1436: Neuroscience, Intention Setting & Business Transformation—Practical Success Strategies with Serial Entrepreneur & Bestselling Author Trevor Blake

Robert Plank 0:01 He went from being a broke nurse to building and selling three companies for over $300 million and he did it all while working less than five hours a day. It's Mr. Trevor G Blake, the man, the myth, the legend. He's a serial entrepreneur. He's a best selling author who blends neuroscience with strategy to help you rewire your brain and scale without burnout. We're here at the marketer of the day podcast here to talk about overcoming those fears, getting the confidence, building the business, most importantly, reprogramming our brain so that way we can get to whatever success means for us. So Mr. Trevor G Blake, glad to see you. Glad to be talking to

Trevor Blake 0:43 you. Thank you, Robert, appreciate being here. Should be fun.

Robert Plank 0:47 Heck yeah, I think it will be right. The first step is to imagine a positive outcome, which is that you and I, at the very least, will have some fun. We'll have some laughs, we'll teach some people. And so, speaking of that, what are you all about? What sort of value do you provide? How do you differentiate?

Trevor Blake 1:04 So I'll use the word authenticity, because I'm not a fan of self help or personal development. I've read every book that's out there. I've probably also purchased every course that's available. None of it really helped. A lot of it made me feel better about the person I was, but it didn't give me any tools or techniques to be a better person or to improve my life. So after I sold my first company, I decided, okay, now's my time to because most of self help and personal development is is portrayed by people who weren't successful before that book or the course caught on for whatever reason, walking on calls or, you know, being at the Hay House, or being on opera or whatever it may be, Oprah. So I wanted to say, okay, look, I use all these tools techniques. Look, what happened? I went from a to z now you can too. So I wanted the authenticity part of it. And at the time, I just saw my first company I was I said to my wife, I'll take a sabbatical. She rolled her eyes. And then two weeks later, she threatened me with a kitchen knife and said, If you don't start that book now, I'm going to kill you because you're driving me crazy. So I wrote the book after success, and that's a huge differentiation, because so many people in this genre had no success before whatever they're peddling catches on. It's snake oil, and I wanted to do something different. So I'm not a fan of self help and personal abandonment. Abandon. So I've produced

Speaker 1 2:25 a toolkit of practical

Trevor Blake 2:30 concepts, tools and techniques that anyone can use to change their life for the better. Not just feel better, but change it for the better. And that's so I'm kind of on a personal mission here. I don't have to do this obviously, because you mentioned already in the introduction, 400 million is nice. Actually, 800 million, but, but, and I don't get I don't have 800 million. I have companies worth 800 million. I have a very nice little nest egg. Thank you very much. But when we get investors in, we get diluted. So people oftentimes make them you know, don't put those two things together. So a lot of adventure, a lot of success. And so to hear from a guy who actually achieved something before he wrote a book about how to achieve it and produced a course about how to achieve

Speaker 1 3:13 it, I think is different and refreshing.

Trevor Blake 3:17 And it's time for it to be honest, because I, a lot of my friends have spent a small fortune buying books, streaming stuff, going on courses, getting dopamine hit after dopamine hit after dopamine hit. But then it lasts for a few days, and then they go on the next course, and then they get the next book and the next book. And I just wanted to produce something that you can use today that'll make a difference tomorrow.

Robert Plank 3:41 Very nice. And as you said, to not just feel good, but to make that change. And if someone's following along, right, they're listening to the podcast, but they're also grabbing some of these resources. Is three simple steps, your guide for this, or what's this kind of this guide that you created that help us change our lives.

Trevor Blake 4:00 So three simple steps is, is the three things that I learned as a kid, because I grew up really poor, and I all self help. People say that, right? I grew up poor, but when you look behind the scenes, when you open the curtains and look at the Wizard of Oz, you find out that's not true. But in my case it was. My dad was unemployed, unemployable. My mom was dying of cancer, and we lived on the graces of British welfare. And that's a great story. Some people look at listen to that and say, Oh, how sorry are you? How sad that is. But actually, I had a blast as a child because it meant that I was totally free, because my parents didn't care. So they'd open the front door and go off have an adventure, get into nature, come back in time for dinner, something to eat, and it made me the, I think, the person that I am today, and has kind of given me the algorithm I need in order to succeed in all aspects of life, because I understand connection with the universe and nature and honestly,

Speaker 1 4:54 so for me, the the. The power

Trevor Blake 5:02 of being brought up that way meant that the world is so when you grow up that way, when you grow up poor, the world kind of gives you a trajectory, gives you an algorithm. It says, Okay, forget all your dreams, forget your ambition, forget that childlike Daydream where I said I'm going to be an astronaut, or whatever it's going to be, and this is what we have in plan for you, and so for me, when I sat down with my career counselor at the high school of 15, she said, Well, just leave now and I'll give you an application form for an apprentice manager at a chicken packing factory. And that's basically how the world saw me because of the way I grew up. But I didn't see myself that way. I saw myself with ambition and courage, and I want to do this, and I want to travel, I want to have adventure and do all these kind of things. And so I decided to take it on differently. And at the time, I was getting what most people I was getting bullied, but what most people would call sectarian bullied. So I was getting attacked with baseball bats and occasionally a shotgun and stuff like that. And so I hid from it, eventually in the town library, and I read biographies, and I realized through the biographies, these three patterns of behavior and through time, didn't matter whether it was Henry Ford or madam CJ Walker, they all did the same kind of three things. And I thought, Well, why don't I do that? And so I did, and my life changed completely and forever. And I've had the most amazing adventure that if I drop down dead while you and I are talking, I still would say, thank you. That was fantastic. And I think that's something that everybody wants, they want to be able to die saying, Wow, that was a blast. That was so much fun. And so that's what the three simple steps is. So I wrote the book three simple steps after I sold my first company. And let's talk numbers, because it makes a difference to people. You know, there's a lot of hustlers out there who say I sold my company and made a fortune, actually, and we sold it for like, two or 3 million, and they probably made 300,000 because of dilution. I sold my first company for 105 point 5 million. My second company for 300 million, I'm currently in the process of selling two more companies. These are good numbers, and these are important because I grew up with nothing, and therefore what I have to say probably has a little bit, a little bit of authenticity and validation. And so with the biographies, I saw these three behaviors, and I thought, well, introduce me to my own my own life. And then that created everything. So everything I've done in my companies follows the three simple steps. Everything I've done in my relationships follows the three simple steps. Everything I've done in my financial investments follows the three simple steps. And that's when I wrote the book, three simple steps. First one being how to control mentality. Second one be how to trust your intuition. How to get deeper with intuition, because when we make decisions based on other people's opinions, it doesn't really go very well. When we make decisions based on our own opinion, tends to go better, but we don't often have confidence in our own opinion. And then how to target, how to take all that power and target to specific things that we want for us, which is a question that most people have trouble answering. What do you want for you, not for your family, not for your friends, not for the relatives, not for world peace, but what do you want for you? And so that's what the three simple steps is. So I would say start at three simple steps, which you can get anywhere. It's a New York Times bestseller three times. It's done it by word of mouth, very proud of that. All my proceeds go to cancer research and development. So I'm not promoting a book here. I'm not. It's not for me. I know it's a book that changes people's lives because of the 1000s of emails I get from people who say it changed my life. It's just out there, but not enough, not enough people know about it. So I'm happy to be on your podcast, Robert, so that you can say, okay, there's something out there that actually is authentic and actually has practical tools and techniques that you can use today and change your life tomorrow. And that's fantastic. I wish I'd had it when I was younger.

Robert Plank 8:56 Oh, yeah, but, but now you created it in hindsight, and so you're all about that purpose, right? Of getting the book into more hands, to change more lives, and get people to think and act differently. So this is wonderful. This is fascinating. You say that there is the mentality and then there's the intuition and there's the target, and you say that the target is where a lot of people mess up, right? Perhaps it's the like, the biggest problem. And so like, why is that like we all hear about, like, setting those smart goals and to have accountability and to write our goals and revisit them. But like, why are people still stuck, despite all this knowledge being out there?

Trevor Blake 9:34 Well, so I as well, have unfortunately had to sit in meeting rooms where some person who has no success in the life teaches me how to set goals. And it, I'm going to use an English phrase, and it's, it's meant in the kind way, it's bollocks. It's absolute bollocks. So goal setting is bollocks because it's based upon the premise of simple steps, like small steps. And I heard people say things like, you know, you. You have to believe it to see it, and all nonsense like that. But you know, you don't be Elon Musk. You don't go from being a bully child to building Tesla with baby steps. You just don't doesn't happen. It cannot happen. And so you have to have this huge vision. So So I so there's a magic in thinking big and so in so, I don't believe in goal setting at all. I don't use goals. I've never set a goal. I will never, in my whole life set a goal that's pointless. I mean, the goal is like the fridge is empty. I need to go shopping and fill the fridge. That's a goal. Well done. Well, you did fantastic, but did it change your life? No, but I'm not starving. Fantastic. What I what I talk about, is intentions. So there's a magic so when I've studied all of the, all of the, all of the reviews of what is the difference between those who succeed, quote, unquote, as we judge success, and those who don't as we judge it, the only difference is self confidence and a tendency to set big targets, not small baby steps. So goal setting, if you want to visualize it is a bit like stepping stones across a pond. There's a purpose to it. You go from one side to the other. You don't get wet, well done. But intentions are about putting a jet pack on your back and shooting across the ocean and changing your life completely better relationships magic in your business or your career or whatever, financial independence as anyone might define that, fantastic health, youthfulness, right? I mean, there's not a single person who's listening this or watching this could guess my real age. That is what the magic of intentions is about. So you said, so intentions follow a formula I need to, in all fairness to the people who are listening and watching this, I need to explain. So I'm a physicist by training. So as a physicist, I my my persona is how, why do things work? And so when I looked at goal setting, I could realize very quickly, but of course, it doesn't work. It's nonsense. People have made huge careers out of it. Made a fortune out of teaching goal setting. But everyone who uses goal settings just gets frustrated. So I said, Okay, what is the secret of the universe? So? So as a physicist, I look at that and I say, Okay, if we learn to understand the energy and that everything in the universe is made of energy, and we can find tools and techniques that allow us to interact with energy in a slightly different way, then we're going to get slightly different outcomes. And when we nail that, we can say, if I interact with energy this way, I'm going to feel like I've just won the lottery. I'm going to have this magic moment. And that's what intention setting is all about. So I teach intention setting, so I call it the science of intentions. It has a formula that I call the five Ps. If anyone's interested in it, just go to my website. It's all free. Trevor G blake.com my name Trevor G blake.com it's all free on there. I put all this stuff out together during covid Because so many people were desperate for help me get out of this situation. And I thought, Okay, here's some solutions. You take it, you go with it, and that's and then I got kind of caught up in this self help, personal development world, and end up doing loads of podcasts. They just keep rolling on. So I have not asked for podcasts, and they don't pay anybody to find me podcasts, but I have a back end team that does all that for me, and I am having great conversations with people like you. So I mean, we're here to do whatever we can to allow other people to learn from our experiences in the same way that I learned from biographies. So I didn't have to go through the same experience as lead and CJ walker or Henry Ford, who went bankrupt three times. Most people don't know that he was bankrupt three times before he succeeded. I don't have to go through that experience to learn from his experience. And so when we do a podcast like this, people don't have to go through what you and I have had to go through to get to this point. They can just learn from Okay, that makes sense. I'll go and look at this. I'll take this advice. I'll try the tool, because you have nothing to lose by trying it. And that's what, that's kind of what we're doing when, yes,

Robert Plank 14:06 and we're having fun doing it. And it's, it's such a cliche that knowledge is power, but it's so true, isn't it? I mean, just a few centuries ago, all the books humanity had ever created could fit inside one room, and now there's so many, and you can read these biographies, and you can experience what others went through, their mistakes, their whole lifetimes worth. And someone like you has kind of aggregated the best parts together, so that way, we don't have to go through a single lifetime and say, oh, you know, I wish I'd done such and such differently 50 years ago. You can start so far ahead of so many generations before you. It's, it's like, such a gift, but we also can't squander it. And so you help so many people, and as you know, as a frequent podcast guest, that stories are exciting. So what kind of stories do you have to share with us, as far as like, someone who you helped, or someone who struggled? Like, what's the you know, where's the drama? Where. The stress that you have to share with us?

Trevor Blake 15:03 Well, there's no stress,

Trevor Blake 15:05 and there's no need for stress. There's nothing wrong with stress, but you don't have to have if you don't want to just it's just a choice. So I have some I have my own personal favorite stories, and I'm sure if I asked 1000 people who've been involved in my courses, I have a course called transmission experience. It's available at Trevor G blade.com, and basically it takes everybody on a journey. It takes about 45 days, an hour a day, in order to understand the premises of the science that's behind working with energy in a different way and then deepening that understanding. So you mentioned the word knowledge, and I appreciate you for doing that, because it's very important. So knowledge. So every universe is made of energy. There's no getting away from that. We can't we don't have to believe it is just there. It's just how who we are and how we exist and so. So the beauty of the of the energy, that is, is that if everything's energy, that means my thoughts are energy, and it means my words are energy. It means my attitude is energy. And so if we decide that our life is not the way we want it, we just have to change those a little bit, but not to become saints. We're not Mother Teresa, but we can change them a little bit and then get fantastic outcomes. So you mentioned knowledge. Knowledge is energy. So what do you do with knowledge? Well, if you sit with it for a bit. If you let it sink in, it's energy, and it works with your energy and interacts, and it becomes wisdom. And so everyone's had the same experience where they've been in the shower and they've had a magic moment. They go, Oh, why didn't I think of that? Instead of spending five hours in front of the computer, why didn't I think of that? And the reason being is they didn't step away from the struggle. So, so they get this magic idea, then what do you do with it? I'm going to take the dogs for a walk because the dogs need to pee. And as you're taking the dogs for a walk, that knowledge that our heart moment starts to deepen and sink and become something quite powerful. And then you come out of it with a plan. Not only do I have a good idea, but now I have a plan. And so for all my companies, and I've had seven companies, not seven from 27, from seven, no one has to I see this thing on the internet all the time that in order to be successful and you have to fail, that's absolute bollocks. You don't it's just, you just follow a formula. And so seven out of seven. So in all of those companies, the idea came to me from nowhere when I was quiet and relaxed, and then I would let it sit with me and sync with me, even though my thoughts are saying I have no idea how to do that. I don't know what I'm doing my depth. Am I worthy? Am I capable? I have no idea what am I thinking. Everyone's gonna laugh at me. What if I fail? All of those thoughts are going in your head at the same time you go for a walk, and then it deepens, then you come back going,

Trevor Blake 17:42 actually, I've got a plan.

Trevor Blake 17:45 I'll just start, and we'll see what happens. And so the whole journey of life changes on the dime when we allow knowledge to sink in and become wisdom. So I appreciate you using the word knowledge. It's very important somebody here, who's here today needs to hear this. And the reason you and I do podcasts is not to create numbers or to do anything. It's like hopefully one person somewhere needs to hear this right now, and I'm pretty sure that somebody does right now. So the thing about knowledge is you let it sink in. Go for a walk, sit in the bath, take a shower, just let the knowledge sink in, and then you'll get the wisdom that comes out of it, and then your life changes completely once wisdom shows up. And that's pretty much what the transformation experience is about. Is that you get the foundation of knowledge, you let it sink in, you deepen intuition, and then you have this power. And you say, What am I going to do with this? And you say, okay, decide for yourself for the first time in your life, since you were, like, four years old, what do you want to be when you grow up? Let's answer that question as a grown up, what do you want to be when you actually grow up? Cos you've been you've been lying up to this point when you were four and somebody said, what you want to be when you grow up? You say, I want to be a ninja. But you were honest because you thought that was possible, and then after that, it's like, what you want to be when you grow up. I'd like to be an accountant, please. I'd like to sit in a cubicle. I'd like to never travel, you know, I'd like to I like to worry about bills all the time, please. Thank you very much. And so life changes and gets in the way. So what we want to do with the transformation experience is get you back to that four or five year old self and say, Okay, what do you really want now for you? And once that question is answered honestly, then the world becomes your oyster, because you can't stop that power, that wall, or that amazing energy. That's kind of what we're involved in. You and I both are involved in this, even though sometimes you and I just think, what are we doing? But this is what we do.

Robert Plank 19:44 We always tell but there are also those magical moments of creativity. Aren't there? And it can't be like every day is like that. Every moments like that, and even that person that say they are the accountant, or maybe if they're on the right path, they say, you know, I'm fine working until 11 o'clock. At night during tax season, because during other times of the year, I can go to the lake with my family, right? It's all about what you want and going after it and and finding the happiness and fulfillment. And it's it's wonderful, right? We need to be woken up because we have those dreams as a kid, and then we just let the day to day just take over, and it's time to get that magic back. And so I'm excited about what you've created, and people need to check this out. It's three simple steps, a map to success in business and life. And that website, Trevor G blake.com, and we'll go there in a few minutes, but I want to make sure, because you are the star of the show, Mr. Trevor G Blake, and I'm sure that there is an ideal question that I can and should be asking you, well, because we just only met, I don't know what that is, so what is the missing question? What should I be asking you? I just don't know to ask you.

Trevor Blake 20:51 There's probably a lot to do as Robert, I'll revert to the only good and the best business advice I ever got in my life, but it's actually life advice. I had the privilege of meeting a guy called George Rothman once, and he was chairman of a company. I was vice president of commercial development, or some, you know, the smaller the company, the bigger the title, the bigger the badge. And so I was this fancy title, and my ego got in the way of me, I think. And I had, I had an idea for a business, and I had dinner with him, and I was waxing lyrical about my business plan, and not really appreciating or respecting the fact that this guy had built two companies, one for 60,000,000,002nd

Trevor Blake 21:33 one for 30 billion.

Trevor Blake 21:35 And he did it on his own. And he was a pharmacist. He wasn't even trained as a business guy. He'd never done an MBA. He had no reason. If you looked at the guy's print, if you like his algorithm, his hologram, whatever you want to call his human design, you'd say, Okay, this guy's not cut out to be CEO of a company, but you see of both companies and he built $90 billion worth of enterprise value. And I'm lucky enough to be having dinner with him, and then later with him and his wife, and I was watching lyrical, and he put his hand up, and he said, Trevor, you don't know what business you're in until you get in the business. As soon as you start, it goes in a direction you never imagined, and when it goes in that direction, you find yourself doing something you never thought was possible, and you'll see opportunities you never would have known, and you'll find issues that you never could have imagined, but you have to start. And what I find is, when I'm talking to a lot of people, and that could be relationships, it could be with anything, there's a fear of starting. What if I fail? What if it screws up? What if I make a fool of myself? What if this person doesn't like me? All of those, all those thoughts in their head, stop us actually starting stuff. Whereas I think if we go into if we have the attitude of, I'm just going to go have fun today, like I would have done it for like, no one could have said, Don't go in there. Someone could have said, Don't go in those woods. They're dangerous. What's the first thing you're going to do it four years old. You're going to go in the woods and and so. So what he was saying was, you know, be like a child again, and go on adventure and try. And he was absolutely right. I didn't understand his advice at the time, but maybe a few months later, I started my first company. Thought I was doing it for a particular reason, in a particular way. I'd spent, you know, 18 months building a business plan, and then I started the company, and I bump into somebody. The only reason I bump into the person is because I've started and I'm going in this direction. And the person said, Have you ever seen this? And I went in a completely different direction. And that company, you know, which I started for a couple of $100 and hope to one day maybe make into like, a 3 million or $4 million company. I sold it a few years later for 105

Trevor Blake 23:48 million. That's

Trevor Blake 23:50 the change that happens just because I start. So my So your question is, what's the what's the best advice you can give anybody? And the answer is, just start. Don't try and figure out how. Just start, whether it's a relationship, whether it's a business, whether it's diet, whether it's health, whatever it may be. Don't try and figure it all out before you start. Just start, and it will figure itself out for you. It will lead you. Whereas I think we're as humans today, we tend to think a little bit about I need to figure it all

Speaker 1 24:21 out first, and then I'll start. I'll do a load of research,

Trevor Blake 24:26 write it all down. I'll talk to people. I'll go see experts. I've gone see all of these nutritionists, all these doctors. I'll go and talk to all these mentors. Or I'll join a mastermind. I'll do all of these things that we tend to do before we really have the confidence to start, and it is all about confidence, and so if we just start, we end up going in a direction we never would have imagined. And that's where the magic happens, in the place and the unknown places. So as a kid, I'd read. I read a lot. I still do. I'd never watched, hardly ever watch TV unless it's my. Favorite soccer team. I just read all the time. And I love the I love the the books that take me on a journey, on an adventure. So I love Chronicles of Narnia and, you know, Lord of the Rings and Things like that, because they show that you cannot predict what's going to happen next. You just go. You just keep going,

Robert Plank 25:19 yeah.

Trevor Blake 25:20 And then that becomes a life of magic, you know, so,

Robert Plank 25:24 and that's what we should aspire for. Yes,

Trevor Blake 25:26 it doesn't mean it's all happy, does it rob it means it's like, you know, it goes up and down. It's valleys and and summits and, you know, it's, it's beautiful. So businesses like that, and relationships like that, they're not all a straight line. Everyone seems to want a magical straight arrow and doesn't exist. So we get to experience both sides of the coin all the time, but you have to start in order to have that adventure.

Robert Plank 25:50 Yes, and adventure is the key word that kept popping into my head as you were talking about that, along with the very wise advice to read instead of watching TV, they say that the brain activity when you're watching TV is less than when you're sleeping, so why not keep your mind active and alert and keep that muscle strong? And what you're talking about, there are the unknown unknowns, aren't you? There's the known knowns, and there's the known unknowns, but there's those unknown unknowns that once you get far down the path you're building that business, the the twists and turns, the adventures, the surprises that you never would have predicted. That's what's in front of you. That's what awaits you, especially when you check out these amazing resources. There's three simple steps, a map to success in business and life, by Mr. Trevor G Blake and that website, Trevor G blake.com, where we can find out more about not self help, not personal development, but instead, how we get the knowledge, we build the wisdom, and we get to where we want to go, right? We find our team, we figure out how to proceed, despite the fear and so many more amazing journeys await us. But before I let you go, Mr. Trevor. G Blake, it's time for the scary part of the podcast where I try to stump you. I try to put you on the spot by asking about a fun quote or lesson that has served you. I know you have several, but what comes to mind as far as a fun quote or lesson?

Trevor Blake 27:15 So for me, it's always the same vision, vision values or a quote that I have in all my companies, and that is, make a positive difference in someone's life. Have fun doing it, because in parentheses, what's the point? Otherwise, have fun doing it. And then you're sharing all the rewards, both physical and other, that come naturally as a result of setting that energy in motion. That's the mantra of all the companies that I've built. And people really galvanize over that, because they understand that if I make a positive difference in someone's life, it really is fun to do that. We feel good about that, and then we share in both the material and spiritual rewards that come as a result of raising someone's energy so that, that for me, is that

Speaker 1 27:56 that's my my life mantra,

Robert Plank 27:59 and

Robert Plank 28:00 it's a wonderful, beautiful life mantra, have fun doing it. So check out this book, three simple steps, a map to success in business and life. Because despite stock market crashes.com, busts and the specter of recession, Mr. Trevor Blake started a virtual company from home using a few $1,000 of savings and without ever hiring an employee or leaving his home office, he sold it for more than $100 million so if you say, you know, that's the kind of guy that I want to have in my circle, someone that I want to learn from, because he's done it, he's lived it, he's taught it, he's helped others. Then check out those two resources, three simple steps, you can find it on Amazon or wherever books are sold, as the kids say. And then Trevor G blake.com, is that hub, is that website where you can find out about his social media, his YouTube channel, his courses, and so much more. Mr. Trevor G Blake, it's been quite an amazing education and experience chatting with you. Thanks for being here.

Trevor Blake 29:01 My pleasure, Robert, and thank you for the questions and to all your listeners and all the watches and everything. Then what do you have to lose by giving it a go? Just try it out.

Trevor Blake 29:11 There's so much free stuff. Just try it out.