Fatrank Podcast

James Dooley: What would you deem of what success is. I think success is like all areas of your life so to say that money is not a huge part of it would be completely wrong. If I like something I pull the trigger. I failed with several businesses because I've jumped into them too quick. Seeing the edge of the Earth that most won't get to see. Just adventure and seeing the world. That to me is success. I didn't believe this guy and the problem is. Today I'm joined with Gary Wilson and Craig Campbell. We're talking about the abundance mindset. Good having you both. Love it. Excited man thanks for having me. I'm going to jump straight in. Gary you've got aspirations to hit a billion. That's a big big big goal. Last night stopped at your house little council flat in Glasgo and on the wall in the room it said the harder the work the lucky you become. So can you expand a little bit on that.

Gary Wilson: Yeah. I've got like so many Monopoly art or like money art all over my house. That's probably my favourite one of my favourite sentences. I do believe that fundamentally people who do well they just are better at spotting opportunities. I've seen so many people that have had the best opportunities in front of them and failed at it. Owning a sales company I literally see that every single day because there's guys in the room that kill it do amazing things for their living. And there's guys with the exact same inputs exact same stuff given to them that don't get that same output in their life. So it's like how often are you rolling the dice. How often are you actually putting 200 percent into everything you're doing. And I think it's one of the most fundamentally flawed mindsets for most people is that they just don't understand that. They don't understand it's like I'm just going to keep rolling the dice till something hits till I get something to work.

James Dooley: Next question. Obviously I've made you your first million personally and you Craig introduced me to you. So you owe Craig a lot of money.

Gary Wilson: I would say both of you to be honest if I want to keep it real. I mean that. I say it all the time. You guys were literally the two people that got me a kickstart at the start and I'm not afraid to say that. It was so true. Met Craig up in Glasgo invited me to Brighton SEO and I remember you sitting there talking about this big link building strategy we were doing on one of your sites and I'm like I don't like what you’re doing with that. And then you got me to an audit and I was doing like all these little Loom videos. And then you were one of the first people to ever buy backlinks off me. And then it kind of inspired from me. I went to one of your masterminds I think but it was off the back of Craig introducing me to you and then that was where I got the whole kick off.

James Dooley: I want to jump a little bit over to you Craig with regards to the abundance mindset. Very first time I met you obviously you came down to we had a mastermind in my office. It was a great great time. Poured a lot of champagne down your throat and you didn't come back home for an extra two days because you were that rough.

Craig Campbell: I had to stay overnight. I was staying overnight. The hangover had to stay over again. It was that bad just to be clear.

James Dooley: But after that you came down two weeks later. I didn't have a clue. I thought you'd upsold me like a kipper. You were like oh no problem mate I'll come down and I was like I've not discussed any prices. I don't know what his day rate is for consultancy. You do training for a lot of businesses and there's a lot of people that I know within the UK especially that I'm close friends with that you've trained up the team and they've absolutely skyrocketed and done amazing. I think you've got this kind of tough persona that people think about you but you've got a very very soft inside that you do help a lot of people. So I think there was a scenario I spoke about maybe it’s the wrong word saying you dragged home people off the streets and employed them. But you seem to have a soft spot for a lot of people to help people. Where's that abundance mindset come from because you came down and you trained my team and that kind of kickstarted us and definitely saved us a couple of years. Small little bits of knowledge bombs that you came with that I had no clue about that the team integrated and it saved us a lot of years. But my question to you is you just came down on the back of you didn't know me that well. Obviously we'd had that good night. Completely for free. No money changing hands. Is it that you give out and you get back or is it the abundance mindset of just helping others. Where's that come from.

Craig Campbell: I think I like to help others anyway. You know with the likes of Gary and stuff you see a young guy trying to make his way in the world and you're like come here come here do that do that. I think I'm always quite helpful. You don't always get success stories. You get people who leech off you and stuff like that as well so it can be quite a difficult thing. But I think naturally I just like to try and see people do well and if I can help them with whether it's coming down a day or whatever I think it swings and roundabouts people will help you back. And I've had help from you. You got me Shang Mai. And hopefully along the way we've helped each other in other instances. And I think that's the way it should be. Doesn't always have to be about cash transactions. It's all about who you know. And I think that's something I learned very early on in business. It's not what you know it's who you know in a lot of cases. And I think if I've got something I can give. Nine times out of ten with like minded people you get something back whether it's in a year whether it's in five years. I'm still waiting a bit from Gary but I'm hopeful that at some point I'll get something. But I think naturally that's just the way I am and I think you guys are like that as well. It's just that natural thing. You're not doing it to get a grand out of you. I can get that from one of the other businesses. So I think there comes a time where you're trying to build relationships with other people and see where it goes. And if you have a good night out you're going these are good lads why not help them.

James Dooley: It is strange. It's not normality. There's so many other industries that I'm in outside of the SEO industry and they're not the same. They see competition and they like oh can't speak to him. And our industry is like elevate each other and help each other out. One plus one equals three and synergy. If you combine forces you get a force that's even bigger and better than what you could ever imagine. But that just seems to be there. Certain people within the SEO community that's dog eat dog. But it seems to be that we've managed to put this group together that actually we've never changed. We buy a lot of drinks because you're one of the last to go. But on a serious note it's been an absolute pleasure in how well connected and how we have helped each other along the entrepreneurial journey to elevate each other because sometimes you go. You have Christmas dinner with the family or you go speaking to friends that you went to school with and they can't resonate and speak on the level that sometimes we might be wanting to speak on. If I said oh I want to be a millionaire you get laughed at. And I'm sat there opposite a guy saying a million I don't want a million I want a billion. And it kicks you on. If you're thinking you're doing well in business it's like well if I had aspirations for 20 million I want 30 million. Money is the by product in my opinion that's nothing to do with what success is. But it's a credit. But on that note what is success to you. Is it how much money is in the bank. What would you deem of what success is.

Gary Wilson: I think success is like all areas of your life. To say that money is not a huge part of it would be completely wrong. Money gives you freedom to do good things. But I feel like money fuels the way you are as a person. So if you're a really miserable depressed person and you have a lot of money you're probably the type of person that will spend all that money on drugs or you'll spend all that money on being more miserable and depressed. It just accelerates you as a person. To me success is relationships with people like genuine good experiences in life. It's working on really cool things with really cool people. Seeing the edge of the Earth that most won't get to see. Just adventure and seeing the world. That to me is success. And I love that saying seeing the edge of the world that others won't get to see. It's a great saying. When you get to a headspace that the world is so abundant and when you actually understand what's out there and what you could do. What the world has to offer. That is the most addictive part of life. And to me money plays into being able to do all of that stuff. If you want to go and stay in the Burj Arab. Most people won't get to sleep in that hotel. They bring you out twelve pillows to try on. It's such a silly little thing but it's something that you can sit here and smile about. I think about a lot the trips that we've done the places we've been the crazy trips to Thailand and all the mad stuff. That to me is genuine joy and happiness. It's those little moments that little week where you get away and you just get away from it all and you're with really cool people in a cool place. That's success. And that's the true epitome of happiness to me. I think there's a lot of people with a lot of money that are not successful people. I think they completely fail at life because they don't have that joy don't have those relationships. They just chase money for nothing. There's nothing you're going to do with it. Money needs to be spent and used and actually utilised in the world to actually be a useful successful thing.

James Dooley: What's your thoughts. What is success.

Craig Campbell: I think pretty much what Gary says. It's hard when you start out you want to make as much money as you possibly can. But as you get older as you have kids like you do which we'll come to in a moment it's being able to go on holiday spend time with them. I'm just back from a week in Portugal just having a lazy week with the family. And a week before that I was in La Manga having fun with my friends. Being able to do all of these things is success for me. I don't need to be a billionaire. As long as I'm making money and I've got the fun times or even going out on the boat yesterday or having dinner or just having a chat. All of these things are success to me. And I've had a few health scares in recent months. I got diabetes which I have reversed and kidney stone and stuff. Looking after your health and stuff like that is obviously success as well. For many years I drank a lot and partied a lot and tried to live life in the fast lane and never had so much family holidays and time with people that actually you just have a laugh with. That for me is success. You need money to be able to do all of that. But I don't sit there at night thinking. I've actually canned four or five businesses in the last year because I just didn't have the right time to apply to them. I could have made more money and chased that money but was it going to further impact my health or fun times. You have to sit back and have a look at that. Getting the balance right is important for me.

James Dooley: I think the biggest part for me for success is happiness. When you then start understanding what is happiness because there's people that might have everything in life and not be happy. They might have a beautiful wife amazing kids 100 million in the bank and still not be happy. When you start looking at that and going what is happiness and you start to realise it's like expectation versus reality. And the delta between that is what happiness is. If you can start lowering expectation of things in life you're going to be more happy as a person. When I started to understand that and I started to realise. I had a few interesting conversations with the wife and she was like why are you doing all this. You're doing all this travelling to network with people you've got all these different brands and different businesses that you've scaled out. Why. It was a great question. I remember being sat there thinking to myself why. And then I start to realise. When I push the boundaries and I'm outside my comfort zone and I keep pushing myself outside my comfort zone I put this pressure on myself like an elastic band. I want my elastic band to be really really stretched to the point where I go I need a holiday. And then when I go away and I go to Chiang Mai or I go and do things that holiday then is happiness. And I feel like if I retired tomorrow. Someone says here's a billion pound you can retire tomorrow. If I went out every night and got prawn for starters and steak or lobster every night I'd be bored. I don't want that all the time. Sometimes I want to go beans on toast. Peanut butter on toast with a banana. Sometimes I want the basic things in life. I think when I started to understand that I actually put pressure on myself to want to grow because then it means I can appreciate going to nice luxury places seeing the edges of the world that people can't see as Gary puts it. To go to these really nice places. But I've pushed myself that hard that I'm ready for a break and that break becomes so much more fun and enjoyable. I think that's a big part of it. Sometimes you only realise that when you are sat around other entrepreneurs. You're understanding what they're. Because you speak to some people and their idea of success is having a million in the bank. Good luck mate because you're not going to be happy if you do get there. You're going to climb that mountain and once you get to the top of that mountain and you think you've reached your goal you're not going to be happy.

Gary Wilson: To add one more thing as well. At the moment my granddad he's in hospital really ill. And last week my mum's over in Spain with him and he was talking about all of the things that he regretted and all the past mistakes he made the people he'd fallen out with that he was never able to repair that relationship. And he's sitting there now dying of cancer. Sorry to be super morbid for a second. But to me I think what really I think about a lot. You're talking about pulling that elastic all the time and really pushing. It's like what will I not regret when I'm there. Because at the end of the day there's no amount of money there's nothing else that matters to him now sitting in that moment than everything that's happened in the past. And I think if you look at life in the sense of sitting in that that shoe where you can't do the things that you could do today it's like will you be happy that you took the easy path that you did the easy nice fun things and didn't push harder and didn't really go for this thing that was a dream when you were younger. Are you going to be happy that you took the easy path at 73.

James Dooley: And that's a great one for me to come on to now because taking the easy path is the easy option and what majority of people seem to do and the 1 percent don’t. They take the hard path. But let's talk a little bit about taking the hard path. Obviously you had a large brand that you were building out with an SEO agency and there was a lot of pressure on it. There's a lot of staff. You’d built out probably too big. And then you reined it back in. You know what this isn't for me. So sometimes it's taking the easy path but sometimes it's taking a path that's just like at what expense. I'm not going on the holidays like health is wealth I'm deteriorating in health for what. So then I think there is that kind of how far do you stretch it before. Touch on that a little bit with regards to what constraints you had where you're pushing really hard and then you got to a point where it was just like this is not fun.

Craig Campbell: No I was in that exact place. It also comes from being a young guy. I was young at the time. I know people say you're not a young guy but I was young at the time when I had the agency. The ego was there. I wasn’t a businessman. I was just flung into this situation where I was in charge of all these people. And going on holiday I used to run down to the reception to get proper WiFi and email all the people what they were going to be doing that day. I wasn't even able to have a holiday in peace and quiet. You do say at one point why am I doing this. Is it to tell your mates down the pub that you've got X amount of staff in a fancy office. I used to literally sit in my pants hoping someone wasn’t going to pay their invoice because the whole thing would have collapsed. And again the ego at the start of any. We've all had an ego. You're not willing to delegate and stuff like that. I'd built myself into the business. I wasn't working on it. I was surrounded. Every piece of content had to go through me. All the sales went through me. All the invoicing went through me. There's only so far you can go with that particular model before the wheels start falling off. One day I went to the doctor and I'm like I don't feel good. I feel dizzy. I remember standing up in the office and I felt all dizzy. The doctor's like have you got money problems no. Got marital problems no. He asked me what I done for 11. I told him. They said that will kill you. You've got anxiety. I had anxiety had to get medication. I just couldn't switch off. I burnt myself out. At that point you're like why am I doing this. I'm burnt. I physically can't be arsed working anymore. That's where you decide to change things and become more of a businessman. I ended up liquidating that company and starting fresh. It was about making profit and having time and delegation and everything I’d learned the hard way. A lot of the stuff that I now teach was because I messed it all up myself. There were no systems there weren't SOPs. I was just finding my feet. Most SEOs can resonate. That was really stressful.

James Dooley: With regards to mistakes that you see. We've all got successful businesses we've done well for each other. What mistakes do you see others making that's not in our circle. Mistakes we've made previously as well but mistakes you feel people make.

Gary Wilson: I was having a conversation with my team about this last week and we had a chat in the morning and we were all talking about their goals and why they’re doing what they're doing. And one of the things I said was pick your goals wisely. There were so many people in that room that made all these crazy goals that were goals of grandeur. I looked at the character of the person. One guy said I'm going to build the biggest clothing brand in Scotland. Nineteen years old just into sales. He's going to build the biggest clothing brand in Scotland and be a salesman right now. I'm all for pushing people up. I love it when somebody sits in front of me and says they're going to do that and I believe them. I didn't believe this guy. The problem is people set goals far too ahead and they never hit any goals and they never achieve anything. Confidence is built from actually achieving stuff and proving to yourself that you can do what you say you're going to do. If you say you're going to do something and then you don't hit it you're done. But if you sit and say I'm going to be the biggest clothing brand in Scotland you're 19 years old with no money and you're in sales. You're a failure from the minute you started. I think people need to be smart and be willing to take baby steps and accept the fact. One thing that I would say all of us really have is that true humbleness where you can actually look at yourself and say I'm not very good at this. This is what I'm good at. This is not what I'm good at. I'm going to find people or find the skills to get better instead of assuming you can take on the world. Somebody like us when we say we're going to do something generally speaking we go and hit it because we understand the depth and intensity of that goal and what's required to hit that.

James Dooley: I think another one on that. If you set yourself mini goals that are achievable that you can hit. If you then get those goals and you hit those goals and you celebrate those goals. That's happiness. You're getting a dopamine kick from hitting the goal. Mini wins dopamine kick dopamine kick. You go out celebrate it. People go oh well done high five. You’re now getting serotonin. All the brain chemicals is happiness. It's very important the mini goals that you achieve. What would you say. I'll throw one or two out there. In my opinion procrastination paralysis analysis. People overthinking things having this perfect idea to go and get something started. You can change. With SEO you've got a really important button it's called edit. If it's not right first time you can go in and edit it. That's fine. If you get the wrong domain you can 301 it. Everything's reversible. So don't procrastinate and start. Once you start you'll learn a lot of other things.

Craig Campbell: I think my impulsiveness is what’s taken me so far. I'm not a guy that thinks. Even we spoke last night about the aged links for your domain name. If I like something I’ll pull the trigger. I've failed with several businesses because I've jumped into them too quick as well and it's just not been the right niche. But again I'm an impulsive guy and that sets me apart from probably 90 percent of other people who are willing to give it a shot. I've looked back and kicked myself a million times going what you doing. But I wouldn't like to change that. Going and taking action. Too many people are scared of failure. You're impulsive. You failed a lot of times. It's learning. You win or you learn. There's no such thing as losing. You develop you kick on from it. Failing is good.

James Dooley: Another couple of Ps. Procrastination. Perfectionist falls in the same realm. A lot of people procrastinate because they're a perfectionist or they spend too long on something that doesn't matter. You don't need to be faster than the bear you just need to be faster than the other people running away from the bear. You just need to do enough to win the game. In what me and you do with SEO you just need to do enough to be position number one. You can't get any higher. Just enough to beat your competition to win that order. Stop chasing perfection. Another is prioritisation. A lot of people get FOMO. I'm going to do this that. They're not prioritising where they make the money and what makes them happy. Too many people on prioritisation they don't sit down and they should sit down at the start of each day or week and know the important things to tick off. I have a midlife crisis almost every week. I take my goals and analyse everything. Am I on the right track am I working on the right things. What are the big why goals. I'm never going to have regrets from doing that all the time. It keeps you in a straight line for hitting the end goal.

James Dooley: What’s your thoughts on stress. Stress and pressure. Do you embrace it. I think you've got a ridiculous threshold and I think you thrive on stressful.

Gary Wilson: I'm kind of sick in a way. I kind of love it. I chase the pressure and stress. I could be sitting at a time where things are going great and making tons of money everything's running smoothly. And I'll be like right I need to cause havoc somewhere. There's going to need to be a department I sack half of the people in it. Something needs to happen. It's just not exciting. The whole chasing pain and chasing pressure is the way you grow. I will thrive and run into that all the time. I see myself as like a furnace that with every crazy bit of pressure I can put on I build another layer of metal to make myself stronger. To handle that pressure. It'll get to the point where you're able to handle the most unimaginable amounts of pressure and it feels like nothing. That's where I feel like is the winning place. Chase the most painful things. Chasing pain and pressure doesn't really make you happy in the moment. I would almost say I would optimise for fulfilment than happiness because a lot of stuff that you do is hard. Having to sack someone or have a tough conversation. It's not a nice enjoyable thing. But it's the right thing to do. It's not happiness at the time.

James Dooley: I feel like life is a roller coaster and I think you have to have the pain in your life to experience happiness. My happiness is euphoric. Going away on some of these trips we were talking about. I’ll feel the extent of how great that is like 20 times more than an average Joe because I've been in such a tough environment. That opposing place feels amazing. Some people live their life happiness unhappiness happiness unhappiness. You're pretty much like this. So your happiness is on high like I've needed this. Even when I was in the office today and you went in like a bull in a china shop. You were causing havoc. Your office manager had to pull you out to go come have a coffee. But that pressure you put on yourself. That pressure passes through. It's euphoric. But again that’s unusual. An extremist personality trait.

Craig Campbell: Most human beings thrive on a bit of pressure and a bit of stress. People naturally perform better under pressure. I wouldn't say I'm as extreme as Gary. I don't want to invite that joy or anything. But I think having the balance is important. You can become set in your ways if there is no pressure. We spoke last night about Dan Pena would go in and fire his top sales guy just to show the rest their jobs are not safe. Human beings do thrive under pressure. I perform better under pressure. It's why I always do my slides last minute. I perform better. You get pressure in business anyway. You have to have difficult conversations and I'm not scared to have them.

James Dooley: Few quick fire questions. What has been the most challenging part of your entrepreneurial journey.

Gary Wilson: I've not always been this strong. In the early days before I knew you guys. Before I met you Craig. Things kicked off. I was grossly overweight. Sleeping in really late every day. I had so much belief and I remember when I first started doing SEO became really good at it. I’d been doing it for like two or three years had an agency. I didn't know how to sell. I’d basically burnt through 20 grand of my dad's inheritance money at 20 years old. I remember I was in bed. Slept into like 2 o'clock. My mum came home from work and had a conversation with me about getting a job. I remember at the time the anger and frustration. I hated her at the time. Because at that time I had belief but it was so difficult. I understand what hard work looks like. I was putting so much pressure on myself to make it work and nothing was. I had by this time three failed businesses. A fashion store. An agency. Lead gen sites. No clue how to run any of them. No mentors. I was truly lost. That was breaking. I think that moment was the hardest. But there was something in me that after what she said I took responsibility. I didn't become a victim. I decided I'm going to get this. It was shortly after I started to do a couple of things. I ranked for SEO Glasgow and that was how I ended up meeting you. I never knew where it would end up but I had the right mindset and attitude.

Craig Campbell: The first agency I had taught me a lot and those were the most difficult times. I went into that blindly. Most SEOs will resonate. You get good at SEO you start making a few quid. You get more clients knocking at your door. Before you know you've got an office and you've got a web developer or a copywriter or whatever. That's how it was for me. Didn't know the first thing about business didn't know about accountants tax VAT. Building up that agency and keeping cash in the business. You earn a few quid and you want to spend it all. All that kind of stuff was a massive apprenticeship. It was difficult. Because of my attitude. Control freak. Wouldn’t be told anything. Wouldn't listen. It had to be done my way. That led to failure. It helps you go again. The biggest lessons I learned were from my own horrible attitude.

James Dooley: Last question. What would you tell your 16 year old self. I'll give my answer. To have the abundance mindset. Having that abundance mindset and entrepreneurial journey allowed me to network with people like you which helped elevate to ridiculous goals. I wasn't brought up that way. To be able to dream that big. Sometimes the stuff you can earn now in a day was what you thought you'd earn in a year. Having that abundance mindset in helping others but then having that network is your net worth.

Craig Campbell: I think delegation processes scaling are things I wish I’d done quicker. Don't be scared to spend money on these things. Again had the mindset whatever comes in is going in my back pocket and nothing’s getting spent. I would get places quicker. Working smarter not harder. I was brought up like if you need a job done right do it yourself. Wrong answer. If you work smart and you can get someone to do it who's better than you. Also employment you want to employ people better than you. Or a business partner. People always talk about business partner. How do you choose your business partners. Simple. Whatever I'm weak at I want to make sure my partner is good at that. Then you complement each other.

Gary Wilson: I'd tell myself to focus and go where the money is. At that time I was so. I’d spent weeks making a logo. Designing the first agency website. It took me four months. I made it myself. Could have got a guy in India to do it. Ridiculous. I never went and made money. A lot of people they're so weak to go and actually do the hard thing. How do you make money in an agency. Go and speak to clients and get some flipping money. If I'm starting today I'd be going out and getting a client today. I wouldn't even have a website. Don't even need one. I'd focus on one thing and do it incredibly well. Wouldn't have ten businesses. You can achieve success in one thing and do it abundantly well. I'd go after the money and wouldn't do all this nonsense.

James Dooley: Well it's been an absolute pleasure Gary Craig. Thanks for having us on mate.

Craig Campbell: Good yeah enjoyed it.

Gary Wilson: It's about.