E3: Relationships, Being An Entrepreneur Is An Illness & Cryptocurrency

In this chapter, I talk about how this week was one of the toughest, most interesting weeks of my life, as I sat atop London in a boardroom full of men in suits discussing millions of pounds, I discuss how I got there. I also touched on the complexity of relationships, and how to invest your money. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Steven Bartlett?

  Hello, it's 2:25 AM here, Sunday night. I'm here in the spare room of my house and I'm sat staring at scribbles and fairly incoherent lines in my diary.

• 0:14Steven Bartlett?

  Just for situational context, because I know you can't see me right now. I record this podcast on a small, small microphone that plugs into my iPhone. I record it in the spare room of my house, which has nothing in it, just a sofa bed. And I sit on a sofa bed, usually in my boxers, this time I'm just wearing a towel. I'll leave you with that visual.

• 0:33Steven Bartlett?

  And I just start talking around bullet points in my diary. This week is particularly personal, as they all have been, I guess, but this one is slightly more personal. There's one topic in particular, which, you know, made me feel a little bit anxious when I, when I thought about telling you guys, and I was in two minds, being completely honest, whether I should share it or not. But again, I reminded myself of the promise that I made to you about full disclosure and about giving you my truth as it is, without exaggeration or simplification at all. And 30% more of you listened to chapter two than chapter one, so that's great growth, I guess. So I wanted to thank you for that in some weird way. You are my silent therapist, you're my confidant, you're my mute, unresponsive agony aunt.

• 1:17Steven Bartlett?

  And hopefully this podcast is allowing some of us to discover and think together. But without further ado, this is chapter three. I'm Steve Bartlett and this is the diary of a CEO. I hope nobody is listening, but if you are, then please keep this to yourself.

• 1:36Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, so this was, being completely honest, this was one of the toughest, most interesting and most exciting weeks of my life. And throughout the week, I had several moments of sort of like personal epiphany and it's been a week full of reflection. And I wanted to start where my week ended. And my week ended in a boardroom in London, 15 floors up, looking out above, you know, at the London Eye and these iconic landmarks, in a very, very prestigious building, sat around a table with 10, 40 plus year olds in suits. And there I was, sat in my all black outfit, my ripped skinny jeans and my hat.

• 2:20Steven Bartlett?

  You guys that know what I look like will know that I always wear a hat, always, just that's a story in itself. Do you know what? Let's let's go into that because I get asked this a lot. So for the last three years, I've worn a hat every single day, right? Every single day. Um, people that work with me, girlfriends, mates, will all say the same thing. They know I, the only time I take my hat off in public, being completely honest, is when I go through that airport security um section and they make me. And even then, it's a very, very quick exchange. You know, I put it in the basket, I run through it and I put my hat back on. And I I've been asked why, why I wear a hat um many, many, many times.

• 3:02Steven Bartlett?

  And so I'm going to tell you why I wear a hat, other than the fact that I've got shit hair. Um, the reason why I wear a hat is because my life is very, very complicated. Um. And the reason why I know why I wear a hat is because I never used to wear a hat until something happened and that thing was my company. Um, and it's the same reason why Mark Zuckerberg and Steve Jobs all have one outfit. And it's because as a CEO or as a busy person, you you're constantly trying to limit the amount of decisions you have to make. And when I, before Social Chain, when I used to do my hair every single day, it would take me about twenty five minutes to put the the wax in my hair, to comb it.

• 3:45Steven Bartlett?

  I then had to wait for it to dry and towel it and all these things which were time consuming. And so when I started Social Chain, um, decisions were everywhere and important decisions were everywhere. And so I stopped caring so much about decisions that didn't really matter. So now my wardrobe is eighty five percent black T-shirts. And I have one pair of black jeans, as I've said to you guys before. I just bought a new pair this weekend, actually, so my old ones will be retired. And when I wake up in the morning, I go to my wardrobe, I pick a black T-shirt, I put on my black jeans and I put on my hat. And then I go to, obviously, there's things that I do before that and brush my teeth, shower and all these things, but then I go to work.

• 4:26Steven Bartlett?

  And I don't want picking an outfit, matching it and all these other things to to factor into that. I don't really like taking the time to even uh like cut my hair, etc. So my hair tends to like grow out quite a lot. So the reason why I wear a hat, just to put this to bed, um, is because I'm trying to limit, I think I'm trying to limit the decisions that I make. Um, and it just, it, life is easier just wearing all black. It's just easier. And it's quite fashionable as well, I think, to wear all black. Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yeah, sat in that boardroom. So sat in this boardroom in London, all these very old grey people around me. Um, uh, and I, and I was reflecting for a second. I had a bit of like a moment of personal epiphany.

• 5:10Steven Bartlett?

  Where I thought, fuck, how did you get here? And I literally thought that in my head. We're sat at this table, talking about major strategic business moves. These are a hundred million pound decisions, right? Um, and I, and I, I looked around the table and I've got, I took a little video on my phone because I was like, you probably want to remember this moment. But how did this little kid from Africa, I guess that's where I, I was born originally. How did this kid from Africa get to this boardroom in London? Sat around this table, having conversations about hundreds and hundreds of millions of pounds. With people that don't look like me, to say the least.

• 5:51Steven Bartlett?

  Uh, and I, I, I genuinely thought that, I thought, fucking hell, how did I get here? And it was one of, cause you know, because you're so, as a CEO or an entrepreneur, you're so busy. Taking one day at a time, one hour at a time, one email at a time, one problem at a time, one challenge at a time. You very, very, very rarely reflect. And people always say to me, they say, God, you must be so proud of yourself. And I'm not proud of myself at all. I don't have time to sit around being proud of myself. I think there's, there's a fear of complacency and there's so much to do that'll stop you from ever sitting around and patting yourself on the back. And so that was a very rare moment where I, I reflected, um, only for a couple of seconds.

• 6:33Steven Bartlett?

  But then when it came to thinking about things I wanted to touch on with you guys today, I wanted to answer that question. How did I get here? And I wanted to break down some, the sort of the first things that popped my mind when I answered that question. How did I get here? Um, and the first point I wrote down in my diary is about visualization. Okay. I hate. What that book, The Secret, did to the world. Much of it, anyway. Full disclosure, not fully read the book. But when I ask people about that book and what it means, and when I've watched YouTube videos from people that have read the book, The Secret, about visualization,

• 7:16Steven Bartlett?

  the emphasis seems to be on just saying what you want or just thinking about it instead of action. And for me, the most important thing has always been taking action. And so when I say unspoken visualization is one of the reasons that got me to that boardroom. What I mean is, my whole life, I've known what I want my life to look like. Since I was sixteen, seventeen, eighteen years old, I knew what I wanted my life to look like. And for you guys that listen to chapter one, you'll remember some of the things I wrote down that I wanted to achieve before I was twenty five were when I was eighteen years old, were things like being a millionaire, et cetera, et cetera. I always knew what I wanted my life to look like.

• 7:55Steven Bartlett?

  I never said it, I never, well, I did say it, but I never like woke up in the morning and reiterated that to myself. It was just a constant focus on who I wanted to be and how I wanted my life to look. So unspoken visualization, I think, is part of the reason that I was in that boardroom. Because, you know, that eighteen year old kid, Steve Bartlett, he

• 8:20Steven Bartlett?

  he knew he would be sat in that boardroom. He didn't know how, he never knew how. He thought it would be at first by building a social network, but he definitely knew he'd be sat there. And what that then did was make him take certain actions in that direction. And I think that's the power of visualization, really. It inspires you and reminds you of the decisions you have to take to go in the direction you want to go in. So let me try and give you an example. If I knew I wanted to be in that boardroom.

• 8:53Steven Bartlett?

  For the last five years, I have made small decisions, not going to X event, not spending my time doing Y, not um doing fifty five different things in the hope that one might pay off, not travelling the world aimlessly. I've spent the last five years very focused on building me and in the process of business. Um, and without that visualization of where I wanted my life to go, then I never would have got there. So although I hate the book, The Secret, I think from what I've heard, there's a number of very important elements in there about visualization. I visualized, um, I visualized my way to the boardroom, and I never thought I'd say that because visualization to me is something that is so, ah, it's so disgusting. It's like, there's no action involved in just thinking, but

• 9:38Steven Bartlett?

  the power of visualization is it makes you take actions in a certain direction. The next thing is goal setting. So like, did I, did I set goals to get to that boardroom? I didn't really know. No, I didn't, being completely honest. And often entrepreneurs will recite their journey and they'll tell you, do you know what, I planned every step of the way. It's just not the truth in my case. I, I didn't know how I'd get to that boardroom. I know I'd get there, but I didn't set goals to get me there. Um, it's only more recently that I've started to properly set goals. As I said, when I was eighteen, I set goals about wanting to be a millionaire, fine. But these weren't specific goals. This

• 10:18Steven Bartlett?

  was just an accumulation of money. Now I set goals and um, I've got very, very clear goals and goal setting and visualization kind of play hand in hand. And so if you haven't got goals and you're listening to this, you haven't got ten goals that you're one hundred percent clear on when you wake up in the morning, pause this podcast immediately and don't resume it until you've written down your ten goals. And, and so, and over the last couple of years, I've started to think more and more about what goals should look like. Should they be financials? Should they be this? Should they be that? Very, very, very simple. The, the, the, the thing that I use to set my goals is this. It's just a very honest belief that I really, really, really want those things.

• 11:06Steven Bartlett?

  That's that's it. Because if you set goals for other people, or goals that you think you should set, you won't take the actions you need to. You won't stay up till three AM. You won't drive in a with an immense focus in that direction, trust me. So when you come to set your goals, do as I've done now, and just try and find things that you genuinely really want. You genuinely really want. One of my good friends, one of my best friends, Alex Ayn, I just had a conversation with him tonight about here's some of his goals. And I won't share his goals with all of you, because I don't know if I've got permission to do so. But he had one goal in particular, which is enormous. And it's a something that, you know, I admire.

• 11:49Steven Bartlett?

  Such a tremendous, tremendous goal. And he offered me, he said to me, would you want to team up with me on this goal and achieving it? And even though I would, you know, it's something that's very close to my heart.

• 12:04Steven Bartlett?

  If it's not something that I one hundred and fifty percent dr- dream about and dream about whilst I'm awake and think about every day and visualize and spend all of my time thinking about, I can't share that goal. So that's my my second point, which is just setting goals that you really fucking want. And okay, third, third thing of how did I get here? I think the third thing that I don't think I've talked about before, or I've really heard many people talk about before, is about protecting your standard. Here's the thing, every single person listening to this podcast right now has a standard.

• 12:44Steven Bartlett?

  They have a standard for the way that they'll allow people to treat them. They have a standard for the work they do. Every piece of work you produce, everything you touch, every the way you talk to people, your character, everything. You have set your own standard for that. And one of the things that I believe has got me to where I am now is I have a very clear idea of what my standard is when it comes to work, and I will protect it. Even if it means that sometimes I'm not liked, and sometimes I ruin people's days because I message them and I let them know that this doesn't meet the standard.

• 13:23Steven Bartlett?

  I believe long term, A, people will respect you more because

• 13:28Steven Bartlett?

  In protecting the standard, you're also protecting them most of the time. And B, they'll respect you more and they'll appreciate you more because they're probably in your team and you're all in this together and you all want to be the best and go to the best places. C, as I discovered in my interview with Rankin, one of the world's best photographers, there's not enough people out there that are just pointing at the elephant in the room. And the people that point at the elephant in the room are the ones that cut through, they're the ones that go the furthest and they're the ones that achieve the most. There are some people who will go through life accepting anything. And then there are a different group of people who will go through life protecting their standard. I've gone through the last five years of my life protecting my own standard.

• 14:11Steven Bartlett?

  And sometimes I found that other people's standards are higher than mine, which is fantastic. Um, in certain disciplines, so you know, Jason Fisher, our director of video, his standards for video are much higher than I could ever dream of because that's his craft and his art. Um, but that's the other thing I think that's got me, that got me to that boardroom is really, really protecting Steve Bartlett's standards for work I'm allowed to go past me, things I'll allow myself to be associated with, even down to spelling mistakes and I remember back in the day being a stickler for spelling mistakes on tweets we used to do and um, the colour and the way that the box will fall onto a page, will it fall off the page?

• 14:52Steven Bartlett?

  Is the line too close to the edge? These kinds of standards, although in the moment don't seem to matter, protecting that long term will change the trajectory of your life. Point to the elephant in the room. I think that's the thing that I've, I've learnt the most. Point number four for how I think I got here, I think is about going all in and focus. I have sacrificed fucking everything to be in that boardroom. I've sacrificed everything for a long, long, long time. I've sacrificed fun nights out. At the very beginning, I sacrificed eating, I sacrificed, as you guys know, this is like a broken record. But I really have to emphasise, emphasise that going all in

• 15:36Steven Bartlett?

  for a particular end goal is the fastest and the most surefire way to get there. And even then it's not guaranteed. Um, but I, that to sit in that boardroom and have those conversations, I went all in for five years with total focus on one outcome.

• 15:54Steven Bartlett?

  And that's, that's why I was in that room. And, and there's a lot of people out there that are not focusing. When I first started out as an entrepreneur, one of my investors and mentors said to me, when I came to him with an idea, um, he said, Steve, you must never, ever, ever, ever, ever lose your focus, or you will never be anything but everything. And it was a weird thing for him to tell me, but the more I've sort of reflected on what he meant, it was very clear. If you want to be somebody, you have to focus on being that person. It's so easy to lose sight of what you're trying to be because of apparent other rewards that are easier to attain.

• 16:34Steven Bartlett?

  And so you drop the pie while reaching for the apple, is um, the founder of Boohoo, Mahmud Kamani told me one day. He said, never, never, ever drop the pie, reaching for the apple. And, and that's what I see around me is, and that's what I saw in my mum. My mum has been an entrepreneur for twenty odd years and she's been a failed entrepreneur. I, I, I'm not disrespecting her in saying that, but she started twenty to twenty-five to thirty businesses. And none of them have really lasted or been a success. Um, and it's because she's a victim of dropping the pie while reaching for the apple. She will start a business, if someone walks in off the street and tells her that there's a new opportunity, which will be more lucrative.

• 17:18Steven Bartlett?

  My mum would often lose sight of what she's doing and what she's building because the rewards weren't there yet, and go after that other thing, and the cycle continues. And so that focus and going all in on one thing, I believe has made the difference. And it's also one of the greatest lessons my mum ever taught me without meaning to. And when I came to Manchester at eighteen years old, it's a lesson that I would go and tell all my friends about. Um, I had one of my best friends, Logan, he was running three to five businesses at the time. And we had deep conversations in which I referenced my mum. And the reason why she never became anything which she could have, because she's talented enough to be, was because she tried to be everything. And so that focus, despite the presence of results, is, is vitally important.

• 18:03Steven Bartlett?

  Um, point five is slightly different, uh, for how did I get here? It's.

• 18:10Steven Bartlett?

  I guess a desire to live my most awesome life. Um, and that being the most important thing to me. I remember when I was, God, fourteen years old, sat on a wall in my hometown Plymouth in Devon and Cornwall. And I remember looking down the street, and I think I've told this story before. And I remember looking at the houses on the street where I grew up and the cars and the people coming out of those houses. And as I was doing that, I saw a plane go above me, and it was a fairly small chartered plane. It went above my head. And it, for me in that moment, it created this almost this kind of like juxtaposition, this contrast of what I was seeing in front of me, which is very average, right, very average.

• 18:53Steven Bartlett?

  And this person I imagined that was going to some exotic place in the world. And this is, before we, you know, we get into it, this is a very naive mindset. I do not know the happiness of the people in my street. I am making a very naive presumption and a sort of a metaphor for what I'm seeing. And I looked around the street and there was a guy who's got a beaten up old car with, with, with bordered up side panels. And there was a, a lady, she was coming back from the, the corner shop, which is a, a very, very sort of rundown corner shop where you can get things very, very, very cheap. Um, and I asked to myself as a fourteen year old kid, did these people with this guy with this battered car?

• 19:33Steven Bartlett?

  And this woman who had just come from the, the gambling shop in the, the local sort of corner shop with a bag full of, um, cheap food. Did these people dream of having this life when they were my age?

• 19:50Steven Bartlett?

  And how do you be the person in the plane, not the person with the battered car? And I rea- and I, I sat and I'll never forget it. This isn't some creation that I've made for impact. This happened to me and I sat there and thought about it and it's funny that I've never forgotten. And I, and I in that moment made the decision that I wanted to be that person. The, the plane to me represented freedom. It represented living your best life. And I remember saying at the time, if somebody gets to go travel around the world and see things and experience whatever they want to experience, then why can't it be me? Why can't it be me? Did the person with the battered car want a battered car when they were my age? I don't think so.

• 20:32Steven Bartlett?

  And in that moment, I realised, and I I guess I'd realised it for for much of my childhood, that I, the decisions that I make could put me in that plane.

• 20:43Steven Bartlett?

  And so I decided that I wanted to live my most awesome life, as I referred to it. I wanted to see the world. I wanted to do things and experience things at their most extreme. The sadness, the happiness, the the fun, the excitement, the exhilaration. I wanted to experience. I wanted to live. Um, and that mindset, I think, is also one of the things that took me to that boardroom. Um.

• 21:07Steven Bartlett?

  Lastly, I'll I'll say the last point on this, how I got there, is very, very simple. And it's cliche and I say it all the time, but I think it's the most important. Very, very simple point, self-belief, genuinely believing I can. Um, that is the si- if you can take one thing away from this podcast, it's that the power of just believing you can do something is like ninety nine point nine percent of actually being able to. Because I was not qualified at eighteen to run a marketing business. I was not qualified at twenty one to run a ma- my marketing business, all the businesses that I run now. I just believed that I could. And in believing that I could, I tried. And in trying to do so, I learnt and I failed and I learnt and I failed and I learnt and I failed.

• 21:53Steven Bartlett?

  And those that learn and fail, eventually they can. And so, but it all starts with belief. And that's why my favourite quote is those who think they can and those who think they can't are both usually right. That's my single most favourite quote, because it's the one that rings trueest to me. If you believe you can, even though you can't right now, the crazy thing is you'll be able to. Um, and it's that self-belief that's taken me to to that boardroom. Obviously, I'm not qualified. Obviously, I didn't go to school to learn about business or marketing or anything that I know now. I just tried because I believed that I could and I believed in myself. And that is the most important thing. Next, in my diary, I've written internal locus of control. And I guess this kind of attaches

• 22:34Steven Bartlett?

  to the points I've just been making. Um, my whole life, I've had an internal locus of control. And this is very sort of closely linked to self-belief, I guess. I've believed that what happens to me and my destination is a direct result of my actions. And that seems like a fairly obvious thing to make. But I think most people don't actually have an internal locus of control. Don't want to bring my mum into it again, but I'm going to. My mum is incredibly religious. Um, and when she got her seven businesses and properties repossessed by NatWest just after the financial crisis, she blamed God, she blamed other people

• 23:16Steven Bartlett?

  doing her wrong, she blamed X, Y, Z. And she's always done that. And she's always blamed other people for her failed businesses. So what happens next time is she fails again and blames someone else again. And she fails again and blames someone else again. And I see this everywhere. I see this everywhere I look. Um, Casey Neistat, although he's a success incredibly successful entrepreneur, um, he's kind of violated my rules of internal locus of control this week because he made a YouTube video complaining about YouTube reducing the amount of money he's making from the platform. And honestly, and this is quite a contentious thing to say, but I I watched that video and I just think, well,

• 23:59Steven Bartlett?

  then go do something else. You don't have to do YouTube. And I don't, I don't like the complaining about external factors hindering your ability to succeed. If you don't like the rules of YouTube, go and make your money some other place. Um, and I see this everywhere. I see the same thing happen every time there's a political transfer of power and the Labour Party come in or the Conservatives come in and everyone starts feeling as if that now means their life is over. Um, I I see that from seventy five, I'd say about seventy five percent of people who will believe that external factors are the biggest influence over where they end up, like my mum did.

• 24:41Steven Bartlett?

  And my message to everybody and my message to myself has always been, it doesn't matter what situation you're put in, it doesn't matter if the, if about God or religions, it doesn't matter about the government, doesn't matter if Facebook changes tomorrow. Because the single most powerful thing, something that's more powerful than all of these things is me. And my actions and the steps that I can take and the belief I have in myself overcoming. So it doesn't fucking matter, doesn't matter. Get rid of all social networks tomorrow, I'll be fine, my team will be fine, we'll be fine. Because the power is inside us, the power isn't, you know, controlled by a puppet master that's dictating my life.

• 25:26Steven Bartlett?

  So adopting that internal locus of control, although it's, you know, easier said than done, I think it's very, very important.

• 25:33Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, next point, this is a fairly contentious one, is about relationships. I think in the, the last chapter, I, and the first chapter, I've been very negative about relationships, my own experiences with relationships, my ability to hold a decent relationship, et cetera, et cetera. Um, and this week I, God, this is kind of tough to talk about, but um. I was having a conversation with a, a girl that I know and she's talking about wanting to leave her relationship. Um, and be single and it got me thinking about how we're very, very, very easy to always think the grass is greener on the other side. And when I was in a relationship, this is gonna hit some of you like a bombshell, okay, when I was in a relationship,

• 26:18Steven Bartlett?

  I really wanted to be single and when I was, now I'm single, weirdly, I want to be in a relationship and I don't even understand, I don't understand why, why I want to be in a relationship again. Um, and so I've got this friend who's like desperate to leave their relationship and I'm telling them, listen, the grass always seems to be greener on the other side, it's a cliche, but a cliche just means that a lot of people agree, agree with the, with the expression. And suddenly I want to be back in a relationship again, can you believe it? I don't even know why.

• 26:51Steven Bartlett?

  And even weirder than that, this is gonna be, god, this is gonna cause all kinds of problems. I think I'm missing my ex.

• 27:01Steven Bartlett?

  And the crazy thing is, she told me I would. And this is the ex that I was with for for over a year.

• 27:08Steven Bartlett?

  Yeah, it's weird.

• 27:12Steven Bartlett?

  I don't know what it is. I don't know what it is. And I I went into this point knowing that I would not know what to say. But I just, and and do you know what I'm trying to figure out? I'm trying to figure out if I'm deluding myself. I know I'm so good at that. We're all so good at that. We're so good at convincing ourselves that we want something that, you know, an hour ago, we didn't actually value that much. But until we don't have it, we want it more. And so I'm I'm conscious of not just wanting like my ex-girlfriend back because I don't have it anymore. Do you know what I mean? Because in that moment, I was sure I didn't want it. Do you know what I mean? So it's this like, it's this battle I'm having in my head. And it got me thinking less about my personal situation, but just generally about the psychology of relationships and wanting things you can't have. And then when you lose them, you forget

• 27:58Steven Bartlett?

  um why you didn't want them and you sort of glorify them in your head. How many of you guys have

• 28:05Steven Bartlett?

  broke up with an ex-partner and then managed to convince yourself that they weren't actually that bad or that they were good? Managed to forget all the bad times and all the things they, you know, that um made you break up with them? And then a couple of months later, you just you just kind of want him back again. I think that's the cycle I'm going through. But I know myself well enough to know that this is just a period of delusion in my head because I've done this before. And in the instances where I got that person back, let's say, I re- re- re- remembered why me and them weren't compatible. So, yeah, yeah, this is um, this is a tough one. I want a girlfriend again, apparently. At least that's what my head's telling me.

• 28:50Steven Bartlett?

  Hmm, interesting. But for right now, I'm completely single.

• 28:56Steven Bartlett?

  Okay, this is again another short point in my diary. I've just written be more time conscious. And this is what I mean, right? So it's my opinion that all of us, every single person listening to this now, including myself, we're, we're, our lives are defined by how we spend our time. That's the only thing we have to spend, right? We all have this period of time, some of us shorter than others, some of us longer. But with, in order to achieve all of our results, what we're doing is we're exchanging that time for something. And it really got me thinking about how I could make my exchange for time more

• 29:38Steven Bartlett?

  lucrative or a greater return on the investment. And so I looked at my diary this week. And I looked at all the, the meetings that I have or the conversations or the phone calls I have that I don't think are going to exchange a good return. And I cancelled them and I'm going to continue to adopt that approach. I'm going to half all of my meetings. And I'm going to cancel any or just not book them in the first place that I don't think are going to return a great investment on time. I think if you use your time, if you make your meetings half the length and you take half the meetings, then you can potentially

• 30:17Steven Bartlett?

  get a 200% better return on your life, basically, the use of your time. And long term, you can only imagine the impact that will have. So that's the, the, one of the, the missions I'm on at the moment is really, really being time conscious. And looking at my time like money, my time is more important than fucking money. Money, you can, you spend it, you can go and make more of it. Can't make more time. I only have a certain amount and then I'm going to die. And I think a lot of us use our time very, very inefficiently. It's time to be efficient and more time saving. Okay, the next point in my diary is I've just written my ambitions and there are two points underneath this, which is fulfillment and what do I want to achieve?

• 31:01Steven Bartlett?

  So I'll touch on fulfillment first. Where do I get my fulfillment from? And long term, where am I going to get my fulfillment from in my life? I don't know. I really don't know. Again, I wrote this point, not sure as to what I would say. Where do I get my fulfillment from? In the last two chapters of the Diary of a CEO, I talked to you about how I used to think that I just wanted stuff. I used to think my fulfillment would come from that Lamborghini and that mansion and all those things. And I realised that it didn't. And so like, where is my fulfillment coming from long term? What do I want my life to look like when I'm 60 years old? What do I want to have accomplished? And I think the thing that we all get fulfillment from as part of the human condition is helping other people.

• 31:46Steven Bartlett?

  And I think that's much of where I'll get my fulfillment from in my life. I think saving lives, doing great work, stopping injustice around the world is the next phase of my personal fulfillment. Whether that comes from charitable work or the work we're doing now. You know, we have immense, immense reach and power at Social Chain. And I think that much of my sort of future fulfillment is going to come from using that power to change the world and influence the world for causes, for things I believe in, to take away pain and suffering. And I think that's probably the next sort of evolution of Social Chain. One of the, one of the absolute gods of Social Chain, Bethany Trundle.

• 32:31Steven Bartlett?

  She's came to me last week and said, Steve, I've got this really, this cool idea. She's very sort of philanthropic already and she's giving so much back to the world. She's the girl I told you about that organised all the shoeboxes to send to Gambia for the kids. She said, I want to start Social Change. And then the day, and I said, listen, Beth, you've got my full support. Anything I can do to help this happen, please let me know. And then the day after she sent me a logo for Social Change, which was the most awesome thing I'd ever seen. And I think that's part of Social Chain's next sort of journey is being more philanthropic and using our power and our smarts to help the world. So I think that's where my fulfillment comes from. This is a moving idea. Next week it might come from my dog Pablo, who knows?

• 33:13Steven Bartlett?

  Next question I get asked all the time is what do I want to achieve? Again, I don't know. And, you know, I get asked this on all the stages I go on, I get asked it by everybody, YouTube comments, Twitter, what what's the end game? What do you want to achieve? I don't know. And I'm I'm completely fine with that. I don't I don't think we all need to have it all figured out. I I don't have enough information to have it all figured out. I've not really seen the whole world. I've not experienced everything. So I'm okay with not knowing what I want to achieve in my life. I know what I want my life to look like in terms of um, impact, but that's all I know. And I think it's about time we all start being okay with that.

• 33:52Steven Bartlett?

  And stop focusing so much on having a um, a perfectly scripted um, answer to the question, you know, wh- where do you want to go? What do you want to achieve? I also think people that aren't romantic about where they're going to end up are more agile and are more able to capitalize on opportunities as they arise. So I don't know what I want to achieve. Um, I know I want to have a a massive impact on the world and I know I want to be great. And I think about four years ago, I was very clear in my mind, the distinction between good and great. And I've decided that I want to be great. Good is, um, let me give you an example of who I think good is. Good is, um,

• 34:35Steven Bartlett?

  Graham Norton, right? TV show host, successful, great, you know, good career, successful career. That's, I don't know why Graham Norton came to mind, but you know, he's good. Great is Steve Jobs, Oprah Winfrey, um, that caliber of person. I want to be, I want to be great. That's how much I know. But doing what we'll figure out along the way.

• 35:02Steven Bartlett?

  Next point, uh, just before I end, um, on a little bit of investment advice, which is my last point. Um, I wrote, being an entrepreneur is a sickness. And this is a bit of a contentious topic, but when I look at my life and I look at it compared to other people's lives, I generally think I must have some kind of fucking sickness. All of my downtime is spent thinking about business and ideas and obsessing over these things. And it makes me a very, like, as I said in chapter one, it makes me a very like,

• 35:34Steven Bartlett?

  Unsociable person. I live my whole life in my in my own little head, thinking of my own little things. I'm willing to sacrifice everything. At eighteen years old, I didn't want to go out and talk to people. I just wanted to build business. It feels like a bit of a sickness. I'm also incredibly addicted to bullshit. And to the anxiousness and the pain and the struggle and the problems and the issues. I found I'm I'm actually addicted to it. It's it makes me feel alive. There are being challenges and problems to solve. Makes me feel alive, um which is bizarre. So in a weird way, although entrepreneurship has been glamorized. And it leads this group of people into it, thinking that it just, you know, it's a rock star lifestyle with money and.

• 36:14Steven Bartlett?

  You know, fame and riches and all these things. Really, entrepreneurship is a bit of a sickness. And it's it's a sickness that a few people um have have caught. And once you catch it, it's on, you can't uncatch it. Um and it changes everything about your life. Um that level of focus I talked about in one of the earlier points. Makes you not want to do anything else ever other than work on your business. And because that's a very unique perspective, and it is a sickness, I think, in some ways, um it becomes hard to form relationships. Uh uh yeah, entrepreneurship, um I think, you know, I I think.

• 36:55Steven Bartlett?

  Because it's been so glamorized, I want a bit of a mission to tear that down and really give you an idea of what it really, really means. Because even though some of you will listen to this and you'll consider yourselves entrepreneurs or business people, whatever, there's another level. Some of you might be at that level, but there's another level where everything you do is totally consumed by business and your business and. Um your your mission and social, socializing and social times are uh an afterthought. And that's the level I'm at.

• 37:26Steven Bartlett?

  And lastly, the last point I wanted to leave on just before I pop off to bed because it is it's now Monday at three oh three AM is about investing my money. Over the last couple of months, I've got really, really into this thing called cryptocurrencies, which is Bitcoin and all these what they call altcoins. For any of you that don't know, Bitcoin is essentially a store of value, just like gold, but it's also a cryptocurrency. And I really, really believe that Bitcoin is going to change finance, currencies and the world, and specifically the technology behind it called blockchain. So really, all I wanted to do is to tell you guys and you girls that are listening to this now, that if there's one thing for you to just take a look at, read a book on,

• 38:09Steven Bartlett?

  watch a YouTube video on, let it be cryptocurrencies and particularly Bitcoin. Just educate yourself on it because information is power and a lot of you would have heard the term Bitcoin and just kind of let it pass you by and, you know, move past you. But there are huge opportunities created and even from investing three months ago, I've made a tremendous return on my Bitcoin investments. And you don't even have to invest. There's technology behind Bitcoin blockchain, which I believe is going to change most aspects of most of the world, not just currency and finance. So check it out. I just wanted to leave you with that tip because for you guys and girls that do check it out, I really think there'll be interesting returns for you. And I'm honestly quite obsessed with it at the moment.

• 38:54Steven Bartlett?

  I don't think there's a documentary I've not watched about cryptocurrencies. Anyway, that is the end of chapter three. Again, I always finish these chapters happier and with a metaphorical weight lifted off my shoulder and feeling sort of ready and focused for the next week. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you so much for your attention. Thank you for your tweets. Thank you for all your messages. Please do leave a review on the podcast. That'd be super helpful for me and helps it move up the podcast ranking, which keeps me fired up and motivated and motivates my whole team as well. Do let me know by tweeting me at Steve Butler SC if there's anything you'd like me to do differently, any ideas or anything at all. Just wanted to give you another big thank you because I appreciate you guys so much

• 39:39Steven Bartlett?

  and I will see you next Sunday for chapter four of the Diary of a CEO. Thank you.