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Peter King: You're listening to the PK Experience Podcast. My name is Peter King, I'm the host of the

show, and today I'm very excited to bring to you my guest, his name is Steve Sims. Steve

is the Founder of Bluefish, which is one of the top personal concierge services on the

planet, he's an expert marketer within the luxury industry, and he's been quoted in

various publications and TV, including the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, London's Sunday

Times, South China Morning Post, and many, many more.

Why? Because he's got one of the coolest jobs on the planet if you ask me. He basically

makes the impossible possible. So very wealthy clients come to him and say, "Hey Steve,

we had this crazy idea, we want you to go make it happen," things like, "Hey, we want

to go play up on stage with our favorite rock band at a rock concert," Steve makes it

happen. Somebody else came to him and wanted an extravagant meal in Italy and so he

was able to get Andrea Bocelli, the famous tenor, singer pretty much, not pretty much,

he is the best tenor on the planet right now, to come serenade his client. If you wanted

to walk the red carpet with A-list celebrities and go to the Oscar parties, he's helped his

clients do that.

He's helped other clients get married in the Vatican, or dive down to the wreck of the

Titanic, I mean amazing, crazy, outside the box stuff. W hat's fantastic is he's actually

taken his whole methodology and he wrote a best selling book called, "Bluefishing: The

Art of Making Things Happen," which of course you can find on Amazon, and your

bookstores near you. It's a fascinating conversation, I'm excited to share it with you. So,

with that, sit back and enjoy this conversation with Steve Sims.

All right, I'm here with the miracle man, Steve Sims. How are you doing, Steve? Thank

you for joining the call.

Steve Sims: I'm good, thank you.

Peter King: You have such a fascinating life right now. As I just was doing a little bit of research and

checking you out online, I mean, how cool is what you do? You must wake up every day

... You know, people talk about waking out of bed and just shooting out of bed because

they love what they do. I can't imagine you doing anything but, "Oh my God, I can't

believe I get to do this for a living." Is it amazing doing what you do? And for those that

don't know who you are, why don't you just tell people a little bit about what you do,

the elevator pitch, and then we'll dive into all of that, but wow.

Steve Sims: I've never really had an elevator pitch, because I'm just the nice version of Ray Donovan.

Forbes entrepreneur called me, "The Real Life Wizard Of Oz." If you want to get married

by the Pope in the Vatican, go down to the Titanic, close down a museum in Florence,

and be serenaded during a private dinner party at the feet of Michelangelo's David by

Andrea Bocelli, that's the kind of shit that I get up to. So, I'm there to give really, really

rich people more interesting cocktail stories.

Peter King: Ah, well, oh my gosh. Yeah, you don't have a elevator pitch. You have a free dive, like

falling out of an airplane pitch. You got 30 seconds to wow me as we're falling to the

planet Earth.

Steve Sims: So, how did I do?

Peter King: Who can rival that? I mean, that's unrivalable right there. So okay, you make miracles

happen. How the heck do you get into that? Let's go way back. Let's hear the origin

story, because I don't think that there's a doctorate for that. I don't know that there's a

major that you can do in a university to learn how to do crazy stuff. How did you get into

something like this?

Steve Sims: I'm not sure there's an online course with the 12-step program going on anywhere.

Maybe I should start it. Who knows? But I had two things going for me, one being

brutally ugly. I was built for working on the door. So, I was the doorman of a bunch of

clubs and stuff. That did good things for me, because I got to see people from a

grassroots level. I'm a construction worker, whiskey drinking biker from East London, so

I know what real people look and sound and behave like. That gave me a good benefit

there to know what makes people tick.

Secondly, I'm not the sharpest tool in the shed. So, I kept things really brutally primitive.

And I grew up with the increments of the why not factor. So, while everyone stood

around going, "Oh, I'd love to do this," and then spending the next 20 minutes telling

you why it can't be done, I'm like the Emperor's New Clothes. I'm sitting there scratching

my head going, "Well, you say you want to do this. You have the resources to do it. Why

aren't you doing it?"

To me it didn't make sense. People naturally talk themselves out of it. And you could try

this on, you can say to people, "Hey, what's the most amazing thing you would like to

do?" And they will tell you, and then they will go, "Oh, but that could never happen to

1. Oh, I don't know how to do it. Oh, I wish I could. But I'm not good looking enough or

connected enough." They spend so much enthusiasm and energy on why they can't

rather than why they should. So, I was the guy who would be like, "Well, let me find out

if it can," and you'll be stunned at the amount of times it could happen just because I

asked the right question.

Peter King: Just simply asking. Is that the big secret? Is that the ...

Steve Sims: Oh, I'm going to jump in with a story that's going to show on your parade right off the

bat. I had a client ... If you don't mind. If you don't mind.

Peter King: No, let's go. Absolutely.

Steve Sims: This will also give you an idea of the kind of things I get up to. So, I had a client of mine,

and you probably heard this story before, but hopefully some of your listeners haven't.

If they have, get a coffee and tune back in in a minute. But I had a client of mine want to

have a high end restaurant booking in Florence. Now, this wasn't enough to excite me.

So, I wanted to go and see how far I could take this exclusive restaurant, how far I could

take it.

 

I ended up closing down the Accademia Museum, which is the museum that houses

Michelangelo's David, the most iconic statue in the world. A museum that openly on the

door says, "No food and drink inside," and I'm setting up a table of six at the feet of

David, and I wanted to see how far I could take it. So, I actually got Andrew Bocelli to

come in and serenade them during that dinner. Okay?

Peter King: Oh my God.

Steve Sims: Now, we can all agree that is kind of like, "Oh my God, that's amazing." Okay, we can all

agree on that. Fantastic.

Peter King: Well, Steve, if you had gotten Pavarotti, then I would have been really impressed.

Steve Sims: Oh yeah, duck him up. He doesn't look too good now. He's been dead for quite a while.

But still the thing was that now that's a great story. Now you could stand up and you can

drop your mic and walk off stage and go, "That's what I do."

Peter King: Yes.

Steve Sims: Here's something that actually upset him about this story. I never ask a question where

no can be the answer, unless I want no to be the answer is one of my things. I always

believe that if you get the wrong answer, you're asking the wrong person or the wrong

question. That's my philosophy.

So, understanding those two things as my philosophy, there were a few people within

getting this experience put together that were naysayers and a bit of hurdles, and I

could feel a bit of friction on the fact that here's a connected guy with a big checkbook

and looking to ... He doesn't understand the true art and the history, and they're right.

I'm a guy spending rich people's money to give them all some cocktail stories, so I can

understand a bit of that friction.

So, there was this guy that was always a bit careful about communicating with, that was

very limited on the brevity of my communication with him because I didn't want him to

get into a conversation with him. And he came along to that night to watch we do this

event. We're sat there on a chair, and literally just a couple of stools that we'd pulled

out, they've set up the dinner table at the feet of David, looks stunning.

We bought a piano, we ended up tuning up because you have to tune a piano every

time it's moved. Andrea Bocelli is stood there by the piano just checking his vocal cords

out to see where he needs to stand to get the best sound. Okay? All of this is going on in

front of me. Me? I'm still a biker from Britain. I'm still going, "Wow, this is amazing."

Peter King: Right.

Steve Sims: I looked at this guy, and I thought, "Okay, the check's been deposited, the people are

here, he can't shut this down now. Now, I'm willing to enter into a conversation with

him." So, I turned around the room and I said, "How's this? Impressive?" Who cares

what he said, it was already going on. But he turned around and he said, "It is, Steve, it

is."

I said, "Has it ever been done before like this?" And he went, "No." And of course, my

ego is just filling up the Accademia now, it's just about to explode out of the walls of this

museum. So, I thought I'll go in for the final tag off, and I went, "So, how was it I

managed to get this done then, eh?" Expecting my ego to explode with, "Oh Steve,

you're the smoothest, most connected ..."

Do you know, he turned around and he went, "No one's ever asked." It just dropped,

and I thought to myself, shit, you know, people don't do stuff, because immediately on

dreaming about it, they put up the walls of objection. they naturally stick themselves in

a hole and go, "Can't do it, end of subject. I'm not going to do it."

I've realized and from that night, I've really looked at some of the things that I've

accomplished and I've actually had conversations with them and found that the

underlying theme of how I got it done was yes, knowing the right person. Yes, having

these resources. Yes, make it a win-win for everyone involved. But the key thing was

that no one ever asked for probably about 90% of the things I pulled off.

Peter King: There's a huge lesson on that, isn't there? Just ...

Steve Sims: Oh, yeah, I think so.

Peter King: Not only not asking, but also just the failure of imagination. I bet if you ask most people,

"Hey, wave a magic wand, you've got a billion dollars, what would you go do?" I bet you

most people would not necessarily know what to do, you know what I mean? There's

probably that too. So, do you bring the imagination to it as well? Or do you just say,

"What do you want, I'll make it happen"? Are you coming up with ideas yourself?

Steve Sims: So, we openly say in our company that we've never given anything a client asked for.

We've given them what they wanted. We get a lot of clients come to us and they will

actually say things like, "Hey, I'd really like to ..." Well, I'll give you a perfect example.

We had a client contact us because he wanted to meet the rock band Journey.

I have in my book, shallow plug my book, brilliant book, why don't you buy it. Because I

get I think it's 11 cents per copy, so I obviously need all the money I can get. But the guy

contacted me and I say about when I do speeches and stuff like that, ask why three

times, because most people will say what they want to do to make themselves sound

smart to you, okay?

So, you've got to go, "Why is that important? Why do you want to do that?" Really

challenge it, question it. This guy actually revealed the story to us about how we'd

actually done what he did, and how Journey had actually been a theme tune to his life

story. Like all entrepreneurs, there's ups and downs, bankruptcy, broke, divorce,

sickness, you know. The entrepreneurial route is not a smooth one, we all know that. It's

a Ferris wheel. It goes from buying a Ferrari to having your gas turned off. We know

that, but it's the route that we choose to take.

So, once I heard his story, I thought to myself meeting them backstage after a concert,

well let's be blunt, they ain't going to pay any attention to you. Is that really what you

want? I spoke to the band. We ended up sticking him on stage where he sang four tunes

live in concert, and is now deemed the shortest term lead singer of the rock band

Journey. So, we take what people ask us, and then we give them what they actually truly

need.

Peter King: Oh man. I can't even imagine. I almost passed out one time driving trying to hit a Steve

Perry high note, so I don't know how the guy ... That'd be hard to pull off even if you had

somebody like yourself that made it happen. You, I can imagine, have some pretty cool

cocktail stories, in addition to the ones you've already told, of course. How did you get

into it? So, you went from the bouncer to just, you just started making things happen?

People just came to you, and you said, "Well, why not?" And you [crosstalk 00:13:12].

Steve Sims: Yeah. So, I had a very early philosophy that if I wanted to be wealthy and successful, I

needed to hang around with wealthy, successful people, because most of my friends

were dumb ass broke. And so you know, you are the combination of the five people you

kick around with. That was the result.

So, when I was working on the door, I was actually working on a nightclub in Hong Kong,

and I saw these regulars starting to come into the club, and they were wealthy,

successful, they had what I called success at the time, which was flash looking suits and

expensive watches, and I wanted that because I'd always just ridden around on

motorcycles with like jeans and a black t-shirt on, which funny enough is what everyone

knows me for now, because I look stupid in an expensive suit and a watch.

I realized very early on that any relationship has to have value. If you look at anyone

that you hang around with, be selfish and self-centered and ask yourself the question,

what do they bring to the relationship? Now I've got people that bring education. I've

got people that bring funny jokes. I know people that I'll hang around with that they will

never buy me a drink in my life, because they can't afford it. But they make me smile

and laugh and I love them, and I always want them in my circle.

So, you've got to have what people bring to the relationship. You've got to question

that. If I wanted to get into a relationship with someone that was successful and

wealthy, what can I bring to the table? I decided very early on that it was knowledge. As

a doorman, I knew where the best nightclubs were, I knew where the best nights were, I

knew where the best parties were.

As these guys started walking towards my door, because they were regulars, I'd be like,

"Boys, not tonight. This isn't the place to be. Walk down the road, knock on the door

there, speak to Johnny. Tell him Sims sent you. That's where you want to play tonight." I

would send people off, and so I became the oracle of where the good club was. My

managers then started getting upset because I was turning people away. I told him quite

bluntly if they come here tonight, I'll hear about the party the following night, and you'd

have lost them anyway.

So, I then started throwing my own parties, and then it started being, "Well hey, I'm

traveling to England, Steve. Do you know anyone in England?" And, "I'm going to New

York, do you know anyone at this event?" And you find that affluent, truly rich people,

they migrate. The ones at the Hong Kong yacht show are the ones that are going to be

at the Monaco Formula One, that are going to be the ones at the Oscars. You know, it

travels around.

So, I started by default getting these contacts in different areas and people will be like,

"I'm traveling to Europe," and I'll be like, "I know some really cool things going on in

Gstaad, in Geneva, in London, in Paris." So, it just started to grow. At the time, I had no

idea what I was going to do with it. I just knew that I was becoming of value to affluent

people. These affluent, successful people, if I could build a [inaudible 00:16:14] for

them, I actually thought at the time I can then go to them and ask them for a job. And

before I knew it, I was building up my own job without realizing it.

Peter King: Wow. That's so fascinating. So, you mentioned the Titanic. I have to hear that story.

What was the Titanic story?

Steve Sims: So, I had a bunch of people that ... The whole Titanic was [inaudible 00:16:40] build up.

James Cameron was going down there quite regular, and it's an expensive thing to send

a submersible down to get the footage for the Titanic. So, we asked them, could we

actually send down clients you know, because the submersible is actually empty? Okay,

and he goes down, there is radio controlled, and so it's empty.

Now, they can actually send people down there, but all of the controls of the footage,

the zoom, the pick up, that's all played from up top. So, we started sending down paid

civilians, paid tourists to go down there and it just escalated, and of course then the

movie actually came out, more people wanted to go down there.

But you can only actually go down one or two times a year, because the conditions have

to be absolutely perfect, including the undercurrent because bearing in mind, it's just

over two miles under the actual seabed and there's loads of different currents that run

at different levels as you go down. So, there's only a couple of times you can actually go

down there. The rest of the time, it's bloody cold, it's rough, you know, because let's be

honest, the Titanic did not sink on a sandy sea, a [inaudible 00:17:50] full of ice,

beautiful sea, beautiful sand. It was a bloody great ice cube that knocked it out.

Peter King: I mean, the clients that wanted to do that, I'm assuming they have to be ready on a

moment's notice, because you're dealing with the weather, right?

Steve Sims: Well, what they do is they have to be stationed out there. So, you have to station them

out there for about seven to 10 days, and during those periods, it's about two or three

times that's actually allowed. So, you know when it's going to be, they know when the

exploration vessel is going to be out there. We book it up, we get them out there. They

sit on there and they get told, "Okay, tomorrow's great conditions," and then they go

down.

Peter King: Got it. So, they go down and they actually see the Titanic. They get to go and ...

Steve Sims: Oh, yeah.

Peter King: I mean, I've seen some of the stuff that James Cameron has done, it's fascinating. I

mean, it's mind blowing really.

Steve Sims: It's the same submersible, it's the same one used. You go from the light penetrating, the

sun penetrating the top of the ocean layer, and gets darker and darker and darker till

you're in pitch black, and then they have to turn on the the actual light for you to be

able to navigate all the way down there.

Peter King: Oh my gosh, I can't even imagine. That's crazy. What's the most number of nos that

you've gotten before you got a yes? What's the hardest one that you've pulled off?

Steve Sims: So, I said this at the beginning, to get a no, I've got to ask a question to you that you can

answer with a yes or a no. So, if I walked up to the curator of the Accademia and said,

"Hey, can I throw a dinner party there Wednesday night?" He can answer one of two

ways, okay? I'm giving myself a liability by positioning it that way. If I say, "Hey, I've got a

fantasy, a dream, something that will be immortalized forever, and I want to talk to you

about how we can actually make this happen. What needs to happen for us to have a

table of six at the Accademia this Wednesday night?"

Peter King: That's a far more powerful question.

Steve Sims: If they turn around and they go, "No," they sound like a retard, because there's not an

answer you can give. They may turn around and go, "Well, we haven't done that

before." Oh, I'm sure you haven't, but that wasn't the question I asked. What I need to

know is, what do we need to do? Or have you ever thought we should do this? Or has

this ever been done in a way that [inaudible 00:20:16], how do we go about it? So, you

enter into a conversation. Never ask a question that they can answer with a yes or a no,

unless yes or no is the answer you're willing to accept.

Peter King: Ah, got it. So I mean, that's metaphorically, you're not sitting opposite sides of the table.

It's inviting them to sit next to you, putting your arm around them saying, "How do we

work on this together to accomplish this amazing thing?"

Steve Sims: There is nothing better than getting them in the driving seat of what you're trying to do.

Peter King: Yeah, that makes so much sense.

Steve Sims: You actually contact them and you say, "Hey, bear with me as well." First off, first step, I

have never cold called, okay? My website doesn't have a phone number. I don't have a

way of contacting me, and I'm a great believer that I am of no importance to you, okay?

The best way to get you to interact with me is getting someone to introduce us.

If I contact you and I say, "Hey, I've got to talk to you because I'm brilliant, I'm

wonderful, I've done these amazing things," you're going to turn around and think he's

self-promoted, he's arrogant, he's full of himself. But if I get your best friend or

someone that's credible to introduce us, now it's gospel, okay?

So, I always get someone of power, of peer, of equal to make the introduction and then

I get involved and I say, "Hey, I'm thrilled that Johnny actually introduced us, but I

wanted to talk to you about this dream that's come up. There's this passion project that

I'm now involved in, and I would like you to be part of that. So, may I continue and tell

you what I'm looking to do?" Now, at that point in time, you're giving them the power to

go yes or no.

No, again, just makes them appear completely rude, and they've already been

introduced by a peer or an equal. So, it's a case of, "Yeah, yeah. Continue." "I'd like you

to picture this scene," you know. And then you get into it and you sell them the passion,

you sell them the vision. You don't make them a bit player. You make them a participant

in the actual fantasy and dream itself.

Peter King: See, this is a lot smarter than just some guy from East London biking.

Steve Sims: No, it isn't. It is a stupid thing. How old are you?

Peter King: 43.

Steve Sims: 43. Okay, I came ... We're both around the same. I'm 50. Actually bollocks, no I'm 52.

But we're both from the period where we are used to communicating, because bearing

in mind, you've only got to go back 10 years and we had no touchscreen.

Peter King: Right.

Steve Sims: You've only got to go back 15 years and we had no cell phones. Okay. So, all of these

things are happening in very quick chunks, you know. Another five years' time we

probably won't have touchscreen, we just think about making a phone number and it'll

happen, you know.

Peter King: Okay. Right.

Steve Sims: So, things are happening at an exponential rate now, but we still remember what it was

like that when I had a question to ask you, I only had two ways of doing it. I either came

over and spoke to you face to face or I phoned you, and then shortly after that, we had

fax machines. Then after that, we brought in emails.

Now, we've got millions of ways of communicating with each other, whether it be

Instagram Messenger, tweets. Every day, there's a new platform of how to

 

communicate with each other, which does nothing to enhance the way we

communicate. It just shows us how we can yell a message at each other. The simple fact

is now we need to get back to learning how to communicate.

Now, if I'm in a pub and I tell you a fat girl joke and your girlfriend's fat, it's going to

offend you, and you're going to go, "Well, that's not bloody." And I'm going to go, "Hey.

I'm sorry, but ..." There's instant reaction. If I say something that's politically incorrect,

or rubs you off the wrong way, or is inappropriate to you, there's an instant reaction.

We're losing the ability of that now, because we say something we go, "That's funny," a

couple of people laugh at it. We don't realize how many people we've offended. They do

get offended, they unfriend us, or they won't talk to us. Six months, a year down the

line, they can't even remember what it was that actually bothered them as to why they

don't like us, but they know they don't like us.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: So, we need to get back to learning how to communicate. I don't believe I'm a great

negotiator. I don't believe I'm a great communicator. I just believe I communicate.

Peter King: That' interesting. I mean, you're talking about sales really. I mean, you're selling an idea,

you're selling yourself, you're selling the thing. You're right, I mean I do understand that

there are building blocks to that, and the idea of, for example, painting the vision for

someone and enrolling them in the process, making them a participant in that, really I

can see is a completely different approach than how 99% of people go about

communicating. So yeah, I can see how that would be enough for [crosstalk 00:25:17].

Steve Sims: But it never used to be. It never used to be. You see, the trouble is, you walk down the

street now and you see top of everyone's heads because they're all buried into their

bloody phone, and they're missing out on the planet, okay? It never used to be. So,

whenever I do speeches and consultant workshops, I try to get people to re-educate

themselves that communication is the only thing you can't download an app for.

Peter King: Yep. What's the craziest request you've ever gotten?

Steve Sims: We don't, you know. As I say, usually they come to us like, "You know, I want an

exclusive restaurant, or I want to meet the rock band Journey, or I want to get married

somewhere that's just amazing." And then it's us that gets crazy on it. So, most people

are actually scared to come to you with the dream, they just come to you knowing that

if they give you the basics, you're going to go nuts with it.

Peter King: Okay. Yeah. It's probably the reverse question is, don't come to you unless it's at least a

little bit crazy and you're going to crazify it from there.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Give us the theme, give us the idea, give us the checkbook, and let us see what we

can do with it.

Peter King: Is there something that you're dying to do that you haven't been able to do just yet? Do

you have some ideas that are ...

Steve Sims: To be blunt, I'd never thought I would have done, you know ... I look at 51 and like when

I hit my 50th birthday, everyone always says, "Oh, what are you going to do on your

50th?" As far as I'm concerned, you should sit down with a couple of friends and a glass

of whiskey, and just go, "Well, did I waste it?" That's what I did. So, for my 50th, I did

exactly that. I barbecued with a few friends, opened up a really nice bottle of Japanese

whiskey, and just told stories. Well, how was the first half of my life, you know. I hope

it's the half.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: I can't believe the places, the people, I go through my [inaudible 00:27:19], and I get a

phone number and I have to look him up in my contacts and he's like halfway between

like Elon Musk and Elton John, and I'm like, "How the fuck did I end up with these

people in my phone book?" I really can't understand that I have that.

Peter King: That's amazing. What are some of the ... I mean, we've heard about the Titanic and the

statue of David, I saw those on your website or whatnot. Are there some that are not as

popular in your spiel that you normally give that people should go do that sort of off the

beaten track? I'm looking for some of the like, the hole in the wall places, the club at

wherever. What are some of those things that people ought to do if they can afford to

do it?

Steve Sims: Well, the sad thing is I can't actually talk about most of the stuff that we've got up to,

and believe it or not, getting married in the Vatican and closing down museums are

definitely in the top 10, but there's like eight other stories, which I can't tell you.

Peter King: See, that's what I was going for.

Steve Sims: Yeah. Most of my clients, you see everyone says, "Man, you deal with the rich and

famous." The rich and famous cannot afford me. I deal with the rich and unknown. I deal

with people that can run countries and stuff. For every Brad Pitt, the financier that

actually finances his movies earn three times more than Brad Pitt, that's my client.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: So, I deal with those people. For a lot of those, they come to me because they want the

privacy, they want the anonymity, they want to be checking into hotels under false

names. That's the kind of stuff I do.

Peter King: Got you.

Steve Sims: I tell everybody that it doesn't have to be expensive. It has to be thoughtful. So,

whenever anything's done, whether you're planning something for your birthday, for

 

your wife's birthday, for your boyfriend's, you know, just you want to treat him, think

about what makes them smile, and get two of those.

If you know they like music, then why don't you like, you know, surprise them with a

couple of tickets to a concert. If you know that the first time you met, you were in an

Italian restaurant and it brings back memories, why don't you surprise them with an

Italian now? Why don't you cook Italian?

I have a client of mine, I've still got the client, for about 10 years, every year we would

do something for their anniversary. The price tags went from 50 grand to about three

quarters of a million dollars. It was his 20th wedding anniversary and he contacted us

and he said, "Oh, I need something, it's the 20th, it's the big one. We got to make it

stupendous," and all these other big long words.

Within the explanation, one of the words he came up with was impactful. Okay, and this

stopped me dead in my tracks. I was like, all right, this one's got to make an impact.

Now, I can impress, I can wow, but to impact, that's going to get down into your core

and waggle it around a little bit. That's really got to kind of disturb you.

Peter King: Right.

Steve Sims: So, I started interviewing him, talking to him. As I said before, we never give a client

what they ask for. We give them what they need. We decided to recreate the first time

he'd ever dated her. Now, he had tried dating her for ages and she'd always told him to

bugger off. One day, he actually got a picnic rug out, knocked up a picnic, champagne,

got a boombox with really catchy love tunes on it, and he waited outside her classroom

at the college, so that when he came out, he hit the music, knocked off the champagne

of this like four dollar bottle of champagne, and he went, "Care to join me?"

It was so cheesy that he was willing to make an ass of himself in the front of the entire

campus that that won her over, okay? 20 years later, we created the first time he'd ever

met her. The hardest thing about that was actually getting a damn boombox that

actually worked now, okay? But we managed to do it, that whole thing, and again, it was

expensive because of these boomboxes, it was about 1,750 bucks, so it wasn't

expensive. It would have been a third of that if it hadn't been the bloody boombox. So,

we did that.

And do you know, she walked out and saw that, walked out of a car because we sent

them off in a car. She didn't know where she was going. The car drove around for about

40 minutes and dropped her off in the park, that would set up this picnic. She stepped

out the door, now she had drunk champagne sitting on a mound of diamonds. She had

been dressed up in outfits, the same outfit that was being walked on the Parisian

Fashion Week.

She had been red carpet on award shows. She had flown in a private jet to Paris just for

a night's meal, and then flown back again the same night. She'd done all these things.

That was the first time I ever saw her crying. When I'm saying cry, she fell on her knees

 

because she couldn't walk straight. So, that was the most impactful because it was a

reason behind it. It wasn't just a demonstration of how much money we had. It was a

demonstration of how much they had thought, and how much they had cared.

Peter King: Wow, man. The thoughtfulness over the price tag is such a big lesson, especially for guys

come anniversary time or Valentine's Day or whatever. Wow, that's got my mind racing

about just ... I mean, that's where the magic comes from, right?

Steve Sims: Absolutely. Absolutely. You really got to get into that. That's the real value in it. I have a

standard thing, if you could walk through the house and you can look at something and

say how much it cost, then you're not getting the value out of it. But if you talk to

someone, you look at their watch and you go, "That's a nice watch, you know, where'd

you get that?" If they go, "Got it on eBay. It was like 1,499," then there's no story behind

it.

But it's the one where someone turns around and go, "Do you know, it's funny. I was in

Venice and I walked past this store, and there was ..." That watch can never be

replicated, because you can lose your money but you can't lose your dreams, and your

memories, and those stories. If somebody doesn't have a story attached to it, it can be

replaced, lost anytime of the day. So, give something a story.

Peter King: That's fascinating. Have you studied story structure and the elements of story? Is that a

part of what you do too?

Steve Sims: Yeah. Yeah, I have. How I do it by is I go to a pub and I listen to someone tell me a story.

I'm from the University of Hard Knocks, left in '94 with a double degree and doctorate.

You just got to listen. Like me and you are having a conversation now, we're on a video,

we're looking at each other in the eye. If I say something that's wrong, you're going to

go, God, you know and I'm going to be able to react to it.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: You walk into a pub, you say the wrong thing, you get a punch in the nose, you know

you've said the wrong thing. So, I'm from that period, and if something's not right, then

it's wrong. So, listen to people, talk to people, communicate with people, and I often say

that screw Bitcoin. The biggest [inaudible 00:34:43] relationships.

Peter King: There's a lot of emotional intelligence you're bringing to the game, with the storytelling,

with the thoughtfulness. It's logistics, sure, but bringing the empathy, bringing the love,

bringing the desire to make dreams come true, I would think is such a huge component,

not only just obviously for the client but, like you said, for the people that you're

enrolling in the process along the way to bring them into this epic adventure is

fascinating. Has anybody come to you to request to do like a reality show? This would

make a great reality show.

Steve Sims: I've been in Hollywood. I live here in Los Angeles, and so I've been living in Hollywood

for, what's it been now? I think 12 years. Yeah, about 12 years. I think I've seen the

 

inside of most studios, and they're like, "Oh, we should do a show on you. And we

should ..."

If you think of every show that you've ever seen, where it works on the rich and famous,

they're ridiculed. If I want to go out of business, then yeah, sure as hell, I'll do one of

those shows. But I guarantee, the second I start doing one of those shows, I've lost the

money makers, I've lost the people that really pay me, and I end up with the people that

I don't want to be working with.

Peter King: That makes sense. That makes sense. Oh my gosh, I have a million questions, and none

of them are coming to me right now, because I'm just so overwhelmed with this idea.

Because like I said at the beginning before we started recording, I would love to be

doing this every day, to just make dreams come true. That's fantastic.

Steve Sims: So do it.

Peter King: Exactly.

Steve Sims: That's the dumb thing. And I've often said this to people and it's become a standardized

line, I'm a whiskey drinking biker from East London, and I'm doing this. You're already

out of excuses.

Peter King: Well, you might be selling yourself a little short on that. I mean, I get that there's some

simplicity to it. But I mean, to pull this off, you have to have a pretty big heart. You just

seem like you have a really big heart to just want to be doing this in the first place, and

to have fun doing it and, you know, people will make dreams come true. That is the

ultimate Wizard of Oz, I would think. How many employees do you have? Do you have

people helping you out doing all this?

Steve Sims: Yeah, you have to. You have to have your six, you have to have dreamers. You have to

have back office, and people with the statistics and stuff. You have to have a good core.

Over the years, I've become very, very good at delegation. So, I have a great outsource

team as I need it. But my core group's like 12 people, and that's more than adequate.

Peter King: Yeah, and you mentioned a little bit before about cost. Do you have ... I'm assuming

every request that comes in is kind of a custom thing, or do you have a standard fee or

how does that work?

Steve Sims: Well, the concierge business, we have a couple of points of entry. For the start is $5,000,

and for $5,000, you get our phone number. That's that. So, we interview you. Once

we've accepted that you have dreams and resources to fulfill those dreams, you have

desires and you're the right kind of person we want to deal with, then we accept you as

a member and we charge you $5,000. Once that's done, absolutely everything from that

point is an additional payment, so the five grand quite simply is just to get our phone

number.

 

Peter King: Tell me a little bit about your upbringing little bit. Did you have siblings, are you ... No?

Only child?

Steve Sims: I'm an only child. Again, I lived in the era where we had like four TV shows, four TV

stations, so the evenings weren't exactly sitting in front of a computer or playing

Fortnite, they were out kicking a football around or you know mugging someone, it was

East London. I didn't mug anyone, so I can confirm that. But it was the kind of days

where you were just kids running around the streets. That was my upbringing and it was

absolutely fine for that.

Peter King: Yeah. I would imagine just that creativity or you know, I've had a few other people on

the podcast where they were, you know, one guy was a ex con and how just that culture

brought him in because of family issues or whatever and how that actually has now

opened doors for him because of ... That's why I say like your background, having sort of

that rough upbringing I'm sure has served you to not looking for answers to ...

Steve Sims: My dad, I remember when I finished school and I didn't know what I wanted to do, so I

did nothing for the first day of leaving school and then the following day, he woke me

up at 4:00 in the morning and said, "You're coming on the building site with me." That

was it, I never had any choice. I just was dragged out of bed, hating life, and we would

then drive like an hour and a half to get to a building site, work our bones off, get peed

on from the bloody rain, get your hands smacked up because of the bricks and then

drive home at 7:00 at night in time for like a meal and shower, and die into bed. And

then 4:00 in the morning, woke up again.

I remember as I grew up, hating, loathing my life. I will say openly, I disliked my family,

because I was poor, and I had nothing, and I was resentful. It wasn't until I hit my mid

20s that I realized how wealthy I was, because I knew what it was like to get up at 4:00

in the morning. Like I'll have a client now in Japan, or Bali, or wherever, and if I've got to

jump up at 1:30 in the morning to have a phone call with them, I'll do that. Why?

Because it's far easier than get up at 4:00 in the morning and getting pissed on, and

ruining your hands on bricks.

I learned very early on what hard work was like, and I realized how wealthy I was to be

taught that lesson, to know what hard work's like. So, I think I had a very wealthy

upbringing. I didn't take anything for granted. I go out for a meal now with my family, I

put my credit card down, and I pay for that meal, and I have a little wink at myself, and I

have a little smile knowing that I've put myself in a position to be able to not worry if

that card goes eh, been denied.

So, you do. You jump, I walk on a plane, and I've flown first class. I fly business class

everywhere now because I don't have the need for first class, but I don't want to be in

coach. I sit down in that business class seat and I go, "Thank you for teaching me the

lessons that enabled me to be here," and so I don't take it for granted. I absolutely do

not.

I bought a washing machine this morning. I know it's funny, but my washing machine

broke last night and my wife's pouting at me because of the washing machine, I went,

"So what washing machine do you want?" She went, "That one," so I found out this

morning, we bought it, and it's being delivered on about a week's time. I took a smile

that I'm in a position that I can buy a washing machine without first needing to look at

whether or not I can pay the mortgage that month.

Peter King: What would be something that's surprising ... Dealing with the clientele that you deal

with, what would be something surprising that most people ... Because a lot of people

have a thought of what "rich people" "wealthy people" are, what would be something

surprising in your mind that your clientele have uniquely in common?

Steve Sims: They don't accept no ... Well, I won't say they don't accept no for an answer, they can't

see no. A lot of them instead of looking at the solution, will look at why there was the

problem there in the first place and try to attack the cancer at its root. That I found is

synonymous with most of the people I deal with.

I also noticed that there's a misconception that rich people are intelligent. Rich people

are intelligent and proficient and excellent usually at one or two things. The rest of their

life is just as screwed up as everyone else's. The good thing about the people I deal with

is I deal with successful entrepreneurs, whether it be a financier for film, saving

Hollywood, whether it be someone that's launched a major company in China, or

Poland, or Russia, they know what it's like. They know what it's like to have to eat

yesterday's leftovers.

Most of my clients, 99.9% of my clients, and maybe that's because of me, are self-made.

They know what it's like to, in their head, be adding up the groceries in a store so that

they make sure they got enough money in their pocket. They feel that. Now, you

remember that pain.

You see, when you're wealthy, it eliminates problems. It eliminates stress. It eliminates

pain. There's no emotion for that elimination, but you know what the pain of calculating

how much the bread is to remember if you've got enough money in your wallet. So,

avoid the pain and remember it. Never let it go. Never let that pain go away, because

that's what's going to drive you. I find that's true in a lot of my people.

Peter King: That's interesting. Do you just set yourself up for ... I'm trying to imagine what you

would do for your own anniversary. I can imagine you taking your wife to the moon or

something, and having her be like, "Well, you know, I thought we were going to do

something special this time, but you only took me to the moon." How high is the bar

that you have to set each time you guys have an anniversary?

Steve Sims: Well, the good thing is we don't buy presents. We always do experiences. But the

experiences, like I've never promoted them on any of my social feeds, because is not

your business. They're intimate to us, so I may find a nice restaurant and I know that she

may like Italian food, rather than take her to a restaurant, I'll take her to the Chef's

Table where or the restaurant where she's going to make her own Italian food, and we

learn how to make ravioli that night.

What people don't realize about me is I'm actually very, very boring. I'm only on this

show because I work with incredible people, and I've got incredible stories because of

that. I've learned incredible lessons for me, and I've written a book, blah, but those are

the only reasons. If it wasn't for those people, I wouldn't be on this show.

So, when I go out with the family, both me and my wife, we're actually quite

introverted. We do things if there's a point. I'm not there to ... Like I don't have a car. I

ride motorcycles all the time. I don't need a car to impress you. I don't need to impress

you. I do what I do, and if you want me to do something, I'll do it. But if you want me to

impress your stories by being me in it, that ain't going to happen. So, whenever we do

anything with the family, it's literally that. It's with the family. If barbecuing, I have a

lovely barbecue up here in my house, very few people ever get to come to my home,

but those that do are within my inner circle, so I'm just very low key.

Peter King: That makes sense.

Steve Sims: Bearing in mind, I'm flying around the planet, whether it be doing speaking gigs, or

whether it be doing a consultant, or whether working for my clients. So, we get to do all

of this stuff every month. My wife and I sat down this morning, because as I said, I do a

lot of speaking now. And we looked at it this morning, I said to her, just off the hook I

said, "Oh, what speaking gigs do we have confirmed and paid for, for 2019."

And she said, "Well, you've got a bunch of inquiries, but at the moment, you've only got

four for the first quarter." And I went, "Oh, that's not bad, four paid speaking gigs for

the first quarter." She went, "Yeah, Las Vegas, Mexico, Chicago and Thailand." So within

the first quarter of next year, I mean, including mine three different countries.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: So, that's pretty damn cool.

Peter King: It is pretty damn cool. You mentioned the book a little bit earlier, but you forgot to say

the name. The name of the book is?

Steve Sims: It's Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen.

Peter King: The Art of Making Things Happen. And so the structure, if you can remind our listeners

what the structure is overall. I know we've touched on a lot of it over the call. But what's

the structure of making things happens? Obviously asking in a different way.

Steve Sims: Yeah. That probably helps with the history of the book. I've been asked to do a book

revealing the rich and powerful and who they were, and as I said to you earlier, if I

actually did that, I'd be dead by cocktail hour. So instead, we wrote a book, not on who I

do it with, but how I do it. So we actually do break down the structure of how to ask

why three times.

If you're getting a no, or if you're not getting anywhere, you're asking the wrong person

the wrong question, or you've got the wrong message. So, it breaks it down on how to

actually bring back the power of communication, how to be persistent, but be

passionate. If you're just persistent, but no passion, that's called pushy, okay.

But if you're passionate, I've noticed that people want to be around passionate people,

they want to smile with smiling people. If you've got a guy next to you that can't even

speak your language, he tells another guy next to him that can't speak your language a

joke and they both start laughing, what do you do? You can't help but smile. You have

no idea what they said. You have no idea what the joke was about, you can't even

understand what the bloody people are saying. You will end up smiling. It's just

something that happens inside you. They say misery attracts misery. Correct, but

passion attracts passion just as much.

Peter King: You've talked a lot about things making a point and having a sense of purpose. How do

you define purpose? Do you have a sense for how you put that together?

Steve Sims: I'm selfish. If there's no point, there's no purpose, and the point has to benefit me, my

family. So I look at it, Joe Polish actually put it best. I remember speaking to Joe Polish

about his dilemma that I had in my business and I went through, I'd noticed 20 minute

[inaudible 00:49:28] of like oh I've got this problem I've got this, and this isn't working

and I don't know about this."

And he just bloody ignored me for 20 minutes, then just turned around and he said, "Is

the juice worth the squeeze?" And I just go, "Crap." Yeah. He's, again, one of those

smart people that I surround myself with. So, now quite simply, before I actually start

putting a business plan together or before I get into anything, I do ask myself, is it worth

the squeeze?

What am I going to get out of this? Am I going to get a lot of money out of it? Am I going

to get a lot of heartache out of it? Am I going to get a lot of friction, a lot of tension? Is

that going to be a great story at the end? I'm very selfish, I ask myself, is it worth it? And

before I do anything, I ask myself that question.

Peter King: So I mean, I would expect at this point that the money is obviously nice, but what does it

feel like to be able to pull something like this off to help somebody achieve their

dreams? I would think that that would be a big part of your purpose too, is to be able to

see the unthinkable manifest itself in front of you, and have these things play out. I can't

even imagine what it would feel like to see what was it, the Italian singer?

Steve Sims: Andrea Bocelli.

Peter King: Bocelli, I can't even imagine just sitting there going watching him sing and then like, how

amazing is that to be a director for life?

 

Steve Sims: So, I actually was sat next to ... Let me give you ... Have you been to Florence, to the

Accademia?

Peter King: Yes.

Steve Sims: Okay. So, in the Academic, for the people that haven't, there's Michelangelo's David,

which is the most iconic statue in the planet. And behind him, the museum actually

curves and there's a pedestal built into the wall where you can sit and look at the rear

and the side profile of David. I'm sat on that pedestal next to Andrea Bocelli, and next to

Veronica Bocelli, his wife, okay? And we're chatting away and I look up, and there's

David and I look to the right and I see them just finishing off the table.

All of a sudden, I went into a cold sweat, literally, just my body just started convulsing. I

wasn't falling off the pedestal or anything, but I was almost shaking, I had this coat.

Andrea actually felt it and said something to his wife, and she said, "Are you okay?" I

said to her, "I've just realized where I am, what I've pulled off, and who I'm next to, and

it's just hit me."

You're right. If you can think of every happy moment of your life, hitting you at one

second, that's what a lot of these things do. When a client goes up there, and he's

beaming because he's on stage with his favorite rockstar, or he's getting a drum lesson

by Guns N' Roses, or a guitar lesson by a guitar hero, or walking the white carpet at

Elton John's Oscar party, and I'm the kid that made that happen and they're the ones

getting all the photographs. They're the ones that are posting it on Instagram. They're

the ones that are telling the stories.

Like I've been in rooms where I'm hearing a client tell the story of what they did,

knowing that I'm the guy that put it together, and I can just flow up by and no one

knows who I am. I'm just the ugly fellow at the party, drinking my whiskey and I'm the

guy that actually made it happen, yeah, you're right. That's what keeps me going.

Peter King: That's an introvert's wet dream right there.

Steve Sims: It absolutely is.

Peter King: To be on the circumference of it all, but have zero spotlight and walk outside and be a

total stranger, that's phenomenal.

Steve Sims: Do you know, I've been doing this for about 25 years now, and my book came out last

year and my book has obviously propelled me into doing a lot of different events, as I

said, speaking and consulting, all that. Prior to that, I was a big deal to about 1% of the

planet. Nobody else knew who the hell I was. I would get into events, and you would

sometimes just see people looking at me thinking, "Well, who's that? I don't recognize

him."

"Oh, no one." I would tell people, "Oh, I own the valet company that are just looking

after this party, and they just let me sit in here," or, "Oh, you know, I'm the doorman or

I'm part of the security." I would give these people lies and just let them carry on

without them knowing that the owner of the party or the owner of the event is my

client, you know?

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: They were running around trying to impress or blow smoke up their ass, and I'm just

sitting there drinking whiskey going, you know, [inaudible 00:54:07] for yourself. But

then last year when the book came out, that's where my kind of secrecy kind of fell

apart. Now I'm going to do these shows and TV and ...

Peter King: Do you regret that at all? Because yeah, now you're stepping into the spotlight a little

bit.

Steve Sims: Quick answer is yes. The quick answer is hell yeah.

Peter King: That yes, you do regret it.

Steve Sims: Yeah, my next door neighbors know who I am now, and you're just kind of like oh God.

You know, I've been in airports. I'm not trying to make it as I'm a celebrity or anything

like that, but I've been in airports, I've been in restaurants, and I've had people come up

and go, "Oh, you know, I've read your book. Oh, I saw your name." I'll be like, "Oh yeah.

Thank you. Thank you."

That part of fame, I would lose in like a millisecond. Fame is a nasty, nasty cancer that I

don't want anywhere in my life. That being said, it's given me a platform to actually be

able to dictate a bit more of a world that I want to live in. I hate the fact that we're not

communicating. I hate the fact that we're not building up relationships.

Bearing in mind, me and you, especially me, we're the slowest evolving technology

there is in the planet. Okay. We basically just got rid of webbed feet. You know, we are

slow. Everything in our bodies is deteriorating, yet technology is moving. Every time a

new computer comes out, by the time it's in your hand, you know it's outdated.

Peter King: Yeah.

Steve Sims: But us as human beings, we still need people. We still need to communicate, we still

need to connect, to relate. Yeah, everybody else in the planet is actually killing that.

We're experiential. We learn, we educate from touching a hot pan and go, "Fuck, that's

hot. I'm not going to touch that anymore." From going around a corner in a car too fast,

and going, "Whoa, I need to slow down there."

What's happening? There's pots now that are not hot on the outside, there's cars that

drive themselves. We're losing the ability to experience things, to feel things, to interact

with other people. I see it as a very slippery slope. So, the book has given me the ability

to stand up on stage and say, "Stop, look at people in the eye, have meals with the

phones not down, not on silent, nowhere near the bloody table."

One of the things I do with my clients is if a client sends me an email, I phone him up,

and I go, "Hey pat, I got your email, but I just wanted to chat. I wanted to know, is there

something that's missing that we haven't discussed?" They'll go, "Whoa." Do you know

how many people that when they get a phone call, they're surprised, they're stunned,

but they're also in awe that you took the time to phone them.

Do you know, there's never been a phone call that I've ever made where we've just

validated the points in the email and that's been it. It's always been the case of, "Do you

know, I never thought of that," or, "Well, if we're going to do that, maybe we should do

it." It grows. Now, hey, it's great for me because it's more business, it's more money but

more importantly, it's more of what they want and it shows you care. In this world

where we're being replaced by Amazon in three seconds, that loyalty [inaudible

00:57:30] relationship.

Peter King: Oh man. Yeah, you're really talking about a much, much more profound deep message

for humanity, and you have the platform and the vehicle to show people what's possible

if you bring your humanity to the table, and a little imagination, and of course, you

know, bottomless pockets with the world's elites, it helps.

Steve Sims: It helps, yeah.

Peter King: Well, but like you said, I mean, it might be as simple and as impactful as a picnic lunch.

Steve Sims: Look, it doesn't have to be expensive to be impactful. I want people to start thinking,

and you can take that into business. How many times do you look at your business and

go, "Oh my God, I wish this was better. Oh, there's a CRM program over there for 20

grand, I better get that. That will be the answer. That will be my blue pill." In fact, you

should get it and it's not. So, I'm a great believer that the most primitive things are the

most impactful, and focus on them.

Peter King: I love that.

Steve Sims: Don't worry about CRM, pick up the bloody phone and phone someone. Better still,

invite them out for a whiskey tonight.

Peter King: Yep. Steve Sims, wonderful conversation, man. I'd love to sit back and have a little chat

and keep hearing some more of these stories. Some ones that are not probably

appropriate for the public podcast, but thank you so much for your time today. The

book is Bluefishing: The Art of Making Things Happen, Steve Sims, available on Amazon.

Anywhere else people need to be aware of?

Steve Sims: Yeah, you can get over to stevedsims.com, that's Steve D for dog Sims S-I-M-S.com.

That's got a whole bunch of videos, and if you subscribe to the newsletter, you actually

get the playbook that's in the back of the book free of charge.

Peter King: Ah, there we go.

 

Steve Sims: So, you're going to have a [inaudible 00:59:24] and see if you even like it.

Peter King: Nice. Now we're talking. Fantastic, man. Thank you again for this conversation. It's been

awesome.

Steve Sims: It's been a pleasure.

Peter King: All right. Take care.