Why Success Is Built On Relationships with Thomas Power

00:00 We know lots of people who are miserably successful with endless amounts of capital and suffering depression. Miserably successful is a real concept. Success depression, you can Google it. It's the quality of the relationships in your life that matter. 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.

00:39 Let's go. Welcome back to the Johnny Jensen Show. It's great to have you here. My name is Johnny Jensen. I am the founder and head coach of the High Value Man Project, where modern dads get to take control of their lives and create the man and dad that they know they want to be through our proven system of living. Today's Comeback King episode is featuring a long time friend. I've known Thomas since 1998. He is a tech entrepreneur and been involved with everything to do with the internet since its inception, working for Sir Alan Sugar at Amstrad and from London to Silicon Valley and beyond, who he doesn't know really isn't worth knowing.

01:25 More recently, he's been a mentor to names such as Jay Shetty, Daniel Priestley, and I count him thankfully as a friend and mentor myself, along with his wonderful wife, Penny Power, and their three kids who are now creating success of their own. If you see them on LinkedIn, you'll know that for sure. Thomas's Comeback King story will give you confidence in following your values, putting family and friends first and really trusting in your vision, knowing that if you stick at it through the highs and lows, a version of it will come to fruition. Whether that's Thomas's e-Academy story, pretty much a precursor to LinkedIn.

02:05 I was a member, you know, 650,000 members around the world, incredible. And through to today with his BIP100 Super Connector community, which you can look up more about yourself via the links in the show notes. To anybody who wants to get more involved with the work that we do at the High Value Man Project, simply go to highvalumanproject.com forward slash group. Otherwise, open up your ears and just feel like you're going to make a friend today as you hear Thomas talk about his journey in the Comeback Kings series. Let's go.

02:46 Today's guest, welcome, Thomas, Thomas Power. I'll tell the story of how we met in a moment, but bloody good to see you. How old? How are you? Thank you for the invitation, Johnny. Yeah, very well. Fitting well. Happy and moving forward. Good. So Thomas is a repeat guest, as I was just letting him know the last time he was on about five years ago. It was early days and it was not the greatest recording. So absolutely brilliant to be able to go over some of that story. But for the listeners, the viewers, Thomas and I go back as far as I was tasked with finding someone who knew about this thing called the internet. It was about 1998 and I worked at an advertising agency. I was a graduate, so just like a 20, 21 year old.

03:27 I was put in this project with a lovely lady called Carol. I don't remember her surname. But anyway, we found this guy called Thomas Power and Thomas Power came into this advertising agency called Interfocus and spoke to the directors about this thing called the internet. And I was absolutely blown away and they thought it was a load of bollocks and I was incredibly embarrassed. And so both of us have probably forgotten those guys' names, but here we are, 30 odd years later, still connected. I consider you a friend, a mentor, an absolutely brilliant guy to have in my life. Do you remember that time, Thomas? You know, the funny thing is, I actually do remember it. Because it was so cringe.

04:06 I do remember it. And I do remember meeting you at, I don't know whether it was that day or another day, but we were out in some business park in out the west of London, Chelsea or Fulham or something. That's where the office was. Kensington, High Street. I can remember it there, meeting you there. And you said they're going to be a bit skeptical and a bit doubtful. And I said, well, and they did think, they did think what I said was bollocks, but you know, you were working for Amstrad then for Sir Alan Sugar, weren't you? Or just you've recently been working for it. Yeah, that was about 10 years before. I was in my mid-two. Actually, I was only 22 when I worked for Alan Sugar, 22, 23, 24.

04:50 Right. I was just... How old are you now? How old are you now? 61. 61. That can't be right, Thomas, because I'm 51. So you've got 10 years of me. You have to be a little... So it was, so. it would have been after your Amstrad days and you'd have been, you'd have been taken on the world. Yes. Yeah. Yes. I mean, I was really introduced to the internet by AOL and CompuServe. Right. That was probably. Well, I mean, actually at Amstrad, 1987, it was BT Telecom Gold email in 1987 on the PC 1640s. That was the first time I ever saw what an email was. And then 8990 AOL and CompuServe.

05:30 And then really IP numbers, a Jazz Ahmed at AKQA introduced me to those. 94. Then we did the internet auction in 95 with Mercedes-Benz. Then I met Jerry Kaplan at onceal.com and Jerry Yang at Yahoo in 96. And all the guys at Lycos, Alta Vista, XSight, Dogpile, Amazon, EBA. I met them all. And then it was 98 when Penny came up with the idea of e-cademy. Good. So we'll dig into that. But just, you know, for people that are listening, you called yourself in the past. So the whole point of the Comeback King stories is, you know, is this journey through people's stories?

06:14 You just mentioned Penny there. You've got three kids as well. You've had multiple businesses. You are known as a bit of a super influencer. And in particular, around the digital space. And that really is the conversation today. And I hope it inspires people both in business and as a father and as a husband as well. Where did your were you always interested in tech and digital? Is that how you found yourself in this world? Yeah, I mean, I do like this comeback king thing that you're working on or comeback queen thing because I really believe it's harder to come back than it is to come. Right. And I've had to come back many times. Getting into tech was really happened back at school in the late 70s, early 80s when Hewlett Packard came in with this sort of pocket calculator computer machine thing.

07:07 And they said that we're going to run a competition, a business game to see how good you are at business. And they did it to the Business Studies A-level group. And this little pocket computer thing, typing in numbers and getting results and a little print out of the side completely fascinated me, I reckon. I don't know, 79, 80. So that's how I got into Spectrum and BBC Micro and BBC Electron. So really, it's, well, it's 45 years. Yeah. So I've been ever since Hewlett Packard walked into school with that computer game, board game, business game thing. And I can't even remember, but I was just transfixed, totally transfixed.

07:52 And I have been ever since. There's a whole topic there about how you excite boys at school about their futures, that's for sure. I'm like a digital fossil. They'll be making oil out of me next. I've been online a long time. I've been online for 35 years. Yeah. We actually know that we know that question, I got it pointed out to me once. I remember the first time it got asked, asking someone, asking a younger person, do you remember what life was like before the internet? And then going, no, what are you talking about? Like there's that line between people who knew life before the internet and people who have no idea what there was a life before the internet.

08:32 Yeah. I think I'm very intrigued by all of your questions because I'm because I've got three children who are now in it and as you said earlier, smashing it. Yeah. Because they've, you know, they've either had it indoctrinated into them by their parents for the last 30 years or they've learned the skill of doing it from their natural ability. Because if you look at, if you look at TJ. So just give us a heads up. You're married to Penny. How long have you been together? Since 1988. Okay, so Penny Power, Thomas and Penny Power. Penny Ross, she was back now. Penny Ross, right?

09:13 Literally the best internet names around. And then you've got three kids. Yeah, we've got Hannah, who was born in 92. So what does that make her? She's 33. Ross, born in 94, so he's 31. And TJ born in 97, so he's 28. Okay, awesome. And they're all internet. They're all internet powerhouses, all three of them. Yeah, they're blowing up on LinkedIn and they're getting married kids. You remind me about over and over and over again because I don't have this knowledge that they have, is that they've all been on YouTube for 20 years. But I didn't get hooked on YouTube in 2005 2005. like they did when it came out.

09:57 I didn't get hooked on YouTube until last 10 years. But they've all been on YouTube for 20 years and they consider they consider that they've been to the University of YouTube or YouTube University because all of their knowledge is from YouTube. Whereas I didn't, I only treat YouTube as my football, my Formula One, my sports, my rugby. I just see it as a subscription I pay like pay for BBC. I don't see it as a learning platform or electric bikes, things I'm interested in. Or finding out about a car I want to acquire. I don't see it as a learning platform. Whereas the three of them see YouTube as their university and they've been on it since 2005.

10:42 So they feel like they've been to university for 20 years. And obviously they've because of mentoring Jay Shetty since 2013 and now Jay mentors the three of them. Me mentoring him for 12 years and then him blowing up. You know, he went for six years 2019 and then just blew up into superstar. Now he helps them. They've had all the YouTube coaching. They've had the J coaching. They've had mum and dad and had their own ability plus all their peers and friends. So they've had a lot of support outside of whatever we brainwash them with NLP since they were born.

11:22 Yeah. That's what I tell my kids. I'm like, you can watch the Minecraft video or that random bloke from India that does the FIFA things that's got millions of subscribers. But could you please also just watch a couple of these other things like Dan Martell, Matt Gray, Daniel Priestley's exploded across the internet recently. Yeah, Daniel's really. Yeah. Daniel's really blown up. But you know, if you think about Daniel, Daniel must be, what, 46. I met him off the plane in 2006. So he'd have been 20, he must be 47. Met him off the plane in 2006 when Roger Hamilton introduced me to him and said, can you take care of this young man?

12:03 He's coming in to help build our business in London. I said, of course. He's exploded this year, but he's, I would say it's only this year that he's got his, what is it? He's at peace with his brand. He's at peace with his identity. One of the things I love about what Daniel's doing is I did Key Purse of Influence. Penny was part of his expert roster as well. They did her sessions there. And here he is. So that would have been, I was still married. There's like Hick API 10 sort of things. That'd been like 2012, something like that. Here he is now, 13 years later, saying the same stuff with even more conviction and power.

12:45 And it's more relevant than ever. It's testimony to sticking with something and then honing your message, basically. Oh, it is. But you know, Johnny, I've been saying community first, commerce second for 20. You have. Let's go back to that. Let's go back to that. It's only now. I had a call last week from somebody I said it to, David Johnson, who's the CEO of CIO of a big tech company in America, Scripps, big publishing company. And he saw my post on LinkedIn last week about community building with Bit 100. And he said, oh, you mentioned this to me in a meeting in the summer of 99.

13:31 Looks like you turned out to be right. And he sent me a WhatsApp. I said, David, I haven't spoken to you about this for 26 years. He said, yeah, but I think you are right. I love being right. And I thought, you know, the disappointing thing for me is all these systems built by Silicon Valley, LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, they're not communities. They're just systems. And I think what people want, people want to be part of a community, a club, a gang, a place where they belong and can say whatever they want and not be judged. And I'm kind of disappointed with the products we've been left with from Silicon Valley.

14:12 I know they've made billions for people and they're great for shareholders and great for advertising. But for me, I'm disappointed by them because I know they're not what people really want or need. People want to belong to something where they can be themselves. And you can't do that with a billion people on a platform. You just can't. No. Well, that's a good question. That's a big topic. Let's get around to that nearer the end. Going back to the top of the story, you mentioned briefly a moment ago, e-Academy was Penny's idea. As the husband. and lover, how did you and Penny meet? Where did that where did that all happen?

14:54 That happened at BiTech Peripherals. That was on Western Road, opposite where Dell started, where Michael started the Dell office first, just around the corner from Taxan Monitors. Used to get a Taxan monitor with a Dell computer. That was September the 1st, 1998. And I just fell in love with her at the meeting, you know, like just she just caught my eye and it's like, whoa, this girl is this girl is hot. And I came out of that meeting with Kevin Roberts, who was working at the we had a telemarketing agency, a call center. And I said, gonna marry that girl, Kevin. And he went, what are you talking about?

15:38 What are you talking about? 18 months later, I did. Awesome. And it took me nine months from that meeting to get a date. So I'm used to, I'm used to no's. I like people to say no to me. This is like Grant Cardone. Grant Cardone stole your story, Thomas. That's his, that's kind of. I like no's. No, no, it's very when people say no, they really are interested. So you asked her out and she said no. Asked her out loads of times and she said no. That sounds like my story. Dating was not a strong, strong suit of mine back in the day. And eventually I went up to, I knew there was a conference in Scotland that she was going to.

16:20 I knew the hotel was in the Hilton in Edinburgh. And I knew at some point she had to check into that hotel. So I got to that hotel at 10 a.m. and I waited all day. I even had to ask people to sit and watch the reception if I needed to run to the loop. And she checked in at 4 p.m. And that was when I moved. I was right behind her. I've sat there for six hours. And I said, oh, Penny Ross. And she went, Thomas Power, you don't give up, do you? And from that lovely movie, Mad Max, you know, you can run, but you can't hide. Yeah. I love that scene. The conversation began and it's been going for

17:07 what is that, 37 years. Oh, brilliant. Oh, yeah. I love Penny. She has as much impact as you do. And obviously, you make such a powerful force in that respect. And we'll come on to how my paths crossed with her more in a moment. So you said earlier Ecademy was Penny's idea. And I was part of Ecademy and all the connections and events that went on there. For people that don't know about Ecademy, tell us about it because it was such a path, what they call it, like a you know, ahead of its time, a community before any other real communities existed. Yeah, I mean, it was a social business network. It was the, it was really the first social network for the small businesses in the world.

17:50 And we really, we really pushed it hard, hard, hard since 98. Lots of events, lots of Chardonnay, lots of parties, lots of networking. And Reid Hoffman from LinkedIn was on it for two years before he launched LinkedIn. A lot of the people who launched social networks were members of Academy. And how did you put it together? Did you just have to find some geeks to help you? Or, you know, we found we worked with a guy called Glenn Watkins initially. And then he found another guy called Julian Bond. And Julian Bond said, you know, you could, you could turn all this, you could turn all these events into an online community using something like called Drupal.

18:34 And we said, what's Drupal? And he said, well, it's a piece of software that allows you to build a community. And you can have blogs and groups and meetups and invites. And didn't understand a word he was saying. And we asked him how much is it for you to do it all? And he gave us a price and we said, let's do it. And he was with us from 2001 to 2012. And we built it up to 650,000 members. Members paid, you know, £2 a month, £10 a month, £100 a month, you know, like a bronze silver gold.

19:11 It was in 60 countries. There are 100 events a week. I've been to more than 2,000 events in 60 countries. I remember going to Mumbai and saying, I'm in Mumbai. If anybody wants to come by the hotel, I'm in the Hilton. If anybody wants to come by for a selfie and a handshake, cup of tea. 800 people waiting outside the door in a line. It's like, what? No, Mr. Oh, Mr. Power, there's all these people waiting to see you. What do you mean, all these people waiting to see me? Well, there's, there's, there's about. there's about seven or eight hundred people waiting to see you, Mr. Parson. What are you talking about? Did the same thing in Singapore, another 800 people, and realized that there was

19:55 there was a real need to belong to something. And Academy was there before LinkedIn or Facebook or Twitter, so there was nothing to belong to, yeah, and therefore it became Hobson's choice. So clearly, a lot of deals were made by people, a lot of introductions are made, a lot of successes. Sorry, that was my phone when you know that's fine. But what was what was the what come on? Come on, I know there's a story here, but you know, what was your end game and how did you get there? How close were you to get there? Well, I think we got those are really good questions. Our end game was to build a community, a subscription-based, paid-for community, which you did.

20:40 That was that was there, which we which we achieved, and we thought that would be a sustainable model forever. But when Facebook was free, and LinkedIn was free, and Twitter was free, and Instagram was free, and everything was free. That's what killed us because we didn't have an audience who were going to consume ads and click on ads. SMEs are not, they're not consumers, they don't click on ads. And so we it wasn't that vibe, though, was it? It wasn't that kind of environment. Yeah, we tried to be sort of no sponsors, no speakers, no pitchers. We always wanted to be a business community, a support group for SMEs where they could feel safe and talk through all the issues about being an SME.

21:24 It's hard to be an SME and have a safe place to talk, but we couldn't withstand the free attack from Silicon Valley. And by 2012, we were beaten into the ground. So we had to. Did anyone try and buy you? Was that an option anyway? Yeah, we had lots of people to try and buy us on the way. You know, we foolishly turned down various different offers. We thought we knew best. But eventually, eventually we found a buyer, an insurance company. But they didn't want us to stick around. They just wanted to farm the 650,000 names for some other products. And they killed off 14 years' work in a couple of years.

22:08 And I was totally devastated. Lost my identity, lost my cause, lost my drive, lost my energy. How old was totally depressed? But really bad depression for quite a long time. What was it? 2012. I would have been 40. What would have been? 48, would I have been? 50 in 2014. Yeah. I'd have been 48. Yeah. So perfect time for a midlife kick in the bollocks. Yeah. Yeah. Totally, totally broken. Had bad depression for quite a long time. How did that depression manifest? How did you show up?

22:53 What did it do to you? Depression is, you know, depression is a darkness, is a dark cloud. It gets inside your head. It's hard to it's hard to beat. I think because I'd put my whole life into Academy, my whole identity into Academy, I felt like a nobody. I'd been a somebody and I'd gone from a somebody to a nobody. And so it really, I was really helped by the fact that Bob Barker found this contract at Accenture. I love that. And then I met, and then I met Jay Shetty, and then I got invited on to join these boards as a non-exec.

23:32 So I had the Accenture thing, the Jay Shetty thing, the board seats thing, and all of these things started to, and then Microsoft said, oh, could you could you teach all the board members how to look good on Twitter? And I thought, you know, I was saying, is that, is that, is that, is that real work? Want me to actually do that? And so I had, I had these board seats. I had Accenture, I had Jay, I had Microsoft, I had this job in New Zealand and Australia. Various different gigs came in, sort of non-exec, mentoring, coaching, training, a mixture of different things.

24:13 Yeah. And those things helped me recover my confidence. But I would say I was pretty low until 2018. And then I got the, and then 2016 was Hannah's rape. So that took us, that took us all down again. And then 2018 was bowel cancer. And that took me down again. And then the chemo, that took me even further down. So. really from 2012 to 2020, I was not in a good way. So I would say, you know, ups and downs, depending on what was going on, I fought it.

24:54 I fought it hard. But I would say that the turning point was the bowel cancer, because then you're presented with, oh, and you might die from this. And you have it removed, then you have to chemo. Chemo is brutal. I mean, there's nothing, there's nothing that sharpens your sore like chemo. Chemotherapy is brutal, brutal, brutal, brutal. Very hard to communicate what it's like to poison your body for six months. I mean, poison it. Yeah, yeah. But the upside of it is, is when you are given the all-clear and you don't have it anymore, you think, right,

25:33 time to go again. Fresh start. Because you've got, but I've been in a bad way, really, from really from 48 to about 56. I was not in a good, a good way. And looking at that retrospectively, does that, and across your whole life, in any way, does that feel like, well, yeah, you're supposed to have a bad 10 years somewhere along the ride? You know, in the moment, it can feel intense. And how the hell am I going to get through this? But over 60 years, is there any part of, well, yeah, 10 bad years out of 60, that's okay. You're able to be reflective like that? Is it part of the process? The thing is, I think you can always have bad years and bad times.

26:11 I don't think it's a specific block of 10 bad years because there's plenty of good times during those periods as well. And when I look back and see the images and the photos and the holidays and various different things that we did, it wasn't 10 years of bad times. It was the battle of coming back from a failed company. That was what was doing my head in. Would I ever get, was that my time? Am I done? Is that me done? Am I finished? Will I ever get a chance to do this? And then non-execing on all these boards gave me a lot of confidence back.

26:49 Getting another book out on toponomics, more confidence coming back. Speaking at conferences, more confidence coming back. And so it's not like 10 years of dark because I think you have bad times in your teenagers, your 20s, your 30s. I think you always have bad years or bad times. But I do think whoever designs the game of life, whether it's God or some universe or some energy force that we all feel but can't describe, you're sort of presented with pain to see how much you can handle. I think we're all given pain in various forms. It could be in your love life. It could be marriage. It could be with children. It could be with health. It could be with business. It could be with money.

27:34 It could be accidents or tragedies. But we're all given our share. And so, well, there you go. There's your pack of cards. And see if you can handle it. And I think we're all given different and we have to get through it. And I think I've had to work very, very hard to get through it. But I'm very pleased that I got through it. And I would say, ironically, this sounds ridiculous, but losing the business and then having bowel cancer and chemo was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Shaped you. Because, and I'll say it again, it's still harder to come back than it is to come.

28:16 But I think I now think life is about comebacks in many different ways. It can be with your health. You've experienced that yourself. It can be with your love life, with your marriage. It can be with your children. It can be with your business. It can be with your friends. But when I kind of listen and think about what are the most important things in life that really create, create you, it's the shared experiences you have with other people, like we're having now, a shared experience through a conversation.

28:57 It'd be hard to do this alone. Yeah. The holidays, the trips, the conferences, the events, all the different things you go through with another person or a group of humans. It's the meaningful conversations and it's the deep relationships. These are the things you remember on your deathbed. And so I think that's why using your word that you said earlier, more conviction in the case of Daniel Priestley and KPI. I've got more conviction now about community first, commerce second than I had in 1998 because of the pain. It's like the pain of the journey as much. made me stronger, believe more strongly in the power of community and support groups than at any time back then, 27 years ago, where I thought then it was just a model for a business.

29:51 Yeah, as opposed to a model for life. And now I see a disconnected world, an isolated world, a lonely world, a loss of leadership in pretty much everything in politics, in institutions, in business. There's a real loss of leadership, a lot of isolation. All the influencers and the influencing and all this social media world making people feel more lonely, more isolated, more disconnected, paradoxically, from what it was supposed to achieve, which was connecting people, supporting people, being a place

30:36 of comfort and support. For whatever reason, the capitalist model finds it hard to deliver on its goals. It delivers for shareholders. It delivers for advertisers, but it doesn't seem to deliver for the actual consumer of the service. And I'd like to get to the root of why it can't do that as well. Yeah, it's got to be a deeply sociological psychological society issue. But I think, you know, for me, in part of my work, there's two coaching frameworks. The second one is the fire code. And these are the habits and routines of our day-to-day life that help us thrive, that help us be the man and dad we want to be.

31:16 One of those is relationships. It's the R of the fire code. Maintaining those connections, being present for our friends, family, mentors, and network, creating quality time, having someone popping into your head and giving them a call, or consciously ringing a member of your family or your friends each week. So you're actually fueling that. Let's some of the key relationships in your life, just in terms of some of the stories you've shared. Those dark times, you and Penny came out the other side, which a lot of couples don't. How did you support each other during that time? How did you stay as tight as what you appear to be, you know, from the outside? Oh, I think Penny was incredible the whole time. Penny has tremendous power, power energy, I was going to say, Penny Power Energy.

32:01 But she has tremendous, she has tremendous energy and tremendous empathy. And she knows how to dig in and make something work. And we all know relationships are complex between our siblings, between adults, between loved ones. And she was always there, rock solid. Never a doubt. Always, you know, I've never, ever had to doubt her ever in my whole life, or 37 years. She's just, she's just rock solid. Yeah. And do you have a structure for support in that?

32:41 Like, do you, do you, you know, it's open communication? Like, you're there, like, do you, you, you make sure you clear the decks, you have, you have chats, you've got plans for what you're headed towards. A lot of couples don't really communicate and then they wonder why they got trouble. You know, is there a secret there for you guys? I don't know whether it's a secret. Like personal play, like little, little, little power plan, let's call it. I think you've I think it is hard for humans to get everything out on the table, all their thoughts. You can never really know what people are thinking, not your partner, not your children. To never really know what's in people's heads. So you really have to dig into what is there.

33:24 And I think you've got to find times when you can do that, either walking together, going to church together, singing, singing together, having car journeys together, places where there are no screens, no computers, no distractions. And actually talk things through that are worrying you. Whether it's, you know, we've both had health issues. We've had financial issues. We've had challenges, particularly with our daughter, with what happened to her, complex issues with businesses. A lot of time I spent overseas in Australia and New Zealand on different projects and the United States. So separation, time, a lot of things to work through. But I think

34:09 you just have to keep on talking until you get it all out. And it doesn't necessarily happen quickly or fast. It takes time. And she's very good at going away and thinking things through and then coming back with an approach or a solution of how we can. can work through an issue, work through a problem. And that's she always amazes me even now how she can come up with yet another solution to get through an issue or a crisis or a challenge or a ding-dong. And, you know, like all couples, we have our ding-dongs and you have to work to work through those.

34:51 I would say she's better at that than I am. But I'm good at making the first move to bring things back to. I tell you what also really does help is we bought a motorhome in COVID, you know, camper van. Yes. I saw you do it when you bought it. And yeah, go on, I'm keen to hear it. I was thinking, you know, like all this, you know, camper van and electric bikes. We were the stereotype COVID. This is the two things people buy, electric bikes and camper van. Fortunately, I'm addicted now to electric bikes. So that's been successful. And whilst we only get to use the camper van for one month a year in August, we do get to use it for a month.

35:31 And we do put our screens down for a month and have that month in the fan touring around Europe, various different countries. You know, we've been all over. And that is the reset month for us. And that really does make a difference to have that away from work, away from the computers, away from everything and just living a very simple life in a van. I mean, you still have the luxury of you're in a van, you're not in a tent, but it's, you know, it's protein and salad.

36:11 It's not the Bellagio, is it? It's not the Bellagio. It's still, you're in a tin box in a field on the grass. You know, you've got your feet on the grass, you get the earthing, you get the reset, you get the views, you get the experience, you get all the villagers, you get the food, you get the reset. And personally, I really need that once a year. And I would say that's made a big difference the last six years that we've done that in the fan. So, you know, over those six years of having it, we've probably only used it for six months. But those six months have been very powerful for our marriage, for our relationship.

36:49 And also, it gives us a big reset for our business in that you get to read books, you get away from the machines, you get away from all the noise. And there is a lot of noise in this world. Everyone is overwhelmed with the noise and the messages and this swamping information that we have coming at us. So that's been very, very good for us. We like that escape. And that's been good for our relationship as well to have that proper time. And on the level of, oh, go on, sorry. But on the level of friends and friendships and clearly around e-cademy and everything you've shared there, the importance of mentors. So in relationships in the fire code, there's four elements, Diamond Alliance. There's your wife or partner.

37:33 There's your kids. Then there's family and friends. And then there's mentors and network. And so when I'm working with guys, I'm like, these four elements are really important because you don't want your partner to be your mentor or your networking buddy or your flipping. You can't go and dump your whole life on her. And then you want your people that you play with. And then you want your people that inspire you and lead you. And of course, you want your quality time with your kids. And for me as well, staying connected to your extended family, really important. A guy that has those in place will be able to weather tough times better than someone else. And he'll also be able to enjoy good times, probably to a higher level and degree as well. So here we are talking and I'm acknowledging you as someone who's influenced and been able to have the pleasure of staying connected to you for this amount of time.

38:16 And then there's friendships as well. What part of friendships and your social circle played in your journey in both your successes and your struggles and this period now where things seem to be looking pretty rosy? Yeah, well, I would say, I mean, put a lot of effort into Penny and the kids. So definitely I agree with you on those, on the first two. The family and friends, it is hard to see all the family members and all the friends with the schedule that we run at because we have a very busy schedule with 100 members in this group. So that takes a lot of time to look after that 100.

39:01 But we do allocate dedicated time to our friends, both individually and together. And I do think you're right. If you have all these things in place, it's hard to see all the family members because there's so many of them. Yeah, well, especially now your guys are three additional families. So you've got all of, plus you've got all of the events and Easter and Christmas and. barbecues. And you have to see family members in big groups to catch up and get an update. In terms of mentors, I'm a mentor myself to a lot of young entrepreneurs.

39:37 And I like supporting them. And I like being there for them because I always said, you know, when I hit 50, I would be there for the next generation. Jay Shetty was probably the first example of that for me. How did not like you want to sort of finger on that too? I'm 29, I think. But what, you know, Jay's well known for his podcasts and his books and all that. And then, you know, you said earlier on, you've helped him along that journey or been part of his journey there. How did that introduction get made? He was very bold. He walked up to me with his hand out in 2013 at an Accenture conference.

40:19 Bob and I had been hired to do some talks and some training there. And he just walked up to me and shook my hand and asked me if I could help him and support him. Brilliant. And it was just like, it was like myself in 1983, 40 years earlier, walking up to Rodney Cox at Croydon College, holding out my hand, say, Rodney, can I come and work for you and build hard discs in your factory? And I felt myself shaking hands with myself 40 years earlier when he did this.

40:56 And I could feel his energy. I could feel his drive. I could feel his hunger. And I thought, well, you know, if he wants some help, you know, I can have a few chats with him. We've been hired by Accenture. They want us to teach everybody everything we know. And we were there three years. And I was able to see him every week. And so I just guided him and taught him some very simple things like income follows audience. You know, I say these three words to people, but they don't hear them. I say them over and over again. I said, you know, if you follow this process, then you'll discover that every follower that you have is worth a dollar a year to you.

41:40 And is that really true? Is that really true? Yeah, it is true, but you'll discover it. And if you really want to put all this content out there and make wisdom go viral, as he said back then, you're going to have to make a thousand videos and put them on all the social networks until you get some traction somewhere and it takes off. And he said, all right, then I will. And he did. Now, I've said that to a thousand young entrepreneurs. He's the only one who took action. Wow. Powerful. And he took action. And he was hammering away at it for years and years and years and years and years. And in 2019, it just went hockey stick like that. And just took off.

42:18 That's what they say, don't they? The classic overnight success. Yeah, overnight success. But I played in a thousand pubs and bars before that. Yes, I mean, he really, really did work hard. And he's just sent me a message on WhatsApp saying, can we have Christmas lunch when he flies in from Los Angeles? 12 years later, he's still right there in the game. And now he's had the huge success. He's 100 million followers or whatever it is listening to his podcast. He's up there in the top 10 in the world on podcast. You know, he's very, very unusual.

42:56 But I could see that hunger back in 2013. And I just gave that hunger the path, the map, the guide. People don't really want any advice. They just want to be shown the path. And I've walked the path. I know the path. And I've seen the, I've walked into the hazards on the path. And I've fallen into the hazards down the holes. And so I've worked my way along and through the path. So I think it's helpful for the kids and for any young entrepreneurs that I mentor to say, well, look, these are the choices that you have.

43:35 You have to find the path that most suits you and then walk that path and refine as you go. And I'm very intrigued by the whole concept of mentoring and advice and counseling and coaching and supporting people. Because it's not advice that people want. It's not even information or knowledge that they want. It's a map. They want a map. And I've got a lot of maps because I've walked a lot of paths and I know where a lot of dead ends are. And so I hand young people maps. Once I get to know them, I hand young people maps.

44:17 And also in our group of 100. when we see them every week for lunch in London, I can say you should really, you really want to talk to Johnny about this. Well, you really want to talk to Penny about that. Because I've seen it before. I've heard it before. I've heard the words, the sentences, the phrases, they're repeats. And very fortunately, you know, Bit 100 is like Academy 2.0. The joy of getting to do it again is so special. Yeah. Well, tell us about that because that is part of the whole comes out of it. Oh, bloody Penny always coming up with good ideas. There we go. You know, she wrote, she wrote Business is Personal.

44:59 So just one sec. Let's just circle back a tiny bit on Penny there. Penny, it's not just Penny, is it? It's Penny Power, OBE. Yes, she got her OBE for Academy in 2014, March the 7th from The Queen. That was a very special day that was. And our paths really crossed back around the digital coach and the social media entrepreneur time. Yeah, that was 2009. Right, yeah, yeah. So then, so through going, so getting on board with that, I ended up spending, you know, a fair bit of time with Penny over sort of 18 months there, you know, every kind of six, eight weeks,

45:39 there was something that happened there. And then she wrote the book as well. What was that book called? Know me, like me, follow me. Yeah, great book. Know me, 2000. That was a great book. That still is a great book. Yeah. Well, you hear everybody's talking about know me, like me, trust me. Daniel Priestley says it all the time. Dan Martha says it all the time. And I'm like, yeah, well, know me, like me. I'm not saying Penny came up with it. Maybe she did come up with it. I don't know. But like, she was saying it before these guys were flipping out of school or something. Well, I think when she wrote, when she wrote Business is Personal in 2018, I obviously had my cancer and my chemo. She wrote that book. And that was really her explaining the journey, the pain of Academy.

46:22 And it was, you know, it was very tough. And she went, you know, she went for the full reveal. And the big thing we discovered from Academy is vulnerability attracts and strength repels. And people are obsessed with strength and brands and power and muscle. And it repels people. It doesn't work. It has a very short-term life strength. What attracts people is vulnerability. And so she wrote a book about vulnerability. A lot of people read it and said, you know, you're going to have a mastermind group for this, like a BIP mastermind. And so she set those up. And then COVID came along and COVID killed the masterminds.

47:04 And then people said, you know, could you have a group on Zoom? And it started on Zoom and then it spread. And then when COVID was unlocked, she said, why don't we put some advertising on LinkedIn, invite people for lunch? Eight and a half thousand people register for lunch. I was like, what? You're like, we're back. All these people want to come for lunch, babe. So we've had two and a half thousand people for lunch and we picked a hundred of those two and a half thousand who came for lunch. And so we managed to get to do Academy again, but not 650,000 people, but 100 people. But the need is the same. People want a place of psychological safety.

47:50 They want to get support. They want to have conversation. They want to not be judged because business is hard. And all these bullshit books about businesses, you know, nine ways to become a billionaire and 10 ways to scratch your balls. This is not real life, these businesses, these business books. Business is really hard and challenging and difficult. And it's hard to make money. And we wanted to have a place where you could talk that through. And we have people who are financially independent and totally depressed, miserably successful. And we have people who are happy with nothing. So money is not a fix, but people like to measure their performance by money.

48:33 But performance shouldn't really be measured by money. Performance should really be measured by the quality of relationships in your life, I think. Oh, absolutely. The idea that you get to the finish line loaded with money and trappings and you turn around to go, shit, I'm on my own. That isn't the win. That's not the win. We know lots of people, Johnny, who are miserably successful with endless amounts of capital and suffering depression. Miserably successful is a real concept. You can Google that. Success, depression. You can Google it. It's the quality of the relationships in your life that.

49:14 that matter. And you've got to have a place to be able to talk things through where you're not judged. Sometimes you can do that with your friends and family, but often you can't. And you need independent minds. And so we really wanted to be that place. And we've built that place. And it's taken us since 2018 to do it. And it was just as hard to build 100 as it was to build half a million with the Academy over the same period. So there you go. What, what a, what a crazy world that 100 was as hard as half a million 20 years ago. And, you know, that's that's where you're up to now. I mean, your kids, one of them's about to have a baby or about to say about to be a grandparent.

49:58 Is that correct? Yep. TJ Georgia is due January 5th. TJ's the youngest. So he's been, he's, he's very excited about that. She's very excited for that. We're very excited by that. Yeah, I can, every grandparent used to, it's very rare to see a grandparent without a smile on their face. He sold 100,000 books this year, the dose effect. So his career is taking off, doing lots of speeches, lots of training, all the things that go with on the back of book sales. Ross is building his AI business in Bali. Hannah's building her personal branding business, got a fantastic gig in New York at the moment.

50:35 So she's back and forth to New York. So they've sort of got sort of got a sort of a mental health and well-being son, an AI technical product son, and a personal branding, marketing daughter. Yeah, rock star. They've all got their bits. Yeah. And to me, it's not like you can't be a successful, happy adult if you haven't had, you know, a good upbringing, right? There's thousands of people who would disprove that statement. But I do feel part of my mission is to give men the strength and charisma and the internal confidence to be able to lead their families from a place of happiness and success.

51:23 That expression on the shoulders of giants, you know, something that I say a lot. And it's not like a pressure on man to be that giant, but to have that inner peace so that they are the foundation upon which their family are able to thrive is something that I feel is really important. I think you're right, but I think it's still really hard to do. And I think there's a lot of shit that men have to talk through. And I mean a lot. I know you do a lot of that in your coaching, but I talk to, I do a thousand calls every year on Zoom, you know, like these video systems. And I listen, I listen to a lot of more men than women, although some women. And the challenges men are facing leading their families are huge. The responsibility is huge.

52:07 The financial responsibility is getting more expensive all the time. And keeping up with technology and where the next thing is that makes money is incredibly difficult now. Incredibly, incredibly difficult. So having had many dark times myself, I like to be there for them to express themselves and share their story. And you just, for a lot of people, just talking it out is part of the healing. I don't think, I don't think it's helpful to say, oh, Johnny, what you need to do is and put out the, you know, oh, I think I know what you need to do. Because the Academy, I thought I was chairman of the What You Need To Do is club because I used to get so much advice.

52:51 TP, what you need to do is. And I don't think people want advice. They want the ability to tell the story. And if you've got a map, they'd like a map and to find that path. I think a lot of men are very much challenged by this. And I think if I go back to my father, who's born in 1912, he just stayed silent and obviously was processing in his head. And known as the silent generation, you weren't allowed to moan about anything. You weren't about to complain about anything. Life was life. Deal with it. Stiff up a lip, tough it out.

53:34 But I think now I get a chance to look back on him and observe him in my life in the past. You know, he was obviously dealing with a lot as well. And obviously my kids see me dealing with the stuff I've dealt with. I think it's important to be part of groups where you can talk stuff through. Dinner groups, lunch groups, sports groups. I'm in a cycling group, a sports group, a paddle group, a church group, a dinner group, a lunch group. I'm in so you can just talk stuff through. Because I think just the talking is the healing. Getting the chance to be real. Actually, all of you. Here's all of me. Good stuff, the bad stuff, things I'm excited about, the things I'm struggling with. Now you've got all of me, I can really feel connected.

54:19 Yeah. Exactly right. Beautiful. Beautiful. Thomas, it's been an absolute glorious, glorious session together. It's called BIP100. It is businesses personal100.club. Bip100.club. And people are very welcome to come for lunch and come and meet the gang. Good. I'll put that in the show notes. And of course, you're on LinkedIn. People can search up and follow you on. Yeah, people can WhatsApp me. I publish my WhatsApp. I advertise my calendar. My diary is public. Anybody can book into the calendar. And the Hilton Delhi is desperate for you to come back because they want 800 people for tea.

55:01 Good stuff, Thomas. I was there for four days until I'd seen everyone. There's a cultural side to that as well, isn't it? They've stood outside for that long. You can stand inside and greet them all for that long as well. Yeah. Brilliant. Yeah, at least it didn't rain. Yeah, exactly. I'm going to hit the outro and ask you to hold tight. We'll make sure the show wraps up neatly. But Thomas, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure for you to share the story with the High Value Man Project and everyone listening to the Johnny Jensen show. Thank you, Johnny. Thanks for inviting me on. 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.

55:42 Get your high value man blueprint and join our community of motivated modern dads at highvalumanproject.com. Let's go.