Build Smart, Scale Fast — Trevor G. Blake on Entrepreneurial Mindset, Strategic Storytelling, and Market Disruption

Summary

---

Podcast Summary: "Build Smart, Scale Fast — Trevor G. Blake on Entrepreneurial Mindset, Strategic Storytelling, and Market Disruption"

Podcast: The Amazing Authorities Podcast
Host: Mitch Carson
Guest: Trevor G. Blake
Date: November 7, 2025

---

Episode Overview

In this dynamic episode, Mitch Carson sits down with serial entrepreneur, author, and disruptor Trevor G. Blake to unpack the real story behind building, scaling, and exiting high-growth companies. Trevor shares hard-won lessons from taking seven ventures to exit, debunks entrepreneur myths, dives into the power of storytelling in business, and reveals the practical tactics (including his unique path to New York Times bestseller status) that have shaped his journey from Liverpool to entrepreneurial success.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The True Story Behind “From Broke to Billionaire”

• Venture Capital & Equity Realities:
  Trevor emphasizes that founders rarely walk away with the full headline amounts you see in press releases.
  “A lot of people don't understand. ... The people who started it don't get the billions. The VCs get the billions.” — Trevor (02:44)
• Importance of Dilution:
  Bringing in investors accelerates growth but means less ownership:
  “I would rather have 10% of a billion-dollar company than 100% of nothing.” — Trevor (03:35)

2. Knowing When to Sell and Where You Add Value

• Self-Awareness as an Entrepreneur:
  Trevor identifies as a builder and fixer, not a maintainer. He sells when bored or when his companies need “bullshit” rather than hustle:
  “I know when I've got it to a point... Now it's time to sell.” — Trevor (05:23, 22:07)
  “I get bored easily. I'm not good at maintaining.” — Trevor (22:07)
• Building Across Industries:
  His seven companies spanned various sectors, often motivated by fixing something that irritated him.
  “We don't set out to be an entrepreneur. We see something that really irritates us…” — Trevor (08:57)

3. Disrupting and Rethinking Business Models

• Smart, Lean Building:
  Trevor encourages founders to avoid traditional, corporate structures in favor of nimble models leveraging contractors and technology.
  “You don't have to ... have hundreds of employees. You can do it in a smarter way using technology now.” — Trevor (07:39)
  "I call it a hub model…work with vendors and contractors, not employees, at the start." — Trevor (Secrets to a Successful Startup, 29:10)

4. The Power of Entrepreneurial Mindset

• Motivations and Resilience:
  Sometimes, the drive is to prove someone wrong, to be recognized, or to make an impact.
  “Sometimes it's to make an impact... But oftentimes it's to be recognized, ... or to prove someone wrong, and that's fine, too.” — Trevor (06:38)
• Embracing Uncertainty & Learning:
  “Don’t try to figure it all out. Just start… You’ll end up going in a direction you never imagined.” — Trevor quoting George Rothman (24:28)
• Continuous Growth:
  Both host and guest reject retirement, associating work and problem-solving with vitality and purpose.
  “If the mind goes, the body will follow. ... I can't imagine retiring.” — Mitch (10:54)

5. Technology, Working Remotely, and the Modern Entrepreneur

• Living and Working Globally:
  Trevor used Starlink Internet on a five-month trip through 34 countries:
  “In the Namib Desert… I was holding Zoom calls… faster and cleaner... than I have here in Southern California.” — Trevor (13:42)
• Democratization of Entrepreneurship:
  “Absolutely anyone, anywhere can reinvent themselves now because all you need is a laptop, Starlink, done…” — Trevor (14:51)

6. Strategic Storytelling as a Success Factor

• Stories Trump Technology:
  Despite technological shifts, business boils down to the ability to craft and share stories.
  “For thousands of years... It’s all about storytelling. ... The story really matters.” — Trevor (17:21)
• Business as Narrative:
  Trevor sees entrepreneurial ventures as stories with well-defined arcs: struggle, growth, and impact.
  “When I start, I have the story, and I know how it ends. ... For me, entrepreneurship is no different than storytelling.” — Trevor (17:29, 18:57)

7. The Secret to Becoming a New York Times Bestselling Author

• Authenticity Over Hype:
  “People don’t need feel-good ideology. They need tools and techniques. ... If it works, then word of mouth will make it a success.” — Trevor (34:58, 38:13)
• Innovative Distribution via Libraries:
  Trevor reveals he donated one book to every library in the U.S. (approx. 16,000 books) to seed word-of-mouth and expose the book nationwide—an unaware but effective move that triggered widespread purchases and propelled his book to the bestseller list.
  “I donated a free book to every library in the United States. ... That goes on some kind of magic register somewhere.” — Trevor (40:03, 41:25)
  Total investment: $150,000–$200,000, including bulk purchasing his own book and postage. (44:19)
• The Real Bestseller Mechanics:
  “If you only sell 50 books, but you sell one in every state, you’ll be a New York Times bestseller… It’s an algorithm.” — Trevor (39:41)

8. Book Recommendations & Learning from Biographies

• Trevor’s Two Books:
  • Three Simple Steps – The behavioral and mindset patterns from hundreds of biographies that lead to success.
  • Secrets to a Successful Startup – A modern, capital-efficient approach to launching businesses.
    Both became New York Times bestsellers with “no promotion, just word of mouth.” (28:00, 31:14)
• Learning from Others:
  “Read one biography a week… The same patterns of thinking and behavior exist, centuries apart.” — Trevor (26:11, 26:55)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Dilution and Growth:
  “I'd rather have 10% of a billion-dollar company than 100% of nothing.” — Trevor (03:35)
• On Self-Awareness:
  “I'm a happy five-year-old boy in a grown-up man's body.” — Trevor (02:44)
• On Storytelling:
  “For me, entrepreneurship is no different than storytelling.” — Trevor (18:57)
• On Just Starting:
  “Don’t try to figure it all out. Just start… It will change, you’ll go in a different direction. Just start.” — George Rothman via Trevor (24:28)
• On Libraries and Giving Back:
  “Library saved my life... I was being bullied... I hid in the library and read all these biographies and they changed my life.” — Trevor (41:25)
• On Knocking Out Fifty Shades of Grey:
  “I knocked it off the top for four hours.” — Trevor (47:56)
• On the Cost of the Bestseller Strategy:
  “I think at the end, it probably was around $150,000, maybe $200,000.” — Trevor (44:19)
• On the Power of Biographies:
  “Success leaves clues.” — Mitch (27:28)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [02:44] – Trevor explains the realities of venture capital, dilution, and why headlines mislead about founder wealth.
• [06:38] – The origin story: being told “you’re not good enough” sparked Trevor’s first company.
• [08:57] – How Trevor chooses what businesses to start—fixers, not strategists.
• [13:02] – Five-month, 34-country trip enabled by remote work and Starlink.
• [17:21] – The timeless importance of storytelling in business and life.
• [22:07] – Knowing when to sell your company (self-awareness and boredom).
• [24:28] – George Rothman’s advice: “You don’t know what business you’re in until you actually get in the business.”
• [29:10] – Building startups with the cost-efficient “hub model.”
• [31:14]–[38:13] – The path to NYT bestselling author status: authenticity and distribution, not hype.
• [41:25] – Trevor reveals his strategy of library donations to trigger nationwide sales.
• [44:19]–[45:01] – Investment: $150,000–$200,000 to seed library donations and become a bestseller.
• [47:56] – Briefly dethroning Fifty Shades of Grey.

---

Tone & Style

• Conversational, direct, and laced with both humor and practical wisdom.
• Trevor’s humility, authenticity, and strategic honesty stand out.
• Both host and guest emphasize actionable lessons and avoid sugar-coating entrepreneurial realities.

---

Connect with Trevor G. Blake

• Website: trevorgblake.com
• For free resources, mindset courses, and information on both books.

---

This episode offers a blend of myth-busting, inspiring storytelling, and tactical advice for entrepreneurs, authors, and anyone serious about building authority and making an impact. Trevor's practical, story-driven approach — paired with his generosity and humility — makes it a must-listen for game changers at any stage.

Transcript

[A]

Welcome to the Amazing Authorities podcast, where game changers, visionaries and category leaders share how they built their brands, platforms and global influence. Your host is Mitch Carson, international speaker, media strategist, and creator of the Instant Authority system. If you're ready to learn from those who've done it and want to become the go to expert in your space, you're in the right place. Trevor Blake is our guest today. He originates from the land of the Beatles, so you have to understand the lore of one of the world's greatest rock and roll bands to know where that is. But some of the people might be too young to know where the Beatles come from. So I will break the ice. What is the L word?

[B]

Transfer. Trevor, I'm going to give you two definitions of the L word. So. So the L is Liverpool and also L is John Lennon. Oh, so that you weren't expecting that. So, so here's the fun thing. So my mum was friends with John Lennon's first wife called Julian. Julia, and then her son was Julian. Correct. And so I got some inside stories. So they were, they, they, they were cool people, really cool people. So everything you've seen on TV about the Beatles is absolutely true.

[A]

Quite like them. And I grew up listening to their music as you did, because we found out before we hit record we're the same age, we're born in the same month, so we're effectively three weeks apart, I think. Exactly three weeks. You're the 24th. September 3rd. So three weeks later. So we're both New Year's babies. You know, our parents got frisky on New Year's and.

[B]

Yeah, I am a Christmas Eve baby.

[A]

Okay, well, maybe I'm New Year's Eve, who knows, you know, nine months and some change. But we're here. We were just born on other sides of the. Of our respective continents. I was born in L. A, you were born in Liverpool. But here we are today. The beauty of technology, sharing our stories. You being. Now you're in, you're in Orange County, I'm in Jomtien Beach, Thailand. But we, like we said, we've just crossed paths. And I want to hear about this story where it's not entirely true, but it makes for good marketing copy. From broke to billionaire. From broke to making buku bucks of a $400 million company. Tell us about that, Trevor.

[B]

Happy to. A lot of people don't understand. I think that almost everybody out there says, oh, I started with nothing and I sold it for billions and billions and billions. But the people who started it don't get the billions. Right? The VCs get the billions. And so in order to get big fast you're going to have to bring in investment which I understood from my corporate career because that's what we did in the corporations I work for. So when I started my first company, very quickly I got VCs coming in and taking care of it. What happens then is you get diluted. So I can say, and I can say it's not 400 million, it's actually 850 million now because I built seven companies, I would love to have 850 million but I don't, I have a piece of it. And I'm not complaining. I'm a happy guy, happy five year old boy in a grown up man's body. So I'm not complaining. But even like, you know, even the two guys that started Google, they only own 16, but they own 16% of I don't know how many gazillion dollars. For me, bringing in venture capitalists to a company is essential because you go big fast. And I would rather have 10% of a billion dollar company than 100% of nothing. So I always encourage everybody, no matter what you're doing, no matter what you're starting, no matter how much you've put your heart and soul into this, get investors in because they will bring more than the money. They will bring connections and networks and experience and all of that that will help you get from here to here. And I'd rather be 10% than here at 100%.

[A]

So that is a great lesson. And people get afraid and also they have to set aside their ego in that case because one of my, I've taken two companies public, were sold to company. And the very first time I did that I thought oh my God, I'm getting diluted. And I started out, it was, there were four people that started this, this entity. We were in this recycling business and, and then I had, I got diluted because we got a cash infusion to grow exactly what you're laying out. But at the end of the day we were acquired by a larger company, Waste management. And I had a pay, I had a payday larger than it would have had we not had that money.

[B]

Yeah, that payday is worth, worth, worth accepting all of the dilution. Right? That one, that one. My first payday, my first company started with $200. It's a great story but it's not a true story as you've so started with $200, sold it for 105.5 million. It's a great story, but I didn't get 105.5 million. I ended with about 15. What am I complaining about?

[A]

That's still a steak dinner for life.

[B]

Yeah. I grew up poor, so I never even imagined what that would feel like or what could that possibly be. So it's fantastic. And that company has continued and done once. You know, I think one of the things is to understand when to sell. So I'm very good at building, but I'm not very good at maintaining or expanding. So I know. I know when I've got it to a point. I think, okay, I'm bored now. I'm not having fun. Now it's time to sell. And then someone comes in who just loves this next level and takes it to the. You know. So I've done it seven times. Seven out of seven. So seven.

[A]

Wow. What was your first company?

[B]

Qualists. You can look it up online. Q O L Medical dot com. And it was a pharmaceutical company. And I had. How it started was I had a big, blazing row with my boss. And we had it. I was working for a company in Minnesota. We had a solution to a problem, but they wouldn't do anything with it because they said it would cost too much money. And I said, but I can do it this way. And so I made a presentation to him and then asked him to present it to the board. He said he did. I don't think he ever did. And eventually they said, no, go back to your little job, little boy. I was a junior director at the time.

[A]

So they dismissed you?

[B]

Essentially, yeah, they told me, oh, actually, they did more than that. They said, you're not good enough. Don't, you know, go back to your day job. So I said, well, I'll do it myself. And they said, you're not qualified. And so that, for me, that's like a red rag to a bull. It's like, okay, I'm going to prove you wrong. And I think that was. I think that, you know, sometimes we have to look at what's our motivation to be entrepreneurs. You know, sometimes it's to make an impact, sometimes it's to do something good. But oftentimes it's to be recognized, which is fine, or. Or to prove someone wrong, and that's fine, too. And so I started my first company just to prove this guy wrong. And I got the chance to do it. I sold the company. I happened to know somebody in Boston. I sent him a message saying, I just saw Qual. We're done. We're off to the next thing now. And he happened to be having lunch with the guy who told me I wasn't good enough.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. Isn't that. And then he probably stirred in his pants. And when you can find out money you got out of that, you cannot.

[B]

Write it better than that. If I ever did it, if I wrote that as a screenplay, people would say, don't be ridiculous. Life isn't like that. But it was, it happened exactly like that. And beautiful. An email saying, I've never seen someone choke so quickly on. Because he showed them the number, said, look, look, and the guy just choked. Anyway, so it's a great story. And so I, I found a business model that worked. This is what I do. So I promote it to people to say, look, you don't have to do things the old way where you have to have bricks and mortar, where you have to have hundreds of employees. You can do it in a smarter way using technology now. And that's what I do. Trevor G. Blake Dot com. That's kind of what I, that's why I do what I do. Because I see so many people come out of the corporate world and try to start a company in the way that I've been trained in the corporate world. And it doesn't work anymore. So you have to do things slightly differently and smart, a little smarter.

[A]

So let me find, find out what the. Let me dig in a little bit. What you do, your. Let's just say your gold card and your expertise is you identify a company who needs systems or may need a different perspective. Is that what you come in and identify and then expand or what? Tell me a little bit more about that.

[B]

No, I'm like, I think most entrepreneurs in that we don't set out to be an entrepreneur. We see something that really irritates us and we say, where's the solution? And we can't find it. So eventually we say, oh, I'll do it myself. I'll figure it out. I'll fix it. So I'm a fixer. And So I found seven things to fix in the last 25 years, and I just go about fixing it. It's not like I'm a, you know, I know what I'm doing or I'm good at anything. I have no skills, to be honest with you. I can't think of one that stands out. But I, I'll figure it out. I, we, we're really smart people. As humans. We can figure it out. And so I just, I just, you know, so I'll fix stuff and become an entrepreneur by default. The journey from this, the day where you say I need to fix this to the day where it gets fixed is not a straight line, as you know. I mean, never, never is like. I mean, it's crazy, right? But it's beautiful. It's like a roller coaster. Well, we love the. Most people go on roller coasters and they really get bored with the, the drag up to the top. Well, I love that bit. And then you get to the top and it's like, this is fantastic. I like that bit too, but I really like the build up and that's, you know, most people just want to have the exhilaration, not the, not the painful part of it, but, But I love it all and think you do too. Every time you. So we've never met before, but we had like five minutes before this and every time we start talking like this, your eyes light up and I know this is. This turns you on. It turns me on. It turns. This is what turns entrepreneurs on. It's like go fix something or make.

[A]

Well, well. But here, here's something that I find. We're the same age absent. Three years or three, three weeks. I can't retire. I tried to retire in Chiang Mai, Thailand. Yeah, I, I get you, Trevor. Same, same. You know, we're.

[B]

Use that word around me. You can't use that. Don't use the R word.

[A]

I did retire for a short period of time and I was bored out of my mind. I don't golf, I don't play checkers in the park. And I don't like the mindset because if the mind goes, the body will follow. And I got out of that whole deal and I can't imagine retiring. I love what I do. I interview people. I get. I've got a couple companies that I'm running training programs now. I have very few employees versus a lot of employees today. But I wanted to ask you a question because we're of like mind in this arena. Were these seven companies all in the same field or did you solve problems in various fields?

[B]

Oh, they're all different, Totally different. I do have a pawnchon for the. If that's the right word for the pharmaceutical biotech field, but only because I want to disrupt it. Ah, don't. I don't like it. It irritates me and I don't like the pricing and I don't. There's a lot I don't like about it. I have met the most amazing people in life in that field, but they typically start off as scientists with a great idea and then it goes public and then shareholders come in and they just want profit. And so the decisions go away from being scientific and based to being marketing and based. I think there's a better way of doing that. So that's probably one of the reasons I travel so much. I want to stay a little bit, a little bit hidden from the pharmaceutical industry right now. So I'm trying to disrupt it in a way, doing things in a different way. I'm arrogant enough to believe that I, Dreva G. Blake, can do that. And that's something I want to pass on to everybody too, is that there are no limitations. It doesn't matter who you are, where you come from. You can disrupt anything when you choose to. And that's what I'm trying to do.

[A]

Well, let me ask this. You were just on a five month dream holiday. You were a seaman, you said at one time you were a seaman in the Royal Navy, I guess, in your younger days. And then you just went on a five month, what was it? How many countries did you stop in Port?

[B]

34 in five months, including yours.

[A]

That's amazing.

[B]

It was so it. I wasn't sure what to expect. It's not something I ever thought I would do, but the opportunity came up to do it. And because of modern technology, I can work from anywhere now as can, as can anybody. And so all of these yachts have Starlink as their Internet now. So thank you, Elon Musk, for producing Starlink. And I, I had. So I was in the Namib Desert, middle of nowhere. It was like walking on the moon. It was that alien.

[A]

Where was this? Where was this desert?

[B]

In Namibia. In Namibia.

[A]

Okay, okay.

[B]

In west, In West Africa.

[A]

Sure, sure.

[B]

And I, and I had better downloads. I was holding zoom calls there that were faster and cleaner and everything than I have here in Southern California. And I just think, so for me, this is an amazing time to be alive. And it means what's the point? The point is that absolutely anyone, anywhere can reinvent themselves now because all you need is a laptop, Starlink done, and you can engage the universe. I think it's fantastic, really fantastic. And you know, for, for you and I to be of our age. I remember my parents, you know, they thought TV was going to destroy the well, they thought radio was going to destroy the world, then TV was going to destroy the world. God knows what the Internet is going to do. They never, they never understood it. I spent three days trying to teach my in laws how to program A video recorder. I remember they never got it. And here we are today, you know, with the opportunity to, you know, click a button, touch a screen, and we can build anything we want, anywhere we want, with anyone we want. And I think it's fantastic and I love it.

[A]

Yeah. Well, let's go back a second. You're, you're a Brit. But The World War II was before our respective times. That was our parents generation to endure that. The early memories. And I see the footage of Sir Winston Churchill talking on the radio, you know, and doing all that to the British people with their ear. And then the Americans listening after, you know, Pearl harbor took effect and all the radio, then it went into TV evolved. And I remember as a boy having to manually turn the RCA Victor television set. I don't know what, what brand you had in the UK at that time, you know, but I remember 1967, there were two channels in Los Angeles and once they were finished, the Indian came up as the image KTLA broadcasting. And that was it. And it made a sound and it showed an Indian, Asian. I mean American. Native American is what they're supposed to be called today. I can't get sued because I don't live in America anymore. But it was Native American was there as an image. And then today we have media everywhere. Cable came in, more channels came in. Now TV is transitioning out and I'm a TV guy. I'm a broadcast journalist by training in my, my school, you know, my college days and then have been a journalist, etc. I still have a TV show, you know, that I air in Las Vegas on NBC. But it's changing now. We're in the world of podcasting. It's still a platform, still takes the exact type of personality to interview and connect with somebody. Because when I have my show, I do a pre interview before we begin in order to establish rapport, in order to create connection. How important is that? Now let's apply it to business. Trevor, you've got a very approachable character. I will say you're clearly successful. You've had seven exits. And I think what are the keys to success for people that are listening who might be a bit younger than us, that are starting out, but from the Trevor Blake perspective, what are some of the keys in order to connect with people and create tremendous success so they can follow in your footsteps?

[B]

So I don't think it's ever changed.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

I really don't. For thousands of years.

[A]

I agree.

[B]

And, and I'm going to use a word that you Know probably better than I do. It's all about storytelling. Yep.

[A]

Yep.

[B]

And so the technology is fantastic, but doesn't really matter. But the story really matters. And so. So for me in life, this, you know, I can write a screenplay, and I can do the arcs for the first, you know, you need a good first 10 pages, and you need 10 to 30. Has to 30, has to change at 60, has to change at the end. So. So I can do all the arcs, but I do it in my life, too. So. And so I can see how in business, when I. When I. When I start, I have the story, and I know how it ends. Okay. There's no point writing the story. You don't know what the end is going to be. So I know how the story ends. And it does arc. It goes through its ages. Like the first part of the. You know, it's going to be crazy. You know, you're going to have to get investment. Everyone's going to say, no, you're mad, and turn you down and reject you. You know, you're going to have to do all this kind of hustle period for the first period, and then you grow and it feels lovely. And you think, I know what I'm doing. This is great. But actually we don't. But we feel like we do. And then you get to the final arc, which is like when you finally make an impact and you think, wow, did I do that? That's incredible. And then it gets sold, or then it does something else or moves to the next level. Whatever. I. For me, entrepreneurship is no different than storytelling. So I'm a movie writer, too. So I've had three.

[A]

Wow.

[B]

Or three options, I should say.

[A]

Okay.

[B]

So for me, I used to write it just because I was on planes flying all over the place, and I'm not one to watch a video, so I like to do something constructive. So I started writing screenplays with no training, and it turns out that, okay, I get the arc thing and so I could. So I can tell a decent story. And I don't think it's any different in any aspect of life. We tell stories all the time, and for me, it doesn't. I never. I try never to lose connection with the fact that it's all storytelling.

[A]

Hero's journey. Do you take them on the hero's journey, so to speak?

[B]

So for me, everyone, if they want to be a hero, they can be a hero, right? Everyone can be a hero, right? So. So it's just choice. I mean, you might choose or you might not choose. And there's no judgment. It's just. It's, you know, if you choose not to do the Hero's Journey, then don't complain that everybody else is. If you choose to do it, don't complain that everybody else isn't. Just do your thing. And that's how. That's, that's, you know, I can sound Southern California now. That's how I roll.

[A]

That's so funny. Well, you've got a watered down accent at this point. You don't. I knew you were British, but it's so watered down, I. I'm sure when you go back home, they'll say, what happened to you, mate? I'm sure they'll ask.

[B]

No, so the funny thing is, within. Honestly, Mitch, within 15 minutes, I'm talking like I used to. So I used to talk like John Lennon.

[A]

There you go.

[B]

News like this, like, like. But when I came to America, like, no one could understand what I was saying.

[A]

And how about water? That's the dead giveaway water. Yeah, There you go. There you go. Yeah, yeah. Well, it all comes back. That's so funny.

[B]

And I'm married to. I'm married to a Canadian now, and Canadians and Americans, the accent sounds the same to me. Just like to many Americans, the British accent sounds the same no matter where you're from, which is a great advantage coming to America. But so, so, yeah, so Jess and I. So she says, well.

[A]

And probably resources and a boot if she's Canadian. Yeah, I can. I notice a Canadian immediately. First sentence, I'll know. I can identify where they are from in Canada. I don't know, but I can certainly identify. They're definitely north of the border. They sound very similar to us, absent a few words. And of course, they embrace your spelling of the British English and.

[B]

Which I'm very happy about. Yes, I'm.

[A]

I, I get it. You know, that's. Yeah, we. We just bastardize your English.

[B]

We put a U in everything.

[A]

Yes, that's it. In herbal. I don't know why Americans went herbal. I mean, there are a few of those faux pas I just don't understand. But that's. That's Americans for you wanting to be unique. What. What can you recommend to a new person or somebody that's been in a business for a while? When is that switch point, that epiphany that goes on because you've had seven exits. When did. When would you suggest they do what you did and get out?

[B]

I. So first of all, you have to know your character. So I know that I'm not. I get bored easily. So I know personally, Trevor G. Blake gets bored. I'm not good at maintaining. I'm not good at supervising. So I know. So I had a corporate career, very successful corporate, corporate career only because I can bullshit better than anybody else in the room. And so I realized that when I get with my companies, I build a company and now it's time to add bullshit to it. I can't do it. So now I know it's time to get out. Right? So that, that's one thing. The other thing is that the only really good business advice I ever got was from a guy called George Rothman. And he had built. He was a pharmacist and he had built Amgen, a famous.

[A]

Oh, geez, of course. Thousand Oaks, California. Yeah.

[B]

So he built it from zero to 60 billion.

[A]

Geez.

[B]

He, he quote unquote retired at 60 something, but he never retired. So he's chairman of the board of all these other companies. And I met him when he was chairman of the board of a Seattle company called septa. And he had chaired and led a company that invented Cialis, the erectile dysfunction.

[A]

Oh sure, sure.

[B]

And sold that to Eli Lilly for I think 30 billion or something like that. So this guy is responsible for at least 90 billion in enterprise value. How did he spend his days? He traveled on the Seattle ferries with his wife, bird spotting. That was it. That was how he spent his life. I was so inspired by him that you could be that humble, you could be that rich, but that humble. And then one night he invited me for dinner and I was stupid enough to try to wax lyrical about a new business idea I had. And after about 10 minutes of boring him to death, he held up his hand and he said, trevor, you don't know what business you're in until you actually get in the business. It will change. You'll go in a different direction. Just start, don't try to figure it out. And I didn't really understand it at the time, but I ended up having to do the same thing because I got fired for having an argument with my boss. And I ended up having to start a company and, and I got into this, this business thinking I was going in one direction. And then within two months I went in a completely different direction because somebody showed me an opportunity I wouldn't have known otherwise, wouldn't have seen otherwise. So I started off in a. A company focused on digestive issues. And I ended up on B12, you know, B12 supplements, and built a company based on B12 supplements that I knew nothing about when I started this company. So my advice to people is don't try to figure it all out. Just start. And you'll be surprised, and you'll panic, and there'll be stressful days. But when you look back, you think, wow, that was a blast. You'll end up going in a direction. I don't know if your businesses were the same, where you start in one direction and you end up seeing things or experiencing things that you never imagined possible.

[A]

100%. You just got to get in it and start swimming. And then you'll either sink or you'll swim and reach shore eventually. And even Sir Richard Branson, I love to use his quote, just if you see an opportunity, you'll just start it and you'll figure it out later.

[B]

Yeah, we're smart. I mean, humans are smart.

[A]

Yeah, you'll figure it out.

[B]

Yeah, we're smart. We're all. I mean, you know, I've come from nothing, and I have no skills, but I can figure stuff out. And everyone who I've helped, so I have a course called the Transformation Experience. For anyone who's listening, it's trevorgblake.com. you can dive in. It's a rabbit hole. Dive down that rabbit hole. And everyone who's gone through that experience has come in at the beginning, heavily in debt, don't know what direction they're going in, have no clue what business they want to start or whatever. And they figure it out. Every single one figures it out. As long as you've got the right tools and techniques and the right support, everyone figures it out and then have these amazing experiences. And that's what I want for everybody. That's what you want for everybody. That's why you and I are talking, of course.

[A]

I mean, people want to progress in life, and if you can give them a roadmap and it sounds like you're. That's a roadmap for them to figure it out. Your course.

[B]

So you need stepping stones across the pond, right? So. So the. I. I learned through biographies. I just read hundreds of biographies, and I realized that these people were in more adverse circumstances than I was, but they figured it out. And so I don't need to go through the same experience. I can just learn from their experience. So that's why I like biographies. And so that's my thing. So I always recommend to people, you know, read one biography a week, and you see that the same patterns of behavior exist, no matter the time difference.

[A]

It could be centuries apart, and there's a common denominator. There isn't there always.

[B]

Always. And it's. It's the same sort of patterns of thinking, the same sort of patterns of behavior. As a kid, I wanted to get out of my circumstances and I found myself. I was being bullied. So I hid in the public library, the town library, and I read all these biographies and I realized that I should stop feeling sorry for myself because what I was suffering was nothing compared to what these people suffered in their time. But they all did the same stuff. So I just started doing the same stuff. That's it.

[A]

Well, success leaves clues.

[B]

Yeah, it does.

[A]

Leave school. So the way to get. Have you written a book yet?

[B]

Two. Yeah, two books.

[A]

Well, tell us about those. My gosh, save the best for last.

[B]

Okay, so the New York Times bestsellers. And. And I did it on purpose to follow the same principles that I believe in. No promotion or word of mouth only. The first one is Three Simple Steps. And it starts with the story of my mother's battle against cancer because she was given six months to live but refused to give in to that. And she told her version of God, I'll decide when I'm going to die. So it's a very inspiring story. And everything I've been lucky enough to enjoy in life is down to something my mother taught me or told me. I never forget that. And I can hear her now saying the same thing, like, Trevor, stop rambling, get to the point. You know, I can hear her saying it. And. And so Three Simple Steps talks about the three behaviors that I found in all of those hundreds of biographies. The three general attitudes and behaviors. Just mimic them and life will give you what you want. If you're particularly interested in starting a company. My second book is called Secrets to a Successful Startup. And the reason why I call it Secrets is because I use a different model than most people use. Most people come from the corporate world or having been outside of the corporate world for a long period of time. And they do things the old way. We can't do things the old way anymore. You have to do them the new way. And the new way is to have what I call a hub model where we work with vendors and contractors rather than employees. There's a period of time when working with employees makes cost efficient sense. And there's a period of time right at the beginning where it probably doesn't because you don't have enough work for them to do. So out. Right. We're starting out and you don't want people sitting there twiddling their thumbs. So for startup, there's a. I've, I've got a kind of cool way of doing startups that doesn't drain away all the cash flow.

[A]

Okay, I've got to rewind something. You're one of the most humble people I've met in my. And I've interviewed hundreds of people from my days as, as a TV show host and on my podcast. I think I'm at 110. 10 interviews. You glossed over something that's huge. You said both were New York Times best selling books. Trevor, Most people, I mean that's the Harvard of publishing. If you reach, if you go to Harvard University or you know, Oxford I guess is the UK equivalent. If you go to that school, that's a badge that you can use and open doors for life. If you wanted to go on the speaking circuit as a keynote speaker, a two time New York Times best selling author, my gosh, you could be booked state, I mean coast to coast, continent to continent on that basis. Not that I don't think you're motivated by money at this point because of your success, but that would be possible. How did you achieve. Because I help people write books. It's one of my superpowers. And become bestsellers. But to become a New York Times bestseller, that's a completely different level. In most cases when I get asked, how do you become a New York Times bestseller? I said, you have $350,000 because that's usually what it takes to get there. And it's all within a week. You got to sell 8,000 books supposedly because nobody reveals exactly what the algorithm entails, but you've done it twice. Okay, I'm not letting you off the call yet until you explain a little bit in broad strokes what you did. Because the minutiae can be quite intense.

[B]

So the importance is the story. Right? Is a good story. We love good stories. And what makes a good story? Some guy that writes a self help book but has never achieved anything in their life and sells it out of the back of his car and eventually Oprah because he's a friend. And his name is Wayne Dyer. A guy who calls himself Joe Dispenza, who bought his degree from a fraudulent university in India and calls himself a doctor. So I, I don't, I'm not a fan. And people quote those two people to me all the time. I'm so everything that they say I agree with. But the authenticity of how do you come to that conclusion? Is not there.

[A]

Right.

[B]

And so one night. So I'll tell you it's a story, right? So. So. So one night. So I'd sold my first company and my late wife, she died in 2020. We were 38 years. And so she knew me better than anybody could ever know me. And then I said to her, I'm going to take a sabbatical because I've sold this company. And she rolled her eyes, that's not going to happen.

[A]

And she knew you'd do well.

[B]

Yeah, good luck with that one. Two weeks later, she held up a kitchen knife and she said, if you don't start something new, I'm going to kill you. And I said, okay, okay. She said, start that book you've been talking about. So I said, okay, I'll do that. That night I had to go to the airport to pick up her mother. Go to the airport, pick up, and there's Hudson News in the airport in America.

[A]

And I know it. Yeah.

[B]

Yeah. So this new promotion, this new promotion was a self help book. I picked it up and it almost made me want to vomit. It was written by a guy who had taken religious quotes and turned them into the modern day. You must do this, you must do that. It was a hustle book. And I said, that's not. First of all, that's fraudulent. Secondly, he doesn't understand the translations, never studied anthropology, nothing. It was horrible. And so I said, okay, I'm going to write this book, an authentic book about what it takes to succeed. Because this is what I did to get out of my version of Quicksand, these three simple steps. And so I sat down, I wrote this book. And then after I finished the book, I thought, what am I going to do now? And I just happened to see an advertisement for a book. And I looked at the advertisement and I thought, oh my God, that's terrible advice. If people follow that advice, they're not going to succeed with anything. And so I looked at the publisher of that book. I said, well, if they can make this a bestseller, I'll give them my book. They're going to make it a bestseller. Called them up, pretended I had an appointment with the CEO. They said, no, we don't have you on the schedule. I said, well, I'm going to be there tomorrow. And I said, you know, we've arranged for lunch. She said, no, we have nothing in the schedule. So I said, well, anyway, I'll be there tomorrow. I was in Orange county, they were in Dallas. I booked a red eye, I flew to Dallas. I took my script in my manuscript in with me. The Next day. His name is Yorith. And so we're pretty good friends right now. And. And so Yorith says, well, I have no idea who you are. I said, well, I'm taking you for lunch. So I took him for lunch, and I've given the manuscript. And I said, this is for you. And that's how he got published. And he said, but we don't. You know, self help is saturated. And I said, yeah, but authentic self help does none out there. And so people don't need feel good ideology. They need tools and techniques. They need practical information. They need to be able to read this book and tomorrow apply a tool and change their lives. They don't want to read that. They feel better about their lives. They want a better life. And that's what's missing. And so he published it. And it went word. You know, we didn't do any promotion. It was word of mouth. And I wrote it in a way that if you're traveling through an airport, you can pick it up to our flight, you can finish it.

[A]

So you had it in Hudson Booksellers. What is it?

[B]

I didn't. So Hudson took it up. So Hudson actually took it and said, this is perfect for the Road Warrior. That was the phrase, the Road Warrior.

[A]

Well, yeah, I sold my book through Hudson, but it was a pay to play. It had to pay placement.

[B]

I didn't pay.

[A]

Oh, God, you got.

[B]

You.

[A]

You had the lucky star, man. I had to pay something like six grand a month or it was ridiculous, but it was worth it because the back end of what a book did for me got me consulting gigs.

[B]

I mean, 6,000amonth is not much for promotion. So that's pretty good. That's a good deal.

[A]

That was just Hudson. There was other. Other things. So what did it. So you did that twice?

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

With the same publisher?

[B]

No, two different publishers. So the first publisher didn't want the secrets to a successful startup didn't fit their. Whatever they have their model. Yeah. So I wrote it in 2013 and I put it on a shelf because, you know, one day someone will come in and say, what else do you have? And that's exactly what happened. So in 2018, somebody came to me and said, I really enjoyed three simple steps. It's changed my life. What else do you have? I'm a literary agent. I didn't know what that meant. I've never worked. So I said, well, I've got this other. So first of all, I said, I want to do an update. And then also I have this other one. So I gave it to her and that got published by New World Library, which is a great publishing company because they have some of my favorite authors there, like Dan Millen and all, you know, just some fantastic. Kent Nurburn or I mean, really good spiritual authors. So to put a book that's very practical about starting a business in a very. In a publisher that's really made its niche out of a sort of spiritual platform, I thought was a fantastic connection because I'm a scientist. And so I like, I like when science and magic come together. I really like that. I don't think they should be separate silos. And so when they come together, I say, well, of course they come together because of the same thing. It's just I look at it as a scientist and someone else looks at it as a sage. And he'd come together and say, yeah, we're all energy, we can all figure it out.

[A]

And so, so the publisher did all the work for the promotion then both.

[B]

Times, you know, publishers like I do, they do no promotion.

[A]

Well, that's what I was. That's. So that, that's where I'm missing. I know I had to do all of it. They provided distribution. They provided distribution. I got into Barnes and Noble and Borders back in 2008. It was up on Amazon, but they gave no. And I. The timing was horrible for me to release this book myself because I had just started a horrible divorce process and all of my energy and resources were focused on the fight of my life because I had married my attorney. Very smart of me. But I know that it is the birth of the book is the easy part, the hard part, the perspiration is involved in the marketing. That's why I wanted to hear, what did you do in order to create and cause a New York Times best selling book? Because that's no small feat. That's why I said, we got to rewind. What did you do?

[B]

So. So I didn't do anything except tell a story, an authentic story with authentic tools and techniques, knowing that anybody that uses those tools and techniques will have a life changing experience and therefore will tell somebody else. And so for me, I knew word of mouth would make it. And that's an arrogant perspective, perhaps, but it's also a confident one. Because when I grew up, like you, I grew up in the age when there was no social media and there's no Internet, right? So everything was word of mouth. And if somebody really liked something, they would tell maybe 5 or 6 of the people. And if someone didn't like Something they would tell 25 people. So it had to stand the test. It had to stand that litmus test. Like, is this authentic? This is not law of attraction and nonsense like that. This is authentic practical tools and techniques. Try these tomorrow and change your life. And if it works, then word of mouth will make it a success.

[A]

But to force. Yeah, I'm sorry, I have to interject here. In order for a New York Times bestseller to happen, you've got to have 8,000 is the rough number because I've recalculated and tried to re engineer the algorithm in a week across various platforms. That creates strategy.

[B]

Yeah. So here's the key thing. So it's not 8,000 in one state. Right. So it's 8,000 in the, in the country.

[A]

Right.

[B]

So long as. So if you only sell 50 books, but you sell one in every state, you'll be a New York Times bestseller. You'll be on the top 20 at least. If you, if you are an influencer and you sell a hundred thousand books in your one state or your one town, no one will ever hear of you.

[A]

Correct.

[B]

So it's an algorithm. So I did understand the algorithm. So you're quite right to come back on that. So I understood that if I can sell one book in every state, then it's going to get on the list. Right, Right. But what I did was I donated a free book to every library in the United States.

[A]

Here you go. Finally, I'm getting the gold. This is what I've been looking for. So.

[B]

So that's not an easy thing to do, by the way. That took quite a bit of effort and also, you know, personally cost me a lot of money, which I was glad to do. The reason I did it was library saved my. Saved my life, literally saved my life because I was getting very severely bullied at a place where I was very unpopular as a. The English were unpopular in this place. And I had made myself even more unpopular by standing up against it as a kid. And so I hid in the library and I read all these biographies and they changed my life completely. And so when I wrote. So you're quite right to keep pulling me back on this. When I wrote Three Simple Steps, I wanted to give that back. I didn't understand that that was an algorithm that I was playing with. I didn't understand that that was a smart move. I just donated books to every library. One book to every single library. They say 16,000 books. I didn't realize that that goes on some kind of magic register somewhere.

[A]

Yes. Oh, I know the register. Yeah, I mean, it's getting into the minutiae. Book publishing, but. So you. You sent 16,000 books to libraries around the country.

[B]

But my. My team did. Yeah.

[A]

Well, you effectively. That's expensive. Were these hardcover books? So you mailed them and then what happened was then they ordered more or what?

[B]

No, no, because it's the libraries. Libraries don't buy. So so basically they went onto the slush pile. So my favorite emails since then, that was 2012. So my favorite emails since then have been from people who couldn't afford to buy a book, who went into the library, who picked it off the slush pile. You know, that big table at the front, and they pick it up and they went home and they read it, and it changed their lives. My, my. Probably my very favorite one of those is a young girl who all she wanted to do was dance, but her parents said, you can't make money out of dancing. And they forced her to go into the equivalent of a sweatshop at 15 years old. And now she's the lead in the Royal Ballet in London, often going to a library one day, picking up a random book because she just likes to read, picks up this random book, and her whole life changed because of that. I mean, if you do nothing else in your life, that would be like a mic drop moment. You say, okay, I'm done.

[A]

All right, so let me get back to the minutiae. And I'm sorry to keep circling and I'm pressing you a little bit, but it's important, Trevor, because you glossed over this so quickly is. And humbly so, you, you invested X amount of dollars mailing all these books out to the libraries across the United States. That's a huge undertaking. Your team, whomever did all of this, what caused the sales? Because the sales are what factor into the algorithm. What caused the sales? What else did you do to cause the sales? That's awareness. That's awareness. Where did the sales come from?

[B]

All word of mouth. So basically, someone reads it, two hours later, say, you've got to read this book, and they go on Amazon and download it.

[A]

Okay. Okay. There you go.

[B]

That was it.

[A]

Okay. That's the shiny object I was looking for. So the strategy is donate to libraries if you've got the resources, because that's, that's money for a lot of people. And I was just in the America recently and I realized how expensive postage is today. Oh, my gosh. I'd been out of the States for a while and I just returned to Thailand A few days ago and I realized I mailed a magazine across the country and it was $6.

[B]

Yeah, it's mad. It's gone mad.

[A]

Oh my gosh. So when you did this.

[B]

And the mail service loses billions a year.

[A]

Oh my God. This is the most poorly run and the biggest employer in the US by the way.

[B]

Yeah, it's just insane. It really is.

[A]

What did you invest? Can I ask you the numbers? Would you mind?

[B]

So there was. No, I don't think there was. I don't think I put it on a piece of paper and said, oh, it's going to cost X. But I think at the end of probably was around 150,000, maybe, maybe $200,000 or something like that because I had to. So the funny thing is most people don't understand publishing as you know, as you know. And so you have to buy your own book. You can't. They don't give you them.

[A]

No.

[B]

So, so I had to buy my own book at a bulk discount. Fine. And my team then found someone who can do like a cheaper postage thing but you know, that's you know, packing and handling and all of that. So I think when you put it all together, it pro was you know, 150, 200,000, something like that.

[A]

You got away cheap because the number that is bollied around is 3 to 350, up to 500 depending on the genre and what it is in order to force that to happen. A I, I have a friend who caused the New York Times best selling book by having people, college students go in and place his book with the ISBN in bookstores around the country. He invested, he was wealthy guy but he forced a New York Times bestseller that way. Each of the colleges around the country and he paid people to go and place it and then they would take the book up. Oh, we don't have this in our bookstore. Well, I want it. Oh well. Then they would get on the phone and call and they'd order three more copies and he would have a succession of people coming in and wanting to buy this book. So he forced the sales by having that. And then he would also have the spines turned this way as opposed to looking at the binding and the strategic. You know there are all sorts of guerrilla techniques you can, you can employ. So that's what. So you went the library route. I had not heard of that technique and I talked to a lot.

[B]

Yeah. And I didn't know it was the technique. That's the thing. I was just great. I was trying to do the right thing, but it is actually, now you talk about it, it sounds like a pretty cool technique. I probably should. I probably should phrase this in a different way. Say, hey, I came up with a brilliant idea, but I didn't. I just. I just wanted to give, you know.

[A]

But few have the resources to come up with 200 grand, you know?

[B]

Yeah. But at that point, I sold my first company for 105.5 million. I mean, so. So that you have to put things in perspective. Right. Start. I started with. With nothing. And six years later, have this beautiful day in the sunshine that you mentioned. You use a phrase not like that, but similar to that. And it is a day in the sunshine. And at that point, like you do with this podcast, you have to give back, you know, 100.

[A]

No, I. I get it. I would do the same thing if I had that. That cash sitting around. And there have been various times in my life where that was sitting in my account. And I would have done it had I known the technique. You know, back when I published, I would have done it hands down before my divorce started because I had the cash sitting in the account. But then once it was locked up, everything was frozen because of the divorce proceeding. I couldn't do it. And it was the perfect timing for my book to come out. Just didn't work. I would have. I would have spent a quarter of a million like that to have made it happen. No problem. Because I wanted that recognition. And it was. It was that kind of situation.

[B]

Well, you get it forever. So once you get that title and you can use it. And I wasn't number one, but I do have a claim to fame. So when I published Three Simple Steps, fifty Shades of Gray was the number one book in America. And it had been the number one for weeks and weeks and weeks. I knocked it off the top for four hours.

[A]

I love it. I love it. Trevor, you have been a fantastic host, and I've appreciated all the gems that you've dropped so they can get in touch with you to learn more about you and to actually invest in. In honing in on becoming an entrepreneur through Trevorg. Blake.com is that right?

[B]

Yeah, everything's there. Yeah, everything. There's loads of freebies. I did loads of freebies through Covid and all the rest of it so people can figure out how to change their lives if they want to. So, yeah, yeah, it's loads of freebies. Just go there and you'll have a blast.

[A]

All right. Well, Trevor, it's been great having you as a guest and when you write another book, we'll have to have you back on.

[B]

Indeed. My pleasure.

[A]

Thanks for tuning in to the Amazing Authorities podcast. If today's episode inspired you, take a moment to subscribe, rate and leave a review. It helps more experts like you rise to the top. For behind the scenes access and free resources to boost your authority. Head to MitchCarson.com until till next time, stay amazing.