felt like...

And I've always if I've seen something shiny, like a nice big block of flats that we could convert or a nice big building back in the day, I would just go and view it and just say, yeah, I've got all the money and just go and buy it.

And I had no money and I had nothing to do it.

But I knew the legals.

would take a long time.

And I've actually, back in the day, got bank managers to write letters that weren't correct about finances, but found the finances by backing everything that I had to fill the deal.

And I've actually bought a commercial property using three credit cards, and two of the credit cards weren't mine.

I mean, you also have other views.

Yes.

It was like the dunces class, and you end up with a class of seven other people.

You've got, you know, all the neurodiverse were in there amongst them, the naughty people that...

And they were naughty because they probably had ADHD, or they were naughty because they, they was, you know, you know, ha- had, had some autistic tendencies on the spectrum.

And then you had me in there, dyslexic, couldn't read, and you became this group, and it was brutal and horrible.

And you were, you, you wanted to be part of the crowd, so you end up being the, the cheeky chappy and the, the boy that can do a wheelie on his bike, or he's a, he, he can tell jokes or whatever to mask.

And that is really what happens with a lot of neurodiversity, in my opinion, that you end up being an incredibly great masker of the real truth of who you are, and who you are doesn't allow to come out.

Yeah

Who are you? What problem do you solve?

I'm an entrepreneur for over, we worked it out the other day, 48 years I've owned companies registered to me and I have failed and I have won and I have scaled, bought companies, built companies, built teams, got rid of partners because they've done me over and I have ripped scars where I believe now with James Martin Entrepreneur I can give back some stuff and teach some people how to not fall over and crash.

but they can trip and have some mini scars, but not real deep ones.

These are rapid fire, very serious questions.

Yes.

Are you ready for the first one? What do business owners need to understand about cash flow? That it is key and they need to be daily, be able to do the numbers.

And if they can't, then they shouldn't be in business.

What's the most underrated skill in business?

alive or dead, that you would like to see get married at Baddow Park.

Da Vinci and the Russian Evita.

Evita.

Okay.

Da Vinci and Evita, great couple.

Powerful couple, they'd be.

Very artistic and very, very, very stern ladies.

An ism isn't an ism, though, is it? Yeah, that's a spell.

And in your life, what role has dyslexia played in being able to achieve things rather than not?

The dyslexic thing is you can either carry on harking about it and use it as a sort of a poor me crutch, or you can...

It's a throwaway line.

It's my superpower.

It kind of is, but guess what? It's just who I am and how I'm wired and what I do, and it was my choice to...

Get rid of reading.

So that's what I did.

But what's the reason for putting that foot forward?

retail you know we really suffered really suffered um but hospitality why hospitality for you then no

no no interest in it whatsoever i think it's a dangerous game to be in i was buying the whole estate and that was the farm all the houses everything the the um the executives wouldn't split it all up it had to go as a one bundle but what i was trying to get hold of was the the big commercial side of the estate where all the commercial buildings are And the story is that I'd pre-sold the old pile of bricks that is the manor house off.

And that was happening.

And two weeks before the exchanging completion, the guy dropped out.

And he left me holding the baby.

And he also left a bundle of papers that had his business plan in it.

My PA looked at them.

So, yeah, talk to us about that because some people might be wanting to engage with you on

rigor that a lot of people would go these days and do an MBA at university to

learn it I saw in our local town and stuff there was a few gardeners then there was a few landscape companies then there was a few tree surgery companies they were very much JB man and a van been around since the 80s whatever it was I saw it that that was a very cottage industry that could be taken into a proper industry a national industry and And then I went to an arboricultural conference, a tree conference up in Liverpool to sign myself on.

And I ended up in this room with all of these sort of chitty-chatty green people about trees and stuff.

And I started hearing all this language of what it was all about.

And then... we couldn't get on the, on the, on the, um, approved list for, uh, contractors for our local authority.

The form, when you went down it, you got to the last bit, um, give me three examples of local authorities that you already worked for.

We didn't work for anybody.

mean,

Can you build serious wealth without academic success, qualifications, or even being able to properly read a contract? Today's guest has done just that.

Do you know what I think it really is? I think it was the shame.

The shame of it was a bit hard to digest.

I've got some ripped scars in my back from where I've gone early on stuff and, and not understood it.

So where did you learn this from?

I don't know.

I can't remember.

I was probably talking to someone in the pub.