SAM SLOMA INTERVIEW

12 Sep

Sam is a former footballer and current Managing Director of Engage FS, a boutique financial advisory geared towards helping sportsmen & women, young professionals & entrepreneurs build wealth for their future.

Starting small

I’m not trying to hit targets; I’m not trying to take over the world.

Habit formation

…when you're younger you think you know quite a lot and then as you get older, you realise you know very little about a lot of things; so just the ability to learn, and enjoy learning, has really expanded my habits because now one of my daily habits is I listen to an hour to two hours a day of something, whether that's a podcast, or a book, or whether that's physically reading a book and that is learning for me

We had a brief chat before this started where we mentioned luck. I talk about this quite a lot in the book, in general terms or specific terms, and I’d be generally interested on your view on luck or whatever you want to call the term luck.

I think there are elements of luck in my life specifically, and in a lot of people's lives. I think that being born in England, in a free society, in a country with free healthcare, in a family with two loving parents that did well and gave me a comfortable upbringing is luck. There are areas of the world which you could be born into, where your opportunities are much harder than the ones I was given. Coming through education and growing up when the internet was starting to become a tool for networking, and to build personal brands on social media or all those other things, there is luck in that, in timing. You couldn't have chosen that.

I do think there are elements of luck that people overlook. A lot of people work hard, and they get where they get from working hard, but there are also elements of luck in it. I don't think it's just about working hard, sometimes I think the hard work presents luck and presents opportunities because you've worked hard, but there are some fundamental things like: you've being born in the right time, or with the right family, or the right upbringing, or the right country and the elements of luck. I know and I trust in my own ability to work hard but I’m also thankful for some of the things that have been given to me and have luckily fallen my way.

I think it was you that I was speaking to a while back about timing. When I came on your great podcast and we talked all about mind-set and things along those lines. We talked about things to do with positive mindsets, fixed mindsets, growth mindsets and the idea of controlling what you can control thinking. If there are things that are outside of your control, fine but once you're in your own circumstance, how you positively embrace what you can do, as a result.

That’s what I found really interesting from our conversations, which sparked lots of interesting recommendations that you gave me on podcasts, books and lots of stuff which is fantastic. There's one thing that I read relatively recently by a guy called James Clear who wrote a book called Atomic Habits, that I really like. He talks about mind-sets and the compounding effect which I find sometimes aligns more with luck than a lot of other stuff. He explains about how the little things which you do over a long period of time compound into big things which can make substantive changes and differences in your life, in your work and whatever else that might be.

Some people couch that as they were lucky to be there at the right time, or was lucky for that person to speak highly of me, or was lucky that person knew about the work that I could do, or the service I could provide, or the competency. That actually is the manifestation of compounding to some degree. Whether it's getting better at something, if it's networking better, if it's building your understanding of the topic, if it's building particular habits or otherwise, that is the positive reflection of being in the right place, at the right time for lucks force to take its effect.

I love that book by James Clear and I’m quite into habit formation as well because compounding effects are quite difficult for humans to understand. If you think of my world: financial returns, the compound effect is just astronomical. It's hard to really fathom if you just looked at the numbers without understanding the compound effect of returns. Compounding effects are in everything. It affects relationships, it affects hard work, it affects studies, all of that learning compounds over time and without putting in that foundation and building on the basics, to build and to grow, it doesn't take effect.

When compounding hits in the financials, it's huge. We try and do a lot of habit formation for people because if you can get people into good habits and keep things relatively simple, that is enough. It sounds crazy but if people continue doing the basics over and over and over again, it compounds to really bring effects into people's lives, in all different areas.

How do you manage to convince others to be able to make these micro changes that help compound situations? How have you managed to do that in your own business life and what are the things that have ended up being quite useful and almost life-changing in those type of areas?

I’ll speak personally first because it's easier for me to answer. I think the two big areas that's had an impact on me is firstly when we spoke a few years ago about growth mind-set. I became fixated on what I was doing and really started to enjoy it. I started to enjoy the learning element of what I do, the ability to enjoy learning and enjoying the process of getting better and actually understanding more because I think that when you're younger, you think you know quite a lot and then as you get older, you realize you know very little about a lot of things; so just the ability to learn and enjoy learning has really expanded my habits because now one of my daily habits is I listen to an hour, to two hours a day of something whether that's a podcast, or a book, or whether that's physically reading a book and that is learning for me, it's very rarely recreational and whilst I love the recreational side of things, I actually prefer the learning stuff because if I’m learning and I’m listening, it just pleases me. That’s one element that's been really useful for me over the past five, six years.

The second is relationships. I’ve done quite a lot on happiness and being comfortable with myself and building relationships with my wife, my children and with those people around me which has compounded and helped me in my life. I spend quite a lot of time developing relationships with my wife and my children and that sounds mad but they're fundamental people in my life and if something were to be wrong with the relationships with those guys, it would have a huge impact on my health and my happiness and all my other things, so I spend time developing those relationships and again, simple as it sounds, that has paid dividends because I’ve got a super happy home life which allows me the time and space to do everything else I want to do. Those two things, from a personal perspective really have been instrumental in my last five years of progress and I’m proud of the steps we've taken, not in terms of numerical returns but in just a feeling of being comfortable of where I am and what we do and the way we do it is brilliant. Trying to get other people into those things is part of our job, we help people from a financial standpoint; we help them with organization, we help them with structure and strategy, and so part of that is to get people to do things little and often.

We've got first-hand examples of little and often over time and what it looks like and so we can really try to help them visualize what they're doing and what it's going to achieve and people pay us to help them keep on the path because those habit formations and that compounding effect is worth paying for in certain areas because the compound effect returns on their life, or their livelihood, or their finance or whatever, they're just astronomical so that's really where we help people. It's not a forcing mechanism but they do pay us to keep them on that straight and narrow and that's what we do.

In terms of habit forming for clients and then relationship building for the closest people to you; how do you go about some of those networking and BD techniques from either a compounding or relationship building respect? One of the things that I, in a nice way, plagiarized from you because you did it so brilliantly was, all the podcast stuff that you've done for a number of years, I started that process and I’ve done various podcasts and stuff like that myself but you were the one that recommended guys like Seth Godin and Tim Ferris and lots of other guys that I religiously follow and really enjoy.

You’re not a typical advisor compared to people generally out in the market because of the business development stuff that you've done. When you were talking before about learning, enjoying and just doing, the word that sprung into my head was ‘curious’ to know more. Maybe I’m wrong in what saying but in a way, that almost means that you're pushing boundaries constantly on lots of different things whether if it's a podcast, if it's doing things in different ways, if it's modelling things in a new business strategy or otherwise. Is that something that is an enjoyment part of what you do?

Firstly, thank you for the compliment. I think you must have been ahead of me or if you weren't, you're way ahead of me now in terms of the networking and stuff you do. You are highly prolific and one of the key people to look up to and look out for.

I’ve always wanted to do right by other people and other people's opinion of me is quite important. I’ve always wanted to leave people with a good impression whether they do business with me or not. I try and help people, I try and make sure that I put out good stuff in the world because I think it will come back to me and I’ve had that since I was young, since I was mid-teens and I remember it because I was quite a spoiled kid and then I remember sort of changing. I want people to have a good impression of me.

From a business development perspective I think people utilize me or they'll come to me for advice because they've had those years of either recurring he's a good guy, or he's a good person, or he helped me, or he helped this charity and it wasn't all calculated but it's all been part of a strategy to be a good person, first and foremost. That may sound a little bit big-headed, it's not meant to but that has been part of my repertoire at Engage. If clients want to leave that's absolutely fine no problem, we'll have a conversation, we'll help them do it if they don't want to continue with us, or if someone doesn't want to come on board, or if someone's got a problem we will try and help because if we can help people, it will leave a good impression with them so that stuff has stuck with me and helped from a business development standpoint.

The other side of it is that I want to do things I think are fun, and that I think are cool and if they don't work in terms of business, it doesn't really matter because I’m trying to enjoy and I’m trying to grow, there's no pressure on that stuff from me. I’m not trying to hit targets, I’m not trying to take over the world. Knowing that enough is enough and doing our best work and trying our best is enough. We don't have to have results on everything and taking that pressure off myself is quite useful. I know when I’m doing well and I also know when I’m not doing well and I need a bit of a kick up the backside so being able to self-manage is really important.

You mentioned there about people's opinions by saying “people's opinions of me is important” which focuses on one particular area which is thinking of the other in business and in life but I guess specifically in business. One of the things that I talk about is networking and building relationships and a lot of the time, I’m sure you'll get it as well, we'll be asked favours for when people will say “please can I have work experience” or “please can you do something positive for me” or “how did you do this” or “how did you go about doing that” and a lot of the conversations that I try to have with people who ask those type of questions is that actually, it’s great that you've made that initiative but actually a lot of the time you need to flip the conversation to be thinking about how to help the other because ultimately, I don't totally believe what you're saying.

You get in what you put out but thinking about the other effectively means that you're thinking about being in the other person's shoes, the other person's behaviours, the other person's strategic decisions; and someone emailing me and saying please can I have a job straight off the bat is a difficult proposition to say yes to, and a lot of the time if you want to be able to improve networks, build relationships etc. what you need to think about is what the other person needs from you not vice versa.

I think what you do really well, which I’m not doing very well at the moment is listening. A lot of the best conversations I have with people are when I’m listening to their needs, thinking about what they are interested in, building the relationship based on what's going on in their world right now which then allows me, in time to digest that information and then understand how best to be able to help.

I think one of the things that I was taught when I started in this business 10 years ago, there was a guy who ran the business who took a chance on me, used to say to us “think like a businessman” and we used to laugh about it at the time but his point is now much more relevant. He said how you can help others? What can you do for them that is going to build your relationship? Whether that is referring to someone or something, whether it's being thoughtful, or you've read something and this might be of interest to you. Trying to find out what someone's pain point is and how you can help that is really one of the key elements. How can you help someone? What can you do that is of value to someone? Then in doing so, you get things back from that person because you've become valuable.

When you talk about a job, there's a lot of people in the world that say if you want to get a good job, find someone you admire, find something you love, what's the worst thing they do or their worst part of their day, or their job and how can you do that for them and take that away? That's some advice that I’ve not necessarily done myself but I do think that's quite useful. If someone came and said to me ‘I’m going to build your podcast schedule for the next year and I’m going to invite all the guests and here's what it's going to cost you’ I’d probably say that's amazing thank you very much and jump on board; it really is about trying to find where someone's pain points are and how can you relieve that pain for them.

I couldn't agree more and I think there is such opportunity in the world.

I’ll give you a very brief example: a guy called Bart who now works alongside me for all of my content and podcast business, he's now working with about 10 of my clients because he's done such a great job, not necessarily because of me but because of the content that he's done which has been fantastic and he's now basically got his own business off the back of one email to me saying “do you need some help with this” which is fantastic. Creating that opportunity and seeing that seeing that small window is something that can put you at a massive advantage and it's only by thinking of the other.

Are you able to actually put yourself in that advantageous position?

The other bit that you were talking about beforehand just very briefly was habits. You introduced me to a lot of the stuff around what Tim Ferris talks about and what James Clear talks about in atomic habits and other people have written and spoken about at length. Are there particular things that you do or that you've seen occur either in the workplace or stuff that happens on a day-to-day basis which you’re actually like ‘you know what I’m so glad that I do this’ or are there particular things that you build into your routine that make that disproportionate difference on a daily basis for you?

My day is pretty structured and that's why lockdown was so difficult for me because I’m a routine guy so I’m up broadly the same time every day, help the kids get ready for school, then take the kids to school. I then come to work, go and get a coffee from costa and then my day is ready, so I’ve taken the kids, I’ve helped the Mrs, the kids have gone to school and then my day is starting with coffee in hand ready to go.

I always have a walk after dinner at night for 15-20 minutes with the dog listening to something or thinking through something or sometimes one of the kids comes with me because now they're staying up late. So every night I have a walk which helps me digest food and just think about the day and then throughout my day, I usually go to the gym about four or five because then I know that some stuff might come in during that time but I’ve always got the rest of the evening to sort those things out so that's just a bit of structure to my day.

There’s no habits in terms of actual habits. I’ve done one plan a day because when I do all of those things it helps my day flow because it allows me the time to do the things I want to do, but also work and make sure my stuff is done and I’m not worried about if I missed anything or if I’ve not replied to anyone and so that structure and the habit of getting those things into place allows each of my days to have everything I need within the day; and that sounds weird but I need time to walk because I need time to just think where I’m not thinking about anything else. I need time in the gym to feel good, mentally.

Someone explained to me it's like the four burners, you've got family, friends, fitness, work and they're the four burner rings. It's very hard to have all four pumping at one time so you can have a couple on but then the other two are dim, they're not working. I try to get the balance around all of them to make sure all the areas in my life are covered off because otherwise I start to feel a little bit claustrophobic that I’m missing out on something, so the habit of my day is important in itself just to make sure that I’m ready and clear and focused on what I’m doing.

There's a great book that I’ve read by a guy called Daniel Pink called ‘To Sell is Human' and he wrote another book called ‘When’ and it's all about when people are most productive throughout the day and how much that changes according to different personality types of people. I know for me that I’m good early morning until about 11am and I know that I’m pretty good quite late at night as well, when I have less distractions and the household is asleep and that's because in the morning, I have the highest energy levels and the highest concentration levels for a particular period of time.

Do you time your day around particular proactive actions that you know you need to do and then the reactive stuff which is respond to emails, deal with issues, problem solve, solutions orientated stuff or does that all just come within that routine that you've already talked about?

It's all part of the routine. I think there's always reactionary elements of things that are going on in any given day. I think with young children, things change, or one of them could be ill or they've got to get picked up so things change throughout the day. The habit and structure of my day really helps and that is the thing that is good for me. It's being able to sit for a quiet point of the evening and reflect, whether that's things I’ve got to catch up on or just being able to look through things and then calm myself to say ‘right, all done’ or I know I’ve got to do this for tomorrow.

The other thing I realized quite a long time ago is that I’m quite good when I’ve got a deadline, so if you say to me, Sam, I need you to write a speech in three weeks’ time, if I wrote it today it would be terrible, whereas if I wrote it with two or three days to go, it would be much better just because when I know there's a deadline, I know I need to get it done and I can focus on it so I’ve come to terms with leaving things till last minute because I’m better in that way, whereas other people like to be really upfront and get everything done and sort of park it. I’m better when I know it needs to be done and if it's not done, there's going to be a problem and that's sort of how my mentality works.

So you're better in more pressing, pressurized situations. Is that something from a football background in terms of routine and pressure or is it just a trait that you've developed which is urgency equals excellence?

I don't know if I’d frame it in that way, I think it's my personality that likes to think, right, I need to get something done, so let's get it done. If it's too far away, I just think something else will come up and take its place. Pressure is relative, these aren't life or death situations that we're leaving till the last minute, it's stuff that I know I can get done, I’ve got enough time for but I’m better when I’ve got a time deadline and it's coming towards that, rather than it's just open-ended because things come up and I’ll procrastinate and push those away.

Tell me about distraction. One of the ideas in this book is if you want to get into a particular passion sector whether its football, or music, or film, or TV, or whatever else it might be, one of the really important elements is to build your knowledge of that particular sector, so that in time you get to understand the nuances more. The more you know, the more you want to know, and the more there is to know, and then you're networking and speaking to people about the particular industry, you've got interesting things to say and interesting questions to be able to ask. As a result of that, it becomes really important to build your knowledge because we've got this amazing, ubiquitous thing exactly as you mentioned at the beginning called the ‘internet’ where there is so much interesting and valuable content out there. No one will ever get through as much of it as I possibly can myself, even in the football industry. If I read every single football article there was, it would be useful but I’d just never be able to do it.

If the first step is to try and immerse yourself with reading or writing or listening to particular content as you do, there's a very difficult and fine balancing point between doing that and then also being distracted by everything else that comes along on the way from everyone's phone, everyone's tablet, whatever else it might be. Do you have particular habits or particular things that enable you either to switch off completely from stuff, if that happens at all, or that you have certain routines or things which are like, right, this is family time, this is my down time from my phone, this is my time where I’m going to separate from whatever you're doing, and does that make you more productive or lesser?

Good question. This is something I struggle with as well, so I have started turning my phone off because the phone is the biggest distraction and looking at screen time and those kind of things. There are periods where I just turn my phone off because I need to concentrate on something and I think when I get that feeling where I’m either a bit uncomfortable or I need to get myself out of my comfort zone, I just turn the phone off because that's the biggest distraction for me. On WhatsApp, I’ve turned most of my notifications off, I think the only one I’ve got is a ringer.

Someone sent me a thing recently about how to make your phone more in tune to you and so I’ve done loads of things on that which has been quite useful but it is really switching the phone off and knowing that I’ve got to concentrate and making sure that I do.

I’m not too harsh on myself, I think most of the time I get the balance right. There are some times where I wish I would turn off for a bit longer or I turn off a bit more maybe when I’m with the kids but if there is something pressing and you want to help a client out or someone's going to call you etc., part of our job is to be there for those people as well, so everything is about finding a balance but also knowing when I’m feeling uncomfortable, or anxious because I’ve got to get something done, the phone just gets turned off straight away. It is really about just making sure that when I feel like that, the phone goes off and I do what I need to do for me, or for the family or for whoever it is at that point.

I think also because a lot of the stuff that we do from a marketing or business development perspective can also be from socials and from the internet and I sometimes conflate the two which is where you end up being like right, I’ll post something on Twitter and then you see the football news and then it's 25 minutes later and that's a discipline I’m yet to manage in the same way.

I know that if I need to do some work, or I want to do something in the evening, the worst thing I can do is sit down early and watch Netflix because I know my propensity to stop the next episode on Netflix isn't great and that distraction causes further distraction for me so I need the reward of doing the thing and then watching Netflix, or doing the thing and having the reward of the thing you want to do first because I know sometimes I’m not strong enough to do the reverse of it.

Yeah I’m actually okay with that stuff, I still love a series but I’ll only watch if my stuff's done or I’ll watch and I’ll do my stuff whilst I’m watching and I’ll keep one eye on it. TV’s become much less for me. Twitter and Instagram, I’ve taken them off my phone so I only look at them from a desktop just because you know the truth is they're not that important, nothing really changes, so I get the stuff that I want from them.

I’m trying to be a master of them rather than them being a master of me and that's one of the things I still need to improve on but as I said before you know, the best things in life compound and relationships and the relationships you have with people are to me, the best thing and the best determinant of happiness and so I’m trying to make sure those are the number one priorities and make sure that they're always first and foremost.

I like that I might have to do the same with Twitter and Instagram, I think that's a very sensible idea.

It’s definitely cut my usage of both, I mean, I was just scrolling on Instagram or Twitter for ages and it's just nothing changes you know. If I look on it once a day, I’ll get the same amount of stuff that I need, there's not enough going on in the world that I really need to see and if there is I’ll find out about it because someone will tell me or it will be on the news so it's sort of, that stuff isn't really that important.

Last one for you which is Tim Ferris inspired. I don't want to spring one on for you but actually what a couple of the interviewers have actually said is where they'd like the billboard to actually be in terms of a location. We've had some really good ones, not to put the pressure on you just yet but one of the persons I interviewed, Jordan, she said for her quote to recommend books to others and when she said that I was like, it's actually just a really nice, beautifully simple one because it means that you've had to read them, you've had to have digested and really sort of been inspired or resonated with them and then passed them on which I quite liked.

Yeah I saw this one, this is a tricky one for me because there's so many things that I’d love to say and so many things that resonate with me, whether that's quotes from favourite books or motivational talks, it's a really difficult one to find something that would be sort of be encompassed. I think I try and frame a lot of things so when I when I’m old and I’m looking back on my life, what am I going to be most proud of and I’m almost certain that it will be the relationships I have with my family, my children, my grandchildren and so putting in the effort and putting the emphasis on children and life and relationships is really going to be what gives me enough foundation for happiness in life; something along the lines of that.

Focus on what's really important, focus on what really matters in your life and everything else will be okay. Something on the lines of Steve Jobs, it's very hard to look going forward but looking back, all the stars will align. I’ll have to come back to you with something that resonates from those.

I think the first point you said there which is absolutely right is, I think people disproportionately focus on the things that are disproportionately less important.

I didn't distil it very well though, I’ll try and come up with a slogan that distils that nicely.

That’s great and I really appreciate your time chatting through these points.

Daniel Geey

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