The Art of Achieving Ridiculous Goals | Steve Sims

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Episode Topics:

• Discover the story behind Steve Sims’ new book and his journey of self-discovery.
  Learn about the art of achieving seemingly impossible goals.
  Dive deep into the importance of genuine human connections in today’s digital age.
  Get inspired by historical disruptors who dared to be different.
  Join an authentic conversation about embracing your true self and defying societal norms.

 

Rick Jordan  

Hey, what’s shakin’, hey, I’m Rick Jordan today, and we’re going all in.

 

Rick Jordan  

I have an amazing dude in front of me, someone I’ve known for a few years. And this is the first time he’s been on the show, which is awesome. I never knew this because I see in his bio that He is quoted as the real-life Wizard of Oz by Forbes and Entrepreneur magazine. I had no idea about this, but he founded Bluefish a while back, which was an amazing once-in-a-lifetime event. You know, he’s a best-selling author, and that’s what we’re going to talk about a lot. Today is his new book. It’s Steve Sims. Welcome my brother. 

 

Steve Sims  

Hey, thanks for having me. 

 

Rick Jordan  

My man. I’m so pumped because we met years ago, and then we reconnected right after not talking for like a year or two. And you released a book that was so recent that I’m so pumped about Tell me about it.

 

Steve Sims  

It’s called Gopher Stupid, the art of achieving ridiculous goals. And I voted because quite simply, I got incredibly pissed off during COVID.

 

Rick Jordan  

Due to timeshares, the first weekend of COVID spine. You read a book by timeshares. That’s why we get pissed.

 

Steve Sims  

yeah, it was just I wrote it. I wrote a book eight years ago called Blue Fish in the Art of Making Things Happen. It was a best-seller, it did really well. Kind of put me on the map as a teacher, coach speaker, but I always vowed That’s it. I’m one and done. I’m never doing another book. And then COVID came across, and I found myself getting really violent with the amount of people that were just happy to waste and binge-watch our life away during that period of Koger. It was an amazing time to reflect on. Where were you? Were you? Were you where you wanted to be five years ago, how was the family we all know we love our family. But this was a really good time to find out. We liked him locked down. And it was great. And so I started writing blogs, Vine articles, and trying to add an if this is the right way but trying to attack people into changing, you know, and calling people out. And then I also thought to myself, Well, is it just the society we’re in today? Or have we always been that ignorant and rude when given opportunities? So I started looking back on history to some of the change-makers and the disruptors. You know, the Henry Ford the Mother Teresa, the people that did things differently. And we are just naturally not very nice, we love to throw shade and hate people that we don’t understand and don’t agree with.

 

Steve Sims  

And I ended up putting it together when someone said, You should turn this into a book. And so I did. And I wanted it to encourage people to just change the way they act change the way they communicate, change the way they view relationships. Because if I needed you to speak Russian, I could send you to a Russian course if I needed you to be, especially in sync technology. Hey, there’s another course for that. But the ability to connect a human being to another human being, there’s no course there’s no app you can download. But it’s a skill set that’s gonna differentiate us from being successful or broke. And we need to really focus on that today. Before it was a muscle that we lost. 

 

Rick Jordan  

Wow. And if I were to guess you’ve never been misunderstood ever. Right?

 

Steve Sims

Yeah.

 

Rick Jordan

I’m just being very sarcastic. 

 

Steve Sims

I know. And I appreciate that now. But it’s like everything, we learn how to handle money by losing it, and we learn how to make good relationships. By having bad ones, we learn how to make great business decisions by having dire ones. So there was a period in my life where just like everyone else on the planet, I thought we had to kind of like, you know, dial ourselves down, in order to reach as many people as possible until I realized I don’t want to reach a lot of people, I want to reach somebody. And when you start focusing like that, you can take the effort away and just be you and it’s so refreshing. So yeah, I appreciate you taking an hour and I got the joke, but I learned how to be me for many years by not being

.

 

Rick Jordan

That’s incredible. If I’m capturing this correctly, the inspiration for your book was looking back over history to see how shitty people were to each other. 

 

Steve Sims

Yeah, I saw when COVID that we were being shipped to bear in mind and COVID What was the mantra everyone was screaming? Oh, I can’t connect with anyone. I can’t 

 

Rick Jordan

Oh, I know. 

 

Steve Sims 

I will attend that period. Yes, not being able to connect. We invented the gotcha society and Kancil culture, we invented two toxic elements to stop us from communicating in a time when we couldn’t communicate. Now we will make it even worse. And so I did get pissed off. I actually wondered, and I wanted to believe that we were just inherently bad today, and we could change it. But we’ve always been that bad. We’ve always been that ignorant, but we can change it. And in a timeframe today, where we’ve got more ways to connect with people, we’ve never been more disconnected. 

 

Rick Jordan

That’s insane, man. Because I mean, what was that biggest phrase? Right? We’re all in this together. You know, which was just a bunch of bullshit, to begin with, of course, you know, it was just something to try to make us feel good. That prior to prior to COVID, I mean, let’s just say I know you’re looking at history and everything. But let’s just say this, these millennia, right? Leading up to that did you see this is like just a pot that was just waiting to boil?

 

Steve Sims

I think we’ve been getting terrible. And everyone was saying that saying now are you know, COVID we’re really bad at connecting. And we’re really bad at relationships. Well, we were really bad in 1999, when we suddenly started getting Friendster and MySpace, Facebook and a small world and LinkedIn, and Twitter. And the bottom line of it is years back, and I’m not trying to romanticize it. But there was a time when if you got a new job, or a new car, or new baby, you would phone up, your mate should all get together, have a drink and look at the new whatever. Now you have a baby, you throw it up on Facebook, and you’re literally pissed off. If you don’t get a million likes, by five o’clock, you know, we are outsourcing our announcement. We’re not communicating with people anymore. We’re throwing banners and statements at them. And then gauging the responses. And we’re losing the ability to understand what the repercussions are. So we’re going on to someone’s digital feed and go Well, you look fat in that. And then go on about our day, unbeknown to us absolutely wrecking that person, that maybe they were really trying to lose weight or trying to work hard on Yeah, and there’s no repercussions. So the world of communication has got really bad. And if you want an example, I’m a biker from East London, and I’m getting paid to teach and communicate all over the planet, on the art of communication, that’s a joke in itself. I’m really good at it, only because the rest of the planet is becoming really bad. And I’m trying to get people to realize that it is a muscle, it is a talent. And if you don’t pay attention to it now, you literally have to be too late to get back in the game. 

Rick Jordan

So you talk about that in your book, that it’s a muscle, it’s a talent to communicate with you. Yeah, 

 

Steve Sims

I do absolutely. And the book, the book is gonna pay you off because it’s so simple. It’s so basic. He shows examples from Elon Musk, Elton John, and the Vatican. He shows examples that you can get behind of where you can actually start being willing to stand up in order to stand out. You want to live your own life, you want to set your own ridiculous, laughable goals. And then we’re going to show you how to achieve them. This is your life. It’s not a dress rehearsal and don’t gauge your standards on somebody else. So this is really trying to prod and poke and get you aggravated in order to do something more for you. 

 

Rick Jordan

That’s cool. I was just you mentioned Musk, right? I was just reading this morning, you know, talk about a guy who’s not the best at communicating. Have you heard of the game Polly Topia? 

 

Steve Sims

No, 

 

Rick Jordan

No, this was like my Google News Feed every morning while I ate breakfast. I’m catching up on current events right so then I can talk about it with guys like you, right? This was just this morning poly topia this dude when he has something that pisses him off, he likes to sequester himself, like in the car, whatever, and play this game Polly Topia. And apparently, it’s his huge strategy game, but he goes into this totally introverted mode when he gets pissed off and decides not to communicate about the issues but dives into this game, which apparently taught him everything he knows about business and strategy it was this weird reciprocating cycle like who is this guy? It’s like he’s a world disrupter. But at the same time, what you’re saying it’s like, what the hell the guy doesn’t talk except his blow up at people.

 

Steve Sims

Yeah, a lot of people. It’s a good thing you put thought that up. A lot of people think disruptive, successful people are extroverts. And it’s actually quite the opposite is saying extrovert needs attention. When they don’t get attention. They implode an introvert they require impact. They require something to be done. They require a structure. So an introvert will move with purpose will move will Okay, well, if I do this, and I do, and again, you brought up Elon Musk, the only reason he goes on TV is because people demand him to go on TV. And when he goes on TV a won’t take the piss out of him, because he’s not what he was built to do. But he still disrupts, he’s still powerful, he’s still generating impact all over the planet. So if you’re sitting there going, Well, I’m an introvert, I can’t be that kind of disrupter. Trust me, you probably have more skill set and talent doing it. Because you’re an introvert that you have, if you were an extrovert, well, 

 

Rick Jordan

That’s the muscle, right? It’s almost like you don’t like I think of you know, as I train, you know, and if I’m thinking of my physical body with the muscle, if I train a muscle the wrong way, right, as an extrovert is a metaphor here, it’s gonna take a lot longer to untrain that, or any kind of habit that you have. But I could see your point with introverts, it’s like if you’ve never tried to work that muscle, to begin with, it’s almost like it’s nonpolluted, you can just start from the right way the first time. 

 

Steve Sims

And that’s beautiful. That is beautiful. 

 

Rick Jordan

Man, that’s incredible. I’ll enter with the game on this, but It cracks me up. Because this is like, this guy just goes into like a hole, right, and plays his game to try to learn how to conquer the world. And it’s like it’s available on Apple and Android on Windows on Mac, and then I’m like a Tesla, you can literally play this game in your frickin Tesla. It’s the only car that it’s in. But anyway, man, your book is. So you’re sitting around here, you’re getting pissed off, right? And you decide to write this thing you do all this history research, you know, where Has this gotten you today? Because I mean, we’ve known each other again for years. And I know how much you love social media, you know, but you’re on it, because it’s it’s how the world talks right now. Right? 

 

Steve Sims

Yeah, it is. It is? You’re absolutely correct. You don’t have to agree with something to use it. And there’s always the old saying that, if you’re not using it is using you. 

 

Rick Jordan

Yeah, 

 

Steve Sims

We’ve got a platform out there in order to be able to allow people to make a decision. See, I think I think the world’s turned into an entire culture of voyeurs. We like to watch people now what are they about? What are they saying? Do I agree with them? So in the world of social, it’s your job to put out statements to mean something to you to actually put out pictures and videos, however, it is, I want to give you an unmistakable gauge to go, Hey, this is me. This is what I do. I speak on stages, I coach, I have my own community Sims distillery, and I write books. 

 

Rick Jordan

I drink scotch drink.

 

Steve Sims

If this works for you, hey, come play in my sandpit. But if it doesn’t, at least, you know, you see the danger today, as people get on social, and they create a persona, they create a fake personality, you look and you go, gee, you know, I like that person. And then you get into that sample and you’re like, hang on a minute, I feel as though I’ve just been conned. This, this isn’t you. You know, if someone’s turning up, and they got bad hair, they don’t wear flashy clothing. They can’t speak straight, whatever. If it’s them, then you can accept it. You can make an educated decision if that is the person I want to deal with I also have bad hair days I also can’t spell very well these a likeable items. So with me, I tried to find a try to utilize social to just go hey, this is the line in the sand. This is what I talk about. I act like this is what relates to me, if it works for you, great if not move along. And I tried to do that with a book. And I tried to do that in every element of my life. I want to be this is an old statement. The difference between being easy to understand and impossible to misunderstand. Oh, Powell might be the ladder of that. 

 

Rick Jordan

For sure. That’s brilliant. Wow, that is beautiful. This muscle to build. I mean, talking about social. How can you build that muscle on social media? Is it I see it brother? I mean, you know I do I mean, it’s like the cars that people don’t own right that they’re taking pictures by it’s the trips that they’re going on, right? It’s like a work trip or whatever because they were paid there to go to a conference all of a sudden they take one photo by the beach and it’s like, oh, this is my life. When they go back home to their flat and it’s just you know, a studio apartment or whatever working at data entry job or something. But it’s such a full Ultra that’s on there. But how can we encourage people to build that muscle?

 

Steve Sims

Well, there are a couple of things that are happening, which I’m quite pleased about.

 

Rick Jordan

Bring it 

 

Steve Sims

Cozy COVID also annoyed the shit out of everyone. And it aggravated us because, at the time, we were getting conspiracies from countries from politics for medical, you know, should we take this injection, or should we not, we became very skeptical and cynical, which is our defense mechanism. And like, you’ve just set it free COVID People were selling courses because they rented a Lamborghini for the day. And they were all circulating, taking the pictures on this car, going, Hey, if you want this kind of lifestyle, buy my 1299 course. And people buy into it. But now we are a lot more cynical. I always say to people to ask questions and base the source. You see, you don’t want someone that’s just won the lottery for 3 million, selling a course on how to become financially independent. Because what the fuck that I know they bought, they bought a lottery ticket, and they got lucky. You don’t want to talk to a supermodel. There’s never been over 105 pounds in her life, about how to diet and be fit. You know, you, you really got to look at the source. I want to learn about being wealthy from a guy who’s been bankrupt. I want to learn about diets from someone who was 350 pounds and worked it all off. You’ve got to look at the source. Where is this information coming from? Where is it valid? And we’ve gone through the quick fix, we’ve gone through that just add water and puff, there’s an instant millionaire stuff isn’t quick. It takes time to develop a brand, credibility, developing your voice, tonality, style, your substance, it takes time. Now, building a good reputation like that will take time losing it will take seconds. And that’s also the world the way we’re quick to judge and slow to listen. So we’ve got to make sure that everything we do today is very, very well defined. And here’s the funny thing. I say stuff that’s inappropriate. People don’t like the fact that I drink old fashions, ride motorcycles, or just wear a black T-shirt. That’s fine.

 

But it takes no effort for me to be me. So the first rule of thumb with your digital presence, I say digital website, socials, Facebook anything. The first question is, how much effort? Is it to be you on those digital platforms? And if the answer is anything,

 

Then you’re doing it wrong. You should be able to talk about your flat. You know about your one-bed set. Just because you went to bed set doesn’t mean you’re unsuccessful. It means you’re working on other priorities. You know when you want to I took a picture because we’ve all seen people on jets that haven’t even left the runway haven’t even started and that take your pick. I’m on my private jet. In Burbank, you can rent those bloody jets just to take photographs on and they should anyway. Yep, I took a picture of me I had I forgot well was flying back from I think it was Vegas or something like that.

 

It was only a short flight that Tom and I had a call to get his ticket. And I had an economy right in the back by the toilets. Me and My son. So we took a picture of the rest of the plane and I went on a private jet with 400 of my closest friends. And just just took the piss out of it. And it did really well. You see your life is your life. The scars you go through the depression the dark. Yeah, that’s what can help other people. That’s your substance. Don’t deny it. 

 

Rick Jordan

That’s brilliant man. I was on. I was on a private just about a month ago. And a person it was like make sure you get a photo. I’m like, I don’t want to take a photo. Like because this is something that it was like I needed to do in order to make another event in time. That was the only reason I took it right? Because it’s like if I if I’m going to 11 o’clock the night before. And the nine o’clock when I have to be on stage the next day in an event that will probably it was to do an investor dinner, right that I know is going to bring in like 300k of investor dollars. It’s like the ROI makes sense. But it fricking killed me when the commercial would have been like 300 bucks if there was an actual flight. You know, so it’s like, I don’t want to take a photo because it’s like if that’s the thing if there’s a genuine need for it, let’s go for it. But I think I even had an Aston Martin for four years that I owned, you know a 2019 event. I just got rid of it a couple of months ago. I think there might be one photo of me out there with that thing right now and I actually own it, it was my car.

 

Because it’s like, that’s not what’s for me. That’s a thing that’s for me. You know, it’s something that I enjoy. It’s not something for everybody else. It’s out there. It’s something that takes the stress off for me, I did, I got this thing for me not to show it out there to be like, Oh, you can get one too, because let’s be real. Let’s be real Steve. And a lot of people aren’t gonna like this. I don’t think that everyone has the capability of getting an Aston Martin or flying on private. Right? It’s like, it’s like telling somebody that that has a horrible singing voice. So you’re going to be on Broadway someday? I think one of the biggest travesties is that parents can tell their kids Oh, you can do anything. You know what I mean? It’s not, you can do anything. It’s that you will do anything you want to if dot dot dot.

 

Steve Sims

I think the I think the word and the world of entrepreneurs has been romanticized. You know, I’ve seen in the 80s. In the 90s, leaving school, you wanted to be a rock star, or you wanted to be a football player, or musician or actor, or something like that. Now, you got kids going, Hey, I want to be an entrepreneur, I want to be Elon Musk, I want to be Larry Page, you know, I want to be and they name these entrepreneurs. Every single one of those has had their ass handed to them on countless times ago, being an entrepreneur, you have to be thick-skinned and realize that you’re going to be screwed Fox lied, ripped off, and laughed at hate. And you’ve still got to continue. And then you might get it again. It’s not easy. Being an entrepreneur, it’s absolutely not. But we’re the weird kids that can’t can’t do anything else.

 

Rick Jordan

Yeah, no joke

 

Steve Sims

But there’s a lot of people on the sidelines, they’re going Ah, that’s that’s me. Until they suddenly find out they can’t pay their mortgage that Friday, or that someone is stealing their ideas and putting it over that social, or someone doing a better job of marketing your service. So they’re actually on sale. So it’s a tough, tough, tough thing. And you’re right, not everyone can do it. Yeah.

 

Rick Jordan

And a lot of it comes to motivation and priorities too, right? And that’s what it’s talking about, like you mentioned the person that can’t pay their mortgage, it’s probably because they might have gone out and bought that exotic car, just to show themselves off to everybody else. And you mentioned like when I did get, dude, I did get the comments, right? Because we’re all on social out there, right? When I do that one photo this way? It’s like, Oh, where’d you rent that car? And I’m sitting like, it’s my fucking car. It’s actually like this. No, this is that’s the world that we live in. And that’s okay. But yeah, some people can’t succeed in those areas. And it’s because their priorities are mixed up. You know, it’s just that they’re looking to get the attention. And that’s maybe the extrovert thing that you were talking about originally? 

 

Steve Sims

Yes. 

 

Rick Jordan

They’re just looking to gain that attention. And that’s the reason why they make poor decisions, to begin with. Yeah, you’ve really got to question everything you do. What’s the point? 

 

Steve Sims

Yeah, that’s the that’s the one thing I teach time and time again, repetitive. It should be on a bloody mousepad. What’s the point? So when I get people going, Hey, I want to be on stage and want to buy a book. I want to launch a company. I want to scale my company. I want to sell my company, whatever you want to do. Ask yourself, what’s the point? What is it you’re looking to get out of the action you’re about to take? If it’s for fulfillment, admiration approval, then you chasing a unicorn because no one cares. You know, you all think that. Oh, as soon as I’ve got this money, and I buy a big house, and have all of these friends, no, you level the freeloaders. You know, your friends are the ones that are with you. Buying the beer when you can’t afford it. Those are your friends. We all know you’ve only got a few of those. I think I’d maybe go for friends. got loads of buddies. Yeah, loads of pounds. Yeah. You know, when I’ve killed the milkman in the morning, I need to bury the body. Probably only phone for phone calls. I can make it.

 

Rick Jordan  

Yeah true oh my gosh, I think I’m gonna send you a mousepad now that you talked about that because I’m guessing my team is going to take note of that right now as we’re recording this. You’re gonna have that show up, brother. If you want to Tumblr I’ll get your mug. What’s the point? I hope everybody heard that though, for real, because that’s a beautiful statement. Anything you choose to dive into? It’s like that’s, that’s a gut check, man. What’s the point? 

 

Steve Sims

Yeah, no, it saved me. You know, I’ve lost money on projects where I’ve just been blinkered by the fact that there’s either a big paycheck in it or there’s a celebrity attachment or there’s some knock onto something rather than just going okay, I’m gonna do this

 

Steve Sims

First point. See another thing that I also do to extend on that point is I focus on an RV. Now we all know to invest in an ROI return on investment. I look at the ROI, what’s the return on effort and energy? How much energy am I going to put into this, and I may make $100,000 in 10 minutes, but I may be so wiped out so negative about the planet because we’re what I had to do to make that 100. Maybe I can’t deal with anyone for like six weeks. So then I haven’t made 100 grand, in 10 minutes. I’ve made 100 grand in six weeks, you know, and you start analyzing, so I always do, what’s the point? And what’s going to be the return on effort and energy? Can I put a low energy into it? And low effort and it turns around quickly, great, will rejuvenate my energy and effort? You know, great. But if it’ll SAP it, then you need to avoid it. 

 

Rick Jordan

Man, that’s a brilliant way to look at it to ROE. 

 

Steve Sims

Yep. 

 

Rick Jordan

I love it. Brother. Your book, where can we go by that thing? Well, 

 

Steve Sims

I’m gonna be even nicer. I’m gonna give it away. You see, go for stupid.com is where you can actually watch all the chapters that I read. You see, the first book I did, I did an audiobook. And if anyone and anyone out there is thinking of doing this, one of the worst experiences of my life is actually doing an audio. You stand inside this thing that’s the same size as a toilet concert venue, and you read it off of an iPad, you have no natural sunlight, and you can’t drink coffee, because it has to be zero. So it was painful. So this time I when I was going to read the book, I knew audio did really well.

 

We sold a lot on audio for Blue Fish. And I thought to myself, I don’t want to be in a box. So a friend of mine had a studio. So I literally stood there some of it with an old fashion. And I read the books on a teleprompter. So we were able to scrape the sound for the audio. But now I had every single chapter on video. So if you go to go for stupid.com you can actually watch every single chapter of all 12 chapters for free. If you want to buy the book and just got to Steve D sims.com. Don’t forget D for bashing only 1 a.m. in Sims, Steve D Sims doc common eight, the book could be there. 

 

Rick Jordan

That’s awesome, brother, dude. I always appreciate our conversations. They’re always great exchanges. My man. Thanks for coming on today, my man, and everybody needs to go for stupid.com Thanks, Steve. 

 

Steve Sims

Appreciate it.