Daniel Ashville: The Real Reason I’m Starting Again | EP55

I haven't been excited about work and oh my God, I can't wait to build this.

This is like, wait, I haven't been waking up every single morning for so many years.

I haven't woke up and think, oh, yeah, what's going to happen here?

I used to go to bed excited and wake up excited.

That ain't happened for years.

Hello and welcome to another episode of Talking Shop.

We're back with Daniel Asheville.

Please make sure to like, comment and subscribe

and let us know who you want on Talking Shop next.

Well, thanks for coming, mate.

Appreciate it.

Episode two.

Thank you for having me back.

Yeah, big things coming up.

Yeah, there's a lot happening.

Yeah, very exciting time.

Just trying to keep a lid on it all and just make sure that I don't get carried

away because I have been known to get excited.

Well, last time we just pressed play and you went for an hour and whatever.

No, but this time I'm going to let you ask a couple of questions.

We haven't written any.

I'm going to let you ask a couple of questions and rather than just veer off

in multiple directions before giving an answer that I could have given

in like three sentences, I'm just going to let you ask a question.

Our reviews were never higher.

You guys shut the fuck up.

Pretty much what the result was, wasn't it?

I couldn't tell you how many comments we got, which was basically like,

God, it's so refreshing for podcasters to just shut up and let the guest speak.

Well, I mean, yeah, I'm not sure you had much option when I watched it back myself.

It worked, did very well.

I'm glad.

So thank you.

Best before we knew it.

So something went well.

We will lead with one question.

It's something that we've started asking guests and we missed it last time,

mostly because you were talking most of the time.

But great, great for us, which is what does success mean to you?

What does success mean to Daniel?

So today, guys, obviously we've got Daniel just to pause here.

We're going to talk about his big project in St. Lucia.

For context, you have no idea what's going on.

Go check his latest Asheville Weekly out and come back to us.

Now, the answer to this question has changed.

If you'd asked me that question years ago, it would have been

a simplified version of this answer is that it would have been,

well, I want this, I want that, I want this, I want that.

It's about accumulation of a load of things and peace of mind.

It's actually the opposite now.

It's not about addition.

It's about simplification and subtraction.

It's not about adding up as many things as that you can have as possible.

It's about having peace of mind and financial freedom.

And to do that, you don't necessarily need to have a million things around you tied to you,

which are holding you down, meaning that you don't have any time or any space to think for yourself.

Because it's all about keeping it going.

Yeah, it's all about keeping it going and it's about having financial freedom,

but having the simplification that you can make balanced decisions

and you aren't worried about money.

That's all it is.

It's the peace of mind that you've done your best with everything

and you're not worried about money.

Worrying about money is one of the worst things for your health that possibly are,

especially if you're a person who carries these things around with you all day.

Having money troubles, that is the biggest stress on the planet, bar health problems.

Having money problems, you'll be so stressed out because stress has the most impact on the body.

You'll probably lead your way to health problems along that way.

Yeah, it's crazy to be honest with you that we all have those problems

and you might look at somebody and go, oh yeah, they're absolutely living it up.

It's like Daniel Craig says to the Duke in Leia Cake, you are joking me?

It doesn't work like that.

It takes time with the amount of social media and everything across digital platforms.

It takes time to learn that and understand it.

Some people are lucky enough, they realize it without it,

but sometimes you look at something and you'd be like, right,

I like what they're doing.

If I can take a little bit of each of these things and that will make me,

and then when I have these things, I'll be happy and when it's,

but it doesn't actually work like that in real life.

In real practice, it doesn't work.

No, that's the Instagram life.

Yes, it's most definitely not real.

I try to be as real as I can in share because I clearly share my ups and downs,

but looking at somebody doing extremely well on Instagram and thinking,

that's what I want or I want my company to be like that,

or I want all this stuff around me or I want all these people working for me.

In actual fact, the reality of it, while it may seem exciting,

the reality of it isn't happiness all the time in all cases.

A lot of content creators, a lot of influencers won't share the losses as well.

That's another thing is they put on the persona that is all success.

So it's all winning.

So it is quite refreshing that you do share your losses.

It is, but then there's a section of people that when you share it,

some people, I share it because I feel like I get freedom in the transparency

because I'm not saying I do well sometimes, sometimes I don't do well.

Look, I did really well at this.

I didn't do that well at that.

But when you show some of the things which don't work,

when you're explaining it by default, sometimes it can come across negative

and sometimes it can seem like you're complaining

and somebody's sitting there at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning,

they may think, I don't want to hear this, man.

Sometimes some creators probably think, well,

people are going to switch off if I'm talking about this

because maybe they want to watch this to be inspired.

And if I'm too transparent, they may turn me off.

But if I'm always talking about how good it is,

they may turn me off anyway because they say I'm not real.

So it's about trying to get that balance.

And it's about what the creators feel comfortable with.

I get more comfort in sharing highs and lows.

And some creators, whatever it is inside them,

I don't think that insecurity is the right word.

But some people like, well, I don't want anyone to know that I didn't do well.

I've overcome that over the years.

So it doesn't bother me at all.

It doesn't sharing something that didn't work out.

It doesn't make me feel like I've put myself in a light of,

this guy, I don't know what he's doing.

In fact, showing that something didn't work

and being able to break it down and analyze why it didn't work

and then moving on by afterwards,

I think that's actually more powerful than saying the whole time,

I'm the best in the world and I've clocked life.

Because none of us have really clocked life.

And just because your business is...

Your business can be doing well for 15 years.

It does not mean it will continue to do that forever.

Because you're never more vulnerable than when you're doing well.

At the time that you are flying and doing well

and everything you touch turns to gold and you can't make a mistake

and you fall out the window and land on your feet

and you fall up the stairs because everything's going well,

that is the time when you're most vulnerable

because you won't see something.

And generally when you're in that position,

you're just like, oh, this doesn't matter.

Yeah, cool, do that as well.

Yeah, cool, take them five lorries.

Yeah, cool, buy that machine.

Yeah, while you're doing this, you've got overheads.

You've either got overheads growing

that you need to pay on a monthly basis,

or you're paying out large sums in capital,

which were your reserves.

Something you mentioned last time

is you were sort of counteracting the last decision with something else.

You sort of piecing mint by bit by bit together

to the point where I suppose you thought,

oh, this is a beast now, really,

with the amount that you've got going on,

the trucks to support something else.

That's how it happens.

It happens as add-ons and add-ons and add-ons.

And it's not just one decision

because when you get to a point

and you have a look at everything

that's added up over the last 45 years,

you think to yourself, hey, listen, man,

if somebody would have given me this piece of paper

with this information, artists said, no,

but this is kind of creeped up on me

because I can't do no wrong.

And you get yourself into the mindset that,

well, it costs more money, but I'll just make more money.

Which is, I would say that if you're a sole trader

who relies on yourself or like you're,

I don't know, you're in a sport

which isn't like a team sport, you're by yourself,

it's a lot easier to combat those things

when if you only bank on yourself.

But if you have multiple staff

and you have loads of cogs,

like a very complicated watch mechanism

and machines and trucks and this and that,

and then you're relying on the economy

and a big government infrastructure project,

you're not really in control.

You seem to be in control,

but it only takes like three or four things to change.

And what was this can turn to that.

And if you don't manage it, can turn to that.

And let's not forget you are at the mercy

of people watching what you're doing

and missing these gaps, if you like,

that something maybe you have overthought this

or maybe put something in a video

that not necessarily thought about.

People are going to be the biggest critics, aren't they?

And they'll spot something and they'll try and catch you out.

Yeah, people try to catch me,

people try to catch me out,

people have gone off to my work,

people have, it's one of the reasons

why there's quite a big delay with weekly now.

So you need that gap to,

you could be applying for a massive planning permission

that if you don't get that planning permission,

it's going to basically, hinder your company,

but if your company is going to hinder your life,

not getting this decision,

you go and put it out there too early

and somebody within a planning department

or a neighbor close by

or somebody could just decide,

no, this isn't for me.

And you can cause an obstruction

by documenting too early or revealing too much.

So the delay in weekly,

rather than being hand to mouth

with the videos as I was before,

it was like, I've just filmed,

it was out before even, yeah.

So the delay in weekly has been put in place

to safeguard against things like that

because I watch it back

and sometimes I'm looking at the screen

at, where is he, here on the screen at the moment,

but I'm looking at the screen at this dough not talking

and I'm thinking, what are you doing, mate?

Like, I'm talking to Meds, my other hand,

I'm like, can you believe he said this?

Can you believe he said this?

Do you know the damage that this case is going to cause?

It gives you time to reflect.

Yeah, losses are lessons, aren't they really?

It's amazing actually to be fair,

when my dad used to lecture me,

still lecturing me now every now and again,

but about, he used to say 25 year old Louis,

look at 20 year old Louis and go,

Mog, 30 year old Louis,

look at 25 year old Louis and go,

Mog, and it's very, very true to be fair.

Yeah, you're effectively,

like every kind of free year cycle,

you're a completely different person

because of the experience you've had.

Sometimes you're not so much of a nice person

because the weight of the world has crushed your spirit,

but yeah, you live and you learn.

So it's all part of the learning process

and it's one of the things that I see other people doing things

and I think to myself, unless I'm really tight with you,

then I think I can see where this is going.

And then I think if I step in,

if I would have stepped into me at certain points,

would I have listened to me?

And if I step in, do I now sound like I'm some sort of hater

that I'm trying to hold people back?

And then I think even if it goes completely wrong,

this person will have a lesson

and the lesson will stay with them probably a lot longer

than the advice I'm going to give them,

which may seem like I'm trying to hold them back.

So it's, I see it.

I can see it.

There's a couple of instances and I can,

I'll be like, oh no, oh no, but I'm just going to...

You can almost let it happen.

You don't want to do it, but like you see like a child

reaching for the stove.

You don't want them to touch it,

but like my mum would tell me to stop sucking my thumb

and I say, yeah, cool.

My mum would tell me like, stop doing it.

You like stop doing it.

Like if you do it, you're going to,

you're going to mess your teeth up.

Boy, look at these now.

I didn't listen, stop doing it.

So what my mum did one day when I was sleeping,

she put something on my thumb and I woke up

and put the thumb straight in my mouth.

Did they do that again?

No, they did that again.

Sometimes you have to live it to understand it.

It's a bit like a bad relationship.

I've got two little brothers.

So when I see them going through a bad relationship

and you tell them, they don't listen.

You've just got to let the relationship go

through the motions.

Nobody ever listens.

It's so funny how that works.

We've all done it, we've all been there.

I actually listen now, but I listen to the voice in my head.

They used to be like two different people on each shoulder,

but now they've both come over to one shoulder

and they're both sucking air through their teeth.

You're going to do it and this is this.

Like I've got like this kind of spiky sense now.

So I can almost like, you know, in Avengers,

like Dr. Strange, you know, he can go through like 10 million versions

of how he's going to go.

And there's one version where this is going to work.

Like I sit there and I go through all the versions

and I think I'm like, right.

No, that is not a decision I'm going to make.

Or yes, this is a decision I'm going to make.

Yeah. So you use it as more of a

understanding the situation and actually working out

this could go badly and wrong one or two ways

rather than a, not like a paranoid view, but like a pessimistic.

No, no, definitely not, definitely not paranoid,

but that has taken time.

Because initially what happened previously and all the problems,

you go for a little period where you feel kind of burnt,

but like that subsides and you have to accept ownership

and accountability for irrespective of what anybody did.

Like you let them do it.

So once you can accept accountability and process it,

you kind of like who, if you're going to be upset,

anyone be upset yourself, you know, and take the time.

And then when you take that time to yourself, it kind of subsides.

And then you can't let resentment or anything like that cloud your judgment.

Because when you go through like a massive process

or something bad happens to you,

you need to kind of develop the emotional intelligence,

not to react with emotion and not to blame anyone

and to just let it subside and take the lessons from it.

But always remember the feeling because if you make these mistakes again,

you are going to be back here.

And if you are back here, it's going to be compounded

and it's going to be doubly worse because you already here,

you don't know and you should know better.

Yeah, next time it's your fault.

Yeah, it was your fault the first time.

But don't make it be like, don't let lightning strike twice basically.

Yeah, we went deep there, didn't we?

Actually very quickly.

Yeah, I suppose so by now, by the time people are watching this,

your announcement video will probably have been out there anyway.

But I suppose from the last time we come to you,

fill in the blanks there maybe.

So what's happened?

So when we come to you last time, you just moved to the new site,

lorries were being sold.

So from there then, did you already knew this was the direction you were going to head in

or did something maybe happen quite quickly that you thought,

right, this now needs to happen instead?

Well, I always felt like it was a direction I was going to head in eventually.

And I always felt it was something I was going to do.

But I always felt like I had to be there to be part of it and to manage the entire process

and to basically build it myself and at the start manage it.

And that wouldn't be possible if I was running operations in the UK.

It's a bit like, you know what you're saying about add-ons,

you put another add-on on.

Yes.

It's a bit like you've done it too much.

Yes.

Okay, now we're going to do bagging.

Oh, now we're going to do this.

Yeah.

Oh, no, I've got blown higher.

Stretch yourself.

Yeah.

So and you can stretch yourself, but it's like, I said it in the video is like,

is the juice worth the squeeze?

You want to do all these things for your clients and you want to do it

and you want to hold on to what you've got and build new business, but at what cost?

And does it really make financial sense?

So as the business was slimmed down and the lorries were gone,

we're in the yard, we're doing rail and it's like assessing what's really going on here,

what can be made and what is the future of this and how much do I value my time.

And something very difficult that I had to come to terms with in my mind,

because I'm a person that believes that you should never give up, but what does that mean?

So if you're doing something and it doesn't work, should you just forever,

like go down this garden path and spend your life doing it because you should never give up?

Or is you should never give up a more broad term where you should never give up the growth

of yourself and trying to do more things? It's a very broad term, never give up.

Yeah, something's got to give.

Yeah, so I assessed what was going on, I did the maths around it, I tried to forecast as best I can

because really forecasts are just pulling numbers out of thin air. Accountants and CFOs,

they love a forecast, didn't they? But was that like, look what's happening in the media at the

moment, so like there's things which you can't... It's a best case scenario.

Yeah, it's the best case scenario. It's never goes the best way. So I assessed everything

and St Lucia was not the only country I looked at. I looked at other countries and because I wasn't

in a rush, I gave myself the time to assess it as a business and then with the other factors around

it for me personally because I grew up in the UK with just me and my mum. I've never been anywhere

where I've got family. Like family is something that you see in school holidays or my mum's got

to work and somebody comes over to look after me when I'm young. So there are a number of factors

both business-wise and personally and I had to accept that you... In this instance, we are still

going to build but running a rail yard and building in another country a massive structure like this,

I cannot do both. And do I even want to do both? And things in the past which I know you have to

delegate but things in the past which needed my attention, was my attention elsewhere and was

that part of the problem which was caused. So if I'm trying to do three things and I'm doing all of

them at 33.333%, nothing has a hundred percent of my attention. Maybe not all of them need a hundred

percent but you're too spread. So it's almost like I made the decision that I've got rather than do

10 things at 10%. I'm going to need to do one at 100% and what I invest my time into now for the

next period of my life, if I invest my time in it, what is the best case scenario? So if I invest my

time in this and it's a rail yard and there's material coming in and there's not going out,

what am I at the mercy of and what value am I creating? Am I going to do well at this for a

certain amount of years and make profit each year for a couple of years? Great. And then before you

know it, my L860 is too old and I paid 480 for it. Now there's 700 grand and I've just started an

entire cycle again. Now I've got to pay 700 grand and pay for that machine monthly. I've got to do

this. I've got to do that. There's more compliance. There's more PAYE. Now I have to redo this section

in concrete. I have to do this. I have to do and am I going to start putting add-ons? What's the

value in five years? Then I look at what I'm doing in St. Lucia and I say, right, if I build this,

first and foremost, is bricks and water in five years. So that no matter what I do, there's a

value. Obviously, I have to fill it because I have to repay the investment that's gone into it. I

have to balance the books. But just as a building with multiple units in it, if the worst happened,

I have created that value within property, which is going up in value. And if the worst

happened, I could sell it or I could change its use. I could turn it into an international elderly

home. I could go and change it into a hotel, which I don't want to do because it's too much

management, hotels and restaurants and having a theme park and a zoo all at the same time. I

don't want to be a fully managed hotel, but it is an option. And no matter what, I have bricks and

water there, which has a value. So when I weighed it up like that, St. Lucia was the option which

made the most sense both short-term and long-term. Have I just killed the whole unit?

No, no, that's fine.

No, it's just the question answered.

Yeah, you've literally answered the question. And I suppose doing that as well allows you to,

as you say, have your full focus on one project while still some form of security and

income still going on back here.

Yeah, and I imagine it's recurring revenue. It's continuous revenue rather than, you know,

it's one job, then you look in front of the job.

It's continuous revenue and there's two other things attached to it in that

it's actually a business where people pay up front. Can you imagine?

Yeah.

No, they pay up front.

90 days, isn't it?

90 days, end of month, someone can't pay me in 120 days. People pay.

60 days net.

Yeah, people pay before they get there. I don't know what to do with myself.

I've never been in a business where people pay up front like that.

And as well, I realized looking back because I got so bogged down in day-to-day operations,

I wasn't excited about anything. I became excited and happy about the smallest of things.

I wasn't happy about good things. I was happy that it never went wrong,

but I haven't been excited about work and, oh my God, I can't wait to build this.

This is like, I haven't been waking up every single morning for so many years.

I haven't woke up and think, oh yeah, what's going to happen here?

I used to go to bed excited and wake up excited. That ain't happened for years,

but now we're back there. Thanks, Philly.

Amazing.

And in that time then, obviously, I don't have to go too much detail about this if you

don't want to, but how mentally did that make you feel? Because I suppose finishing that chapter,

the stress involved, everything involved in that, how did that make you feel

before you made that decision to move on to the future?

Well, the stress, unfortunately or fortunately, I'm used to operating at a high level of stress.

I'm just one of them swords that was in the fire and you just bash the sword left, right,

and sent it. So you know that meme with Peter Griffin when he's in the bar and everything's

on fire and he says, when you're just used to you, like, so nothing bothers you. I'm kind of there.

But if I'm 100% honest with you, it made the whole thing harder because of the videos and

the whole social media thing, because you can't help yourself until you sat down and analyze it,

but you have to be very careful when you're on social media and you document your business,

how much of the decisions you're making, because you don't want to feel embarrassed

or look silly in front of people. And when there's a lot of people watching,

this can impact how you feel until you sit down and you got you got to have a word with yourself.

This is how I feel. But why do I feel like that? Let me sit down. Let me just write it down.

Well, this is gone. I don't care. I don't really want to run them lorries anymore. Well, this is this.

Well, boy, I don't really I don't want to do that no more either. So why why do you feel so down?

What is what was put this cloud above your head this this kind of raining down on you?

And why do you feel the whole day walking around like somebody died, like you lost someone?

Why do you feel like that? And the whole social media and sharing that can make it worse. And

sometimes that can impact your decision making. So it was it was very difficult for a long time.

And then it's kind of you got to take a deep breath and you got to let it out

and come to terms with it. And then you can move on and you basically have to accept it.

And you have to decide who do I answer to? Do I answer to me or do I answer to everyone else?

And what once you kind of understand that you answer to yourself and there there is no shame.

Like that people should say this more on social media. There is no shame in something not working.

What's amazing is you can spend 15 years getting every single thing you do right.

And you have two years for every thing that goes wrong. What you think about is the two years.

Yeah, you don't think about the wealth that you created for yourself or the investments you made.

You don't think about any of it. You just think about what happened in the last two years.

So you have to kind of spend the time to come up with like a balanced judgment and kind of

develop your emotional intelligence. But nobody can do that for you. You can only do that for

yourself sat in a dark room and being comfortable by yourself. You have to be all right with being

alone with your own thoughts. Yeah, if you cannot be alone with your own thoughts, then it's a real

problem. So the content creation side for you has obviously gone very well since you started

very well. Has that ever impacted? You know, you're talking about it. It can impact business

decisions. Have you ever lost business or maybe chose made a decision based on that will make

good content over that makes good business? Absolutely. And that is that is a terrible

decision to make. Silly, silly boy. And if you were to ask me this,

the last time we spoke, I'd be like, no, no, no, I don't think so. Yeah, I have. I'm going to give

you a prime example because let's let's pin the tail on the donkey. Like for instance, I started

building, remember the gym? I started building the gym and in halfway through, I was like,

this is this is not what you're doing. And then I was like, Oh, well, I've started now.

Oh, I can film it. I can do this. What are you doing? Grow up, Daniel. I should have stopped

that there. And there's other decisions that I made, which were probably based on this will

make good content. But for some reason, I just didn't accept it at the time. Oh, well, I should

do this anyway. This is what I would have done anyway. No, it wasn't. So now I've come to I've

had to come to terms with a lot of things. That's what was my little gap in content

creating. That was me coming to terms with it. Hopefully I'm not just a boring, miserable fella

now. But the thing is, in the new content I'm filming, I'm very honest about that.

And I'm very honest about the bat about the battles that I have internally in my head.

Should I do this? Or should I do that? What are the pros? cons? And

spreadsheets are a lot more involved in it. But they cannot be the be all and end all.

Yeah, it cannot be the be all and end all because the spreadsheets

know, listen, no disrespect to any accountants or anything like that. But

you can't run your business on spreadsheets. There's got to be some magic. But it's about

getting that balance right. So that that's where I am at the moment. And I'm, I'm comfortable,

you know, I'm excited about the future. I think my decision making has got, you know,

like when you just play them, them football manager games, like I think right now it was out

of one to 20, I think the decision is 20 consistency 20, tenacity 20, acceleration

free. I'm not that fast. But yeah, a few times when there's, you're talking about two little

people stood on your shoulder telling you to do, don't do things, do things, but it's a bit like

you went, you know what, it doesn't make, if it doesn't make money, sense,

but it makes good content. Yeah, that's, that's happened in the past. The two of them was on my

shoulder. Then I kind of put them in my head forward and they were on the back of my neck,

like fisting it out and then what, and then the content geezer put the other one in an arm bar

and he tapped out and then I just did nonsense. It has happened. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's just

added added pressure. Yeah. Yeah. And it's very brave to document your business, your life,

and then, you know, put it out there for everyone to

Yeah, but, but just, just to be clear, a lot of good has come from it. And the content

is a crucial part in the next stage of my, of my life. It's a new marketing, isn't it? Yeah. So

when you assess building something like what I'm going to build in St. Lucia,

you think, firstly, you did a couple of videos, don't gas yourself, Daniel. Like, don't think that

because it's you, it's going to fill because you'll be there by yourself sweeping up mate

with no staff. Like you'll be cleaning the pool yourself. So yeah, you have to,

how do I say this? Be realistic. Yeah. You have to be realistic and don't believe your own hype.

You can't, you can't believe your own hype and think you're going to make a bubble. That's the

quickest way to, as Michael Lodonovan would say, to go down the plug hole. Yeah. So I'm, I'm going to,

because in document in the buildup, I can take a lot of people on the journey. And even if

none of the people who watch it decide to ever come to St. Lucia and stay at the complex,

it will build enough of a digital footprint and it will help the SEO of the website.

And then all the people who have had places like this built for the last 10, 15 years,

it gives me the head start I need with the digital footprint of people searching for it

and looking at the website. And with the SEO, hopefully this raises it to a good level

without having to do any sponsored because I don't like really giving Google my money for any of

that sponsored. I like the money from Google to come one way. Yeah. You know, when, you know,

when you look on the YouTube studio app and you see, yeah, it wasn't like the 23rd

or something, the money lands in it. So I, it's a crucial part of what I'm going to do to bring

people on that journey. And I'm, once again, for the, for the long time in a while, I'm very excited

about documenting and sharing it because the, the content has changed a little bit. It's kind of

gone back to how it was. I'm in there like mechanically, like I'm, I'm there staring at Kit

in the yard and being like, is it ready? What else can this do? I'm fixing Kit like with,

with the kit that you had sorted me out with. I'm really excited about,

about the project across all fronts. All my new kit, the shipping, the building, like the actual

videos and the stories I can share. And even if they never come, maybe people will get the value

in the content of seeing mistakes I've made, seeing that when you make a mistake, like you can turn

it round and you can push on. Cause a lot of times people fail at something and they think, well,

that's the end of life as it was the end of the world as we know it. It's not. No. It just takes

time to process and move on. Yeah. You've stopped, you've reset and you've gone again. Yeah. Yeah.

I love how it's like you've gone builder, entrepreneur, content creator, diagnostic technician,

swimming pool cleaner. See diagnostic technician. See now I've got this gel test kit.

Mate, I, when I see someone parked up for their break, I'm like, mate, you're over there.

He'd be like, I'm on my break. I could plug in if you want, you know, I'd be driving around with

the kick in the back of the car, like pulling up in truck stops, like a plug in, man. You're

pulling up on sites like, I can help you out. He said, mate, I'm all right. There's no warning

lights on him. But if you get a warning light, you let me know. Yeah. Need a regen.

It's just the only thing with the gel test kit is it's caused a little problem for me

because it raised a question. My townie crossed his arms and said, what took you so long?

And it's a valid question. What took you so long? You're running 40 lorries and we're there guessing

what's wrong with it. And we could have been plugging in from day one. So that was a bit

of a problem getting over that. But now, yeah, the gel test kit is serving me well.

The good thing for you is, although lots and lots of operators and repairers are using it,

we still go to huge national organizations and we're like, where have you been? What rock

have you been living under to not have it? So, you know, yeah. And what it does

as being the owner of a business, like it's twofold here because it's like

you're providing your staff with the right kit to do it. And it means that I actually know what's

going on. Because sometimes, like with a bit of kit, like, I don't know, you might have not,

you might have turned the lorry on, you didn't wait for those three clicks to hear the computer

kick in and you might have just turned it on too fast at one time or something happened.

You pressed the window and the diff locks were in or something's happening. You've got a warning

light on. I could just plug in and clear it. Transparency. Yeah. I know what's going on.

And I can look after my kit myself. It's like, it's worth every penny. And I just wish it didn't

take so long. It just didn't take so long. It's part of the learning curve. Of course it is.

Yeah, 100%. So I'm not pointing any fingers, but some manufacturers,

you know, like they got me good. Like they had me by the short and curlies. They had me and

they put me over a barrel and they took advantage a lot of money from me. Had I had

the kit at the time, I could have diagnosed some of the problems myself. Yeah. Yeah. But so

we are where we are and it's good kit. And if you get stuck, I know you've got your own,

but I can also plug in because I'm boring here today. I can plug into anything you've got around

here, mate. Yeah. But there is, there is like from the manufacturer you put, because it's the OEM,

sometimes you get the naivety of they know what they're doing. I need to put my full faith in

them. There is no better solution to that. See that? See that there? That's the beginning of

the end. Yep. That is the beginning of, yeah. All right. What we're going to do, we're just

going to change the ad blue injector. That's four grand. And then we drove to the yard. We want this

much per mile. And then two days later, I didn't work. Right. Now let's change this.

And now let's change that. And you're like, hold on a minute, mate. Like I'm eight grand in. Like

what's going on here? Oh, yeah. But if you would have got the kit into us and this is one of the

problems with it. So I am not there anymore. Yeah. Yeah. You're never going to hear somebody

turn around and go, sorry, it wasn't the abley pump. It was something else. It was, it's the

abley pump and because they're too far down the road. They can't admit liability because then

I'm going to ask for my money back. So yeah, it's, I'm really happy with the kit and it's

really serving me well. Do you know what it is? It's about not that I'm worried about downtime

because we're fixing everything in the yard, but it's when I see a warning light, I want to know

now because I am going to buy a part. And before it was always, can you send me a drawing of this?

Can you send a drawing of that? And then I'm trying to print it and me and my townie with

their circling things and this one, does this come with this and do we get those rubber seals

and then I'll go there and they give me a different part number. Then they say it's been

superseded and you drive, then you drive back, you know, all of this nonsense. Yep.

Don't happen anymore. Amazing. Good to know.

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Thanks Eclipse. Now back to the show.

So they are short-term luxury holiday apartments. Yes, so don't call it auto.

Okay, no, no. Don't call it auto. I sense that. I'm just waiting for the weekly.

And don't call it an Airbnb. Yes. Don't call it anything. It's like, you know, at the beginning

of Facebook, when he says, we don't even know what it is. Yeah, that's what it is. Yeah.

What's the, I know, if you ask anybody who's running a construction project, when's, you know,

when's the finish? What's the finish date? Ideally, when do you want this up and running?

Well, well yesterday, but I think we passed that by now, don't we? I think it'd take two years to

build. Two years. Okay. I think that the structure will go, it's been designed to, it's not simple,

but it's been designed in a way that if you look at a row of units, the party walls between the

units have been designed. So once we get out of the two, the basement and the lower ground level,

then it should go up relatively quickly. But it's the fit out that's going to take time.

Hmm. Because I'm going to be importing a lot. I'm going to be waiting. We know like what's

going on in the world at the moment. So if I've got a container of tiles coming from

somewhere, next thing you know, my containers are in the sewer's canal or something like that.

Or it just happens to be just my luck. Yeah.

One container fell off. Which one was it? That was your tiles and all your tasks stuff.

Don't worry, the rocket didn't sink this year. Bought. One container fell off.

Yeah. They were porcelain special. Do you know those special tiles? Yeah, they're gone.

So it's, I'd say two years, but the fit out is going to be the key. I want to capture rainwater.

I want to reuse it as gray water around the site. I want to do purification. I want,

there's so much I want to do and so many, so much utility work that's got to be done.

That's going to be the time. I'm not worried about the structure.

Ideally, if I was building this for someone else, I would step in and say,

right, here's what we're going to do. I'm going to do all of the groundwork,

shell and core, see you later. And I'll be out the door and say,

you could be messing around with all of this. But that's going to be where the time needs to

spend. And it's not, my plan is not to sell. So it's not that I would do that, but it's not like

this is going to be someone else's problem into like everything I do, if I can spend 10 or 15%

more for something that has a 10 year, 15 year life, as opposed to something that's going to be

popping out in two years and I'm going to be opening up ceilings and I'm going to have guests

upset. I'm going to go for the, for whatever gives me longevity and reliability. Yeah. The

restaurant, are you, so you're going to bring somebody in to run that? You're not, you're not

actually going to, because obviously you said you don't want a hotel because of the stress of

actually managing it. My longest friend, Paul, I was eight and he was five when we met. He's a

fantastic cook and he works in, he's a fireman, but he loves restaurants and he, and at one point,

me, him and Yanny, we're going to do like a food truck and everything. Like he's the best cook

there is. I'm trying to convince this man to take his children out of school and take his wife

and come to St Lucia. I run this restaurant and for some reason I'm meeting resistance.

Like I'm offering him this fabulous opportunity to drag his family to a completely another country

and yeah, I am once again, it's maybe because of the videos, but I just feel like my reputation

is attached to this and I'm not saying it wouldn't be, but there's a restaurant. It's going to be a

fusion between local cuisine and international cuisine. Like you have to use all of the local

ingredients as well. So people can taste the authenticity of the country, like local breakfast,

but there's going to be some people come from the States and Europe and so they want things

that they're going to be comfortable with as well. So it's going to be a fusion of multiple

different types of food and I just feel like if somebody has a fantastic experience there

and the restaurant doesn't match the rest of the establishment and the experience,

I feel that it could drag it down because you always, you remember the bad part. It's like

you go on a fantastic holiday, you stay somewhere and you ask for a late check out and they tell

you no and your flight is at 12 o'clock that night and you spend the day sweating with your suitcase

by the pool and that is what you remember and you think, I'm never coming back to these people again

when you had a great time. So it's the little details in that this isn't like the past,

like I'm not going to dump a load of sand on your front drive and say, see you later mate.

And then there's only a problem if we're outside of the realms of tolerance of your sand between

zero and four mil. This is people's experience and this is people's holidays. This might be

your one holiday for the entire year. So I now have dropped myself in this place where I have

a responsibility to ensure that for both of them and myself, because in this day and age,

we're run on reviews. If people start leaving bad reviews, then that's catastrophic. People are

going to be like, oh, this is like, I'm not going there. Look at these reviews. So I just feel that

I need to control. Do you know what this sounds like? It sounds like I'm going back down the same

road I was down before, didn't it? I haven't learned my lesson at all, am I? I just feel like I need

that element of control and I am open to someone taking over and running it. I'm very much open

to it. But there are a couple of things in there that I would really like for us to get 100% right.

Obviously, the food using local ingredients, not important everything, and things like coffee.

Coffee is such a massive thing. It's massive. Like a religion. Oh, I know. You've got to get

the coffee right. And I'm not going to no disrespect to the brand, but someone comes downstairs for

a coffee, like I'm not boiling the kettle and throwing two scoops of Nescafe stirring with

the little black dots still floating around at the top. No, no, no. It's got to be you've got

to be able to offer options in coffee. Someone's got to be able to come down,

sit outside, buy the pool before they go to the world's dry, like only drive through volcano,

you know, before they go on some quad bikes around the island, before they go on a golf course,

before they, you know, I'm selling it to you. Well, we're looking at honeymoon potentials at the

minute. There's some private villas. You'd love it. You'd love these private villas, the layouts of

these private villas completely secluded. Nobody can see what you're doing. Like you can run around

in your birthday suit all week, mate. Like nobody has a 10 foot wall around it, your own private

pool. Like you can open all the windows and doors. It's fantastic. But I don't think anybody care.

You know, I would care photographer from 300 yards away, you know, Louis from talking shop

podcast. No, but I would care if you were running around in your birthday suit and other people

could see. Maybe it's good for my reviews. But yeah, so I just honeymooners. This is a massive

responsibility for, for hopefully you're the one time you're going to have one. I'm sure it will

be. And when you take on that response, I'm not saying don't come for your honeymoon. I'm saying

I never said this is a honeymoon destination. I don't want the pressure because when you walk

through the door and your Mrs doesn't see rose petals and the bottle of shampoos

like I said, oh, well, this isn't really, this isn't really honeymoon. And they don't

like, and I don't know how to take a towel and turn it into a swan or like, you know, these things

what people be doing. Like I don't know about all that. Like I've got to take all these origami

courses. I'm more concentrated on the formwork and pouring the concrete and the scaffold I've

got to put around it. So open to honeymooners coming enjoy your life. But I'm just not going

to advertise that this is a honeymoon destination, because that in itself is a completely separate

skill set. What many people have been doing for a lot longer than me, and they have got it right.

I'm not experienced in that section. I love how you've already thought about that.

Because it plays on your mind because in all of my research of the people who visit,

generally people stay in St. Lucia for 10 days. It's eight and a half hours from Gatwick.

Shout out to all the airlines. You got to start running flights from Heathrow or change everything.

My concept is you can stay here. Well, you can stay in here all day if you want.

There's communal facilities, there's a pool, there's gardens, there's a yoga deck, there's a gym,

there's a cold plunge, ordered my cold plunge. That's going to be great for people by the pool.

But I would encourage people to go out and experience like the real St. Lucia. Wake up,

come downstairs, have a fantastic coffee, have your breakfast, then go out for the day,

you know, go around the island, learn things, and then come back later in the day for the

sunset. Because the building has been, everything has been built and positioned that the communal

pool and all of the apartments face the Caribbean Sea and you get the sunset. Nice. So it's about

those evenings with the golden sunset, with the pool has got a swim up bar. There's the whole,

I changed the design of the pool, that the one side of the pool is just a chair in like, it's

like, enjoy the sunset after going out from the day after experiencing it on, on a Friday night.

I'm five minutes from the street party, the Grosjele street party. So you can go into town

and you can experience 24 hours security there. So just find your way back, open up the gate,

let you in. So it's, it's kind of like a new concept. It's not an Airbnb because it's not a

faceless transaction. It's not punching a, like a code here to get your key and it's your own

business mate. Like there is a reception, there's people who work their full time, everything's

maintained. And I have the option of housekeeping, the option. Obviously, it's a little bit more.

Got to pay my bills. Got to get some moolah. Yeah, it might have been a wild night. Like it

couldn't something could have happened or you could be staying there for two weeks and you decide

every three days, I'd like this or I'd like you to do my shopping because they've got their own

kitchens, people can cater to themself. You don't have to go to the restaurant. That's cool.

There's washing machines and all of the units. Like it is actually your home away from home

for the period of time that you decide to stay. Yeah, surely when you go somewhere,

you do want to explore and see what's there and live the life of, like, if you came and you

travel light and you got like one set of swimming trunks. Yeah. And you like, you can wash them.

You know, you can then you can you might have just like one shirt that you like to wear,

you know, you know, when you're young and you've got like one football shirt and you just want

to rock it every day to solidify your support of that club. So people can completely look after

themselves or they can call on the optional support and everyone who stays can use all of the

communal facilities or not use any of them. You can lock yourself in your private villa

and you could ask my staff to go and do all of your shopping.

Obviously, of course, you're 20%. There's no representation without taxation, of course.

Fill your fridge, leave the bags at the door and you could just, you know,

what there is the it's like a hybrid where you could have the best of all worlds to a certain

extent. Yeah. But there's no room service. No, you can't call down the phone at two in the morning

and say, like, where's my burrito? Yeah, like, there's no, no, there's no Uber Eats. No, yeah,

anyway, no, that could be an opening that maybe you wanted to, like,

I'm just thinking when I'm coming in two years, I'm just, you know, thinking when I get when I

got to get my two AM Uber Eats, I thought about names for the restaurant on the. Oh, the restaurant

is open. We don't know what it is. No, that's it. The rest, the restaurant I haven't named.

And that's the name. We don't know what it is. Yeah, it's possible. The gym. I'm talking to multiple,

like different fitness companies. So there'll probably be a relationship there.

Cool. And the actual bar, let me tell you about this bar. You can swim up to the bar,

but but you can actually go, you can get a drink from outside the pool as well. So within the bar,

you can, the bar, the bartender can run around to serve from both sides. And then there's the

what's the bar going to be? Is it going to be the sunset bar, the golden skype? Like this,

like these things. But whereas before I would have named it, and I would have done all of that,

like, I'm trying not to put the cart before the horse anymore. Like I'm, let me build it first.

And then we'll worry about the sign that's going to go at the front of it. And like,

that's what I'm working on at the moment. Just get it built and then work out the logistics.

In short, I have all of the, my friend Paul's helping me with all of the cooking apparatus and

the extraction and everything like that. The other day, I had to change the design because the

the back of house kitchen, I had to get the extraction from there to get it out to the

to the roof of the building, but working out how I'm not going to smash into any of my solar panels

or not to into not to take any space from people's apartments. So

I'm coming. I'm going to say if you need anyone to test this thing, then you know,

it's funny. You should say that. I've listened to the video.

The first two weeks is going to be like a big brother type of vibe. Friends and family.

If you don't like the camera, you can't come. I'm documenting everything. And this is going to be

me with my new team. And the truth, the truth be told, I am going to be the inexperienced one

because all the people who come and work there will be from the hospitality sector already,

but it's getting the small things right. How are we going to greet the guests?

What's the process? If someone comes early in their room, isn't ready till two o'clock?

Where do their bags go? Stand there with a stopwatch? How long does it take us to change

people's bedding and give them new towels? What do we do in a worst case scenario?

What's our fire procedure? The first two weeks will be all of this. So if you come in those

first two weeks, you might be sleeping at 3am and I might bang the fire alarm.

And we're all going to have to meet by the coconut tree down the bottom of the site.

Love it. Hey, that's a small price to pay. You need a very good general manager,

like someone very good. Are you volunteering yourself? No, no, no. It's just that's that world,

you need a very good general manager. That's my experience in hospitality,

especially bringing it open up in a new one. Yes, but the thing about it is because so many

things overlap, in the beginning, there's a general manager and there's a lot that they're

going to have to learn because while they could have been a general manager at a hotel or a similar

complex, there's so many things operationally that can be, you need an understanding of everything

that is in the name, general, the building management system. If it's beeping and there's

a fault, you need to know how we are going to get around that. You need to know where all the

landscape is, where their stuff is. I think that the general manager position will be somebody,

like I said, with experience in hospitality, but we're just going to work together until

they get their head around it because you can't expect someone with a complete background in

hospitality to come and know your building inside out. Yes, it will take time, but you are right,

a good general manager will be needed, which can do the job while I sit on their shoulder,

interfering with everything, involving myself with small details which have got nothing to do with

the usual Daniel stuff that you know about. But that's what people want to watch,

and taking it back to the content side of things, that'll be great. What great content,

not only... And your content sells come here, have a look at this. Not only the build up to it, but

the workings of it. That's what's going to happen once it gets started because you have to be honest

with yourself and things are going to go wrong because that is life. Can't please everyone.

Yeah, you can't please everyone, and there are going to be people who come there and just say,

like, I hate this place. I don't like this. that. Like I said, this is a big thing.

Just saying a load of sand on someone's drive. You didn't just collect a load of type one.

This is your one holiday, and wherever this is, this could be someone's stag. You might not have

had a holiday in years. This could be two people who are stressed out from work and they've come

to rejuvenate. They want to use the gym, the cold plunge, communal pool, use their laptop for a

couple of hours in their room, and then they just want to revive themselves. If they don't have

that experience while they're there, it's a big problem. So you really need to cater to them.

My mate has a hotel and he has two people. All their job is to walk around and that's their job.

They get in, they put their uniform on, and they just go from person to person, ensuring,

how's your day going? Would you like a drink? What have you done while you're here? And that

person has knowledge of the island. They know all the connections. They know where they should go.

They tell them the name of people in restaurants who to speak to, and they just go around kind of

doing PR the entire day. And then when you look at the reviews of that hotel,

the people mentioned those people by name. If you were to look at a spreadsheet, an accountant

would say, I don't need these people. Take them out. We've saved 50 grand a year. We don't have

those two people. But when the reviews start to dive and people don't have a great experience,

two years down the line, that accountant has destroyed your business. But there's no way

of quantifying that. That's why I said earlier, you cannot just rely on spreadsheets. That person

is providing the magic to make you succeed. Obviously, you're not going to have 10 fellas

walking around doing that all day because you're going to go skin. But that's like I said, once

again, it's a balance. You've thought about it. I've had enough time. Let me be honest with you.

A lot of the thinking has come as times gone by. Because initially, all I thought about was the

build. As times gone by, you think about marketing and you think about what is the day like waking

up? Then you've got to think about your experiences. What experiences have I had? What did I like?

What didn't I like? And then everything is a conversation. What do you like? Then you read

other people's reviews. It's a massive exercise. It's not just I'm going to build it. It's going

to be successful. People are just going to come there. They won't. Then I've got to think about

how I'm going to document it. What's the most efficient way to document it? How do you do it?

It's massive and it all needs to feed in together. The timing of the whole thing has to be right as

well. You can't run before you can walk. I'm so excited about it. I'm so excited. I'm so happy

about it. That's good. That's how it should be. I suppose, given what's happened previously,

it's been a breath of fresh air and fresh start. Let me get this. It's a breath of fresh air,

but there are going to be problems. There are going to be problems and there are going to be

problems that I haven't seen yet. It's going to happen. I'm trying my best to mitigate,

but it is impossible that there will not be delays and I won't have problems. It's impossible.

But I'm ready for that. Well, I think I'm ready for the famous last words, isn't it? I think I have

the mindset to deal with those rather than like spitting the dummy out and throwing the toys out

the pram. It makes good content as well. I need the content to take people on the journey, but

I'm trying not to let that cloud my judgment and govern my decisions. Sure. Sure. What are the

positives and negatives to doing this in St. Lucia versus anywhere else? Obviously, you know it,

so we'll put that aside. It's all your family's there, but what are the positives and negatives?

What are the actual stipulations of actually doing a project in St. Lucia? Well, firstly,

the land is already there. For me personally, I don't have to go for a land acquisition

process because having the right location, that's a massive issue.

And it's outside of your control. You can build this thing. It's absolutely beautiful, but

next door. But the truth is that it wasn't always the right location. For many years,

I looked at that plot of land and I was like, it isn't waterfront. It's not going to work.

It's five minutes from the beach. But the world has changed and Airbnb has changed the Caribbean

as well as many other countries because imagine people used to go to St. Lucia before in the

high season, you may give one of the big hoteliers 1200 US dollars a night granted your food is

included 1200 US a night. And by the time you add that up and you add up the flights, it's a lot

of money. But Airbnb has meant that people who don't want to use all of the facilities of the

hotel, people who want to go and experience the Royal St. Lucia, people who want to cater to

themselves and have the option, they can come and stay with me for like a third of that price

and have the flexibility, meaning that for a wide range of people, it is now affordable,

whereas for a long time, it would not have been affordable for them.

No, I admit, you'd think the Caribbean, I immediately go 20 round holiday.

You see? Yeah.

You see? But if you were to come and stay with me, maybe not the honeymoon,

if you'd come and stay with me, it would be your icon control if you go to the street party

and you decide to buy a round of beers for everybody there. That's not within my control.

But your actual, your bottom line, what you're going to spend no matter what,

it can be reduced significantly. And as long as you don't want an all-inclusive food 24 hours

a day and you don't want to order room service at two o'clock in the morning,

you can completely look after yourself and you can spend as much or as little time as you want

and I looked at other countries, but I couldn't see for me the return. And in other countries,

I didn't have, I'm not saying I'm connected, but I'm saying that I have my family and I have friends

and one of my friends, very good friends is a lawyer who does property development.

Another one of my friends, he has a large construction company.

Another one of my friends is a structural engineer. The pieces are there already.

The pieces are there already. And when you add it all up, it makes a lot more sense than anything

else, rather than give me another country, for example, that I could have gone to, give me a

Cyprus.

Cyprus. All right. Well, I was about to example, because Yanny's there.

No, no, let's say Cyprus. I don't know the history of tourism.

I don't know the right people to speak to there to get the studies and analytics on

demographics of the people who stay. I don't know the island. I could learn the local cuisine.

I would have to find a plot of land which worked. I don't know the habits of people who visit.

I don't know what the tourist attractions are. I don't know anything about it.

I don't know my way around. And then once I start to build, I don't know any architects.

I don't know an engineer. I don't know any of that. And I don't speak the language.

Just the unknown, isn't it, completely?

Was there another location? Was there like, I was going to say a close second. I don't think it

would have been close considering what you've just said, but was there like a, what was the other

locations you consider? Do you know what? The other locations were merely done as an exercise.

They were done as an exercise to see if there is another viable option, because my problem

in the past is when I got the gut feeling, I just went with it. So as an exercise, I assessed

other countries and what I thought, you know, what I thought would work there and the numbers.

And then I assessed the competition because competition is a key thing in those sectors

as well. There's no point being in competition in a country where the hotels

know that they're not going to make a profit for 25 years and their whole business mantra,

we just need to be the best. You know, I can't go into competition with an Atlantis.

It's not going to work. And they just put it there. They really like, it's a bit like

Donald's, isn't it? They're a spanner in there, but it's a property business, really. These

monster hotel chains, they can lean back on the fact that you say they balance the books.

Their balance sheet is they've got all these assets every month being paid off.

It sounds fantastic. Yeah. Exciting. I thought about it. Yeah, you can tell.

Yeah, we've looked at the Caribbean for our honeymoon, funny enough. And we're looking at

this for August. So everyone says, I don't go because the hurricane season is obviously,

I've been stuck in Florida a couple of times when the weather's gone bad.

What I will say about different seasons, no matter what, it's never going to be cold.

And it is between, if you wake up at like four o'clock in the morning, it's like 24 degrees.

Yeah. Cause you know, when you first get there and my body clocks upside down,

it's going to range between 24 degrees and about 32, 33 degrees. The only difference in

those other months is that it rains sometimes, but it's so humid that if it rains about an hour

later, the ground is dry. So, and it's generally a lot more cost effective to go in seasons when

people may look at it as the hurricane season. And Asheville Heights is completely made out of

concrete. So you don't really need to worry about her. No, that's the famous last words,

isn't it? Yeah. You, but you don't just drop the name there, by the way, that was a secret.

There's no secret. So it was always going to be Asheville Heights. Yeah, like it.

I haven't named the restaurant, but it was always going to be Asheville Heights.

Cool. Yeah. Well, it sounds great. Yeah. It's on brand. Yeah. Yeah. It's on brand.

Load of concrete. Yeah. Building. You don't, you don't really get somebody come in and go,

why on earth have you called it? Like, yeah. But whereas no one can now criticize, well,

they will criticize anyway, but I'm ready for that. Yeah. Talking on that point,

have you had any or how have you dealt with it? Sorry, people in this sort of quiet period,

has anybody been at you in the comments going, where's the content? Yeah, but people have been

asking me about the content and I thank them for it because it let me know that it was missed.

If nobody said anything, I'd have been like, well, I'm just a nobody from nowhere. I should have

just, I should have never done it in the first place. Yeah. But the fact that there's been such,

people have expressed frustration and I thank them for it for taking the time to do it because

when you did a weekly show for like five years and if, if nobody says anything when you stop it,

then mate, you shouldn't have been doing it. So I've actually used it to help, like,

inspire me and make me think, yes, like, it has been missed and it is needed and I'm going to do

it. So thank you to everyone who wrote in the comments, one of the videos coming back and they

are, well, they're probably back by now by the time you're seeing this. I saw that for myself,

actually, on the latest, I think it was on Instagram video that you did. I saw the comments

in that video when we're getting the weekly videos back and they said, I'm thinking, yeah,

that's when you know, you know what, that's a good thing. Yeah. I was a bit taken back by that,

to be honest. There was a lot of it. Yeah. Oh, there was a huge bit. I wonder what you knew.

It's Monday. I'm in St. Louis. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah. I wonder what you knew. Well, actually,

at the moment, we're still, I'm still in the UK getting my kit ready. So it is Monday and I

am in the yard. Okay. Yeah, relevant. Yeah. So I'm here, but with you, Broly.

So yeah, it will be when I get there, it'll be it's Monday morning. And I'm at Asheville Heights,

where it's Monday morning. It's Monday morning. And I'm in the van or something that it could be.

There'll be plenty. A lot of the time it might be is Monday morning. And I'm at the docks when

I'm stood there with my arms crossed, waiting for my container or my lorry to cut, to cut,

to come off the boat. Like just, what's that been like to get stuff over there?

Putting in a 40 foot container is the most simple way to do it in a 40 foot container.

But obviously, there's some stuff that won't fit in a container like, I'm not going to fit my tractor

unit, a low loader and a 25 ton machine in a container. Am I? So you just, yeah, you need to,

you need to plan it. And you need to pack containers, like you've never packed anything in

your life before. I'm talking, you cannot have a gap in there. Like it's, it's hard enough trying to

drive into a container and and a fella like me trying to get out the window and get on and

then you've got to try and get underneath it and tie it down at the back. But it's,

it's, it's a welcome challenge. And like I said, containers are the most cost effective way to

ship. But things which don't fit in the container, they'll be in the belly of the ship. And then

you just, I have never like sat there, like thinking to myself,

boy, I hope the Titanic doesn't repeat itself. I hope my tractor unit don't end up on the bottom

of the Atlantic. Because you know, you know, when it happens and you say, where's my money?

All of a sudden, like your tractor unit was worth 30 quid. Like all of a sudden,

you're amongst thousands and thousands of other people saying the same thing. Yeah.

And I, and as fantastic as it is, if my tractor unit ends up on the bottom of the sea,

I don't think the jail test is going to help me out with it. I don't know. It's not. Yeah, well,

I just closed my mouth now. I can't wait to see what happens. It's exciting. And I hope

it does everything you want it to do. Yeah, it's just probably what's fantastic is

I've spent so many years building and doing high end fit out. So the skills are so

transferable. Like this is apartment in central London. So there are things that you need to

change. Like for instance, I can't just buy a chrome tap. I've got to buy a free 16

stainless steel tap because the air has a lot of salt in it from the sea. So

whereas you buy a tap for £100, now I've got to buy a tap for £300. Other than that, I know high

end fit out. I've, you know, I've been building for years like outside, if you saw the video I did

on the garden salvage and flooding and all of those things. I've been working a lot with Man City

Football Club in Mexico looking at some of the football pitches they build with their water

technology partner Xylem capturing rainwater and how you purify this rainwater and use it for other

purposes. So all of the skills that I've learned over the last 20 years, they're now every different

part of it. Something comes up and I'm like, yeah, I've done that. Yeah,

Yeah, I've done that. And the truth that apart from running a restaurant, but the truth is it,

the truth of it is, if I hadn't been through everything I had been through to this point,

I wouldn't be in a position, I wouldn't have the experience nor be in a position. If what happened

in the last two years hadn't happened to me, I would not be in a good decision making place

to make the correct decisions for this build because I could still think that boy, I've been

doing everything right for the last 15 years. I just do whatever I want and it's going to be a

success. That grounding exercise and reset has put me in a much better mindset and made me so much

more calculated and balanced to ensure that I do the right thing for this. Yeah.

Yeah. And also, you get to be with your family as well. That's great. My uncle's electrician,

so he's going to be on site every day. Yeah. This is exactly, you know, you're all working

together now as a family and that's powerful as well as well. There's nothing more valuable than

that. So, yeah, wow. No, it sounds amazing. Sounds amazing. I'll see you there in 2028.

Yeah, 2028 is a good, yeah. I like that. 2028. Yeah.

Steven, round number 2028. Yeah. So, round number, boy, it might be the 31st of December, 2028,

but yeah. 2028, yeah. So, yeah, I liked it in the video. The project manager that no one asked

for has now been employed. Yes. Or by himself. It's funny you should say that because I was in a

meeting in St. Lucia with a government agency and someone in the meeting brought it up, they said,

you know, the project manager that no one asked for, I was like, yeah, I know him well.

And they said, well, we're doing the government are doing a couple of builds here.

Would the project manager that no one asked for like to document some of these? And I was like,

well, you've kind of asked me to come. So now I'm not the project manager that no one asked for.

Yeah. So let's pretend that you didn't ask me and let me just turn up and then give my

unwanted, unwarranted opinion on something I know nothing about. Yeah. So let me,

let me just come and walk around and guess what's going on. Yes. Of course. So yeah,

the project manager that no one asked for is definitely going to return. That's great.

Brilliant. That's ideal. Love it. So everything, when's the day that your final day I suppose for

right, I'm going over? Well, I have to organize it in a different way than I thought I would

because the project is ever evolving. So the terrain there is completely overgrown.

It's just trees and vegetation. It hasn't been touched for years. So what I need to do is put

the 25 tonner and my buckets on the low loader. I need to get someone else to take that to the

port and ship it. And then I'll probably get my mate a blueprint to use his tractor unit and

collect it because I need to go and clear the site to prepare it. Because if everything lands at the

same time, I've got nowhere to put it. And I don't really think that my auntie wants free containers

on her lovely drive, like destroying the mango trees and all of that. I don't think that my

auntie wants that. So I'm going to send the machine first, clear the site, do a bit of groundwork,

change all of the levels and flatten an area, which I'm going to designate as like the site

office, the storage where we're going to park up the kit. And then while that's happening,

I need the containers and the flatbed and all of the other kit, like the forklift,

the dumper. Then I need them shipped. I need to come back, ship them and then be ready to accept

them. But at that point, my tractor unit will drive off the ship, pulling the flatbed. And then

I'll just go back with my own flatbed and I'll collect the two or three other containers,

what they are, and then I'll bring them. But I need to balance the order of it and I need to

take into account that the sea and the weather do not fall into Daniel's schedule. Because when

you ship stuff, if there's bad weather, the ship could end up in Barbados and then it has to catch

the next ship to come back. So everything's a bit fluid at the moment, but we have a plan.

And if all goes according to plan, which it never does, it should work well.

Yeah, it's all there. I'll be watching it for sure. You are at the mercy of things changing,

but you've got a plan and that's the main thing. So yeah, anything else you can think of that you

want to get out there? No, just thanks for having me. It's going to be, it's been a hard reset.

And the next chapter is upon us. I'm very grateful for the experiences of the past.

I'm really excited about the future. And if I do say so myself, I think it's going to be very

interesting and it's going to be big. Physically, it's going to be big,

when I built it, but it's going to be big. And I hope that people will come on the journey with

me and I do hope that some people will come to experience the real Saint Lucia and Asheville

Heights. Absolutely. I'll be one of them. So there you go. Hope to see you there. Yeah, you've sold

it to me. Yeah, there you go. I wasn't even trying. He just sold himself for it. He did.

Yeah, sweet. Well, if you've enjoyed this episode with Daniel, episode two,

thanks so much for coming here, mate. And we'll see you in Saint Lucia.

See you there. Please make sure to like, comment, and subscribe and let us know who you want until

next time.

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