The Brick Layer Who Walked The Red Carpet With Steve Sims

Igor Kheifets: I’m Igor Kheifets and this is the List Building Lifestyle, a podcast
for those who want to build a large profitable email list and make six figures from
anywhere in the world. If you would like to get rich by building a large email list
while helping people, this podcast is for you. I also invite you to attend a free web
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hundred-thirty-one thousand-six-hundred-and-fifty-six email subscribers at a profit.
Secure your free seat at Igor.cx. Attend this free workshop to discover an easy
way to get 50 to 500 new email leads per day on complete autopilot without losing
tons of money. Just go to Igor.cx to attend this free web class. And now, once again
it’s time to claim your list building lifestyle.

Welcome back to another edition of the List Building Lifestyle with your host,
Igor Kheifets. Want to watch formula one in Monaco with royalty? Or maybe you’d
like to tee-off with a champion. How about standing live on stage with your
favorite rock band? Or maybe making a brief appearance in your favorite TV Show?
Those sound like far-fetched dreams to most people, but they’re not. In fact, if you
ever had a dream of becoming an MI6 spy for the weekend, that too can be done.
My guest today is the one person in the world, at least the one that I know of who
can and does make all these things happen for people on daily basis. He’s the master
at making seemingly impossible happen. He’s the person you call when you’re ready
to start ticking off boxes off your bucket list. Of course, I’m talking about
Mr. Bluefisher himself, Steve Sims.

Earlier this year, I read Steve’s book, Bluefishing, and it hit a chord for me. As
someone who achieved more before 30, than most people in their lives, in their
entire lives. I realized while my life changed in the recent years I myself never
changed. I still saw locked doors everywhere. And when I read Steve’s book, I saw
a man who knows how to pick the locks. There’s no door he won’t knock on
regardless of the outcome. So that basically, the one quality that attracted me to
Steve and eventually led to developing a deeper relationship and now to this
interview. So Steve, thank you so much for being here.

Steve Sims: That’s a hell of an intro. Thanks. I’m happy to be here.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah, and it’s a pleasure to host you as well. Now, the first thing
I want to cover immediately, because I’m sure a lot of people are now confused.
They’re like, “What? What the hell does Bluefish?”

Steve Sims: It means nothing, but it has been given a meaning, it’s a very funny
thing, but the company used to have a password to get into certain events and one
of the passwords was: finish this sentence, one fish, two fish, red fish. So
people would come to the door of the party and go Bluefish, and they will get in
to a spectacular event. Now as the company grew and people started referring them
all as that Bluefish company, then this verb and adjective and all these things
came up where, hey, we’re going to Bluefish this. “Hey say we’re gonna Blue …
we’re Bluefishing at the moment,” if you’re seen on the top of a Penthouse,
drinking champagne over Monaco. This, whole word meant nothing. Somebody had a
meaning of doing what people thought was impossible, was top shelf was a 12 out of
10. So when you take it as far as you can and then go further, that’s when you
Bluefished it or that’s when you’re Bluefishing life.

Igor Kheifets: Nice. Talk about a culture. Right? You know when you’ve got a culture
going, when you invent your own language.

Steve Sims: Oh, we had clients sending us pictures saying that, “You know, my kid
had a birthday party yesterday. We Bluefished the hell out of it,” and it was, it
was just really, really warming to know that you’d actually build up, a direct
direction and attitude within life of not accepting the norm.

Igor Kheifets: Nice. Nice. All right, cool. Well, I’m really excited to really
grill you for some answers here that have got for the questions that I’ve prepared
because there’s very few people that I’ve met in my life that have this attitude
towards life that always go for the gusto. A lot of people write about it. A lot
of authors, they always talk about: live life with passion. Passion never fails.
Go with gusto, but very few of them live it. And I too, am guilty of that by the
way. I admit, I am guilty of preaching one thing but then not really truly living
up to it. So it’s been truly fascinating to observe you in the way you work and
read about all the crazy stories and all the crazy experiences you’ve created for
your clients.

So my first question is this: in your book, you write, “Failure is just more
discovery.” Now, as you know, I operate primarily in the intra-marketing space,
right? People who are trying to build online business and I noticed that people
tend to never get to a point of failure. They often stay stuck because they’re
afraid to fail. In other words, they don’t even take action because the idea of
failure in and of itself is so violent to them. So what would you tell those
people?

Steve Sims: It’s a shame nowadays of failure, No one’s fighting to fail. Okay?
That fighting if people seeing them fail, whether it be someone in the office, a
girlfriend, a boyfriend, a husband and wife. They don’t want to appear to be less
than what they perceive. So we’re in a world where everyone is insta-perfect.
Everyone’s life is insta-great. The idea of you failing makes you lesser. Now I
noticed in all of the people I deal with, and I deal with the richest, most
powerful people in the world, every single one of these people are serial
failures, and so if you’re not failing, I guarantee you I’ve failed last week. I
know for how long I’m going to be failing this week. Just fail, fail often and
fail up. But don’t be fine with it because you’re not gonna learn if you’re not
riding that close to the edge. Now I’m not saying walk into Vegas and bet your
house on black. Okay?

That’s not, that’s not risking failure, that’s stupidity. It’s a case of when you
look at something, okay, I’ve got five options of marketing strategies for my next
course. Which one shall I try? Try all six and try them to find out what works and
then try something just different. When you find fault with that work, it could be
because of your tone of voice. It could have been in your style, because it
doesn’t resonate with the people you’re dealing with. You’ve learned four reasons
not to repeat that. That education can’t be read in a book, can’t be taught in an
online course. You’ve got to try it and try often, and be proud to fail. I
actually remember speaking thankfully to Elon Musk and I said to him about
something about his Space X. And he said, “You know, the thing that really helped
me was I didn’t care if people show me fail, because if I wasn’t failing, I wasn’t
advancing.” And that was his mentality. And I thought that’s it, that you got to
do it. Fail, fail often, and fail up.

Igor Kheifets: Well, I mean this is truly profound because I’ve heard the idea of
fail up. One of my favorite authors and mentor is John Carlton. He, he’s bragging
almost bragging about how much you failed in life and how he wanted to fail and
how he really tried to fail as much as he could, but the idea of being okay with
other people, seeing you fail with other people, seeing you as a failure
potentially. That’s a new one for me and it’s definitely an eyeopener for sure, as
well as for many of our listeners. Now in chapter 10, you talk about personal
branding where you insist it’s supposed to be personal, which is logical right?
Now, this is very interesting because most people when they hear the word brand,
they think companies, they think logos, but you’ve never done it that way, did
you?

Steve Sims: No. You think about the top brands now and I’m emphasizing that word
and I’m air-quoting, am bolding it, and underlining it. You think about all the
brands now from Tesla, Apple, Microsoft, all of those major companies, the reason
they became so trendy and visual, was because there was a person behind it who
stood up and said, “Hey, this is what I stand for.” You knew you go apple because
you saw Steve Jobs in his black tee shirt and glasses was cool, dynamic and was
doing something different, so as we’re becoming, as we’re becoming very vanilla in
our world and everything is becoming Amazon-ed, if it can be transacted, then
you’re going out of business.

So what you’ve got to create is a brand, something you stand for so that people
can resonate and relate to it and get involved because you mentioned at the
beginning what you want more than anything in the world, more than clients is a
community. And that’s the focus now. Building up a community of like-minded
individuals who all stand for what you stand for, whether it be a question,
sports, whether it be for playing chess, drinking whiskey, a living the fast life,
building a community of like-minded individuals, and you’re standing for that.
You’re being the brand for that.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah, and I and I see it more and more now. You know, the smart
entrepreneurs doing it. For example, this is something that you probably already
know is a concept that I’m sure you like it. So in the town over just the next
town over here, I had discovered something that’s called a car club. So basically
it’s a club of guys most I’ve never seen any women there besides the ones who are
like lifting the veil off of the cars, right? Basically it’s a club for guys who
love exotic cars, drinking whiskey and smoking cigars. And I was invited to one of
their meetings basically where, they were unveiling the new Maserati they got like
the black edition, something, something and I’m not a big fan of Maseratis.

So anyway, like it was a proper culture. They were really priding themselves and
being a part of this culture of guys who like cars and love drinking and loves
smoking cigars. And that was all that it was about. Now the membership fee is
anywhere between four to I think $12,000 Canadian per month. And, and you’d be
like, who’s in their right mind would pay for that. But there were a lot of people
there. Like a lot.

Steve Sims: Yeah. I’m always a great believer that businesses fail because of
quite openly two things. There is a third one, but that’s another conversation.
You either got the wrong product or the wrong client. If you’ve got the right
products and the ride client, if it’s a $100,000 a month and you’ve still got the
right product to the right client, you’re still in business.

Igor Kheifets: Yup. A Dan Kennedy talks about message market media. So he has like
three reasons, but it’s pretty much the same thing. You get the right solution or
the right promise to the right people and you’re in business. All right, cool. So
in Chapter 19 you talk about your startup position in an insurance company where
you had to be in this, I quote, “An annoying little shit calling people on the
list.”

Steve Sims: No, that was me. Yep.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah. So what did you learn cold calling? Seriously, how do you,
feel it shaped your attitude later in life?

Steve Sims: There were two massive lessons it taught me. One of them was to
respond quickly. If you have want a lesson in psychology, go to a bar and look at
the bar stuff. You see the bar stuff will run up and down that bar counter and if
they see a bunch of girls having a good night out, they will respond, interact and
speak to these people in one tone of voice and then shoulder to shoulder of them
will be a couple of guys in their fifties, in business suits and that demeanor,
her demeanor to them will change immediately to resonate and relate to them, and
if there’s a girl and the guy next to them, it’ll change again. They get to
respond really quickly to different people and different personalities. Because we
all talk different language and when I was on the phone, I only had the sound of
emotion, which nine times out of 10 was on bloody eight, “I’m I dead or what do
you want?”

That kind of thing. But you learn how to react to it. You learn little quips and
you could turn them on them and say, “Oh, why are you calling me? You know, why
are you disturbing my dinner?” And of course you’ve got the name and phone number
and you can turn around and you go, well, Mr. Peterson or Roger, you actually
asked to call you. Six weeks ago, you told me this number was okay. If it’s not,
then hey, I apologize. Let me call you in an hour’s time. [inaudible 00:12:48] is
that okay?” And you can put them on the spot. No one remembers who they spoke to
six weeks ago. Now am I hear saying hey, I learned how to lie. I learn how to
manage and change people’s reaction and emotion on that phone, and I didn’t like
the job, but it taught me how to actually chat with the person.

And they would go, “Oh, why do you do this job?” “Why? Because I’m trying to make
a future for my family. Why do you do what you do, Sir?” I actually found it a
challenge. It was a sick job. It was horrible. I have to make money. I got a flat
fee, but I found it very interesting, if I could change the person’s tone in it. I
also learned another lesson which was very important, was the strategy at the time
of every night of making phone calls was we would be given a list of names and
phone numbers, and we will be given a call sheet. And on the call sheet. You have
to write down two guys night or was it goes name the number, what time you phoned
him? Uh, was an appointment booked when the appointment was … basically loads of
boxes that never, ever gotten filled in.

And then at the end of it, the reason for the hangup, or the reason and the call
didn’t continue. It was a bloody great spreadsheet and Of course, every time you’d
phone up you’d go, “Okay, Igor, phoned at 7:15, he told me to go screw myself. Was
appointment made? No. Why was appointment not made? Because he told me to go screw
myself.” All these different things and what would happen was at the end of the
night, you may be gotten lucky with making one appointment, but you had a paper
now that confirmed all of your failings. Okay? And the reason I’m bringing up this
story is because it is about the being happy to fail what I did the following day
when they gave it to me. I flipped the form over. I never recorded any of the
failings.

I saw them as refinement for my wins. So as I was going through the night and I
would end up getting two or three appointments, the only thing I would record was
the appointments. I would never record the failings. What I did notice, two
things, was one, I got more successes because I only noticed the successes. So I
look for success and everything I did. If I changed someone’s emotion then the
following phone call, I was probably in a much more upbeat mood. They would say
something. I’ve learned how to change that emotion. I changed it, I got the
appointment. So where was I a few days before? I was making two appointments a
night, I’m now making four or five. The other lesson I learned was I got fired
because I wasn’t adhering to the rules of actually taking a note of these
failings. And I said to them, “When I take a note, you’re literally looking at how
many times things don’t go your way. You shouldn’t look at it that way. You should
rejoice in the victories in the small war. The small wars and battles.”

And they didn’t like that. And so it taught me things don’t have to be done a
certain way. There’s ways it can be done, there’s other alternatives. You don’t
have to color within the box. And I always focus on those failings are refining
moments of me getting better.

Igor Kheifets: Interesting. Did you have any other, other than the job as a
bouncer in a club, did you have any other startup positions?

Steve Sims: Oh, bloody loads. Um, as an entrepreneur we know we don’t fit. And I
was that kid that knew I didn’t fit. I was so easy to go to work on a Tuesday and
go on a night like this, I’ll give it until Friday because I never wanted to be a
quitter. That was one thing that I never wanted to be. I’ll give it till Friday
see of it resonates or if I can do it. Come Friday I’ll be like nah, this isn’t
for me, I’m quitting. So I was one of those kids that my mum thought would never
get anywhere because I could, in her words, never hold down a job. And so I did
everything from … I was a truck driver, I delivered cakes, I was a painter, I
was construction work in my early years. That seemed to be the thing that I always
bounced back to. I was a doorman, I was a chef. I’d actually convinced someone I
could cook, which was hilarious.

Literally, they didn’t even let me near food. They turned up the first night they
asked me to grab some utensils or something. I didn’t know what it was and I was
fired. So, I tried so many different things to see, did any of them kind of them
relate to me while knowing that what I did want to do, I would eventually find.

Igor Kheifets: interesting, interesting and it’s truly fascinating. Obviously the
way you do what you do is amazing. You get all these things for people, you create
these amazing experiences that people don’t even dream about because as you’re
writing your book a lot of times, so you, you have to ask why three times to like
squeeze out that one thing that makes them really passionate. And that’s really
interesting because I believe observing you, the way you work, at least from a
distance that I have been doing the last couple of months, is your communication
skills are just incredible. And in your blue, Bluefishing blueprint-

Steve Sims: We’re to log you there in a second, but carry on.

Igor Kheifets: Okay? Sure. So, uh, in your Bluefishing blueprint, number five on
the list is” don’t be easy to understand, be impossible to misunderstand. Now,
since this is a marketing podcast, and I believe that communication is one of the
single most important skills for a marketer is being able to convince other people
to buy into your vision, your ideas, and to pay attention to you in such a
clustered, in such a noisy marketplace. Do you mind sharing maybe a couple of tips
for people that are just poor communicators? How can they become better at it?

Steve Sims: Okay, so this is why the point, I’m not a great communicator. And that
may sound silly based on what I actually do. It’s the rest of the world that’s got
so bad to make me look good. Okay? Now and I came from East London. I’m 51 years
old. If I walked into a pub and a guy punched me in the nose, I knew we had a
problem. If I had an argument with someone, I can see how they were reacting and
can react to accordingly, or again, I’d get a punch in the nose. It was very
primitive manners of communication then. Okay? You helped an old lady over the
street, she smiled at you. You opened the door for someone, they thanked you or
they smiled. That was the time of that. Now, sadly, we don’t have that as much
because you open the door for someone now, nine times out of 10, the person will
walk through it with their head down, looking at their iPhone.

Their phones have now become protection to avoid eye contact and the whole global
potential of starting a conversation. So the way that I work is to be very, very
primitive. To be very … as my wife says, I’m her favorite neanderthal. I want to
make sure that I’m very direct and there’s no chance whatsoever for you to be
confused. There’s a guy up in Austria, I wish I could remember his name. I’m going
to have to look him up. He’s doctor or a professor, he wrote an article on the
eight people that read your email. And he said that people read your email based
on the emotion that they’re having at that moment. And he said, there’s eight main
people. So if you send someone an email of an absolutely phenomenal offer. This
offer that could never be repeated is going to make you a billionaire before tea
time. If he’s in a bad, bad, bad mood, got home last night and found out his wife
was having an affair. No matter how good your offer is, he’s going to look at it
as a scam.

Igor Kheifets: Unless I have to imagine, unless you’re offer is: did you just find
out your wife is having an affair?

Steve Sims: Bingo. So making it current and
making it relatable. Great. But it goes through these different things and it goes
through that If he’s really happy, he’s going to take a chance. And after this
complete article of massive words I can never spell, he actually comes down to:
brevity is king. And it comes down to how to try to make your message cristal
clear and pinpoint accurate, is to reduce the amount of text in it’s delivery. So
I started that and there’s a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours, Mr Dean
Jackson, the guy that invented the nine-word email, would send out an email saying
you still looking for a house in Southampton?

Igor Kheifets: I use that email myself couple of years back.

Steve Sims: Yeah. And I do the exact same thing. So I will actually send out an
email to some of the most powerful people in the world. And there’s other ways
that we doing. I’ll talk about that another time or in this if you wish, but I’ll
send out an email saying, “Do you want more interesting cocktail stories?” And
just something very, very simple. And then when I am in that communication, I will
say, “Okay, once we’ve identified what your kind of goal is, whether it being
getting married in the Vatican, Whether it be driving a Formula One car in Italy,
whether it be playing piano with Elton John, I make it very crystal clear, okay,
we’re going to do this, but it’s going to cost you between $350,000 and $550,000.
Is that acceptable? Now the funny thing is you’re sitting there going, “Well that
makes sense.”

Most people won’t be that pinpoint and direct with what it costs to get you your
dreams, and most people are afraid of that. So they would [inaudible 00:23:02]
“Well, you know, you could, it could be around this, and we could do maybe if the
investment in your future … ” they go, “No it’s gonna cost you x, Y, Z to get
ABC done. Is that what you’re looking to do?” Now I found that people when you’re
that direct, they like it because there’s no hidden fees. There’s no hidden
message, there’s no hidden agenda. So directness for me has always been my secret
source.

Igor Kheifets: Nice. I think, if there’s one thing we can take away from
this episode, that’s the one, that’s the one I I will definitely take away.

Steve Sims: Oh keep in, mind you, I will send out a. and again, I’ll use text. I
do voice, I do video. Um, I deal with different mentors. I do post, I do a lot of
posts, but just because I’m sending something out, whatever the platform is, it
can be really, really short. I know you were interested in Elton John. Would you
like to join me with him on the 18th of September in New York City? Let me know.
It will be that direct. There wouldn’t be any fancy pictures. There won’t be a
long outline of text. It’s the hook and I focus on the hook all the time.

Igor Kheifets: It was listening to a seminar recording by Gary Bencivenga, who’s
one of the considered one of the best copywriters will alive, and you he stressed
pretty much same thing. He talks about how a lot of copywriters, what they do,
they try to kind of enhance the copy using great adjectives, but what really
what’s important is the core message and the psychology of the buyer. So if you
know that the person on the other end is interested in Elton John or having dinner
or having better cocktail stories, you really don’t need to put it into a shiny
wrapper for it to be sexy for them.

Steve Sims: No, the danger is people try to make them sound ,as themselves, they
try to make themselves sound smart. And that’s usually the biggest downfall. The
people that I know, the rich, the powerful, successful are rich, powerful and
successful because they are brilliant at one or two things. They may not be able
to spell, they may not be able to play basketball, they might not be able to
launch a rocket. Everyone thinks just because you’re rich and powerful, you must
be hugely intelligent. That’s not the case. You’re good at one or two things. And
when you are you, but you try to use words that are not normally used in your
conversation, then you’re starting to place those layers of lies on yourselves,
and you’re not being transparent of the world that everyone loves and I hate, or
authentic. Be transparent. If you can’t, if you don’t use those words normally,
don’t put it in your copy because if you do, you’re going to attract people that
you can’t communicate with.

Yo, it’s Igor. If you’re loving the content, hop on over to
listbuildinglifestyleshow.com for more free training and a free transcript of this
episode. Oh, and I’d really appreciate if you logged into iTunes and rated the
show. It really helps. Thanks.

Igor Kheifets: You know what I love about you is that you wear your hat proudly, so to speak. I
have another friend who’s a very, very successful Internet marketer and he does
the same thing. He just doesn’t give a fuck what people think about him. He’s like
the way he is, that’s the way he is in real life. That’s the way he is in his
marketing. That’s the way he is, pretty much everywhere. And he’s unapologetic
about it. And I really like it. Uh, I really like it. Like you mentioned the word,
used the word “vanilla”. I think it perfectly describes the kind of people that we
tend to meet on daily basis where they’re just afraid to offend anyone. They’re
afraid to, you know, rattle the cage, so to speak, they sort of just want to be
nice to everybody. I just hate that.

Steve Sims: Well it’s dangerous, it’s dangerous and you are going to find out that
you are going to be a magnet for a bunch of other vanilla wannabes. I want to just
tweak your statement about me not giving a fuck. I actually do and I want to meet
good people, and like me and you, if I put on a pretense, if I tweaked my English
accent to be a little bit more like royalty, I’m present in someone to you that’s
not me. And I give a fuck of your relationship with me or the potential of it to
not start off with a lie because I don’t wanna be having to continue an act. So I
care about attracting people that I can care about, that I can relate to, that I
can resonate with. How can you do that by not being 100% transparent as to who you
are?

I don’t want people to meet someone and then be hanging out with someone a month
later and they’re different.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah, that would suck.

Steve Sims: I hate it. How many times do you meet that? You meet someone, and they
kind of put a persona on? No, you’re a business meeting. And they’re all kind of
like, “Yes, well, yeah. Here’s my business card. Yeah. Yeah.” And then you meet
them and you find out that you know that I’m in trouble with business. Well, their
mansion is actually like a little one-bedroom apartment down the street. Now
here’s the daft thing. You may well have liked the person anyway. But now that you
know that they lied and there’s no one was to lie to than yourself. They say you
should never lie to your wife. I agree, but never lie to yourself.

Igor Kheifets: You know, my wife tends to know when I’m lying to myself before I
do. I’m not sure she does that.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Mine actually, I’ve been with her for 33 years and it’s great to
have people in your camp that does that, but it was a couple of songs in my
earlier life than she did exactly that, and it actually came … I won’t go into
it too deep. There was a moment in my life, seven years after being successful, I
had a great business like all entrepreneurs. We fuck it up. We find something
that’s working well and we find a way to screw it up. I actually stopped riding
motorcycles, started wearing suits, bought a Ferrari to try to be someone that you
would respect more or wanna do more business with. I was already doing well, turn
it up with a black t-shirt and on a bike. But I changed my looks and my style to
be what I thought better for you or more acceptable and I ended up getting the
long counter clients not being able to communicate with any of them and I was
screwing up my business by trying to be someone who I was not.

Igor Kheifets: Well, that’s a big lesson. That’s-

Steve Sims: Massive.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah.

Steve Sims: I actually have a picture in my garage because my office isn’t
finished yet, but in my old house it was up on the wall but it will be again, of
me leaning against a Ferrari, my Ferrari. I say that now because a lot of people
are taking pictures of cars that are not there’s. I was leaning against my car in
a tailor-made suit in Monaco, and I have that up that because there’s never been a
picture taken of me that didn’t include me in it as much as that, and I keep it up
there as a warning not to sell out and be someone I’m not. So I actually give a
fuck that you get to meet Steve Simms and not be somebody else.

Igor Kheifets: Nice. I love it. I love it. Now the last thing I want to touch on
something you mentioned in, again, the last chapter where you give out the
Bluefishing blueprint, where you give a bullet-point list of all the rules you
live by, and the first rule on that list is: Throw out it-couldn’t-be-me mentality
and ask why couldn’t it be me? Now? Do you mind sharing what point in your life
did you develop the audacity to ask this question?

Steve Sims: Well, luckily I was an uneducated in British biker and this was very
lucky for me because I didn’t have the pretense or the fear built into me. I would
look a Gucci Wallet and I’ll go, well it’s a wallet. I’d look at a Rolex watch and
I’ll go well it’s a watch. And I would literally say to people because they’d come
into the pub and they had bought their new Rolex watch. And I’d say, “Well, how
much is that?” And they’d be like, “Oh, [inaudible 00:31:04] pub back.” Then
they’d be like, “This is two and a half grand.” And I’d be like, why is that worth
two and a half grand? And the thing was as an Irish lad, it wasn’t sarcasm. It was
literally, why is that worth [inaudible 00:31:18] grand? I want to know what makes
that worth so much money. And then some people that would say it as a detrimental,
you’re an idiot. Why is it worth that?

But I wanted to know why it was. And a lot of people at that moment, let’s be
blunt, would by the Rolex watch because they wanted to impress someone else. But
then you would find that person and go, well actually, the Rolex Submariner was
actually built for the other and it’s been around … and the intricacies of …
and the movement and the movement is so … and that would make it fascinating for
me.

When you know why it’s worth it, that would … And I was lucky enough to find
some of those people. The mentality grew from there, and I noticed something that
you can actually test today. If you asked someone, “Hey, if I gave you one wish
and you could do anything you wanted to do, what would it be?” And they will say
something like, “I don’t know, sing on stage with Taylor swift, or have dinner
with George Clooney.”

And then without sparring them on, they would spend the next two minutes telling
you why that couldn’t happen. See say to someone, “Hey, what would you do if you
could do anything?” “Oh, I’d love to have lunch with the pope. But I couldn’t
because I don’t have enough money or I can’t go to Rome. I wouldn’t know where to
start, or how do you possibly do that?” Oh, it’s … the classic one: It’s
impossible!

You see, people tell you what they want and then spend the next two minutes with
dedicated energy telling you why it can’t happen, rather than spending that energy
on all asking themselves why should it? and I found so many times … can I tell
you a quick story?

Igor Kheifets: Absolutely.

Steve Sims: Okay. I had a client who wanted to go out. I’ll make this one brief
because you probably heard it 1000 times before. I had a client who wanted to go
for an amazing restaurant tour in Florence. And he left it to me to make that
amazing restaurant happen. I closed down an entire museum, the academia, which
houses Michelangelo’s David. And I set up a table of six at the feet of David and
then halfway through dinner of the six people, I had Andrea Bocelli come in and
serenade them at night. That’s the kind of wild, wacky stuff I do, all right? Now
let’s get to the important part of that. It took a lot of credibility. It took a
lot of people. I’m vouching for me. I’m a great believer that if I tell you I’m
brilliant. It’s marketing and promotion. If your best mate tells you I’m
brilliant, it’s Gospel. So when I wanted things, I get people within their circle
to make the connection and go, “Hey, this guy’s real.” Please help them out or
listened to it. So I use and leverage relationships a lot. So here’s the key to
this story. I’m in the academia. It’s about 9:00 at night and we’ve got the table
with other candles and all the chefs getting everything ready, and the lights and
set up, and Andrea Bocelli’s checking his vocals. His son’s on the piano. This was
an amazing picture. And, um, sat next to the curator and head of the Academia
Museum. Now I never ask a question that you can answer with a no, unless no is the
answer I want. Okay, so I’m sat next to the guy. I knew there was resistance from
him allowing this crazy looking British guy that lives in Los Angeles. He referred
to me as Mr. Hollywood a couple of times so you can tell that I wasn’t exactly
being endeared to him.

He saw me. I think as a bit of a flashy fella. And he stood next to me and we’re
looking at this. So now he couldn’t do anything to upset the night. So I turned
around to him and I said, “This must make you proud. It’s a very beautiful
evening, isn’t it?” And he said, “It is Steve. It is.” I said, “Well I’ve got to
be honest. That that table is looking beautiful.” I said, “Have you ever done
these before?” And he said, “A table of six at the feet of the most iconic statue
in the world?” He said, “Never.” Now of course I’m actually thinking, oh, this is
because of my connections. This is because I know how to get stuff done. I am the
negotiator, Forbes called me the real life wizard of Oz. My Ego was starting to
get ripped out of my shirt. Okay. So I said to the guys said, “Oh, so it’s never
been done before.” He’s like, “Nope.” I said, “It’s beautiful though, isn’t it?”
He went, “Yep.” I was leading them up the path to the love of my ego, so I dropped
the bombshell that was going to finish me for the night. “So, why is this never
happened before?” I expect him to go, “Because no one’s as connected as you,
Steve. No one’s good at negotiating as you Steve.” Do you know, he turned around
and he went, “No one’s ever asked.” And in one second everything dropped. And I
suddenly realized that most people don’t. Again, they will focus on telling you
why it can’t happen with so much energy and commitment rather than using their
energy and commitment to provide the one reason it should. And the reason is
because you want it to.

Igor Kheifets: Amazing. I mean, this is just huge. It just reminds you of how we
tend to be like race horses with blinders.

Steve Sims: Yeah.

Igor Kheifets: And we just keep going forward and not deviate from what we think
is either the right thing to do or what are we allowed to do by some authority,
some the visible authority.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant visual. That’s perfect. You made me sound
… there you go. You made me sound smarter than I am.

Igor Kheifets: Well, I mean this is. This is truly big because there’s. I mean I
can. I only experienced this in marketing in my personal life. I haven’t yet
decided or made the commitment to experience this kind of breakthrough, but in my
business I’ve seen it over the years, many, many times where I did play small and
the only difference between the big success and the small success is because I aim
for the small success. In your book you write about, aiming for the moon, so to
speak, and landing on the stars where you want to go for the really big goal, and
even if you fail, you still failed to a point where like miles ahead of where you
started. And I think that’s a brilliant attitude towards life in general.

Steve Sims: Yeah. I remember working on the door, and it was a funny little thing.
And again, you’ll notice that everything I do is whether it’ll be big or small,
it’s the exact same. And I member, when I was working on The Door, you would see
people walk towards the front of the nightclub. That’d be a queue on the left.
Okay? A line-up on the left and you were stood at a front. They wouldn’t make a
conscious decision: Did they line up? Or did I walk towards the doorman, slip him
50 bucks and walk in. And they would be the ones that would self-select where they
stood in life. And I found it really interesting. The guy that turn up and was
just nice guy with his girlfriend would walk in and go, “Evening gentleman,”

He said, “I’d like to get a nice table.” And just fifty bucks or even just
politeness. We didn’t get tipped as much as you think you do on the front door.

But if someone came to you with that kind of politeness and that kind of, I
deserve to be here, not arrogance, but that confidence we’d like, have a great
night. We’d let him in. But then you get these other people walk up and they would
just go and stand in the line. It’s amazing how we self-select where we’re going
to play and where we’re going to be. And you’re completely right. I’m an East
London brick layer that now has the phone number to the Vatican. You guys don’t
have an excuse to play in that league. Only that you’ve chosen not to.

Igor Kheifets: This is incredible. Look to wrap up the interview, uh, I’d like to
read a short list of some of the things you’ve done for your clients to spark to
inspire the list-builders to dream bigger a little bit. Now, if you want to
comment on any of these in any way, feel free. I’m just going to give like a
quick, quick read. Okay. So let’s start with this. So, submarine trip to the
titanic, which was really interesting. Be James Bond for the weekend, which was
the actual thing you have or you arrange for someone to start in Montecarlo end up
in Moscow, with an Aston Martin in a bunch of different things, which is kind of
like, wow. Just for me, this is just while I’m hanging out in gym with a
celebrity, which is definitely something in my, on my bucket list. Uh, let’s see
what, uh, here’s the one I really liked to play drums with. Guns and roses,
Drummer Matt Sorum, and play guitar with ZZ Top’s Billy Gibbons, which is pretty
cool.

And there’s one guy who … just an average entrepreneur type of person, somebody
who runs a business who you arranged to sing on stage with Journey. Three songs, I
believe.

Steve Sims: Yup. He’s the shortest term lead singer or the rock band Journey now.

Igor Kheifets: This is crazy. Now here’s some high adrenaline experiences, which
for me, I’m more about cars not places, but you arranged for someone to fly an
L-39 in an age of space flight, and you had arranged for someone to swim with the
sharks in South Africa, as well as train with the navy seals. This is nuts. You
got someone to drive a Formula One car. And actually, I arrange something like
that for my best friend this year, and he said it was like same as flying a jet
fighter. Like he puked his guts out and it was really awesome. He said it was
amazing. And what is, this is one I didn’t quite get. What is laser dogfight in
L-39s over the Mojave?

Steve Sims: Yeah, we only did that once and recent security does not allow that.
So when the military are actually doing exercises, they will take … you fight
against different people. That’s what the exercises are about. L-39s are highly
maneuverable fighter jets. Laser-dog fight means that they are trying to attack
each other and they are trying to laser-lock so that it would say, “Right, I’ve
locked on you. I can now shoot, you will be destroyed.” So it’s these fighter jets
literally trying to get each other lined up to lock the lasers to define a kill.

Igor Kheifets: Wow. Nice. It’s kind like what they’ve done in Top Gun I think.

Steve Sims: It’s exactly the same thing. Exactly the same … and you see on
movies where the controls will be able to determine that you just got locked. So
it’s that kind of experience, but they move at such speed at a 90 degree turns of
what feels like 4,000 miles an hour. It’s just ridiculous.

Igor Kheifets: Nice. Nice. So here’s some sporting experiences you’ve created. So
this one I know. I think I know who did it. I think Mike Dillard was the one to do
it because he wrote about it in his newsletter: watch Formula One in Monaco with
the royalty. He actually had photos of that. You’ve arranged private golf lessons
with an iconic green jacket.

Let’s see here. I saw something about soccer. Watch a soccer game with the
chairman of a British football team in his [inaudible 00:42:48] club. This is
amazing. I’m a huge United fan, so this is definitely something that just kinda
gets me going. The list is just incredible and this is again really just to
inspire you guys to dream bigger than you think. You can always go way bigger than
you think you can or that you’re allowed to. And I highly recommend to pick up a
copy of Bluefishing. Just go on Amazon, just type in Bluefishing, you won’t miss
it. There’s no two books with that title, that’s for sure. And Steve, I also know
that you have a mastermind now that you’ve just started and this is for high level
entrepreneurs and there’s quite a few of those listening to our show. So why don’t
you share a little bit with us what’s that all about?

Steve Sims: So we launched … it was launched through aggravation. I’ve found a
lot of masterminds and I’ve got a lot of friends in there so I’m not picking on
them by any means. But each to their own. I found a lot of masterminds had a
parade of people who would come along and they would speak and they would get off
and everyone would clap, but there was no activation there. There was no
actionable takeaways. You were motivated and you were clapping around like seals,
but there was nothing you could go home and actually do. Or there were questions
left. So I opened up a group called the SpeakEasy community. This is a monthly
community, but we have about three to four, to be honest with you, as many events
as I can throughout the year that is included in that, where I take intelligent
people, captains of their game to solve your problems. It’s only a max of 40
people. And we have events and monthly Voxer calls, Skype calls where we actually
take where you are and get people involved to actually put you where you should
be.

Igor Kheifets: Do you … do give me permission to perhaps read out some of the
members of your mastermind because as you know part of joining mastermind is all
about connections and I would really love to read out some of the names.

Steve Sims: Well, hopefully it’s not all of them. I’m one of the thing about the
speakeasy is it’s like the Fight Club. The first rule of the Fight is you don’t
talk about Fight Club, so the people, I will leave it to you to decide on that,
but the level of people in this group are available to you. If you want to mention
a few of them, then I give you permission to do that, but don’t rile off too big a
list.

Igor Kheifets: Okay, sounds good. So I’ll mention to a first one is Tim Larkin and
I know I think he’s a self-defense author and teacher, he’s a really intense guy
from what I’ve seen. And I haven’t seen him joining many masterminds. So he’s one
and the one that really caught my eye recently was Jim quick, the speed learning
educator, right?

Steve Sims: Yeah. So we did a speakeasy in New York. These are events. We did a
speakeasy in New York, last, I think it was October, November, early November. Our
next speakeasy in Los Angeles on the 21st and 22nd of February. And what I did was
I contacted all the attendees and this is one of the key points. I’m not going to
release and go, “Hey, come to the speakeasy because Gary V is going to be there.
Nobody knows who’s going to be there because I’m going to get the people there
that you need. So at the New York speakeasy, we contacted the people at a time and
we said, “Look, what problems do you have, you want solved?” There was a guy that
wanted to … well there was quite a few of them that wanted to release a book.
There was someone there that said that they get so much work, they don’t know how
to automate things.

They don’t know how to get the priorities done. There was another person who was
focusing on branding, and there was another group of people that said that they
can’t remember half of the stuff they’re supposed to do. So I got in one of the
top literally agents in America. The agent of J.J Virgin, myself, Brendon
Burchard, to talk about how to write a book and how to get it out there. I had the
head of videography and filming for Victoria Secrets and Ralph Lauren and all the
big commercials for cosmetics and perfume came in and talking about branding. And
branding is making a story that others can resonate with. I had Ari Meisel come in
to talk about automating your life. Close friend of mine. And then to be able to
make sure you didn’t forget stuff. I had the master of brainpower, Jim Quick come
in and teach you how to do it.

So it’s not a case of just standing on stage talk, a good talk and them getting
off as you clap that actually they’re work-shopping it on how you can actually do
it. We all seen it. We find out what are the problems that need to be solved and
we get the people to actually solve them.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah. I love hot seats by the way. Hot seats are probably the best
value for being in a mastermind and I’m really, really sad that it couldn’t
attend, but as you know I had the new baby on the way, but I’m definitely here
[crosstalk 00:47:51]-

Steve Sims: Congratulations. Yeah, the next one’s coming, and the beautiful thing
about it is you can tell … We can be honest here, you know it’s in Hollywood.
You know, it’s on the 21st and 22nd of February, but other than that, you don’t
know anything, do you?

Igor Kheifets: That’s right.

Steve Sims: No, and that’s the beauty about it. We end up with people coming
along, but you know, that’s. Think about that you get the right kind of people
that are willing to take a chance on themselves and that’s the attitude I want in
the room.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah. And with you one would feel safer to take a chance because
they know you have their best interests in mind. So far, that’s how you showed up
in my life for sure. Not to mention that, you know, knowing how connected you are,
you always go in there with the attitude of, Oh my God, this is going to be
something I’d never experienced before. And the other added benefit of course is
you’re tight with Elton John and you can always attend, I think this time, the
attendees can attend like the Oscar parties or something like that.

Steve Sims: Yeah, we’re doing a special … we like to work … One of the things
that we like to do is that a speakeasy educates and helps you grow. And then what
I like to do at the end of it all or during it is to put you in an environment or
room that you never thought you would have been in. We’re doing the speakeasy in
LA that can conclude with you actually attending Sir Elton John’s Oscar party with
all the other celebrities, but then later on this year you’re going to be able to,
and this is all included in your membership. You can actually go to … we’re
doing a silicon valley one, and we’re going to be doing again, growth and then get
into rooms and locations that you never would’ve been able to get into. And do you
know what the funny thing is? When you step into a lot of these rooms, you get
the, “Oh, that’s how it’s done.” And you can take that away with you.

Igor Kheifets: Yeah, you don’t know what you don’t know.

Steve Sims: You don’t. And now my job is to get you into an environment, in the
room and chatting on a friendly one-on-one basis with some of the smartest people
in the world to help your growth.

Igor Kheifets: Awesome. Well, first off guys, once again, if you still haven’t got
the gist of it, so first off go on Amazon, go type in Amazon.com in your browser
and search for Bluefishing. Get the book, read the book. The second thing, if
you’re a high level entrepreneur looking for the next level, looking for better
connections, looking for better results, looking to basically work with Steve on a
really intimate basis, then you want to Google speakeasy. Okay. That’s, I think
it’s the one word, the speakeasy.

Steve Sims: You find it on Stevedsimms.com. You can actually find join the
speakeasy on that easier.

Igor Kheifets: Alright, cool. So that’s Stevedsims. I think it’s double M.

Steve Sims: No. It’s one M.

Igor Kheifets: One M? Okay.

Steve Sims: Yeah.

Igor Kheifets: Okay. So Stevedsimms.com. You can go there and you can find a
speakeasy as well. That’s actually how my relationship with Steve started as well.
I got him one on one call and then I started to join the speakeasy. My
wholehearted recommendation is to join for sure if you’re looking to hit that next
level, Steve, this was incredible. This was amazing. I think this is one of the
best, best interviews I’ve had in 2018 for sure. Thank you so much for sharing
your wisdom and I appreciate you taking the time to sit down and educate the
list-builders.

Steve Sims: Pleased to be here. Thanks pal.

Igor Kheifets: All right, so until next time we chat, have a good one.

Thank you for tuning in to the the List Building Lifestyle. Get access to previous
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