learn along the way that make us the man we are today. As I like to say, you got to go through today to become the man you're meant to be tomorrow.

04:50 And that's what the comeback series, Comeback Kings series is about. If you've heard anyone on another podcast or you think that might be you, it's got to be fun. It's got to be. It's got to be someone interesting so we can keep the energy up. I struggle when it's really flat. Yeah, whether that's you or whether you've got a guest you've heard another podcast, feel free to recommend them, send them my way, or just let me know and I will reach out to them. As I said, the school group is live. The inner circle has got a founder's offer, which is ridiculously discounted. And the base camp is a free level of access anyway. So highvalue manproject.com forward slash group.

05:32 I will see you in there. Without further ado, let's get on with the guest episode with Lee Anthony Smith. Lee, it's great to have you here on the Johnny Jensen show. We obviously met on LinkedIn. For listeners who don't know you, tell us a little bit about yourself. Okay, so my name's Lee. I'm based in Southeast London, UK. And for the last 12 years, been acquiring businesses and now on a journey to help others with financial freedom. Awesome. And you're a dad, as I understand? Got two children. I've got a daughter of 24 years old and a son of 13 years old.

06:14 Okay, good. Other than the gender difference, you're ready to go the teenage roller coaster again. I'm in the storm. I said for the first time the other day when someone asked me, oh, yeah, because my kids' birthdays are both about to come up. I was like, oh, yeah, they're basically 16 and 14. And it just hit me. Like, I think because around those six and four was just a painful time because it wasn't long after the breakup. It was also a magic time because we just had so much fun tissing about as ourselves. And then there I was going, oh, they're 16 and 14. And it just was really present to okay, I've got two young adults in my life now. Yeah, it's so much easier when they're a lot younger.

06:59 Yeah, exactly. You've got a rich journey of family stories as well as business stories. And this episode, as people would have just heard me in the uh rolling, talking about the Comeback King series. And it's really powerful to hear men talk about their journey and what you know the lessons they've learned. And inside the high value man, we know we're big on that balance between home life, family life, your personal well-being, and then with the business successes as well. Your journey in terms of business, has it always been finance you've been involved with or where does your business journey start? Definitely not. So we grew up on a council estate. My dad was that typical great role model, big, strong scaffolder in construction, real man's man.

07:42 So he was an amazing role model. And then I just had hundreds of jobs. I was temping, working for Ratner's Jewelers, famously made redundant after what he came out in the news and said, and then just floated around, had no idea what I wanted to do. Was very disruptive at school. So I left pretty clueless and then just started working in jobs. And I was just friendly, making friends with people higher up the chain, and then got invited into doing finance for a law firm. And it pretty much took off from there. Started doing accountancy, gave up after kind of a year and a half of studying it. But through the journey, started realizing that every time I looked at my payslip, I saw P-A-Y-E and N-I.

08:27 And I was like, who the hell is taking all this money out of my payslip? Yeah. So after I figured stuff out, I went freelance pretty, pretty quickly and then started setting up my own small businesses. And yeah, the journey went on from there. Wow. So how old were you when you started your first business? It was late 1990s. So it was about 26, 27. Okay. And was there a big motivator there? Was there a point in life? You know, was it just purely a young bloke with the desire to be in control of his own destiny?

09:09 Yeah, that's a good one. I've only thought about this recently. So there were three role models in my life. There was my father, who was big, strong, always took us out and kind of showed me that kind of manly side of stuff. There was a guy called Uncle Mick in our family. He would turn up in a Lamborghini Lotus, took us out on a kind of super yacht. And we, you know, we were coming from like council estates. I was like, wow, who is this guy? Yeah. And then I had my uncle was an accountant, which is why I got into finance because I was like, he's the richest in our family. Let me get into finance. And but this other guy, Uncle Mick, was always in my brain thinking, how the hell is he doing what he's doing?

09:48 How is he there? And we're down here. And my dad's kind of a good friend with him. So these role models. without thinking about it, were subconsciously affecting me. And I only realized that probably in the last kind of five to ten years, how much they actually affected me. Yeah. And what was your, you know, as a young bloke, what kind of, what was your personality like? Were you, you know, pretty outgoing or something different? Yeah, I was the young, I was the youngest of three boys. So I was very cheeky, especially at school. I was always on the back of the class, being disruptive, never rude or like vandalist vandalism, but I was definitely cheeky, definitely pushing the boundaries, didn't like homework, didn't like being told what to do.

10:30 Again, taking off to my father, he was a very strong figure. He didn't like being told what to do. And that definitely followed. And yeah, very proud to say that's that's stood me well over the years with everything that's happening in the life. Yeah, yeah. The you know, coming out of school, you've kind of answered this already, but I take it exams weren't too much of a priority and stuff for you, were they? I think I was pretty much top of the class for quite a long time. Oh, okay, right. Until I got in with the wrong group of guys, probably when I was about 12, 13. And from there, it was all about fun. It was all about fun, being mischievous, and then left school. My GCSEs were shocking. And so much so that they wanted to stay on three levels.

11:14 And they said, no, you're too disruptive. You don't know what you want to do. So thankfully, thankfully, they didn't let me stay on. And I just went straight into a job working at a jeweler's and then quite quickly became top salesperson, became assistant manager, then made redundant, then aimless, then followed my kind of uncle's footsteps into finance. And then that's when entrepreneurship really started when I became self-employed. Yeah. And were you in, you know, this age 26, you're starting your first business. Were you in a relationship at that time? What was this? What's the story behind, you know, kind of your love life and relationship side of things?

11:54 No, I was pretty reckless. So I was working for this law firm, Freelance, started my first two companies based out of Mayfair DJ Agency and another entertainment business, which I won't go into too much detail. Was it involving phone boxes? Why possibly? Oh, right. Okay. By a very unique niche at the time. There was only one other person doing this. So it was, it was really fun. All my friends really wanted to be my best friend at that point. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. That was a wild shot. I was completely just,

12:37 yeah, I don't know what I was doing. But yeah. Did you know what happens quite often when I'm doing the podcast? Almost half, half joke thing to say. And then someone goes, yes, that's true. How did you know that? Oh, okay. Right. And then we just move on like awkwardly, you know. I forgot the original question now. Yes. And that was about love life and relationships. I'm just interested to hear the sort of the like everything with high value man, it's always about the two sides of it, the two sides of the man, you know, and hearing your story there. You know, it's very similar in entrepreneurs, in men that are happy to take risks. That experience through school of being cheeky, never really, you know, horrifically smashing things up or breaking the law.

13:20 But, you know, in terms of exams and focus and everything, probably what they call today, you know, ADHD and things like that. But yeah, I've come to that conclusion as well. Yeah. I was always daydreaming, looking out the window, didn't like just listening to someone talk, very visual, like more hands-on stuff. Yeah, yeah. And then the relationship side of things is really interesting as well. Hearing how men are in their youth and their attitude towards relationships, I find generally shapes a lot of the decisions we make, good or bad, basically. Yeah, I wasn't, I definitely wasn't a good example. Yeah, now I've got a daughter.

13:58 That's hopefully I'm on the mend. I'm on definitely a better person. But when I was when I was running those first two businesses, one of them, a little bit questionable, I went to get some marketing material done. So I went to a design house. I can't remember the name of it. And it was on a Saturday. And I walked in and instantly fell in love with the woman in there. So I was getting some material printed up. And this was a business in that kind of sector where it could possibly be frowned upon. Anyway, long story short, fell in love with this woman, walked outside the store,

14:35 rang the shop number and asked if she had go on a date with me. And thankfully she said yes. Anyway, so that blossomed and she was the mother of my daughter in the end. But that business that was really exciting went by the wayside because it wasn't really. really compatible with a solid relationship, let's say. Yep. And that was probably the start of where I went on a journey that probably the hero's journey, you know, great relationship. I wasn't the perfect kind of guy. I was probably a little bit warped, a bit like my dad, a bit of a womanizer. Didn't really have the... really good grounding of being good to women at the at the time.

15:19 And then my daughter was born, whole new realization of what the world means, first sense of real purpose. Yeah, and how old were you when your daughter was born? 28. Right. So two years after you started your business, some level of whirlwind relationship, falling in love head over heels. Did you get married or swerve that bullet? Didn't swerve. I yeah, I probably didn't do the right thing. I was, you know, I was, I was in that DJ world. Yeah. So I wasn't, yeah, I definitely wasn't as good as a boyfriend, fiancé as I should have been. I asked her to get engaged way too long down the process, ended up not working out.

16:01 She left me and she had every right to. But then that led on to disagreement with access to our daughter. Right. Which led me onto a whole other journey. The magic of the Comeback King series is hearing exactly what men have gone through to reach the highs, then experience the lows. And, you know, it's never an even curve. And just to meet a guy and have them say, oh, yeah, it's been plain sailing from beginning to end. Well, something's going to go wrong sooner or later. But the experiences we go through are generally what shape us. And I'm a huge believer in, you know, it's not so bold to say, oh, destiny, like it's our destiny, but certainly around energy.

16:44 You know, we very much get shaped by the experiences and become the person we are, which if we've capitalize on those experiences, probably means we get to be more for others. And that's the responsibility. That's the opportunity that comes from life and the lessons and the experiences that we go through. You know, for many men listening in, that single dad experience and working out what it means. It's been 10 years now since my breakup. And still you see people on Facebook and the experience is almost identical. And then I get into a conversation like with yourself and people that were, they were broke, they had a divorce 10 years before. And my dad and his third wife was 30 years before. And you find out it's still a very similar experience.

17:27 And that's not only about the legal framework, but the experience of being a man and losing that relationship and the contact with our kids and that experience. So I do believe it is powerful to the degree that you want to share some of that. You know, what was it like, you know, fighting for time with your kids? And also, how was the business going at the time? People's businesses often struggle when separations are happening. Yeah, so it definitely wasn't a successful business. And the older I get, I'm learning a lot more about myself. So back then, I was running a very small business, probably low six figures, 100K kind of plus revenue, which was, you know, 20 years ago.

18:10 It was kind of great. It was like a high-paid job almost. But then when I was stopped access to my daughter, that was 100% the lowest point of my life. But the older I get, the more I realize pretty much what you said is those experiences, I don't regret now because you realize what you're really made of. It brings something out of you that you thought you never had. So I was denied access. I was going through family courts and I was always brought up, you know, watching movies. Of course, there's justice. Of course, they're going to say, of course, why not have shared access? And I was going for 50-50 access.

18:51 I wanted to be there as much as I could for my daughter. It was the best thing that had ever happened to me. And I was denied access, not only by the mother, but by the courts, which completely blew my mind. I was like, why would anybody do that to someone that wants to see their child? Which led me down a path of joining Fathers for Justice and doing all sorts of different activities to try and highlight what was going on. So even though it was the darkest period, it was a period that made me who I am today, which I'm really grateful for. And funny enough, my daughter, she often says to me, I can see how much you've grown through the experience.

19:28 We've got a great relationship now. So although I lost precious years, I feel like I gained something even more through the process. It's really hard, really hard to explain to someone going through it. No, I've got goosebumps. it's so hard to say to a dad who's not seeing their kids at the time and in the despair of the time after the breakup, hang in there. It gets all right. And I remember someone saying that to me, and I was like, what the hell do you know? But he literally did know, you know. And to get to a point in my journey with that, my kids are both thriving to be able to say confidently, I make the most of my time when they're with me and I make the most of my time when they're not with me.

20:12 And, you know, who's to say what normal looks like? And, you know, there's stories, so many, just like the one that you've shared, other dads, people have heard me share it before. Recently, a couple of years ago, a girl walks up to a guy from the high value man in a pub and says, I think you're my dad. And in that moment, the last two years have been created, this reconnection and building a relationship, relationship up there. And he was similar story prevented from seeing it. It wasn't that he was absent. He was told he wasn't allowed to see it for no sound reason. But that's wonderful. And you shared with me your character.

20:51 You're Iron Man, weren't you? I was Iron Man. I was doing everything I could to raise publicity. I started a group on Facebook called Father's Rights, which I did for a long time, trying to help other people in the same situation. Then I started child rights because someone said to me, why, why are you just focusing on dads? So I thought, okay, yeah, let's, this is actually about the kids. So I started child rights. Yeah. So I was really active. And then something, yeah, long story short, but then I met somebody new, which really triggered the darkest part of my ex-partner. She had moved on to somebody else, left me for somebody else, which she had every right to do. But as soon as I met somebody, that's when the daggers really started twisting in.

21:34 And then I quite quickly had a had a baby boy in 2012. And it was like, oh my God, I'm a dad. I thought I had a daughter, which I thought was magical. Yeah, I wanted to, you know, suddenly I had a boy. I'm like, oh, my God, this is, this is amazing. Yeah. But I was going through this shit still. And then through searching, I found, just came across Tony Robbins. Okay, great. So through this dark place I was in, I was crying out for help. It was a magazine. I saw an article walk on fire. I was like, fuck it. Let's do it. And signed up immediately. It was two months later. And those four days, I went from being this broken, broken down man into someone that walked out and could literally walk through a brick wall.

22:27 Complete, complete transformation in four days. I was no longer depressed, no longer down. I had a mission and a purpose. And I was going to be successful to show my daughter what I was made of. And also a little bit of success is the best revenge was kind of in my head as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There was a bit of both. But I'm so grateful to go to go on that event and walk out a different person. I was cured in those four days. Yeah. Yeah. And Tony Robbins, for anyone who doesn't know, which there are people out there, right? There are one of the sort of you call it the modern, modern leaders of personal development.

23:08 So you can search him up and see a load of what Tony does. And dear, definitely. There was, I had a Tony Robbins moment in my journey, sitting there watching TV, stoned about two o'clock in the morning. You know, late, late, his infomercial came on. And I haven't been to the four-day event. What's it called? UW? Yeah, Unleash the Power Within. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. And he really does do that as well. Yeah. But the magic of, you know, I had a very transformational journey and time going through landmark education programs. And one thing I've learned as I've matured during that process is how wide and available the subject of personal development, personal growth, self-awareness is.

23:52 And whether that's, you know, as faith-based or psychology-based, anything else in between, people need to consider there's more to how our brain works and how we see ourselves than we're brought up with. Yeah, 100%. And Tony was the first, was the start of everything. It definitely ignited that flame. And from then I went on to learn, study NLP because obviously Tony's a master at NLP. Yep. And wow, if anyone hasn't studied NLP, even like a two-day like basic course, for me, if that was taught at schools, the world would be a much richer, happier place, I think. Massively so. Massively so. Neuro-linguistic programming, people. So here you are now.

24:36 How old were you when you did when Tony Robbins weekend? So that was 2020. 2012. So I was 39. Okay, so you're 39. You got a young baby boy, a teenage girl. You're still dealing with the ex. How are your finances at this time? They were okay. They were okay. I was running an IT company at this point, which again was doing about 100, 100K revenue. There was two of us. I started it, brought somebody in. And again, after Tony, I signed up to Tony's business mastery course to try and accelerate what I was already doing in my business.

25:19 And at that time, I just thought it was all about grow, grow, grow. What I've learned now is I wasn't the right person to grow that business. I'd started several companies, but I was actually crap at running a business. And it took me a long, long, long time to realize that. So through all of my NLP and visualizing, I came across mergers and acquisitions in 2013. And that was the trigger point that took me from small business owner to finally the person that I always had an idea that I could become, but I had no idea how. I had no idea of that stepping stone, the route to financial freedom.

26:02 Yeah. And that's, that's a magic about life there is that as men, and I dare say it happens to women as well, right? But there's an expectation and an impatience that we should have arrived somewhere sooner than where we had done already. And yet in that story that you've just shared, it's almost like not a surprise that you'd be like, and then I was 39 and old enough to realize that, you know, this area, this opportunity, this way of doing business, this skill set, this awareness as a man, this is now my time to go out and make money. So there's a, I like to talk about that as a faith, having a faith in the, in the journey and putting the work into ourselves and having the faith that it's going to work out.

26:46 Was there anything that you were doing for yourself around that time? So you mentioned Tony Robbins there, but is there role models or people you'll be people you were putting around yourself at that time that was that was part of this catalyst? So virtual mentors, I would say. So like I say, Tony lit that flame. And then from Tony, I thought, right, what does Tony know? Who does Tony learn from? So Tony was mentored by someone called Jim Rohn. So I went out, downloaded all of Jim Rohn's material everywhere. I would drive. I would listen to Jim Rohn, digest and literally consume his entire philosophy for myself. So I learned off of Tony about modeling. So I'd model all of the people who I thought I wanted to be.

27:29 I was doing lots of visualization processing, you know, vision boards, all of these kind of things, almost incantations of where I wanted to be, where I wanted to get to. And throughout that constant, constant process, I believe is how I come across mergers and acquisitions, which was the solution to all of my incantations and visualizations. And that would be different for everybody. But I wasn't a good operator. I was entrepreneurial. I liked business. So M ⁇ A just fitted perfectly for the person I was. Yeah. Okay, great. So then your relationship then, you got the kid, everything plain sailing from that point.

28:06 I mean, oh, no, it was, it was a different kind of nightmare to the original one. My partner was Latin American. I'm not generalizing, but as soon as she became pregnant, it was a very volatile relationship. And I was obviously going through Tony Robbins. I was trying to be the best person I could. And I had the most insanely volatile home relationship ever for whatever reason. It was just completely volatile. And maybe it was some of that was probably highlighting the volatility I had in myself, I guess.

28:48 So I just didn't stop. I just started practicing meditation. So just another tool set, tool in my artillery. I just kept learning different things, keep progressing forward. My home life was insane. So I'd learn meditation to get it out of my head and be able to deal with anything that was thrown at me. Business was stressful. Home life was stressful. So I just kept learning tools that would arm me for everything that I was that was around me. And yeah, it's probably only in the last 12 months that home life has actually got really good. And there's loads of factors to that, I imagine.

29:33 And that, you know, that for me, when I... I see men who've got stress at work and stress at home you know it's it's then a case for me to say okay well you're in danger of burning out here there whether it's mentally physically emotionally or all three of them there's going to be a crash here you've said meditation was part of how you kept yourself going oh my god is was there a you know a looking back was there some layers of responsibility that you could have taken that would maybe preserved you at that time or in retrospect could have helped as well yeah meditation was a savior but the clash was I'd met this

30:16 woman lovely woman mother of my son but we yeah we got in we got involved too quickly we very quickly had a child yeah my process now in hindsight spend six months with somebody before you have a child 100 pretty cool you know my do you know my story my story goes from first kiss to proposal was six weeks wow and i don't i mean i regret is a strong word right but certainly at the time it was exciting and and i was all in i would definitely be advising my son to do things differently and yes

30:58 from six months to first child to conception i'm gonna stretch that out a little bit more i'm probably going 12 and subject to age as well subject to how old they are blimey but that's that's another whole whole whole kettle of kettlefish totally is getting married a good idea is you know all that sort of stuff yeah but yeah so you said you know certainly now you're looking back you'd say right at least six months you know would have been better definitely i think it was you know i just i just got my bachelor pad to myself i thought right great and then within a month of meeting this person pregnant and here we are child on the way completely volatile wasn't ready for it

31:39 i was still not the right person to be in a long-term relationship so i still had commitment issues so yeah it's definitely it's been one of those long drawn out journeys but definitely worthwhile i've got a lot to to explain to my child now that no one had ever explained to me probably was probably the reason why yeah and that that's powerful there lee to to realize rather than being a distinct failure on your part there was a bank of knowledge that you were missing and you know for all of us there rarely is a manual that we get given of you know how to be a great dad how to be a great businessman how to like this is generally trial and error unless we've had the benefit of some really great role models around us at the at the perfect time and that's rare really yeah i mean my dad like i say was a great role model but in hindsight i wish someone had taught me that don't get a credit card

32:33 don't build up debt simple stuff when you meet somebody you know wait six months a couple of things that would have mind you i've got no regrets so again and that's that's that for me is you wouldn't be the man you are today without those choices without those bizarre uh choices and i've been speaking for myself there absolutely um interesting though that many men will be reluctant to go out on a limb be you know stick in their comfort zone you sound like someone who's quite willing to take those risks who's quite willing to follow their the energy the adrenaline of the moment what can you say to men who are more risk averse

33:14 about your sorry what can you say to them about your version especially the world we live in right now we live in a highly volatile world which i think is going to be extremely difficult in the next five years for a number of reasons if you're risk averse and you're waiting for something to come along and save you i think you need i think you need to wake up and actually take some action because it's not just cost of living crisis all these kind of headlines and narratives they come out with it's going to escalate inflation is going to escalate housing is being chomped up by big corporations if you don't act now i think in five years time you're

33:54 going to be really regretting not taking action it's highly important for everybody to kind of step up and find something that they like doing or move to some location where there's maybe more going to be more choices in the future i think the uk is definitely on the wrong trajectory like a lot of people know so without without risk there isn't reward yeah exactly and you're as i understand it you're you're exploring different places to possibly live in in due course is that still the case 100 Finally, I managed to get my wife to agree to my chosen location.

34:36 And it's only chosen for a certain reason. And it's only chosen for a certain timeframe as well. But with the trajectory of where the UK is going, our plan is to move to the UAE for two years until my son finishes school. He doesn't like school in the UK. I don't think the school system is very good, but the schools in UAE are very good. It's very safe. Taxes are obviously beneficial. And I just think it's a good place for the family to go for two years and then travel around Asia for a bit. Yeah. Magic. I mean, magic. And I love the fact that,

35:13 you know, you just shared there that it wasn't perhaps an easy conversation. And rather than digging into your personal life in that respect, managing those challenges in relationships. Do you found yourself to be a better partner these days? You're able to navigate those ups and downs together with your partner? Definitely. Definitely. I have a lot more patience. Hopefully, I'd like to think I've got a lot more wisdom. I'm a lot calmer. So yeah, I can kind of reason with a level head and explain the reasons why the choices are the choices and it's only for a certain period.

35:51 So yeah, the family's taking my son's very excited, but my wife was very apprehensive because she had certain perceptions because there's lots of perceptions in the media of how it is in UAE and it's just not the case. And I think from her researching, she now sees that's not the case. So she's quite excited about it. And have you managed to maintain a balanced approach there? Because I get a sense you can be like, no, no, we're going to do this. Or you need to realize or you need to, and actually, for different people, and if we're talking in particular about the dynamics between men and women, there's a different decision-making process, which if we've got patience, can often end up at the same end point if we're prepared to give it the space it needs and be the right person ourselves

36:34 in that journey. Yeah, this has been a long conversation. I've been wanting to move outside of the UK probably for 15 years. Again, my dad was a good inspiration for this. He retired 20 years ago to Spain. Great lifestyle. He would never move back here. I love it over there. So Spain was probably the top choice until we looked at taxes and yeah, taxes probably. So yeah, UAE is the short-term choice. And then longer term, maybe Spain, maybe South America, maybe Asia. We don't know yet. The world is forever changing right now and it's speeding up. Yeah, absolutely. Well, AI is changing everything. What the world's going to be like for our kids is, you know, it's unbelievably different.

37:19 Yeah, that's definitely a big thought process for me at the moment. Yeah, meeting my kids. And just in respect to that part about being a dad, what kind of a dad are you? And, you know, again, it's not about picking holes in you, but I find it, you talked before about I finally had a vision for where I wanted to go in my life. What does the vision for you as dad look like? And how do you live up to that? That's a tough one there. So my vision is quite simple. I try and follow in my father's footsteps, which I did at the early stages of my daughter.

37:58 And when my son was younger, I tried to take them out on weekends, have as much fun as possible, have as much adventure as possible. But now my son's 13, that there is a definite clash because, as you may appreciate, because you speak to lots of people, he's 13. He spends way too much time on a computer, on a headset, having conversations with people in the virtual world, even though they are actual friends of his. They're not just random people. That is highly, highly, highly frustrating. And I do struggle with that. Luckily, I've got an IT background. So I restrict time. I restrict websites. I monitor, but he spends way too much time. And I really,

38:41 my dad was always taking us out in nature. I love nature. I want to be climbing mountains with him. I want to be like canoeing across rivers with him, like doing real father-son stuff. But at the moment, it's just not, it's just not going to happen because he's very much against it, very much in the tech world. Another reason for wanting to move to UAE so we can go and travel the region more, do more fun things, because we're a little bit stuck in the rut. Yeah. Where we are right now. It's pretty tough. Yeah. And how do you talk to him about that? Do you do you share that vision? Yes. Yeah, we do. We clash heads.

39:20 I explained to him there has to be some kind of balance. If you're going to spend because. it's the summer holidays, if you're going to spend four or five hours on your computer playing a game, you've got to balance that out with gym time, exercise, reading a book. And up until 18 months, he was, you know, reading lots of books. I had him reading religiously. And in 18 months, suddenly clicked. Doesn't want to read. Boring, completely in tech zone, jumping from PC to TV. And it's highly frustrating for me. But I do have a plan. And that plan is to move to a physical, different location, get him more active in school, different school activities in a different region, and then start exploring a brand new region and try and make more adventure.

40:06 Yeah. Which seems very difficult where we are. Yeah, I can understand. Do you have the patience to see it, you know, to let him work it out himself? That's a good question. I'm not very good at patience, but yeah, I'm being extremely patient this summer holiday and doing things I would that are grinding grinding me down but I'm just going with the flow as much as I can awesome so you know just uh kind of wrap leading into the final set of questions really it's brilliant that you've created this business for yourself over the last 12 or so years what does it look like for you in terms of being that leader and evolving your business now what's where you know where do you get your motivation and

40:53 knowledge from now um my knowledge so i've now learned off of four mergers and acquisition specialists over the years so i've been buying businesses for 12 years so i've bought 27 companies in the last 12 years through this mergers and acquisitions journey i now own four companies they've all got operational people running those companies so i spend roughly one to two hours on each of those businesses a week my my day job is going out hunting for more business deals and what drives me now what motivates me is helping those operational people and my business partners to become financially free

41:33 because like i said before it's it's essential i can see what's happening i can see the trajectory of not just the uk across europe across the the western world if you're not financially free in the next few years i think it's going to be a pretty miserable place so that that's driving me it's not just about myself i'm bringing a team of people along with me and now also masterminding helping people find the same journey as well become owners of assets and diversifying their wealth not just across the uk across different jurisdictions beautiful is that something that people need skill in

42:10 at this time or it's something that anybody can learn and adapt to i'm seeing lots of people come come into the space there's property investors moving into the space there's employees so i brought i met two employees who were working at um different kinds of corporations and i brought them along the journey made them equal partners in business acquisitions instant seven figures one of them i exited last year left him with an eight figure business he was an employee before he didn't have business skill set and so no so my mission is to bring people along that are just ambitious and and know there's more to life than what they're they're currently doing and want to have freedom of choice freedom of time

42:50 freedom of location it's just trying to find more people that have got that drive yeah exactly and that's something that you see missing in too many people too many men today i'm encouraged yeah younger generation definitely but they've got a different type of business mindset my son wants to be an esports gamer and you know that worries me he sits on the computer all day but when i see what it looks like surrounded by a stadium it's just like footballers it's the modern kind of football heroes the e-gamers so there's definitely there's definitely enough people out there i've had quite a few people approach me on social media and say that you know they want someone to help them on the journey so

43:35 yeah it's quite encouraging because i think we all need some kind of legacy we all need to build something otherwise what what's the point yeah having that sense of why uh is a is a point i come back to so much in my coaching work with men you know with a with a strong sense of why you can really overcome any adversity absolutely purpose purpose is a big driver yeah indeed and just finally a point i hadn't really touched on your own well-being how do you look after yourself you mentioned the meditation stuff but what about the other aspects of your life that i put a lot of stock in health and fitness your social life having a sense of adventure and enjoying what's out there what do you do for yourself in that area area?

44:20 Oh, Jim, I love my gym. So, my morning routine this morning was an hour gym workout, which has changed over the years as I get older. So, an hour at the gym and then an hour in the spa. So, sauna, jacuzzi, like ice fountain, cold showers, absolutely love it. And while I'm in a jacuzzi, I would do box breathing exercise to clear my mind and calm down. Normally do Joe Dispenza meditations in the mornings. If I missed that, like I did this morning, I'll do box breathing, which completely clears me for the day. So, yeah, I've got a whole network of tools, and so probably after this, I would do another meditation for my kind of second half of the day because I've got lots of tasks on.

45:04 But so, yeah, I'm surrounded by different tools depending on where I am. And in terms of adventure, I love traveling. So, I've traveled quite a lot this year. I've got a trek in Peru coming up in two weeks, which I'm literally cannot wait. It's my second time in Machu Picchu, so I'm looking forward to that. I don't socialize a lot because I love business, I love what I do, so I tend to socialize with people that do the same as me. So, other mergers and acquisition specialists. I'm building a mastermind so I can, again, have a bit more of a tribe around me of like-minded people that want to build something. So, that's my kind of social aspect. I'm not very good at small talk and talking about football.

45:44 I want to talk about kind of stuff that's more meaningful. Beautiful. And finally, as a dad, as a man who has had those trials and tribulations, the ups and downs, the fighting for your kids, the starting businesses, closing businesses, and reinventing yourself. What does being a comeback king mean to you? What does it mean? Just it means it means everything. Never give in. Doesn't matter what happens to you. There's a book for every situation that you face in life. There is a book. There's books on discipline, resilience, never giving up, how to be wealthy, how to market, how to reinvent yourself.

46:28 Whatever situation you are in, there are literally no excuses. There's audios, there's books, there's videos, podcasts like yourself. You're doing a fantastic job doing what you're doing. Never give in. If you've got a drive, a dream, desire, somewhere you want to be, just find someone that can help you get there. That's it. Pure and simple. Brilliant. How does someone connect with you, Lee, if they want to get involved, find out more about the mastermind or simply connect with you? Where's the best way to do that? You can either find me on LinkedIn. You can Google Lee Smith Investor. I'm on all the social media channels. Now I've had to force myself. Well, I'll get all those links and I'll put them in the show notes as well.

47:13 So anybody listening can definitely get in touch and connect with you easily. Lee, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the Johnny Jensen show today. It's been great. I look forward to catching up again soon. Thank you, Johnny. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Johnny Jensen show. Be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with fellow dads. Creating the life you deserve starts with you. Get your high-value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.