The James Harrisson Show

Erik Bergman made €50 million before turning 30, now he’s giving it away   What you’ll learn from this interview:   How Erik went from humble beginnings to making €50 million before his 30th birthday, including €15 million in one day The dark side of such meteoric growth, the toll it took on his health and relationships Erik’s opinion on whether money buys happiness (the answer may surprise you) Why Erik decided to build a business with the sole intention of giving away all the money he makes from it   My guest today is Erik Bergman. He founded a company called Catena Media which does online lead generation, largely for the gambling industry. In 2016 he took the company public and made €15 million in one day.   When the high of making millions wore off after a few weeks, he realised that life isn’t just about money and today he’s the founder of Great.com, which is what he calls a next generation charity: A company focused on making as much money as possible - only to give it all away. He’s also the host of the podcast “Becoming Great”.   I wanted to bring Erik on the show to find out how he built up Catena Media, what it was like going from humble beginnings to making millions, the emotional toll such rapid growth had on his personal life, and what he’s doing now with Great.com   W: https://great.com/ IG: @erik.bergman

Dealing with loss, suicide and turning your mess into your message with Melissa Yu   What you’ll learn from this interview:   How Melissa dealt with extremely challenging circumstances in her young life, growing up as one of the few Chinese families in her community and losing her partner of 6 years to suicide in 2014 How she was able to turn her mess into her message and show up with more meaning and purpose in her work today because of the pain and challenges she’s been through How she built up her events business and created Australia’s largest Streetwear & Lifestyle Expo   My guest today is Melissa Yu, founder and director of Melbourne based MCO Events, and creator of Ego Expo which is Australia’s largest Streetwear & Lifestyle Expo   Melissa has been forced to overcome some incredibly hard challenges in her life. She lost her partner to suicide in 2014 which motivated her to start speaking about Mental Health & Suicide Prevention   I wanted to bring Melissa on the show to find out how she got through such devastating circumstances, how she’s been able to channel that experience into her purpose and work and the importance of prioritising mental health in her own entrepreneurship journey with MCO Events   IG: @mellieyu & @egoexpo_au & @mcoevents W: https://www.mcoevents.com.au/ & https://www.egoexpo.com.au/

How this marketer grew his agency and engineered his ideal lifestyle   What you’ll learn from this interview:   How being bold and thinking differently got Renat a kite surfing session with Richard Branson and regular use of luxury hotel amenities for free How Renat grew his marketing agency by focussing on human psychology and thinking principles, as opposed to specific tools and tactics How he built a thriving community of entrepreneurs and set up three co living spaces around the world   My guest today is Renat Gabitov, he runs an agency called Prometheus where he helps thought Leaders and Serviced-Based Companies in the peak performance space with their marketing. Previous clients include Steven Kotler (9x Bestselling Author, x2 Pulitzer Prize Nominee), Paul Austin (Founder of The Third Wave), and the Global Blockchain Forum   He’s also the founder of Lifestyle Engineering which is a private community of life hackers, professional athletes, entrepreneurs and change makers. Through this platform he’s created 3 pop-up coliving spaces around the world, visited over 70 countries and built location independent streams of income   I wanted to bring Renat on the show to find out how he built up his marketing agency how he applies engineering thinking to the context of life, what he’s learned from his experiments in lifestyle design, and what’s next for him   e: renat@cmo.one w: https://www.lifestyle.engineering/ & https://www.cmo.one/ 10 year manifesto: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1dWnmbGifHnhkODqmQvb4KGpzMtWKQHlYK8JWnKYPb5U/edit#heading=h.z2ec8xmruidi

How to become a digital nomad (live and work anywhere) with Nate Gell   What you’ll learn from this interview:   1) How Nate went from bouncing around between jobs he didn’t like, to building location independent businesses that allow him to work from anywhere   2) The mental health challenges he faced earlier in his life including depression and anxiety, and how he got past them   3) The challenges and realities of living a digital nomad lifestyle that you don’t see on Instagram   My guest today is Nate Gell. Feeling stuck in a job he didn’t like, and after coming back from a trip to India, Nate and his partner Mel decided they wanted to try and live a digital nomad lifestyle where they could live and work from anywhere   At this point they went about building a location independent business. Today he runs an affiliate website called eSkatehub and they also run a Google AdWords agency which helps small businesses with their paid Google ads   I wanted to bring Nate on the show to find out how he made the transition to living a digital nomad lifestyle, how he sustains himself while travelling and also some of the challenges with living this way   IG: @ourlifeonpurpose

How to become London's top luxury real estate broker with Daniel Daggers   IG: @daniel_daggers   What you’ll learn from this interview:   1) How Daniel went from humble beginnings growing up in government housing, to becoming London’s top agent selling £10 Million+ properties to the world's wealthiest buyers 2) How Daniel thinks about business and sales, and how playing the long game has helped him succeed in his roles 3) How Daniel has been using social media to massively grow his business, and why everyone selling a product or service needs to be doing the same   Plus heaps more!   My guest today is Daniel Daggers. After an injury prevented him from pursuing his goal to become a professional football player, Daniel went into real estate and over the course of his 20+ year career he went from selling £80 thousand pound apartments, to selling £100 Million pound estates to some of the world's wealthiest buyers and being recognized as one of London's leading agents.   Today he’s a Partner of Knight Frank's Private Office in London where he deals with the sale of properties valued in excess of £10 Million across London and other destinations around the world.   In his career he’s transacted close to 500 properties to the value of almost $4 Billion USD, and has consistently been one of the top performing brokers at his agency.   I wanted to bring Daniel on the show to find out what it takes to sell some of the world's most expensive properties to some of the wealthiest people on the planet, how he thinks about sales and business in general, and also how he’s using social media to build his personal brand and business.

How Sunny Verma is changing the education system with TutorBright   What you’ll learn from this interview:   1) Why Sunny left a well paying job as a management consultant to start a tutoring company despite having no teaching qualifications or experience in education industry 2) How he went from knocking on doors in the ghetto for $5 per hour clients, to building one of the world's largest tutoring companies with 10k+ tutors serving tens of thousands of clients across multiple countries 3) The biggest problems with the current education system, and how TutorBright addresses these shortcomings   My guest today is Sunny Verma, he’s the founder and CEO of TutorBright which is the largest in-home tutoring service in both Canada and Australia.   Sunny has seen first hand how through mentorship and tutoring, every student can reach their potential. Since launching in 2006 TutorBright has grown to 10k+ tutors, serving tens of thousands of clients   Sunny is a sought-after expert in the education and technology space, making frequent appearances on Television, and his writing has been featured in Readers Digest, Huffington Post and the New York Times. He’s also a previous nominee for the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award.   I wanted to bring Sunny on the show to find out how he thinks about education in general, how he launched and grew TutorBright, and what’s next for him   IG: @sunnyv_tb & @tutorbright

Overcoming depression and anxiety using Vipassana meditation with Janice Ng   What you’ll learn from this interview:   1) Why Janice started to suffer from anxiety and depression despite achieving her long term career goals 2) How Janice was able to overcome her mental health challenges and get off antidepressants 3) What she learned about herself from doing a 10 day Vipassana silent retreat   Plus heaps more!   My guest today is Janice Ng, an entrepreneur in the fitness and wellness industry based in Hong Kong. She’s the founder of Absolute Focus and is an ambassador for Lululemon.   I’ve known Janice for a while now and about 6 months ago she made a post about a 10 day Vipassana retreat she went on. It’s something I’ve always been curious to find out about so I asked Janice to jump on a call so I could find out about her experience.   At the end of the call I was blown away by her story and experiences so I wanted to bring her on the show to share what she’s learned from doing a Vipassana retreat, meditation in general and her own mental health journey   IG: @janybeans W: absfocus.com/

How Dan Martell went from jail to millionaire by age 27, raised money from Mark Cuban and spent a week with Richard Branson   What you'll learn from this interview:     1) How Dan turned his life around from drugs and jail time to successfully building and advising companies, and why looking back he's grateful for his hard upbringing and how it actually gives him confidence in his work today   2) The equation for success no one told him that he wished he learned at age 17, and how to use it (the three levels of leverage)   3) The one thing he did consistently early in his career that he looks back on as the most high leverage activity, and why he still does this whenever he travels to other cities   4) The top 5 things all successful companies do that Dan noticed after being involved with 40+ startups   Plus heaps more!   My guest today is Dan Martell, a Canadian entrepreneur and investor with an interesting story. Dan had a challenging upbringing, at age 15 he went to jail and at age 17 he spent 11 months in rehab   It was during this time he discovered computer programming, becoming fascinated in starting and growing software businesses, and his life took a positive turn. He made his first million by age 27, founded 5 companies and successfully exited 3 of them. he’s invested in over 40 startups, raised money from Mark Cuban and even spent a week with Richard Branson   Today he’s an authority on building and scaling SaaS businesses, he’s advised some companies you’ll recognize like Intercom, Hootsuite and Udemy and has spoken around the world and to MBA classes at Berkeley and Stanford   I wanted to bring Dan on the show to find out how he went from jail time to building and advising successful companies, how he thinks about business in general, and what’s next for him   IG: @danmartell YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/danvmartell Escape Velocity Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/escape-velocity-with-dan-martell/id1463053005

How Tomas Stanford went from unfulfilling job to selling $150k of diaries in 2018   What you'll learn from this interview:   1) How Tomas and his partner Alex went from jobs they didn't like to starting their own business and selling $150k of diaries in 2018 2) The tactics Tomas used to market the product initially without spending ad dollars 3) How Tomas overcame the challenges of transitioning from employee to entrepreneur   My guest today is Tomas Stanford. In 2017 Tomas and his partner Alex were unhappy in their jobs and looking to start a business on the side. After a few attempts that went nowhere, Alex saw a gap in the market when she couldn’t find a yearly planner that was exactly what she wanted, and this frustration led to Saint Belford   Saint Belford is a brand that looks to provide its customers with the tools they need to improve their lifestyle, the main product being the yearly Curation Diary   What started as a $15k investment out of their Melbourne apartment grew to a healthy 6 figure business within 18 months of conception, and they now support various mental health initiatives such as Beyond Blue and R U OK?   I wanted to bring Tomas on the show to find out how he launched Saint Belford, how he grew it to beyond 6 figures and where he plans to take the business next   IG: @1omas & @saintbelford W: 1omas.com & saintbelford.com.au

How to build a fully remote SaaS company serving 2k+ customers without raising any capital with Glenn Rogers What you'll learn from this interview: 1) What Glenn learned from trying and failing to raise capital, and why he looks back on being forced to remain bootstrapped as a blessing 2) Why niching down and being something to someone gave them an edge over bigger, heavily funded players in the space 3) How Glenn manages a fully remote team, and the benefits and challenges of building his company in this way My guest today is Glenn Rogers, he’s the founder and CEO of Float, a resource scheduling app that helps agencies, studios and firms keep track of who's doing what when In 2012 Glenn was working for an ad agency in New York City and noticed that a lot of agencies were using spreadsheets to manage 300+ person teams and thought there must be a better way At this point the idea for Float was born and over the next few years Glenn worked on the business as a side project on nights and weekends Today they’re profitable and remain bootstrapped with a 100% remote team around the world and are serving over 2000 customers including NASA, Deloitte and Vice I wanted to bring Glenn on the show to find out how he launched and grew Float, how he manages a fully remote team, and what he’s learned from growing the business without raising any money W: https://www.float.com/ E: glenn@float.com T: @glennfloat