- “the purpose of life is a life of purpose.”
- “i didn’t want to be an entrepreneur. i needed to be an entrepreneur. and that’s what changed everything for me. needing it, not just wanting it.”
- “do the hard thing now, life’s easier later. do the easier thing now, life’s harder later.”
simon squibb’s life story — from homeless at 15 to building multi-million dollar businesses, selling at 40, surviving a two-year identity crisis in retirement, and then building a 21-million-follower platform dedicated to giving away the business knowledge he never had — is a sustained argument that purpose, not money, is the only durable fuel for a meaningful life. his framework for business is disarmingly simple: solve a problem that genuinely bothers you, build something you would never want to sell, bring people in who can 10x your outcomes rather than just write a cheque, and give away value freely because free with genuine value outcompetes paid mediocrity every time. the deeper thread running through every chapter of his story is the distinction between needing something and merely wanting it — and the belief that the education system, by training people only to want jobs, systematically destroys the entrepreneurial instinct that could otherwise save them.
- needing something activates a different quality of commitment than wanting it. simon did not choose entrepreneurship — he was forced into it at 15, homeless, with no qualifications and no one coming to save him. the gardening business was not a passion project; it was survival. this urgency produced a quality of follow-through and resourcefulness that comfortable wanting never does. the practical implication is not to manufacture desperation but to honestly distinguish between the things you would do regardless of outcome and the things you would abandon the moment they became inconvenient.
- purpose is the only metric worth optimising for — not happiness, not money, and certainly not retirement. simon’s two years of retirement after selling fluid for life-changing money were the worst of his adult life emotionally. he had wealth, a new baby, a beautiful house — and no reason to get up. the insight he draws from this is structural: human beings need a reason to hunt every day, and when that reason is removed, the absence of purpose produces suffering regardless of circumstances. happiness is a byproduct that fluctuates; purpose is the engine that runs underneath it.
- the best time to sell, raise money, or negotiate anything is when you genuinely do not need to. simon’s framework for business exits and investment is built on this single principle. zuckerberg turning down yahoo at 2b, $3b because he did not need the money is the purest expression of it. desperation collapses your negotiating position and drives poor decisions; sufficiency — building something that throws off cash and that you love — gives you all the leverage. this applies equally to hiring, partnerships, and investor selection.
simon’s core intention is to give away for free the business and life knowledge that no one gave him at 15 — not as an act of charity but as a direct response to the specific pain of being told that help was only available to those who could pay. his deeper mission is to challenge and eventually replace a school system that, in his view, deliberately trains children to become employees rather than problem-solvers, and to replace the question “what will you do when you grow up?” with “what problem will you solve?“
- the entrepreneur muscle — simon’s term for the innate human capacity to take an idea and make it real; he argues school deliberately suppresses this by training children exclusively for employment
- needing vs. wanting — the distinction between the quality of commitment that comes from genuine necessity versus preference; needing produces a different grade of follow-through
- compound learning — the idea that even a failed business leaves you with compound knowledge (how to hire, manage clients, service customers) that carries forward; the failure is not wasted if the learning is extracted
- 1 + 1 = 11 — simon’s framing for business partnerships; no one succeeds entirely alone; the school exam model (solo performance rewarded) trains people for the wrong thing
- no such thing as passive income — the explicit rejection of the idea that money eventually eliminates the requirement to work; even at hundreds of millions of net worth, simon still does the work
- purpose vs. happiness — happiness is fleeting and fluctuates with circumstance; purpose provides a stable reason to function regardless of daily emotional state; chasing happiness produces average misery
- retirement as a lie — the cultural myth that stopping work is a reward; the reality is that human beings require purpose, and removing it produces mental health crises, health deterioration, and identity collapse
- give without take — simon’s core life philosophy, framed as returning to human tribal defaults; give and take is a tax-era invention that turned natural generosity into transaction; giving without expectation of return is both the ethical and the practically happier approach
- free with genuine value beats paid mediocrity — the business case for radical generosity; instagram, facebook, and youtube prove that free platforms with genuine value outscale paid competitors; simon’s 2h26m free youtube video outperformed the projected $20m course as a business model
- only take investment from someone who can 10x your business — money is abundant; the only reason to give up equity is if the incoming partner brings capabilities or distribution you cannot access otherwise
- build something you never want to sell — the strongest negotiating position in any exit or fundraise is genuine indifference to selling; the best time to sell is when the business is growing and you do not need the money
- what problem will you solve? — simon’s proposed replacement for the question “what do you do when you grow up?”; the latter traps minds into predefined career paths; the former opens possibility and activates purpose-driven thinking
- interest-led education — simon’s home education philosophy: start from the child’s genuine interest and follow where it leads naturally; his son’s interest in sword fighting unlocked spontaneous engagement with history, economics, engineering, and war
- ai and purpose — simon’s concern about ai is not job replacement but purpose removal; work is how many people derive meaning, and if ai eliminates that meaning without providing an alternative source, the psychological consequences will be severe
- start with nothing, find the first paying customer directly — simon’s first business began by knocking on a door and asking to clean a garden; no website, no funding, no plan — just identifying a visible problem and offering to solve it for a number made up on the spot
- hire to compensate for your own weaknesses immediately — simon realised he was bad at gardening early and brought in people who were good at it; his skill was sales and client acquisition, so he specialised in that and delegated the execution
- extract compound learning from every failure — after the gardening business failed in winter, simon catalogued what he had learned (hiring, client acquisition, service delivery) and carried those skills into the next venture
- look for problems inside your current environment — accommodation express was invented because simon noticed a hotel he worked at was cheerfully turning away full-price customers; he created a referral network from that waste
- build the content habit before expecting scale — simon’s early content was talking head videos with views of 1, 10, sometimes 0; the commitment was to help one person per week, not to build a 21-million-follower platform; the audience followed the mission
- go to the decision maker directly and do not stop — simon spent years trying to reach mr. beast; his security team turned him away in dubai; he persisted until he got through and the collaboration happened; gatekeepers exist but are passable with persistent, aligned purpose
- lead with value when approaching anyone above you — do not ask for help as your opening move; bring something the other person actually needs (social distribution, help with content, aligned mission) and make the ask later
- match investors to mission, not just to cheque size — simon only pitches to or takes from people whose stated mission aligns with what he is building; random money with no mission alignment creates a new boss
- home educate from the child’s interests outward — rather than imposing a curriculum, identify what the child is genuinely curious about and let the learning radiate naturally from that source; the breadth and depth of engagement will exceed forced classroom learning
how was this video or article relevant to my current life? did it answer a specific question, enlighten me on a topic, etc.
- (to be filled in personally)
- (to be filled in personally)
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- am i currently building something i would never want to sell — or am i building with an exit in mind, which simon argues produces the wrong incentives and outcomes?
- what is the problem in the world that genuinely bothers me — not the market i have identified as profitable, but the actual pain i would fix even if there were no financial reward?
- do i give with genuine expectations of nothing in return, or do most of my gestures of generosity carry an implicit transaction underneath them?
- if i achieved financial independence tomorrow and could stop working, what would i actually do — and does my answer reveal that i have a purpose or just a goal?
- who are the ten people in the world whose involvement in what i am building would actually 10x the outcome — and am i working toward access to any of them?
- books: simon squibb — what’s your dream? and what’s your dream? the workbook (children’s edition); both referenced directly
- people mentioned: ali abdal (course creator cited positively for delivering genuine value); mr. beast (referenced for philanthropy-aligned content); richard harpin (sold business for £4b+ and discussed optimal conditions for fundraising); anton (founder of lovable, referenced as an example of solving a personal problem that became a $6.6b company)
- company: lovable (formerly gpt engineer) — simon invested early; cited as the fastest-growing revenue business in history at time of recording; relevant for anyone tracking ai-native product companies
- platform/product: dream brew — simon’s drinks brand donating 10% of profits to fund people’s dreams; mentioned as a live example of the give-without-take philosophy embedded in a commercial product
- practice give-without-take at least once a day: one small act of genuine help — a referral, a piece of advice, a share — with no expectation of return; do this until it becomes the default rather than the exception
- ask “what problem does this solve?” before committing time, money, or energy to any new initiative; if the answer is vague or does not connect to something that genuinely bothers you, treat that as a warning
- at the start of each day, identify the one task that, if done, would move your main purpose forward — not the easiest task, not the most comfortable, but the most meaningful
- at the end of each week, extract the compound learning from whatever went wrong; write it down and carry it explicitly into the next attempt rather than letting the failure dissipate
- write down your answer to simon’s question: “what problem bothers you enough that you would work on it even if you could never sell the result?” — and compare it to what you are actually spending your time on
- identify who the ten people are in the world who could 10x what you are building; map any path — however long — toward genuine alignment with at least one of them
- review any investor relationships or potential investors you are considering: are they bringing capability, distribution, or expertise you cannot access otherwise — or just money? apply the 10x test honestly
- read or gift simon’s what’s your dream? to someone under 18 in your life and replace one instance of asking “what do you want to be when you grow up?” with “what problem do you want to solve?”
simon squibb’s “I needed to be an entrepreneur, not just wanted to” distinction is the most honest thing in the entrepreneur-motivation space. it reframes the question from “do I want to build something?” to “is there something I feel compelled to do that the system won’t give me?” for fomties and soffcopy, the honest answer to that second question matters.
- need vs want — “I didn’t want to be an entrepreneur. I needed to be one. And that’s what changed everything.” the compulsion distinguishes the durable from the trendy motivation.
- do hard things now, life’s easier later — delayed difficulty versus distributed difficulty. the hard things deferred accumulate interest.
- purpose of life is a life of purpose — the framing that financial goals are instrumental, not terminal.
honest entrepreneurial perspective. the “needing it” distinction is worth sitting with. ★★★★☆
- which of my current projects do I “need” to build in simon squibb’s sense, and which do I just “want”?
- what hard thing am I currently deferring that will be harder later?
- simon squibb’s free the dream initiative — relevant context for his entrepreneurship philosophy
- clark kegley – how to achieve more in 1 week than most people do in 12 months — the “fearless action” questions connect here
- hard thing first — when there’s a difficult creative or business decision to make, make it before taking on any easier tasks that day.
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