Niraj Shah: The Mindset That Turns Success Into Freedom

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Automatic transcript, lightly corrected for names, with profanity masked. Some passages may contain transcription errors.

Niraj Shah. is an entrepreneur and the founder of DKZ Equity, an M&A advisory firm that helps entrepreneurs capture more value from the businesses they've spent years building. After surviving a major stroke at 30, Niraj completely rethought

how he approaches time, energy, and success. He's co-founded five companies and built an investment portfolio focused on both steady income and high risk opportunities. Anything can happen to anyone at any moment. Founder, co-founder of five companies, most recently

DKZ Equity Partners, M&A advisory firm. It had had a wild ride. I'm so excited for you to join us and share your journey with us. So let's start from the beginning. And Niraj, if you could just share some of your early memories with money and how those shaped your relationship with money growing up. Sure. Let me set the scene. So I was born and raised in the UK, but my parents are immigrants. So they are Indians from East Africa. So my grandparents went from India to East Africa in the 50s. And my parents moved from Kenya, East Africa to the UK in the 70s. My brother and I were born in he was 77. I was 79. So a

you know, sort of set up a new life for the family and so on. So my father was an accountant for a SME. And my mother had a part-time job as washers bringing up the kids. So that was, I think the best way for me to sum it up is that there was always food on the table. There was always a roof over of the house, but our bikes were second hand and our holidays was a week in the UK, right? So we weren't flying off to Spain and doing all these things. What I will say, so my dad was quite cautious with money, but he was very good with money. he was a numbers guy, right? So my early memories, I remember he would come a home from the office and I was probably about seven or eight years

old. He'd come home from the office. I'd be watching TV and he would flick onto something called teletext, which it's kind of like a really early version of the internet, you know, sort of block graphics and, and there'd be these numbers on the screen and I asked him, what is this? And he'd say, these are shares and stock prices. This is what, you know, this is some of the stuff that we have we have. So what he was doing, the reason I only learned all of this in hindsight, the reason we had second hand bikes and holidays in the UK is not because he couldn't afford to buy us a new bike or of go abroad. He was thinking about the the future and thinking about his family and that was an amazing thing because the first sort of big trauma in my life was I was 14. My brother was 16. My parents were in the 40s. My dad was 47 and a few days after his 47th birthday,

he had a huge heart attack and the next day he was gone. Right. So age 14, age 16, whole world gets turned upside down. And I remember very clearly, like my brother saying to me that night when it happened, we're in so much trouble, we're going to lose a house, all 啲 stuff. And I said, I think we'll be okay. And I just knew my dad will have done that. And that was when we found out, one, he had really great life insurance and two, he'd been building this investment portfolio, which basically meant that we didn't lose the house and that we weren't in trouble and that we could just continue our life right from a financial point of view. So I'd say that was like, that shaped me

a lot. Yeah, I'll pause there, but where do you want to go with this? I mean, what an incredible gift to be in this moment moment of sheer grief and a lot for a 14-year-old to handle and then in the same breath realize we're going to be okay. We can grieve dad without losing everything. I mean, how important was that for you? At the time, I was 14 years old, so I didn't really understand it other than we can continue, right? We can still eat the same food, live the same life, and so on. So I had to go back and kind of figure it out, but It wasn't a huge amount of money, but it was about

eight years of his gross salary and that was enough for us to grow up, basically, right? So I think it forced me to grow up a lot as a 14-year-old. I can't imagine, like my mother, we're very close to her because she had to raise two teenage boys all of a sudden and I'm like a month off my own 47th birthday, so I'm at the stage of life where all of this happened to my parents. So yeah, I just think that the most important thing was we were able to continue, but it also did shape some of my thinking. So as an example, 19 years old, I finished my first year of university. I was very lucky because I was effectively the last year that could go to university for free.

And because it's a single parent family, we got some government grants and all this stuff. And I always had part-time jobs. From 14 years onwards, I had part-time jobs, because I just kind of knew learning how to work was important, and I wanted my own money, right? Like I wanted a bit of independence and end of first year of university, I had a little bit of money left over, which was very rare because I had a part-time job. I was busy doing that instead of going to lectures. Like I only went because it was free. Otherwise, I would have had a difficult decision around. I said to my mom, hey, I want to start investing because I'd see my dad do it. So my dad's younger brother who played a pivotal role in helping raise us and all this stuff. She said, okay, well, you can talk to him

and he'll guide you. So this was to place the time 1998. So the stock market's booming. Dotcom's in full bloom. And he gave me some guard rails and said, okay, go and invest this 2K or whatever it was. And I remember doing it, and then just watching it go up because markets were booming. About two years later, it all tanked. So I thought I was a genius, and then I learned that I wasn't. But that was enough for me to get the the bug of this mindset of start putting money away You've been given the gift of financial responsibility and investing and looking out for your future self very early. I mean, most kids aren't thinking about that probably because they don't

have to. Right. And you suffer this tragedy and see the benefit and then start applying it. How does that start to play out in your career? So what happened was I remember as a 15 year old, I had two very clear thoughts because I'd been reflecting on what happened and I knew I was different to my peers because they all had two parents and no worries and all this stuff. Number one thought. So I grew up in Birmingham, Birmingham, UK, like I was like, I need to go see the world, right? Like there's more to life than this town where there wasn't really a lot going on. And number two, I need my own business and the only thinking was because because a lot of money.

I didn't know about investment banking and all this other stuff like careers and whatever. So it was a very naive thought, but that was why I had summer jobs and internships and all this. It was like, I just need to learn as much as I can earn some money. So I think like in my 20ies, I was just trying to siphon off a bit of money instead of just everything that comes in goes out. I married very very wife. She's definitely the brains of the operation and I mean that in like in every way. And she's off the same mindset. She also comes from, you know, her dad was a plumber, mom didn't have a university education work for the NHS. So she

she comes from that sort of similar background. And I think I met someone in my early 20s who had the same mindset as me of this is what I want from life. So that was really, really important. Like you've heard me say this before, but I think your choice of life partner is the most important decision you're ever going to make, right? Like I fundamentally believe that.

Do this to make sense. We need to find something run down and do it up and all this, you know, it's just logical to me if that makes sense. Did you experience any hardship based on being an immigrant or was that not really a factor? So I think there wasn't a lot of like overt racism or anything like that. It's always been a very tolerant and multicultural place. So I don't think there was that hardship. I think actually I was blessed because although I didn't experience that life in Africa or India, it got handed down to me through all the osmosis and the wider family that we've been given a gift here. The whole point of the family making those moves it was for opportunity. So I think this is one of the things I reflect on a lot immigrants do well because they know life could be so much tougher. So willing to roll up their sleeves

and work really hard and it's not to say the natives aren't but I think with immigrants it's different because they're used to not having a safety net and so on. And I definitely got that work. Yeah, perhaps like an extra layer of gratitude of awareness that it is not necessarily this way everywhere else. Yeah. I mean essentially for me being born in the UK because if like one grandparent had made a different decision I could be born in a village in India where already things are going to be tougher for so many reasons. So for me being born and raised in the UK is winning the demographic lottery knowing how that afforded me opportunity that isn't given to so many people in the world. Yeah, so you've got this immigrant work ethic and a familial sense of responsibility

investing pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. You meet an incredible woman that has the same shared values and start investing early. How does your career unfold from there? So I said age 15 I knew I wanted my my own business but I got sidetracked by a career which was okay but I was learning a lot like I was doing okay career wise and I was always in sales oriented jobs and I was there to learn as much as earn and at times I earned okay money and at times I earned good money but the thinking was always I'm going to start my own business but also I didn't know how to do it like we didn't have those models in the family or anything like that. So I'd got to 29 and now the financial crisis 2008 has just happened. So I thought that I was going

to start the kind of business that I was working for. So I'd fallen into the recruitment sector and I was head hunting bankers and that was really interesting for me because it was lucrative and like the businesses I'd worked for were like fast growing SMBs and I thought that's what I was going to do and then the financial crisis happened and I was like I took a long hard look I was like I'm not actually adding value in a way that fulfills me. I'm literally moving someone from bank A to bank B like I want to do more and I'm like I'm 29 so surely I can figure out something else so I made a decision because the decision because I was actually in Hong Kong at that point and I came back to the UK after that and moved down the food chain

in terms of my role and all this stuff just to stay employed and this time my wife's career was really taken off she was doing incredibly well so we took the decision instead of her moving out to Asia I'll move back to the UK. So that was like let me go back and think about what am I passionate about and I set myself a deadline I said at the end of this year so at the end of 2010 in late 2009 I am not going to be employed by this company because I didn't like the people who are employing me and I'd kind of taken a job because it's there there was that commitment and as I'm going to figure it out so start spending my evenings and weekends looking into it how do you start a business what are some ideas like

what do I need to do let's figure this out and I was you know I'm not ashamed to say I was literally phoning in at work because I didn't like my boss I didn't like my team that they didn't share the values I share so I decided I'm going to do that and then three months into that journey age of 30 out of nowhere I had a full blown stroke like super and there was no like precursor no warning and that's February 2010 and what it did it afforded me the thing I'd been praying for which was time and space to think so take me to that moment

like what what is it like to have a stroke at 30 so first of all I didn't know what was going on right so I was at home alone getting ready for work could she my wife she was in Switzerland because she travels a lot for work so this was a normal scenario for us I'd gotten out of the shower and I was getting ready one minute I was standing up and next minute my head just went to the floor and it was like there was a weight and I couldn't get up and then I started throwing up and I just knew something was very very wrong I didn't know what's going, going on I didn't even know what a stroke was I managed to crawl to my phone call the emergency services and somehow croak something out and 10 minutes later the ambulance was at my door and I was taken to

hospital and they told me so then they basically stabilised me drug me up all this stuff and the rest of the day was a bit of a blur and the next day because she made a way back she was there by by that evening and the next day the doctors said to me it initially said it could be an ear infection don't worry it's a lot after but they were also doing brain scans and MRIs and all this stuff but I was out of it the next day they said hey it's a, a little bit more serious unfortunately you've had a stroke and at that moment I didn't know what a stroke was other than it, it's something that happens to older people for the folks who wouldn't know because I didn't it's a serious brain injury your blood flow gets interrupted or there's a clot and then

from that point anything can happen because with brain injuries it just depends what's affected and how and whatever in my case it was my cerebellum it was a cere- cerebellum infection this is a bit of the brain left spew flow aside that controls balance and what not so I was lying in this hospital bed I couldn't use my legs I, I could, I could feel them but they wouldn't do what I wanted and yeah I spent two weeks in in the hospital had incredible care by pure dumb luck I was taken to a hospital which happened to have one of the best stroke units in the country and also the consultant who was looking after me was very ahead of this time so they kept me in for two weeks did every test under the sun because it was very rare then it still is quite rare now

for this to happen and then they discharged me and said there's a couple of things here one you're quite likely to make a full recovery you probably will and I started having physical therapy in a hospital and all this kind of stuff so you know I could kind of walk by the time they let me go but it took a month for that to really come back and they said number two you're not allowed to like do any like you need to sleep every day and the next six months no exercise apart from swimming or yoga that was it so what it did do now I'm home and I'm got all the time and space in the world and I'm not allowed to do

Or either mortgage smart guy said I recommend you get life insurance for the mortgage you little but what he did was he found his critical illness policy and it was very very you very good so when I had that stroke it paid out right, so I think it was like390,000 or something that so again because of that I wasn't under pressure to go and got everything What are the emotions that you're going through going through a stroke at 30? I mean, there must be, you know, this is a very serious thing that, like you said, doesn't happen to young people. What is that like? There was two things that I remember distinctly like remember, I'd been forced, so I was already thinking differently to my peers.

So I was lying there and I was like, okay, I have no control about over what's about to happen, right? What's going to happen? There's like, so number one, let me do everything I can to recover. So that was the first mindset. It was I'm going to find out everything about the brain, about what's happened to me because statistically I was in a really bad place, right? The chance of reoccurrence in the first year is really high. It was all that. The second thing, I was like a couple of years before I'd just gotten into snowboarding and I had this thought lying in the hospital. Now, I had no knowledge of if that's possible. It was purely that's my North Star, right? I'm doing this in hindsight.

That was a really good instance of me choosing a thought that is useful as opposed to what's true because I had no knowledge of whether that would be possible for me. But that got me through a lot of tough moments, physical therapy. It was like, I want to do that. So I think when we talk about the emotions, it was this acceptance of, look, this has happened. I can't control the future. What I can control is what I do from here onwards, which is what it changed my thinking about everything, health, time, freedom, energy. It was like, I have to do the maximum. And then whatever happens, happens. Yeah. , so it sounds like it gave you a sense that life is precious. And you better go out and make it worth it.

It taught me the fragility of life. It taught me anything can happen to anyone at any moment. But up until that point, I was in my twenties, I was bulletproof, right? I could go out drinking on a Wednesday night, go to work on a Thursday and still perform. Now all of a sudden, that fake safety net is taken away. And was there any connection for you with losing your father at a young age at this time? Were you? No. Yeah, not really 15, 16 years later, those were the two big traumas in my life that has shaped a lot of like who I am and who I've chosen to become. So now you have this time in space to eat, sleep, learn and really think about what's important. Yeah. What did you do?

So it took me six months to recover, physical recovery. And then I chose not to go back to my job. They kind of had to leave it open, open for me and all this stuff. But when it was time to go back as I like what business should I start and how do you do it? So I went to work for startups. I worked for two startups to get experience, right? Like pay paid jobs, but I'm here to learn and figure it out. So that was the next So that was the next year. So now we're 18 months from the stroke. And at the end of that, I'd learned a lot, made some contacts and got nowhere with my own ideas. I was at peak frustration. I could go back and get another headhunting

I was like, that's the worst thing I can do because that's the worst thing, that's the worst thing I can do because that takes me even further away from what I know I need to do which is start a business, so I turn to real estate out of desperation. The most boring thing ever figure out how to get some property because that's an important pillar of wealth and number two, I was passionate about health and technology and I've got nowhere with any of that. So I was like, forget all that, let's focus on real estate for 12 months, so 100% commitment this sector only and I figured my worst worst worst worst cases, I'll be able to buy some run down property do it up and sell it and learn something and make some money and all that kind of stuff. So I'd say desperation and commitment are very very important.

What actually happened is that I got under the skin of real estate and was like, I'm. I'm gonna figure out what I'm gonna do here and just started meaty real estate people start figuring figuring stuff out and I just hit on this model which was I was in the right place at the right time. So I was like, I don't want to do something start their first business because also a yard mention this like 390 K that's in my bank account. I was so scared to spend it because I was like, I don't want to lose it right. Like I don't have any other safety net now. So I don't want to screw this up. Money became the seed capital for what for my first 2 real estate deals because I was like, I need to figure this out.

But the the model I hit on 2012 for it now was co-living for young professionals around the Canary Wharf area ofait London, which was an important banking hub still is. But there was a lot of like sort of gritty areas around it where there's huge infrastructure going in. So I started reading at that time, the mayor of london was Boris Johnson, who went on to be our prime minister and he'd already committed like billions of pounds to this area. All this stuff. So I was just applying investor principles to this thing and thinking, well, hang on a second. You've got like this regulations coming in to these shared living household landlords are running out. We're still semi-recessionary because 2008 financial crisis.

These are gritty areas. It's not glamorous, but they're 15 minutes from Canary Wharf So from a supply and demand point of view, I was like, this is this is crazy. These people are running away because they don't like regulation. And this stuff like the math just adds up, right? Like you can buy it for this. So it was it wasn't I think this is really important point. It wasn't and I know you've done some real estate stuff as well. With your previous background, with your business stuff. This was not let's buy it and hope it goes up, which is what most people think real estate is at that time. It was just, you know, the timing was right, I remember my friends in, like friends of mine who had done stuff. They were like, oh, why are you looking around there? It's, bad area and everything we're doing doesn't work anymore because of financial crisis and like nobody's going to give you a deal.

And these are all things that are said to me and it's funny like a few years later, those same people were like, oh, you got so lucky. What are you doing? Yeah, but that was the starting point. It strikes me that this is a very sophisticated investment thesis for a first timer. What gave you such conviction when maybe your peers were looking at you going, and this is crazy? The thing in my mind was I need to make one deal work and make sure that I can lose money on it and just get things going, right? I knew the importance of that. So one, because I'd been investing for a few years from an investment principles point of view, I was like, this makes sense, right?

Like, if the wind blows in the right way, I'm going to do very well. But if it blows in the wrong way, it will still be okay. The second thing, and I think this is quite important, I wasn't looking for a unicorn deal. I decided what's the worst deal I'm willing to do. Not a bad deal, but what's the lowest return I'm willing to get? And then I'll find that and I'll do that because you learn so much off the first deal. And it has been put to me since it was quite a complicated area to go into for a first timer. But I was new to real estate, but I wasn't new to investing. That was important. And then fundamentally, the math, because I was spreadsheeting this all out, the math just added up. The other thing I did, and this is quite important from a business point of view, I was like, okay, how can I be really sure about this?

I was 32. My market, my tenants was me five, six years before. So I understood structurally that landlords, which was mostly old men, didn't get it. They weren't doing anything digitally. They didn't understand why broadband Wi-Fi is important. They were in the business of providing housing rather than making life convenience. So I was like, okay, how can I be sure?

There's you can. Which is, that's what the business was. I mean, look, fundamentally, we're just still giving somebody a place to live, right? But it was like, okay, how can we make this seamless? How can we do it? So I was just going at it like with so much focus. And I was thinking like questioning everything because I wasn't a real estate guy. So I was like, why are we not doing e-signatures? So then I called some lawyers and said, hey, why... And they were like, oh, it's quite new and people are cautious and whatever. So I was like, okay, well, I know it's legally robust. They weren't super luxury. They were kind of like higher mid-range. So, you know, still mass market. And I remember my first tenant because I was the guy running around doing this.

I didn't have a property manager. That was me. So the first tenant was somebody moving from out of town. And we did a video viewing where I like just showed my phone around and said, here's the rooms and here's this and here's that. And then I sent the contract by e-signature. And then she moved in two weeks later without me needing to be there. So that was when I realized that what we're doing here is different to what a lot of the market's doing. Now, fast forward to 2026. Now everybody's doing this.

Okay, this is good. Like now I have my sense of self-worth back because I was like, I'm actually productive. This is there's something here. Like I'm not a liability on like our balance sheet, all this kind of stuff. So I'd say that was the point of full mental recovery from the stroke. And also now I'm two years out from the stroke. So statistically, I'm a lot safer. And also, and by this point I was also incredibly fit and well and all, you know all this stuff like wellness is so mainstream now but I was a devotee of that then out of necessity. So yeah, I'd say probably about two years in about 18 months into real estate, maybe two, two and a half years out of the stroke. That was a point where I was like, I've made the recovery

and I feel like I'm in a good place now. And what was your first lick financially? Well, when did the money start rolling where you were like, Oh man, like when did you first feel wealthy? It's such a good question. I think I started feeling mentally wealthy probably from the the point that the first real estate deal really started working because the reason I say that is that is before like like our asset base was wealthy and the balance sheet was it was more I've just created a job for myself out of backing myself and this and the other. So that that was a point of like big freedom, right? It's like I was doing this for these other people now I'm doing this for myself.

I think that that was the point where I was like the world is my oyster and also because I've done so much I suppose in hindsight would call it the work on myself because I've been forced to I was like, I just I don't know what's around the corner. I don't know what's about to happen because anything can happen to anyone at any time but I've placed the odds in a place where like things can be good. So they were good at doing property, but they weren't so good at like some of the other bits like raising money all this. So I was like, well, let me see if I can make some intros this and the other and then I got them to show me what they were doing in their deals and then sometimes I get a little piece of a deal or something like that. So there was quite a few like just real estate deals

and even things like just buy something run down, do it up, flip it on all that kind of thing. A couple years later I co-founded a real estate tech business and that was my first experience of being part of a team on a potential, a potential rocket ship. So that was amazing because I got to work with great people but I also I left after it after a year because it wasn it wasn't mine. Like I couldn't be I wasn't the., I I wasn't the majority., I was like, oh my god, that's a lot of people.� and then I tried to scale my real estate business and I hated that as well. Like I really did not enjoy trying to do bigger deals and all. kind of stuff. So I just had like a a hand full of really great cash flowing real

real estate deals which form the nucleus of my salary in cash flow. And then I was adding lump sums on top with some some deals and I was like a real estate was always just a pillar for me rather than where I want to do. Let me go back to what I'm passionate about. Let me start start thinking about health and tech and at this point so now we're in 2015-2016 I could see the seeds of wellness starting to come mainstream. So like now in London there's a few yoga studios that are a bit more flashy. I was like, well, I've got all this real estate stuff. It's making money. So, again, principles of what I like about real estate. You do the work once

and you get paid for a long time. Even today I'm getting paid from these deals that we did so long ago. So again, that freedom that investor mindset of, okay, I'm going to do a lot of work now, but then I don't have to do a lot of work to keep it going. So that freed me up and I was just like. Started exploring the whole health and wellness space and I started meeting entrepreneurs and I was like, okay, these guys are super passionate about what they're doing, but don't really know a lot about business. So I was like, I can help them with business. So I just started helping a few of the.

I'm a nerd about the brain and all this stuff and technology. So got very early in corporate workshops with like Starbucks, Amazon, these kind of clients. That was a really big lesson to me in business though, because we had the corporate clients, we had the like press mentions, all this stuff, but the underlying business. I'd never really got it working. It was okay, but I was still making it. I'd do one real estate deal and I was like, I'm grinding here to scrape by and I'm doing one random real estate deal here and it's making more money. Tell me about your journey with meditation because it's obviously been an important path in my own life as well.

What was that like for you? When did you nouve discover meditation and how did you bring that to a business? So going back to the stroke consultant said to me swimming or yoga, I didn't have a swimming pool nearby where we were living, but I had some childhood yoga practice from my Indian background, so I was like, wow, I've just done something amazing for it just felt good. Also at that time, I didn't want to be in studios because I was a 30 year old guy who had a stroke and I was terrified. Someone would ask me, what's your story? I was like, well, I don't have a job. I just had a stroke because I forget that.

So I just started practicing online online yoga because there was some like random YouTube video stuff like that. Yoga led me into meditation meditation. That was my gateway in because the two are very related like traditionally physical yoga is a preparation for meditation. And then because I'd. Learn all about the brain and what happens in a brain and started and I was into the whole wellness scene and then I started reading some of the early stuff that was coming out about the effects of meditation on our brain. So I was just like, this is just a smart thing to do. So it was more from that point of view. And then I, because I'm I just started experimenting with whatever meditation I could find and just

found it interesting, but it was a good. Like I'd say yoga and meditation were really good for me. I mean, they still are. But when I was building those first businesses and all that stuff, it was a good way to kind of de-stress and be able to calm my mind down and sleep at night and all of that kind of thing. Was there a like an aha moment or or a lot of people listening because I've heard this from so many entrepreneurs is, oh yeah, I've tried meditation. I can't sit down. My brain goes a thousand miles a minute. I can't quiet my mind that that must not be for me.

course, because not that I wanted a teacher. I wanted to learn more, but I was too lazy to put that program together myself. So I was like, well, I can join a one year teacher training. Like, and I went found this really obscure one with this incredible guy who who is like a surfer with dreadlocks who lives on the coast. And like he was really into a lot of meditation. And I picked that one because it had a lot of meditation in it. Whereas a lot of yoga teacher training at that time. Yeah. So, so what is it about for entrepreneurs? It was more so why I went down that road. By this point, I've got entrepreneur friends. On the one hand, they're complaining about their stress or their sleep or whatever. On the other hand, these tools are there that are scientifically proven to help.

What didn't help is there's a lot of mumbo jumbo around it. There was a lot of people who didn't really understand the corporate world or what entrepreneurs go through stuff like that. So for me it was like, how do we put these two together and make this super accessible? So I leaned hard into this, the scientific benefits. And treated it more like a sort of physical training program. So like the same way that you have different exercises like boxing, swimming, yoga, running. There's different meditative practices that actually do subtly different things, but it all gets lumped into this umbrella term of meditation. There is no one meditation. It's more of a, like it's more like exercise. It's an all movement. It's an umbrella term. So that that was why I went down that road.

It was more seeing a need and an interesting itch to scratch as opposed to I think we can build a really big business here as it turns out. It's like it's an incredibly difficult space to build a business in. I wasn't successful in building a great business there. Although we had a lot of impact and helped a lot of people. And so through your journey you built sort of financial freedom. Or at least cash flow early on and have just stacked wins over time. What does wealth mean to you now? So I think it's intertwined with freedom, right? So we're in a fortunate position now where we're not, we're not like super wealthy in financial terms,

but we're very secure in a sense that our fundamental life is paid for through investment income and stable reliable investment income, not like paper investments that might pay off over time. So I think that fundamental freedom a lot of stress off the table we're not waking up worrying how the mortgage is going to be paid or how this is going to be paid or something like that. So I think that's an important part of it if we choose to participate in the capitalist world then you can't ignore the fact that like some element of money is really important in this. The other side, it's the mental wealth, right? The sort of freedom of thought, the freedom of expression,

the health, energy, good relationships those kind of things like that's, this is more your domain than mine but it's, for me it's these things start in a mind first and then you like find a way to bring them to life. It took me a while to kind of figure that out. How do you cultivate that in your life today? It's more just the, because I'd had that trauma at an early age twice. It's more the importance of just remembering how important it is to live life. Something I see a lot these days is gratitude and I think gratitude is important. Gratitude comes so easily to me because every day when I wake up I have the thought of I'm awake

I can think my brain's still intact because that almost got taken and then my feet hit the floor and I'm like I can walk that almost got taken so it's easy for me to be grateful. It is interesting to think about that versus how do I still in one sense I feel incredibly wealthy that there's that sort of freedom freedom of mind, appreciation for life, understanding of fragility, life is covered through investment income and so on. On the other hand there's these you know these feelings of there's still so much more to do so so much more I want to prove to myself so much more I want to achieve

you know what I mean? How do you balance that because I struggle with similar ideas right now I want to live in the moment be incredibly grateful for the life that I've built I have everything I've ever wanted and yet there. There's so much more to do how do you balance that? I don't think I do balance it. I think intentionality is really important so this phase of my life so now I have a young company again you know just 14 months I have the benefits of all of the stuff I've I've done before stuff that's worked stuff that's. I have the benefit of you know we've done some investments in other companies and I've had some advisory roles with other companies so you get the benefit of seeing all of that

so this phase of my life is a head down working get something going certain things get sacrificed and it's just more me being secure in I've chosen to do this intentionally and I understand that you can't do everything at once all the time but it's that choice as opposed to going along with emotions and sort of doing something that I haven't really thought through should I be doing it or not and I know you're bringing a more holistic approach to M&A which can be very transactional tell me about that holistic approach, what does that mean to The way this came came about was I had a tech start up that in 2023 we decided to pause

because we either had to raise more money or pause it and that was very painful because it's not like I can't put that in a success column so it's like I've lost money, we've let other people down, and we feel let down all this stuff so I was like what do I do next. So my first instinct was let me go back to real estate, let me build a business there then my wife who I've told you is a brains of the operation she said to me we thought about buying a business and I was like, not really but that's a good idea so I started going down that rabbit hole and I was like let me try and buy a business so 2023 and 2024 I had real estate and investment stuff going on in the background as you know still needs active work, it's never fully the passive and it's never fully passive

in fact I'll just say that sector is never fully passive it's great because it's great because you don't have to do much to get a good return once you've got stuff set up so I started looking at these smallish businesses like deal value half million to two million so they're very small but they're real businesses right and they're all profitable and came close two or three times and the third of those I thought I had a deal and in December 24 it fell apart and at the same time I'd start helping out a few friends with M&A stuff they had a bit of inbound interest or they were looking at acquisition so I was just being a sounding board for them and I thought I was going to acquire this small company and then go down that journey

and use my knowledge and contacts and all this to build something in hindsight I'm so glad that didn't happen so in December 2024 I had to add a real F this moment if the deal fell apart and I was like I've dealt with these M&A advisers intermediaries these brokers and they're all useless right at that level it's a very small end of the market I blame them for all this stuff and I just had this famous entrepreneur last words I think I can do it better so then I thought okay let me sense check this so I called up my friend Mack Lackey who you know who you know sort of huge M&A experience and I said hey Mack do you think I can do this and he just laughed and said of course you can

so for that then I called up an M&A guy I knew in the US and I said hey do you think I can do this and I like of course you can like I I'll help you so it was December 24 14 months ago from the point of when we're recording this I was just like hey let me just go all in on that because I just think they're doing a bad job for their clients and when you talk about holistic approach M&A when it's quite transactional the deals I was involved in that didn't come about you had a willing buyer me and a willing seller and a deal didn't get done because a seller was not mentally prepared to either let go or the advisor hadn't really I still don't actually understand this like they just

didn't have the urgency or the thoroughness or all this kind of stuff but in hindsight I know why because they're getting paid regardless right they're getting their retainer fees or listing fees or whatever it is so for me it was like well okay I want to build something that's super founder centric because I've sat in that seat and you know you connect the dots backwards I've been around this my whole career two of the companies I work for as an employee one was a stock market listing at 50 million the other was a private equity backed management buyout at 16 million if it does eight or nine figures or could be nothing right as you know like it can also be running to the ground like there's a lot that needs to happen

and I'd realized I've been a founder advisor investor I've had a couple of exits as an investor buy side operators so I'd seen it from all sides of the table so my whole thesis was this end of the market which is too small for investment banks but you're talking about real businesses there's not like a laundromat that a broker would list or something like that whereas like a small entity my thesis was it's just very underserved and we can do a better job and that was it so that holistic element is narrowing the conflicts that exist between any sort of intermediary and their client but also looking at this holistic element of you know making sure that a seller is prepared for what's about to unfold

and that's the mental preparation of some of the stuff that you go into like what's your mindset around the money and do you have a plan for what's going to happen after because if they don't then either that is going to sabotage the exit or they're going to feel incredibly deflated and lost afterwards and some work it's been really good the next 9 to 19 years is building this out I really see this as a 1-2 a decade journey now and how do you help people prepare for that exit

because there is such an identity loss - there's a financial windfall there's a lot of moving pieces that can be very destabilizing yeah so how do you help people prepare so we do two things like two distinct services one is exit readiness so that's where we'll go through the way a sophisticated buyer would ideally a couple of years before they're thinking of exiting because that will surface things that they don't realize about how a buyer might view their business but as part of that we start getting them thinking about well you know the first question I ask any founder that gets into conversation with me is like why do you think you want to exit hugely important and how do you know

know it's the right thing to do I've realized I've got a massive advantage because most people in my seat will not ask those questions because they can't like if you work for an M&A firm and you start asking a potential client how do you know it's the right thing to do that's career suicide right for them they just want to get the deal get paid on it etc whereas for me I genuinely don't care in that sense it's like my goal is to do what's right for the founder because I know there's a lot of people we can help we don't need to do many deals to make a great company so the first piece is making them think about okay well why why do they think they want to do that and how do they know it's the right thing to do that surfaces a lot of things

and often we won't be involved for a bit but I'll say look I think you need to go and think about this here's a couple of books you should read one book I think every entrepreneur regardless of whatever they should read is Die with Zero which I know you're a big fan of

experience like one percent of people wanting to exit they're tired and they don't know what to do so there's good and bad reasons start with the bad reasons the bad reason are burned out become disillusioned with it taken it as far as I can that category of things I didn't talk about the mental well-being business what happened with that right like basically I just had enough right like during a pandemic it was quite good for us and then I brought on a co-founder wonderful human being she was like helping with the business and she had a change of heart a few months into the pandemic and she's like I don't want to do this anymore so it's all very amicable

but then with her gone I was like I felt deflated I was like oh man like I thought we're going to do this and now it's back on me so I was like I just need to quietly wind this down right there are some wrong reasons to exit basically I was just going to wind it down and then we got very very lucky and like we created some really interesting IP and quite unique and all of this stuff and sold it to someone who approached us to kind of work with them and I said like why don't you just buy this stuff? I don't even know if you can call it I wouldn't call it an exit but we ended up doing like a five figure deal for that these were all the wrong reasons to

I think so I'd say ultimately what it comes down to the great reasons to exit are because it's a conscious choice and the bad reasons to exit is because it's forced on And how do you help people differentiate those? So going back to something like Die with Zero like like one of the fundamental things with that is like getting really clear on what you want out of life including what you want financially so like what's the life you want to live and adding up what it's going to cost and then figuring out how you're going to get there so when I did that exercise for me it turns out that my number was way lower than the one I was telling myself that in itself is incredibly liberating because now it's like I've got a plan of how we're going to get there

and I can see how far we are along the way and all this kind of stuff so I think in terms of differentiating it's tricky for us because often and this is something I'm hoping to change often I get the call when when someone's already thinking about exit and sometimes it's hey I want to go to market in the next three months and it's like okay well we we can't do this kind of of planning and thinking and then the other things that I'm thinking about which also happens is when someone's like I'm thinking in two three years time because then we. then those questions are like well why do you want to do it and how do you know it's the right thing to do then we can work with them okay well let's let's figure out if an exit is the right thing or not and if it is this is the play-book of how you do it

as opposed to rushing into it and it force being forced on you I love what you said there of like figuring out the life that you want to live because so many of us I think live for business and instead of the other way around right use our business to actually serve our life and I think flipping that is such a powerful concept I appreciate you so much coming on where can people find you where can they check out what you're doing so the business is I have a personal website that's where I so I want to write more I write about three themes which I think are fundamental to what I believe and I want to write about them for the rest of my life entrepreneurship as a engine towards freedom

like I think it should be structured that way energy is a strategy so everything from physical energy in which we enter rooms and the energy in which we do things and then true freedom through ownership and that's ownership of assets but also ownership of your life and all of that so yeah those two places I love that so much let's before we go let's dive into that last one what does true ownership mean so ownership of assets I think is incredibly important and that's everything from real estate to equities to digital assets to whatever it is because asset based income means that you don't have to go to work every day to do it

and also if you're building a business that's an asset as well because an exit is just that you built value in that asset and then you sell that asset and then the other elements of true freedom through ownership is just taking responsibility that nobody is coming along to build your business or fix your life or fix your health or your relationship or you know like a good example of that right like I used to think that a good marriage or relationship is 50-50 right like you do half I do half and then it's like some point I just learned you know it's 100% I'm 100% responsible like I have to do the maximum and then it's you know then we'll see what the rest is but that little mindset shift has changed a lot

so that for me that of ownership it's like I in the regardless of what cards I've got dealt and whatever cards I've been dealt it's my job to play them as well as I can I love it Mike drop moment nearest thanks for coming on the show thank you so much Mike appreciate it cheers thanks for listening to this episode of Money Stories and I hope this conversation sparks something for you if you're craving more conversations like this I invite you to check out Unbreakable Wealth it's a private community and coaching experience for founders, entrepreneurs and executives who are ready to explore money meaning and what actually makes a rich life if you're ready to rewrite your money story and lead a life on your own terms apply now with the link below

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