Welcome to the Adaptive Mindset. I'm Brett Gallant, a cybersecurity thought leader and founder of Adaptive Office Solutions. Here, we don't just talk tech, we unlock the strategies, stories, and mindset shifts you need to stay secure, lead boldly, and thrive in a digital world. Let's get started. Welcome back to the Adaptive Mindset, where we unpack what it really takes to lead, grow, and thrive, not through hustle, but through alignment. Today's guest flipped the script on how success is supposed to look. At age 38, Trevor G. Blake was a broke nurse, and 15 years later, he built and sold companies worth over $400 million. And here's the kicker. With no employees, no investors, and no burnout, You're the guy I want to talk to. He's the New York Times bestselling author of Three Simple Steps, a guide to success rooted in neuroscience, energy and intention, not grind. This conversation is for anyone who's tired of white knuckling their growth and is ready to embrace the science and strategy behind doing less and getting more. Trevor, welcome to the Adoptive Mindset. Thank you, Brett. Excited to be here. I love reading about you and I've listened to a couple of the podcasts you've been on. Trevor, I want to get into your origin and identity shift for a bit before we go. You were a broke nurse at 38. What was the moment It was probably more around my 40th birthday. You know, I was just an adventurer. So I grew up really poor and we couldn't have vacations. And I saw other people often have great adventures like uh you know to go away for long weekends and learn how to sail and stuff like that but we couldn't even afford the the 10 english pounds it took to do that so i just wanted more adventure so it's so although it's it's fun to say oh he was poor at 38 and then suddenly made it good what was the difference i chose to be on the poor side of 38 because i wanted an adventure So from the age of about probably about 16, I started reading biography after biography after biography. And I saw these wonderful patterns of behavior in people throughout history. And I just said, if it works for them, it's going to work for me. Because I wanted to get out of the quicksand I felt I was in. My dad was unemployed and unemployable. My mom was dying of cancer. I was written off where I was living. Basically, the job I was offered was apprentice manager in a chicken packing factory. I didn't want that. I wasn't born in this world to do that. And whoever does it, good luck if they're happy doing it, but it wasn't for me. So I wanted to travel a lot. So I was actually up to the age of about 38, 39. I was traveling a lot and had been to 56 countries and just had a beautiful life. And then I remember going to bed on the night before my 40th birthday and then waking up the next day looking six months pregnant. So what happened? What happened to the immortal kid who's on an adventure? And then all of a sudden I thought, okay, I need to take life a bit more seriously now. So I'd always wanted to be my own boss, but I didn't really have any talent. And then I used the three simple steps that you mentioned, the New York Times bestseller. I used the steps in there to figure out what I could do in the world that would qualify as being my own boss. And I just went from there. And it was a beautiful story. I didn't have money to hire anybody, so I had to come up with a cool way of doing the same thing, which I think was the right idea at the right time. And now, you know, because of the way you live your life, and I live the same way, we caught up with technology at the right time. It allows us the freedom to be able to work from anywhere. pretty much, you know, instead of doing the hustle, hustle for 10 hours a day or 12 hours a day, pretty much a couple of hours here, a couple of hours there, make sure we spend time in nature, make sure we meditate, all those kinds of things. When I put those ingredients together in the recipe, companies just took off. And first one, I started with a couple of hundred dollars actually, and sold it six years later for 105.5 million, which is a lovely number. And I mentioned the number not to show off, just that I set that as a target to sell this company, even though I didn't know what it was. for at least a hundred million. And then six years later did that. And Okay. You had that intention when you started and you knew why not me if other people can Yeah, so I also learned, I'm educated as a physicist somehow, and I also learned that one of the secrets was the illusion of time. And that's what I got from the biographies, that people imagined their success before they had it. So they were imagining what it felt like to achieve this thing that they dreamed about. Not just dreaming about it and saying, I can and I will, or one day it will happen, but What will it feel like when it happens? How do I feel? What am I doing today now that it's succeeded? And that was really powerful to me as a kid growing up because I was pretty much written off at school. And then so I imagine what it would be like, what it would feel like to pass all my exams and have the teachers pat me on the back. And that's exactly what happened. So the day we had the results, I had to go to the school to get the results. I didn't know what they were. They handed me a little ticket tape and that it was nine A's on the ticket tape. And the teachers were so shocked, they thought I cheated. They were convinced that. But they pass him on the back anyway. And so I realized then, OK, I imagined this happening exactly as it's happening right now. And it was such a powerful kickstart to my life that I realized I can imagine anything. And so I imagined traveling and I imagined, you know, doing really exciting jobs and making impacts. I imagine writing screenplays. I imagine writing books. And all of that came to fruition in its right time. And then I decided, like I say, when I got to a certain age where I thought, whoops, I need to take myself a bit more seriously. I imagine the successful businesses before building the business. And it sounds a little woo woo when you talk about it. I don't believe in woo woo. Maybe it is a little bit. I don't know. But, you know, as a physicist, I figured out that if we play with energy in this slightly different way, So when you were when you imagined it, though, I imagine I imagined that you put into action the standards that require you to get there. So did you start acting apart once I believe success to get to where you need to be, you need to build the standards and the habits to get there. you So, I mean, there are standards of behavior, standards of attitude. There's standards of playing with energy, definitely. How to use entanglement, how to use string theory, all of those things play. And we do them all naturally without really understanding what they are. But as a physicist, I like to know, well, how and why did that work? And I kind of figure it out that, okay, we can apply this over and over. It's just like finding a good recipe. you nail it and every time you make it, it turns out great and you look like a hero. That's all it is in life. It's playing with energy in a different way. So the standards are the standards of behavior, the standards of attitude, the standards of understanding that the world has changed from what's in it to me into how do I contribute. So that's very important. And so in doing all of that, I found that I didn't have to figure out how to do it. It figured it out for me. And I just had to learn to relax more. I had to learn to chill more. Like we were talking very, very briefly before, you know, I had to learn that it's just as important to go for a walk in the woods alone as it is to sit in front of my computer and try to crack the problem. And so I'd learned that from the biographies. There's even people like John, like Henry Ford and Madam CJ Walker, they got their best ideas when they were doing nothing. And I wanted that. I wanted to do that. So there's a way of behaving, which is the three simple steps. There's holding yourself accountable to making an impact, to being in it not for you, but for the benefit of the greater good of all, as people say. So that's true. But the most important thing of all is to imagine what it feels like for it already to have happened, because then the magic starts. And then suddenly you're in a queue in a coffee store and you turn and you pour coffee on somebody and it turns out to be the most important person you've met in your life. Those things start to happen when we already imagine the success. They don't happen if we try to figure it out, because we I can relate to that in so many ways. It's happened to me so many times. Thinking of somebody or thinking of an opportunity that I want, I do something and it happens. I just got a text about four minutes before we started talking. Something that I really wanted to happen came into my life. Beautiful. We never take it for granted. I never do anyway. It always makes me raise my eyebrows and Yeah. And even taking that time to be quiet. I've actually been on my own transformation journey. And one of the things I did with intention, after reading a book, I decided at that point in this year to take Wednesdays off. I booked out 10 Wednesdays and I did it. I went with intention to go, I always want to climb a mountain in the winter. And I went and climbed a small mountain in the part of my country. I went for a two hour drive, put on the snowshoes, went up for five hours, snowshoed up to the top of this mountain, had so much clarity. got to the top and I just breathe and relax and enjoy life. And I had three ideas that popped into my head and I implemented them immediately after I came back. And where does this, how does that happen? It was, So I could be a scientific reason what happens with it, but, um, yeah, I mean, this has only been known to us for since 2012. Uh, you know, when I grew up and was learning physics and I wasn't very good at it because the teacher was awful and, and I mean, and in all of its senses, he just, he'd given up on life. And all I ever saw was his back at the front of the class and his bald head shining under the light is all I remember because he just would write on the blackboard and we'd have to copy it. And so I learned nothing. And then I started studying physics myself in the library, and I learned a lot of this stuff. And I was always taught at that age, and even the books, the textbooks in those days said that in between the atoms is empty space. And I struggled with that. Like, how can that possibly be? Because surely we'd just fall, we'd fall through the universe if there's empty space between the atoms. How do we all stay together? And people far smarter than I were working on the calculations to try and show, is there something in between the atoms that's not empty space? And in 2012, they confirmed it, that in between all the atoms, in between the fermions and bosons that make up the atoms, is an energy field. And they had to give it a name. So they named it after the guy who was from Newcastle in the UK, half English, half Scottish, who confirmed the existence through mathematics. And they called it the Higgs field. And what this means is it's a huge news that you'll never see on any of the network news headlines because it's good news, right? So no I always think of the Weather Channel. I know they're dying to say, well, actually, the weather's fine everywhere. Go out and enjoy yourself. But they can't because they've got to hold you for the commercials. So we'll show you hurricanes from 10 years ago. So in this case, it was fantastic news. And people gathered from all over the world to confirm that this energy field existed. But what it meant was that everybody is connected to everybody and everything. And everything is connected in the other direction. So when you go to the top of the mountain, when you go to the summit and you've got your phone with you, it's not working, right? So hopefully at that point. And so you're totally Excellent. Excellent. Best news, right? So what you're doing is you're able to stretch your consciousness through this Higgs field And because everything is connected, it pulls to you that which you desire. So if you want a good idea, it's going to come your way when you're silent like this, when you're open to floating through the Higgs field. So I often do it in a forest. I love walking in a forest, but I'll get to a point where I leave my phone at home. I don't take it with me. But I get to the forest and something will attract me. It'll be a particular tree or something. And I'll think, OK, this is the spot. And I'll just sit there or stand there if it's wet or anything. no expectation for as long as I feel like. And then all of a sudden out of the blue are all these like, oh my God, why didn't I think of that 10 years ago? You know, all of these magic moments, just because I'm connecting, connecting through nature. And so again, it sounds like new age stuff. It sounds like woo woo, but now we know that it's scientifically proven to be a thing called the Higgs field. I call it cosmic glue. Because at the Higgs field, you and I would shoot through the universe at the speed of light. So because we interact, our atoms interact with this Higgs field, we slow down as if we're walking through glue. And the slower we go, the more physical our life, the faster we go, the more ethereal I've experienced that countless times. I get out with intention, walking in nature, there's a beautiful trail nearby me and I I make it a point to get out as much as I can, and I've experienced that. I've experienced it so many different ways, it's not even funny. You make me think, Yeah. He talked a lot about that in his own way about energy. There's that I mean, so even people who didn't have, you know, let's say they didn't understand the message they were giving to people like the Wayne Dyers of the world. And today, today, there's lots of people like that, even even though there's no such thing as law of attraction, there is a process and a concept that feels like that. Yeah. They're all saying the same thing, but from a different angle. My kick is that I like to do it from a scientific point, because I think there's something really beautiful about not having to believe any of it and just letting the science speak. For me, it takes away the stress of, I've got to believe in this. This book says I have to jump on my right foot 20 times a day, and I have to believe that that's going to work. Whereas from a scientific principle, it's like, Ah, so if I just change the way I speak and think, the world will change around for me. That makes more sense to me as a scientist. So actually, my message is just more from the scientifics. You don't have to believe any of this stuff, just Yeah, exactly. Exactly. It's just really hard. I respect the fact how hard it is for people to switch off these days. You know, our attention is pulled up into 100 different directions. And it's almost impossible to even go to a restaurant and not see a headline on a TV somewhere or ticket tape that takes out. It certainly takes our attention away from feeling really good about life to thinking that life is is a terrible place. I just got back from our five-month adventure, 34 countries, 24 time zones, and it totally restored my faith in humanity. Totally restored it. Everywhere we went, we were greeted with open arms and love and friendship. Absolutely everywhere without exception. And it was a beautiful thing. And as soon as we got back home, we didn't use our phones or anything all the time we were away. But as soon as we got back home after five months, first thing I see is a ticker tape about how much hate there is in the world. And yes, it exists and all the rest of it. And yes, these things happen, but we Yeah, we can choose what we allow into our world. I went with a scouting group, not even a month ago, and we had three days, no technology. So I felt it at that time. three days, no, like there was no, yes, we had our cell phones to take some pictures, but there was no text messages, no DMs, no breaking news from whatever news about all the great things that are happening. So it was incredible what I felt, especially the first half hour, Like, what am I going to do? How am I going to handle this? And about an hour later, submit it to it. It is what it is. I'm going to enjoy the time and be fully present, fully present the whole time. And had that, those thoughts and ideas just came into, It is. I think there's, there's probably like a period of time that we have to get over. and then we're okay. Because it is so addictive, I suppose it's a bit like, you know, if we're addicted to a food or a drink or something, there's going to be a period of time where we really miss it and then we're okay. Because I noticed, I was really funny the other day, I was expecting a phone call, a nice phone call, and so I took my phone with me. but we were having dinner, so I will not interrupt dinner with my wife or anything. So I had my phone in my pocket and it dinged about three times. Well, I had the sound off, but when the person left a message, it dinged and then it dinged again to remind me it's already dinged. And then the third time to remind me it's dinged me twice. But it was in my pocket and I just ignored it. It takes discipline to ignore that. It's a temptation to grab it and say, I wonder who that was. And then it's all lost when you do that, you're back where you started. But it was funny, I noticed my wife kept looking down at my pocket every time it ditched. And I could feel her saying, you shouldn't say it, but I could feel her thinking, aren't you going to see who that was? It took all my discipline to hold off, you know. I totally get that. And I succumb to it sometimes. But you just said that you took all that discipline. I have two t-shirts with the same message on it. It connects with me in so many ways for so many reasons. And that t-shirt says, discipline is a decision. Yeah, I like that. Every day I can choose to, I decided to get back into a new routine, getting up before five and go to the gym. I fell off of that habit. I said, no, I'm going to be disciplined. I'm going to decide to get up no matter what and go. And it's, it's been one of the best decisions I made in the last two weeks to get back into that rhythm while I can, while I have that period of this, these two weeks during the summer where I can do it. It's made the flow of the whole day better because I get that. extra two hours in nature to go for a walk or a hike and I have some non-negotiables in my day. Part So I'm actually not naturally Well, I figured that with the man who worked five Actually, I wrote that for COVID. So many people during COVID were suddenly removed from the place they were comfortable with in the corporate world and put at home to work. thinking that it's just a change of location, but actually it's a completely change of mindset. I think it's mentally, that's a really tough transition. I've gone through it myself and it took me six months to figure it out. And so to expect people to one day be in the corporate world and the next day to be able to know how to work from home was crazy. So I wrote, and people can get it for free on my website, trevorgblake.com. It's just my name.com. It's all the practical magic of the five-hour workday. And what it is, is about how to structure your day. Because if you're at home, like you know yourself, if you're at home and you sit in front of a computer for eight hours, you'll go mad. You will literally go bonkers over time. Because in the corporate world, we're constantly interacting with other people. We have the time where we're by the coffee machine. We have the time when we're having our lunch. We go into these nonsense meetings that take forever and say nothing, but at least At least we're getting somewhere different, you know, but when you're at home, I found when I first started at home, I don't know if you were the same, I found I was sitting in front of a computer waiting for an email or waiting for the phone to go, you know, and then it wasn't going. And I was thinking, well, I must be doing something wrong. I'm obviously not very good as an entrepreneur because no one's calling me. And it was so much pressure I put myself under and I figured it out again by reading what other people were doing and kind of relocating their experiences. And I figured out that if I split my day up and use the modern technology that allows me to be disciplined, so therefore I'll use an online calendar to say you're working between 9 and 11, and at 11 I get a notification that says it's time to go for a walk. And I got to the point where it was so valuable and inspired me so much. And I was getting, I was becoming so successful just living nine to 11, and then two to four, and then sometimes maybe five to six to do something creative, because the brain works more creatively when it's tired. And I split my day like that. And then it became almost religious to me that when it was 11, I have to go for a walk, no matter even if I'm on the phone to somebody, no matter if I'm on a Zoom, when 11 o'clock comes around, I'm out of here. as I will be today. After we finish, it'll be 11 o'clock my time, I'm gone. And so I rely on the technology tools that are available to all of us in order to keep me disciplined, because otherwise I'd just be lying in a hammock, doing nothing, getting nowhere, because Yeah, well, you're using it as a tool and you're not letting technology rule you, but you're using it so you can rule it. But also putting what I often say is you treat, I would say you're That's a really good way of putting it. That's actually a brilliant way of putting it, because that's exactly what That's what I came to realization. It happened to me. I had a pivotal moment in October, 2023. I was speaking with my coach. I always like to get out in nature and I always like to have some time, but I had everything backwards. I told my coach, I said, Dave, I don't have time to go to the gym. And he said, Brett, you mean to tell me you own your own business and you can't even get to the gym? Boom, everything changed for me. I felt accountability. And I realized, man, I got this wrong, got it all wrong. So I pivoted. I said, I have to treat myself just as important as my number one client. Everything changed my relationship with my family, my business, and released 120 pounds later, Yes, powerful message. I have had to say exactly that experience. Also making sure that when it comes to the end of the day, which for me is typically five o'clock, my office is shut. I have separate devices, one for business, one for life. And because I don't like the mixing, So I don't like a business call coming in at eight o'clock in the evening and distracting me from my family. I don't like my family calling me during the day and distracting me from my business. So separate devices is a good technique because it actually doesn't cost, most cell phone plans give two phones away. and you can have two numbers. So it doesn't cost any more to do that. So I have separate... Actually, where you are now with this laptop for this, I have another laptop for my investments, another laptop for my business. And again, that sounds like overindulgence, but I get them on credit card points. They haven't cost me anything. So by using technology to split up my life that I've never heard that before. I'm a big fan and admired Jim Rohn's work. And he said that in his own way. He said, when you work, work. When you play, play. Don't mix the two. Absolutely. You've taken it and you've used technology again. as a tool, as simple as that, not everybody can do that, but you, like you said, you used points and So, yeah. And they weren't, I mean, there weren't points that I spent money to get, they were points I spent business expenses getting. So I got the business deduction on my tax, and then also as a benefit, I get the reward points for the credit card that I use for my businesses. I mean, I know technically it's not free, but it feels free to me. And why not use... I mean, the technology is everywhere now. Most people I see have their whole lives on one device. And I get that, and I've spent a lot of time working in Asia, and one device runs absolutely everything. The house, the people, the family, the business, the credit cards, everything, everything goes through one device. And whilst that may seem convenient, if you're an entrepreneur, or you're trying to change your habits to get out of your version of quicksand, you're gonna need more discipline than that. And so it makes sense, at least for a period of time until you figure out where you're going and how to, you know, What are you going to do with your life? It makes sense to use technology to compartmentalize your life. So this is work. This is play. This is learning. For me, study is also important. I've never met anybody who was successful in quote unquote, the way we call success, who didn't study a lot. you know, there's lots of books you've probably read as well, Brett, about, you know, the habits of the multi-millionaires, etc., etc. When I read those papers or those books, I find the same behaviors. So the quote-unquote wealthy, as they call it in these books, because that sells better than talking about impact or anything. So the wealthy, as they describe them, you know, on average, probably watch one or two hours of television a week. And it's probably their favorite sport or something they learn from National Geographic or something. And those aren't spend an average of 15 to 25 hours a week. So I learned a long time ago, as much as I enjoy TV, i learned a lot ago to use that time a little bit more more wisely because it's more important for me to achieve some of the things that i've set for myself than it is to watch a reality tv show i have siblings who watch probably five or six hours of reality tv a day yes they live in exactly the same place as they lived when i was growing up they have exactly the same lives the same jobs they had when they started to 17 after school, they left high school early. And that's okay, because that's their choice. But I didn't, I wanted my own life. And so I had to do something different. I couldn't do the same thing. And that's why the technology I find is like an ally today, that it helps me stay on track, keeps me I tried to read 10 to 20 minutes a day minimum, nonfiction. A lot of the time, so when I'm in the car, I have an audio book or a podcast. And then there are times when I'm out for a walk, intentionally listening to a podcast or an audio book. Next book I'm going to queue up is yours. I'd love to check it out. Thank you. Appreciate it. See if any bears chase me while I'm listening. I did see a bear once when I was listening to one, so hopefully, yeah. There's a question I wanna ask you. I had it written down. You've built companies worth up to 400 million with zero employees. I That again was choice because in my regular career, I can't call it really regular, but in my bouncing around in the corporate world for a couple of decades, I realized I spent 75 to 80% of my time sitting in a meeting room, talking about how to keep employees happy, how to retain them, how to stop them leaving. And we didn't spend any time talking about customer satisfaction. or product improvement, upgrades, or any of those things, it was all, once the company gets to a certain size, I call it the internal whirlpool, all the energy, whereas when we start in a company, the energy is going out to the customer, looking for feedback, looking to improve, continuous improvement, and then I find you get to a certain size and you get to a certain success, and all the energy goes internal. It's an internal whirlpool, and everyone focuses on themselves and not the customer. So I didn't want that, you know, because that's stressful and long hours. And with the companies I had a responsibility to work with, we oftentimes went into launch mode. And then launch mode, we never had enough people, we never had enough resources. So we would go out to other companies and say, can you be our sales and marketing add-on for a while, six months of this launch? Or can you be our regulatory support for the next year while we figure out what we're doing in the market? And I realized that they did a much better job than our own people. And they were so much easier to work with because they know what they're doing. They don't need training. They don't need supervising. They didn't need handholding. They didn't moan and groan about the benefit package or they couldn't get in because it was snowing or something like that. They just did the job. And it was a pleasure. I realized I had so much more fun working with the vendors than I did working with our own employees. And so when I started my first company, I actually didn't have enough money to hire anybody. So I had to figure out doing it a different way. And it just came to me just exactly as we're talking. I'm just walking with this issue in my head, thinking, what am I going to do? What have I done? I've started a company and I don't have any money left. And then I thought, you know what? I'll go to these. I'll go to the same people. So I got the vendors and did contracts with them and said, look, give me 90 days free. In 90 days, I'll start paying, but help build me up, and I'll be your poster child. Like, look how small you were when you started with us, and now look how good you are. And they liked it. They loved the ownership, the impact, the cracking of an issue into a solution. Even today, those vendors that only worked with me one time talk about it as being the most empowering time of their lives, because I wasn't supervising them. They were better at what they did than I could possibly understand, because I didn't understand regulatory or distribution or manufacturing. I only understood my little bit of the world that I'd been in for so long, sales and marketing. And so it worked so well, nobody believed it was possible. Everybody told me I couldn't do it and it wouldn't work. And it worked so beautifully. Our net profits after two years were 76%. And then everybody started to change their attitude about, it's what, 76%, no one has 76% profit. You must be doing something wrong. Who's your accountant? And then suddenly I realized, wow, this is really profitable way because I was hiring people as needed rather than hiring employees and then finding that their usefulness was complete, but I still got an employee. And now I have to figure out what to do with this employee for the next five years. And no one likes to let go of people. It's a horrible thing to have to do to let go of people. So this way, it's just a contract. And when the contract's up, I either renew it or I don't renew it, and no one's offended. And it's easy, it can switch overnight. So I found it a much less stressful way of working. And then I started to get... When you come up with an idea and it works, we start to give it labels and things, because we think we're clever. I found it really smart and I went, look what I've done. And so I call it the hub model, like Trevor Blake's hub model. And it caught on. I think, again, it was a right idea in the right time. And now technology allows everyone Yes, you can have fractional workers. I have an EA that's been with me for over six years. Ebbs and Yeah, I have people all over the world and I've hardly met any of them. But I feel like I've grown up with them because when we first started working together, they weren't even married and now they've got kids and some have got grandkids. And it's not really that different to having employees, except the... A different relationship, but it's still a relationship. It's a peer-to-peer trust as opposed to supervisory. So for me, the peer-to-peer trust is very much like, I trust you. So I want you to do this piece of the business for me. I really don't care if it takes you an hour or a year, that's down to you. But this is what the project is worth. Yeah. Yeah. Whereas otherwise, it's like, you know, let's let's get together on Monday and let's talk about what we're going to do for the week. What are you going to what's your target for the week? What's your goal for the week? And then on Friday, we get together and say, how did your week go? How did you do? Did you get your targets? And it's so morally, I don't know, destroy is too strong a word, but it's depressing to work that way. and nobody feels trusted in any direction. Because then if I'm the supervisor, then I want to impress my boss, and my boss wants to impress her boss, and her boss wants to impress the person at the top. They want to impress the board of directors. The board of directors want to impress the VCs. And everybody's working for be impressing the level above them. And whereas with the hub model, everyone's doing the job, making an impact. And that's how it, that's where it begins and ends. So it, for me, it's been such a wonderful experience after the first company, I just wanted to do it again and again and again. And, you know, I'm on company seven now, um, just, uh, just sold one while I was traveling. Um, but in a beautiful way with, um, I'm providing seller finance. I've got the perfect person to take it to the next level. And then a couple of days ago, my cancer development company looks like we have or I have found the next best home. I always think of it like my baby's graduating. So when I sell, it's not like it sells out of existence. It sells to people Yeah, I know. I'm good at building the first stage. And then after that, someone else is better taking it and expanding. And to I was about to ask you that. I think you enjoy building and seeing the birth and then launching it. The other part, I don't know if that would give No, I think the maintain and expand. Yeah, you're right. I get bored very easily. And I think a lot of entrepreneurs are that way. Like, you know, we like to like to fix things. And when the thing's fixed, we sort of sit back, say, well, actually, I prefer to find something else to fix than to keep watching the thing or fix more exciting. Yes. For me, for me. I mean, I know a lot of really fantastic entrepreneurs who are better taking something that's already been built and then say, look, You know, you've done well, well done, Sonny, go away. We'll take it from here. And that works really well. So all the companies I've sold still exist and they're a lot bigger than when I sold them. But I'm glad not to be in that role at that stage. And I think that's something I got from the biographies when I was a lot younger, that those who were successful kind of knew where the ceiling was for them. and they would stop. And it's very rare that somebody invents something, develops it, sells it, and keeps going. There's not many Elon Musks in the world. Steve Jobs. Very Yeah, well, that's courage and Yeah, I think learning. So I learned that I'm not very good at that. I'm not very good at the operation side of the business, but I'm very good at putting it all together and then and then stepping back, taking my little piece of the pie. Thank you very much. I really enjoyed that. And now you can make it into a grown up company. And yes, it's fun doing that. And I love watching them succeed. I keep a check on all of them to see how they're doing. I've great relationships with the owners. I don't fear and I signed a contract that said I would be available for a year to help answer any questions they may have. I've I think people just thought they were better at it than I was. So they never came back and said, well, how do we do this? Or what was this about? Nothing That's rare because I've known a few owners that have Yeah. And I've known a few people have stayed and worked in the company, and that's been hard. I'm seeing Yeah, I knew a few Microsoft. I played soccer with a bunch of Microsoft people once. I lived up in Seattle. And that same thing happened as Microsoft would buy up other companies. Part of the deal was that the person who built that company came in and ran the new division, and it No, no, because you can't take an entrepreneur that was running their baby and then work within another paradigm like that. I can think of three owners that I've known that have done that, and all three of them have regretted making the decision to do their exit that way. They weren't happy. I want to ask you, you use silence. How do you use your silence? I think I believe you answered this earlier, how you use silence, intention, and visualization daily. That's when you're, oh. walking? So it's a program that I've sort of learned. I learned for myself and then I didn't share it with Three Simple Steps until after I'd sold my first company because I felt the authenticity was what was missing about personal development and coaching. So I wanted to say, look, not only am I saying this works, but look, here's proof that it worked. And you can read quite clearly between the lines in three simple steps that if this guy can do it, then anyone can, which is what I got from the biographies. If this lady can do this in a time when all the odds are against her, then I can do it. I kind of went into it with that. So they all had their version of meditation. They all had their version of interacting with nature. And I just wanted to do the same. If it works for them, then it'll work for me. And I never got more scientific about it than that right at the beginning. So I now kind of have learned why it works. And so I write now about why it works. So it is a program and a process. And so I have an experience called the transformation experience. You can learn about it at the website, TrevorGBlake.com. And the transformation experience, done properly, requires a lot of getting into nature and a lot of quiet time to digest the knowledge that you're learning along the way. And it takes about 45 days. to do it once. And so most people treat it like a Bible and do it over and over and over. And so in that process, we learn the foundation of the science. Then we learn how to deepen our connection because intuition has become much more important than it was at one time. You know, not long ago, 20 years ago, everybody prized analysis as the most important entrepreneurial tool. And I think today it's intuition, because typically the companies are very small. So when we have an issue, we can't, We don't have time to get a meeting together. We don't have time to hire someone to solve the problem. We have to do it ourselves. And we have to do it quickly. Expanding energy requires quick action and everything changes. And so we needed to deepen our intuition. So that's part of the transformation course. And then once we've done that, we're able then to go to the intention part, which is how to, first of all, how to decide. I think the toughest question any of us ever get asked, which is if there are no impediments, money's not a problem, family's not a problem, everyone's going to support you. What do you really want out of life? What do you, Brett, want for Brett? Not for Brett's family, not for Brett's company. What do you want for Brett? And oftentimes that's a really tough question. So there's kind of a ritualistic approach to how to answer that question and feel like you're not being dishonest to oneself and saying what you think the world wants to hear. And oftentimes it's a surprise. The answer is a surprise. And so when we get to that, then we can say, okay, now I know what I want, I'm gonna commit to it, there's a commitment ritual, and now I've committed to it, I'm gonna imagine what the success feels like of this thing that I know I want. If I don't go through that whole process, I'll probably come up with something that sounds a bit like a goal. And it might be something like, you know, I want a slightly better job, I want a bigger house, I want a Lamborghini, or I wanna be rich, even though no one knows what that means at that point. we take a different approach to financial independence. We look at what's independence like for you, and then how much finance is required. And then we'll figure out the mechanism to get that. That's the easiest part. And so we consider this process whereby now we know what we want. We've committed to it. I'm going to figure out how it feels. And that's where the visualization comes in. And I felt that was the piece that was missing in all the, like you have always studied. I'm old enough to date myself by saying I used to listen to Wayne Dyer cassette tapes in the car. and burn them out where they melted and had to replace the whole cassette deck in the car and stuff like that. These things talk about visualization and the importance of it, but they didn't explain how and why it works and how to do it effectively. And they would just say, imagine being successful. And so what we do is we take a day in the life. So you figured out, Brett, exactly what you want for Brett. And it's probably something that you wouldn't dare tell anybody else because they'd either laugh at you or they'd say, don't be crazy. You've got a family to take care of, et cetera, et cetera. And then you figure out what a day in the life is like for you that day. And that's where the imagination kicks in. So the visualization is very specific. And this whole process takes about 15 days by yourself, 15 days by yourself, an hour a day. not biting off too much because it can get overwhelming. So an hour a day, so that we build up to this point where, oh, I get it now, I know what it feels like. And then once you feel it, then really it shows up, it becomes your life. And if that sounds like woo-woo to some people, all I would say is, you know, go to the transformation experience at the very beginning, you'll learn about something called string theory. String theory tells us that in order for anything to exist, it has to exist in 10 dimensions at least. We only know three physically. So that means there's seven dimensions to play with. What if imagination was one? So much easier to build something in imagination. And if you build it, it has to show up because in order for anything to exist, it has to exist in all 10 dimensions, which means something's going to show up Yeah. I've done my own small version of that lately. where I imagined and with intention, the future version of Brett, 20 years from now. What is he doing? What would he say to me right now? Because this version of Brett, three years ago, the other Brett from three years ago would be looking at him today and say, what are you talking about, man? How is this even possible? That's a fun way to live. I just want to keep going after it and encouraging people, the audience to go after it and visit Trevor's website and explore this and read his book, listen to his audible. and be inspired. This has been incredible so far. I want to ask you a couple other quick questions here. I really wanted to ask you this question and I want to make sure I don't forget. What's one belief about success that you've let go of, Trevor? That it has to be complicated and you have to struggle to get it. Brilliant, good. What's something that you've stopped doing that helped you grow? Complaining. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, the wake up call for me was one time I transferred from England to America and I was in the bathroom. I was in a bathroom stall and I and two of my new colleagues were talking about me. They didn't know I was in the bathroom and they were quite complimentary, which which is nice. But then right at the very end, one said, boy, but he doesn't. Oh, man, he's a man. He does not complain. And then someone else says, well, he's a Brit. They all complain. I'd never thought about it till then. It was like an aha moment in the bathroom of all places. And I thought, you know, they're right. Every other word out of my mouth is a complaint. And so I stopped doing it as much as I can. No one can be a saint. Just I'm better at it than I used to be. You know, I don't complain as much as I used to. But on this recent adventure, I bumped into a lot of Brits who are traveling and boy, they just complain all the I think that's true, though. It depends on what's showing up in your world. Since you brought up Wayne Dyer, there's a story Wayne shares about this man. I know I'm going to get the story wrong, but a person was moving to a new community they had a lot of anxiety and they wanted to know what the community what the city was like and so Wayne said well what's there was what's the city like in your community there was two different people moving the first lady said well it's it's terrible people are complaining and I just honestly I just don't like it the people are terrible and Wayne said that's exactly what you'll find here And then he asked the other lady, so what's the community like where you live? Oh, it's so friendly. People go out of the way to help. I'm really going to miss it. Then Wayne said, well, you'll be happy to know that this community is exactly the same way. I never forgot that. Never forgot it. Yeah. Okay. Rapid fire question time. I want to do this with you and I think it'll be fun. So these are quick and fun. I want you to come say whatever comes to mind first. If you could teleport to anywhere in the world for 10 minutes of total silence, where would you go? Off the planet. Off. What's All of Paulo Coelho's books, I've read at least half a dozen times each time because they're written in a layered fashion. He's a he's a qualified magus. And so I learned his magic by continuously reading the Brilliant, okay. You have to teach a university course, but it can't be about business or mindset. What's the topic? Sex. Okay. What's one weird habit or guilty pleasure that keeps you grounded? Sex magic. Okay. If It's never too late to reinvent yourself. Love that OK, and if you can only keep one daily ritual for the rest of your life, which in meditation, but definitely I call it taking quiet time to keep it simple. But yeah, if I don't take that, Brett, I know this is not a quick answer, but if I don't take that, everyone around me notices before I'm aware that I forgot to take it or didn't take it. They'll say, you didn't take quiet time this morning because my whole persona, Yeah, that's me getting out for my walks in nature. People can see it. My wife can certainly see it. So in closing, Trevor, people can connect to you through your Yeah, everything goes through TrevorGBlake.com and I try to keep it simple by keeping everything there. There's lots of freebies. I get told off all the time for giving myself away too free, but I don't make money out of any of this that I'm doing. This is my way of giving back. So all my proceeds from Transformation Experience or the books or anything like that, they all go to cancer research and development, a particular project. So they don't go into the pockets of highly paid executives that go directly into the laboratory. Every cent. Yeah, we've achieved some incredible things just on the money people have spent on buying 3 Simple Steps. They're $9.99. My royalty for that is $0.99. That's not exactly going to have me jumping up and down with joy, but that $0.99 goes directly That compounds. Every bit helps, and we underestimate that. I want to encourage everybody, Trevor and I talked about some incredible things today, and for everyone that's listening, please think of one or three people that you know that needs to hear this message. The impact that Trevor has left today is incredible, and you can repay Trevor and myself with kindness by sharing this episode with somebody. I know you can think of somebody right now, somebody that needs to hear this. If you could share this podcast with them, make a difference in somebody's life, that would, I'm assuming it would mean so much to Trevor, but it would also mean so much to me. And Trevor, I really enjoyed our short time together. It's really been an incredible time getting to meet with you and hear your thoughts on so many different, the wisdom you've shared was incredible. Thank you. It's been like two minutes. Yeah, that's when you know it's been a great one. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to The Adaptive Mindset. If you found value in today's episode, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review, and share it with someone who's ready to thrive in the digital age. Stay secure, stay