When most people see me today, they see a happy-go-lucky Brit who appears to “have it all”.
Lots of money, loads of free time and a portfolio of ten easy-to-manage businesses that gush cash flow…
The secret?
I buy profitable businesses with great management teams instead of starting a business from scratch.
This is what I call Acquisition Entrepreneurship.
The strategy is to acquire profitable businesses instead of starting businesses from scratch.
Therefore you avoid ALL the problems that plague startups.
But many years ago, I wasn’t always in the position I am today…
Twelve years ago I was working as an Investment Banker doing M&A deals for companies like HP.
And even though most people would’ve considered me “rich” because I earned around $300,000 per year…
I was dying a slow death on the inside.
I mean just look at the photo below from that time…
From the moment I opened my eyes in the morning…
I felt pressure, stress and anxiety all day long.
And no matter how much money I made…
Or what awards I won for my performance at work…
Or how “cool” people thought I was because of the jet-setting corporate lifestyle I had…
None of it fixed the unbearable pain I felt.
The only thing that gave me any sort of temporary relief was alcohol, cigarettes and gambling.
And at my worst…
I was drinking about 5 drinks per day, smoking 40 cigarettes per day and I gambled away an amount of money that still makes me sick.
I was fat, unhappy and smelled terrible from the poison I was feeding my body.
My body was breaking down from junk food, lack of sleep and zero exercise…
But the biggest thing breaking down was my marriage.
I worked so much I barely saw my wife…
And she was, after all, the entire reason I was working so hard — so I could provide a better life for the two of us.
But instead, she started resenting me because I was never home.
And when I was, I was so stressed out from work… we couldn’t even enjoy each other’s company.
It was pretty clear we were headed straight for divorce.
But then something happened that changed my life forever…
I almost missed the birth of my son.
You see, I was in Moscow closing a huge deal for Hewlett-Packard when my wife called from England.
She was going to give birth sometime in the next five hours… and I panicked!
Luckily my boss had his private jet on standby.
And thanks to that, I made it to the delivery room literally five minutes before my son was born.
As I stood there, cradling my newborn son in my arms, I decided at that moment I was done.
It didn’t matter how much money I was making if I didn’t have time to enjoy it with the people I care about most: my wife and newborn son.
So a few hours later — with no real plan on how I was going to replace my income — I called my boss and quit.
Luckily for me, I happened to have a particular skill set I knew I could fall back on.
The skillset of buying businesses leveraging other people’s money.
You see over the past 16 years, I’ve closed billions of dollars’ worth of deals for my clients on Wall Street… both buying and selling businesses.
But that didn’t make it any less terrifying to go out on my own and “hunt for myself,” so to speak.
So after a few weeks of spending time with my wife and newborn son and rekindling my marriage…
I decided to roll up my sleeves, hunt for some deals and make some money.
Within a few weeks, I found a great business for sale and convinced the owner to hire me to broker the deal.
Long story short…
I thought I was going to help them sell the business to someone else…
but instead…
I wound up buying it myself.
Even crazier, I did it without spending a single dime of my own money.
But there was one problem…
I didn’t want to RUN the business day to day
I just wanted to kick back, spend time with my family and pocket some extra cash each month.
So I gave three of the employees equity in the business and they ran it for me.
That was the moment I went from a miserable, overworked employee…
to a wealthy business owner and investor…
And it all happened in just a few short months.
For the first time in a decade, I felt relaxed and was sleeping on a regular schedule (or at least whenever my newborn would let me)…
And I left behind my unhealthy habits and started treating my body right… so my health completely turned around.
Not only did I have loads of money, which I guess makes me rich…
But for the first time ever I had time which is what makes me wealthy.
Since then, I’ve bought 24 small businesses for myself…
And nearly every single one of them is being managed and run by someone else. Or I have sold them for a payday.
Best of all?
I bought or invested in nearly every single one of those businesses WITHOUT spending a single dollar of my own money.
Today, instead of being overworked, underpaid and under-appreciated…
I only “work” a few hours a week…
And I’m the happiest I’ve ever been in my entire life.
Even better, my family is finally happy with me, too.
Why am I telling you this?
Because if you can relate to any of my story, I want you to know it doesn’t have to be this way.
You don’t need to spend any more time working for some asshole boss who doesn’t appreciate how hard you work.
You don’t need to keep sacrificing your health or your family for some “career” that might not last forever especially now during these turbulent times.
If you’ve ever had the thought of becoming an entrepreneur, to start a business, or do consulting on the side then you should consider becoming an acquisition entrepreneur instead.
It’s the ultimate entrepreneurship hack that barely anyone talks about.
You go from zero to CEO once you close a deal.
And the true beauty of my style of acquisition entrepreneurship is structuring Zero-Down Deals – you use other people’s money to buy the business.
Tomorrow, I’ll share details on how you can buy a business with zero cash from your pocket.
