Making The Impossible, Possible With Steve Sims

The Fail On Podcast with Rob Nunnery - Fail Your Way To An Inspired Life

Steve Sims is the founder of the luxury concierge company, Bluefish.

Ever wanted a private underwater submersible tour of the Titanic? Or maybe a private dinner in the Sistine Chapel with a performance by Andrea Bocelli? Or maybe you just wanted to be married in the Vatican by the pope?

Steve is known for being able to make the impossible, absolutely possible for his clients. There’s nothing Steve Sims can’t get, including his own book. Steve’s new book is titled Bluefishing: The Art Of Making Things Happen.

In this episode, we’ll be discussing how Steve got his start in entrepreneurship by taking on an impossible challenge while working as a doorman in Hong Kong. We’ll also go in to Steve’s “ah-ha” moment after a yacht party in Monaco. We’ll find out the biggest fear that drives Steve forward every single day to take on new challenges and why he continues to create one of a kind experiences for his clients, and himself.

Key Points From This Episode:

• Discover how Blue Fish was born outside a bar in Hong Kong.
• Why defying how one “should” act with rich people gave Steve the leg up.
• The client who wanted to get married in the Vatican by the pope.
• Steve’s ugly “aha” moment that forced him back to being himself.
• Why entrepreneurs don’t need to become “unique” individuals.
• Why Steve sold his office, his assets and fired all his staff.
• The biggest struggle in Steve’s business today.
• The importance of being able to reset yourself.
• Find out more about the Blue Fish business model.
• Learn about Blue Fish’s smaller, more scalable model.
• Why remaining stagnant is Steve’s biggest fear.
• Why Microsoft has their own fail-safe garage.
• And much more!

Tweetables:

“I get scared when things are going smoothly. I get scared when things are running on track.” — @SteveDSims

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“Stay you. Because it’s you that people like.” — @SteveDSims

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[0:15:15].1]

“I have never failed in my life… I just learned a million ways not to do stuff.” — @SteveDSims

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[0:30:27].1]

“It’s not a fear of starting a new business. It’s the fear of being in the exact same position you were last week.” — @SteveDSims

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Links Mentioned in Today’s Episode:

Blue Fishing: The Art of Making Things Happen on Amazon – https://www.amazon.com/Bluefishing-Art-Making-Things-Happen/dp/1501152513

Steve Sims on Twitter – https://twitter.com/stevedsims1

Steve Sims Website – https://www.stevedsims.com/

Steve Sims on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/SteveDSims/

Blue Fish Website – https://www.thebluefish.com/

Transcript Below:

Read Full Transcript

EPISODE 035

“SS: But I had wanted, desired and lusted for growth. I hated being stagnant, I hated – I would hate if as we’re doing this podcast now on Friday, I would hate if I had done nothing from last Friday any different. That terrifies the shit out of me, to know that a month from now, I’m going to have done stuff that’s made me broaden my horizons, spoken to different people and experienced a different experience, had my eyes opened to a new perspective, tried a new meal, tried a new sandwich, whatever. Walked a different path.

If I know a month from now, I haven’t gained any of that and I’m in exactly the same spot and even if you fail, even if I take on 10 new projects and every single one of those fail that I’ve learned a million things to do, so that those don’t happen again.”

[INTRODUCTION]

[0:01:03.9] ANNOUNCER: Welcome to The Fail on Podcast where we explore the hardships and obstacles today’s industry leaders face on their journey to the top of their fields, through careful insight and thoughtful conversation. By embracing failure, we’ll show you how to build momentum without being consumed by the result.

Now please welcome your host, Rob Nunnery.

[INTRO]

[0:01:29.4] RN: Hey there and welcome to the show that believes leveraging failure is not only the fastest way to learn but is also the fastest way to grow your business and live a life of absolute freedom. In a world that only likes to share successes, we dissect the struggle by talking to honest and vulnerable entrepreneurs.

This is a platform for their stories and today’s story is of my buddy Steve Sims. Steve is the founder of the luxury concierge company Blue Fish. He is known for being able to make the impossible, absolutely possible for his clients. From getting a private underwater submersible tour of the titanic to private dinners in the Academia at the feet of Michael Angelo’s David in Florence.

To having a private, romantic dinner in the Sistine chapel with a performance by Andrea Bochelli. There’s nothing Steve Sims can’t get and he also just published his book Blue Fishing: The Art Of Making Things Happen. We’ll be discussing how Steve got his start in entrepreneurship by taking on an impossible challenge, while working as a doorman in Hong Kong.

We’ll go in to Steve’s aha moment after a yacht party in Monaco that he uses to remind himself of his true value proposition for his business even today and we’ll go into the biggest fear that drives Steve forward every single day to take on new challenges and continue to create one of a kind experiences for his clients and himself.

But first, luckily all I travel with now is a backpack and I’m actually packing right now for Peru, going to Machu Pichu but the only reason I only need a backpack is for a simple reason. It’s clothing from an innovative Toronto apparel company called Unbound Marino, they have clothes made out of marino wool that you can wear for months on end without ever needing to have it washed.

This means I can travel with less clothes since they clean themselves. They really do clean themselves as long as you hang them up after even if you’re drenched in sweat and you just hang them up, hang there overnight, you can wakeup in the morning, smell that sucker and it will smell brand spanking new.

Give it a try, check out the show notes page for an exclusive fail on discount that you won’t be able to get anywhere else and if you’d like to stay up to date on all the fail on podcast interviews and key takeaways from each guest, simply go to failon.com and sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the page. That’s failon.com.

[INTERVIEW]

[0:04:01.6] RN: Take me back to the first time where you kind of entered entrepreneurship. The first time that somebody actually gave you money in exchange for a product or service that you created?

[0:04:11.3] SS: Yeah, I think that’s two different questions. As an Irish lad in London, I was always questioning things so without realizing, that’s what a mentality of an entrepreneur is. You know, they see something square and they got something round and they got found out how it fits or they don’t.

It’s those that kind of question how it can happen of entrepreneurs. I think before I knew it was a cool thing to be, I always had that kind of inquisitive questionable nature. The first time I actually had that challenge and I remember this very specifically, I was doing parties in Hong Kong and someone said to me, “You’re super connected, I want to go to Monaco.”

He said, “You know, can you hook me up?” It was the Formula One Grand Prix in Monaco and I was like, “Absolutely, no problem.” I went back home and tried – well not Google, we didn’t have Google in the 80’s. I went back and tried to work out where the bloody hell Monaco was.

I’d accepted the challenge and that was I think another sign that I was an entrepreneur. We jump in and go “Yeah, we can do that!” And “Shit, fuck, how do we do that?”

I went back and then tried to work out how to do it and of course, the more I did, the more I was capable of and the more I realized how I was capable and competent in uncomfortable situations.

Joe Polish says, you know, get comfortable with being uncomfortable. I always found myself uncomfortable. In fact, I get scared when things are going smoothly, I get scared when things are running on track and I think I purposefully try to interrupt that, you know? I’m not one of these guys that can operate on Zen.

I want the challenge, you know, I love fast motorcycles, I love race tracks, I love motocross, I like boxing, I like MMA. I like to get into a scenario where I actually don’t know anything.

[0:05:58.4] RN: What were you doing – you said you’re doing parties in Hong Kong, what does that even mean?

[0:06:03.7] SS: Yeah, I got the job and there be other places you can find the story so I keep it short. I managed to get a job in Hong Kong as a stock broker and I landed on the Saturday and I was fired on a Tuesday.

They realized that I was just full of shit, didn’t know what I was doing. Being big and ugly, I got the only job that I was competent to do. I ended up being a doorman on nightclubs in Hong Kong and then I just started throwing some of these parties myself to get more bar money out of it, a cut off the door.

Then I started selling the parties sponsored by the banks and the jet shark companies. Because I actually thought of myself, you know, if you’ve got two people, both of them are going to give you 10% commission then work with someone who is spending a million dollars and not someone who is selling 10 bucks.

I always went for rich clients because they didn’t need to spend more for it, minimal. That’s what I was doing, I was just trying to get really affluent clients and my delusion was that once I had all those rich clients, I could go back to the bank and get a job.

Because as a brick layer from London, I wanted the complete polar opposite of how I’ve been brought up, which was riding the shitty motorcycle, wearing a black T shirt and getting into fights. I wanted to be the complete polar opposite to that.

Fast forward now, I’m 51 years old and I’m rolling around in my shitty motorcycles and don’t get into so many fights now but you know, back in the T shirts and stuff like that. I’ve done a full circle.

[0:07:28.0] RN: Got it, was that kind of your entry into what is now Blue Fish?

[0:07:33.2] SS: Yeah, it was.

[0:07:35.0] RN: Not technically Blue Fish, right? Because you were just kind of tussling at that point.

[0:07:39.5] SS: I’ve never changed as of yesterday and I don’t think by naming it Blue Fish, I‘d change anything. I tell a lie, I did try to change it in the early 2000’s, screwed it up and then was able to just hit pause and go back.

Without realizing it, a lot of people have this misconception of when you’re dealing with someone affluent that they’re incredibly smart. Now, the truth of the fact is, Rich people aren’t necessarily smart just because they’re rich. It means that they’re smart, one thing that got them to that – it could be anything, it could be the best maneuver, it could be shoes, it could be absolutely anything.

But for the rest of their life and knowledge, they don’t know. But you get a lot of people that speak to people with money, like “Good afternoon sir.” It’s like the shit don’t stink kind of thing, you know? I didn’t have that.

[0:08:30.4] RN: You were able to connect with them.

[0:08:32.0] SS: I don’t know if I was – I was able to connect because I didn’t shield who I was and I was very ignorant to the fact that other people were given these fake personas.

I was just like, “Yeah, I could do that” and I wasn’t trying to be anything other than me because being me was remarkably easy, you know? Then I suddenly – you know, the whole thing, you know, five years become an overnight success.

After like five years and I’m kind of doing this stuff throughout Asia and in Monaco and I’m now living in Switzerland. I’m flying around the world and I’m doing it and I suddenly started looking, seeing – “What, that person looks weird, who is that?” “He sells jets.” “Why is he looking so stand offish, why is he not getting plastered with us in the corner or the rich people are,” you know?

Because you didn’t know how to communicate by being him in that scenario. Man, I would just go balls to the wall and I didn’t care and if he resonated with you, great. If you didn’t –

[0:09:27.3] RN: Take care.

[0:09:28.2] SS: I’m not your person, you know? I think the stupidity factor and the ignorance to how I “should” in air quotes are half acted in that circle, gave me the leg up and as the years went on, I’ve just refused to call –

If I introduced a client to another client, I’ll introduce them as Mr. and Mr. Okay? But if I’m speaking to any client, it’s Bob, Bill with Sally, you know, first name terms, every single time. I’m not going to jump on your business card title, I don’t care how many people work for you, if your joke’s not funny, I’m not going to laugh at it, you know.

It’s that kind of stuff, it’s very easy just keeping that basic.

[0:10:06.0] RN: Got it. What is – what were the biggest struggles getting started? Because it seems like the Monaco thing, you had to go figure it out, right? Was that the case at the beginning? For everything pretty much? They would give you request and you would just, “Okay, I got to figure out how to do this?”

[0:10:22.9] SS: Yeah, it’s still the case.

[0:10:24.3] RN: Okay.

[0:10:25.4] SS: I kind of like it.

[0:10:26.6] RN: Much better connected now.

[0:10:27.8] SS: I’m much better connected now. It’s a little easier but I do search out those that kind of like make me scratch my head a bit. I had a client that wanted to get married in the Vatican by the pope, you know, that one was kind of – “Well, okay!” You know?

[0:10:40.2] RN: You didn’t know the pope at the time?

[0:10:41.3] SS: No, I didn’t, I didn’t. I just knew it was a guy in a big white dress but apart from that, it was – were I am now, I’m able to go out to people in certain circles and have them guide me or maybe make a phone call, or something like that. Yes, being connected makes things a lot easier now but in the old days, yes, it was kind of “How the hell do I do it?” And of course every time you’d go and ask someone.

They don’t want to help people because it sounds crazy, it sounds stupid but when you’ve got those credentials behind you you’ve already achieved those things and Forbes is writing a seven-page article on you and you’re being seen with everyone.

That makes things a lot easier but in the old days, it was a case of, “Well how do I do that?” I just remember my dad, big thick Irish guy, you just say, you know, “How do you eat an elephant?” You know? “Inch by inch,” and that’s how I kind of took it, you know.

This guy wants to go to Monaco, alright, first thing’s first, where the fuck’s Monaco? You know? Just working from there, what you want to do there and we would then develop form there.

We just really took the big amazing, impossible idea, kind of down into a million easily achievable ones.

[0:11:54.8] RN: What’s been the biggest struggle from looking back from where you started? Any major setbacks or failures or things you couldn’t achieve that you’re like, “Why am I doing this?”

[0:12:06.2] SS: Yeah, again, you got about three