TOM LIBELT | Haggling With Russians, Semi-Retirement & Silver Bullets: Mere Mortals Conversation #31

Tom Libelt loves to bounce around careers and is a man of many skills. He began his work life haggling with Russians/Poles outside of soccer stadiums before being faced with the ultimatum; to be an astronaut, circus performer, businessman or musician. He ended up choosing the two latter options (for now!!), releasing two albums before becoming a master salesman. Nowadays he runs Smart Brand Marketing whilst travelling between Thailand, USA and Poland.

In this discussion with Juan they begin with Tom recounting his childhood beginnings and how this shaped him into the person he is today. The second part revolves around some general advice on how to create a location independent business as well as the type of mindset and relationships you will have to create. The conversation ends with a deeper dive into overnight successes/silver bullets and how there is actually a huge amount of energy/effort/introspection that is behind every long-term, sustainable business.

As always, we hope you enjoy, Mere Mortals out!

Timeline:

0:00 - Introduction

1:08 - Tom's Mere Mortal Moment

3:11 - Gym lessons applied to business

6:15 - Haggling with Russians

9:50 - A kid with nothing to lose

13:24 - Astronaut, circus, business or music

21:06 - Bouncing across careers

25:35 - Selling SEO in the early days

30:19 - Location independent business and Thailand

37:30 - Partners, employees and business relationships

42:46 - Semi-Retirement: knowing when to put on the brakes

50:59 - Overnight success takes time

54:37 - Resistance, the muse and turning pro

58:14 - The problem with silver bullets

1:01:06 - Anti-hustle book recommendation: Power of One

1:02:18 - Connect with Tom & the staying power of social media

Connect with Tom Libelt:

Website: https://smartbrandmarketing.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/tomlibelt

About Mere Mortals:

Striving for excellence through life's lessons. Daily uploads @ 5pm AEST. 4M's, Book Reviews, Musings, Bonus, Themed Podcast, Conversations & Meanderings.

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