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PENGUIN MICHAEL JOSEPH

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I dedicate this book to my parents, and to my younger self for overcoming his self-doubt.

What’s Stopping You?

Introduction

Why Should You Listen To Me? Or

How a Gangster Saved My Life

Why should you listen to me?

That’s a good question. After all, there’s plenty of advice out there. Plenty of gurus who’ll promise you the secret to wealth and entrepreneurial success. You could choose any number of books above this one, and let’s face it: one of the biggest decisions we have to make in life is where to seek advice, and who to ignore. So: why me?

To answer that question, I want to tell you a little bit about myself.

My name is Timothy Armoo. I was born in Hackney, London. My parents weren’t rich, and I was, according to my mum, an unplanned baby. Circumstances meant that my parents were not in a position to look after me. So

there were two options for baby Timothy: I could either go into foster care or I could move to Ghana to live with my grandmother. After much discussion, it was decided that the second of these two options would be best for me. So, at the age of six months, I left the UK and moved to West Africa.

My grandmother was strict. I was sent to a good school where academic achievement was taken seriously, so I worked hard and won my share of classroom prizes. And although I was a long way from my parents, they too took a proper interest in my education. While I was in Ghana, my mum would send me books. In fact, she’d go so far as to head to the airport to find people who were taking flights to Accra and persuade them to deliver bundles of books to me when they landed. I liked reading the Famous Five books by Enid Blyton, and it was a joy to receive these packages. On a Sunday night, she would call on the phone and test me on the pages I was supposed to have read. From time to time, I hadn’t done my homework and was forced to blag my way through her questions. Then she’d get me to spell different words out loud, which increased in complexity as I grew older, and her expectations increased. I’m so grateful now that she took the time to do this and to help me understand, even at a distance, the importance

of language and communication. Her focus on these skills prepared me well for the future.

I always had a sense, though, that Ghana was a pit stop for me. It was not where I was meant to be, but just a chapter in the story of my life. It was no surprise when, at the age of ten, my parents decided that the time had come for me to return home to the UK . My grandmother had observed that I was becoming a little more boisterous, and it was felt that I needed to be around my parents. So I came back to live with my father.

Maybe you think that moving from Ghana to the UK meant I was going up in the world. It didn’t seem like that to me at the time. In Ghana I lived in East Legon, which was a well-to-do area, the High Street Kensington of Accra. My grandmother had been the first person to move there, when it was still forest. By the time I came to live with her, she was an upper-middle-class lady living in an upper-middle-class area. My life in Ghana was relatively privileged. My life in the UK , when I returned in 2005, was definitely not.

My father lived on the Old Kent Road on a rough council estate. This was not the slightly posh surroundings of East Legon. I quickly appreciated the lesson learned by many immigrants: your money goes a lot further in a city like Accra than it does in a city

like London. My new home was many steps up a bleak concrete staircase, and many steps down the social scale. More importantly, it quickly became apparent to me that I had arrived in a part of London that was at the height of gang warfare. There were three crews: Old Kent Road, Peckham and Brixton. The nexus of their gang warfare was Avondale Square, right next to where I lived.

The gang violence was real. You couldn’t avoid it. Like all young people, I wanted to be part of a group. My dad was always working, which meant I was often left to my own devices. I craved a sense of community, and I started to find it with the Old Kent Road crew. I told myself that this was what community meant, what family meant, what brotherhood meant. I told myself that if I wanted any kind of credibility in the world in which I found myself, I needed to be accepted by the rappers and the gangsters, by the guys with hoodies, bandanas and knives. These thoughts inevitably started to inform the way I acted, and the path my life started to take.

There was a football cage in Avondale Square. I remember one day playing football there with my friends when somebody in the cage shouted out: ‘Peckham boys!’ I looked beyond the cage and saw a bunch of lads approaching, some on foot, some on their bikes, wearing

bandanas and hoodies. They were a range of ages. The older boys were more battle- hardened. The younger ones had something to prove and wanted to show that they, too, were hard men. All of them hurried towards us, and it was completely clear that they didn’t want a game of football. They were looking for trouble. My friends and I dispersed from the cage. We ran. Fast. One of the Peckham boys caught up with me. He had a knife. He swung it across my abdomen, missing me by inches. I sprinted to the safety of my friend’s house, horribly aware of what might have happened had that boy been a step closer to me.

The school I went to – City of London Academy in Southwark – was situated on the border of Old Kent Road, Peckham and Brixton. It meant that kids from all three gangs were under the same roof. During the week, everyone seemed to get along. At the weekend, everyone became mortal enemies. One day I went to school and a friend of mine was absent. ‘Haven’t you heard?’ one of my schoolmates said. ‘He was in McDonald’s and someone stabbed him.’ Sure enough, my friend had an ugly scar all the way up his right side from the encounter. He was lucky to be alive.

This was the environment in which I found myself. The path I had started to tread. I was 13 years old,

however, when my English teacher Miss Sobaki took me to one side. She could see what was happening, and she wanted to intervene. ‘Timothy,’ she said, ‘you realize you’re a smart guy, right? This bad man stuff, it’s not for you.’

I’ll always be grateful to Miss Sobaki. Her words hit home. I took on board what she said, and she helped me change the way I thought about myself. My desire to be a bad man started to wane, but my urge to be part of a community was still strong. In the end, it took a gangster to divert me fully from that path. It took a gangster to save my life.

I was at the house of one of the guys in the Old Kent Road crew, with a bunch of other gang members. They were preparing to ‘ride out’. Riding out is when one gang ventures on to the turf of another, with the aim of doing two things. Firstly, to create a video on the other gang’s territory, to goad them by gloating that their turf has been infiltrated. And secondly, to stab someone. The prospect terrified me. As much as I wanted to be part of this community, I was very much on the periphery of what was happening. I wanted nothing to do with the violence. As they prepared to ride out, one of the older gang members took me to one side and shook his head. ‘Bro,’ he said, ‘this shit isn’t for you.’ He could tell that

my heart wasn’t in it, any more than my head was. He knew me from school: the quiet, smart, bookish kid who was more interested in intellectual pursuits than gangrelated ones. He knew that riding out was not for me.

I can still recall the relief I felt when that boy gave me permission to alter the way I thought about myself. Now I realize he taught me an important lesson, though I doubt he knew it. So many people zombie their way through life, putting up with a job they don’t like or a relationship that isn’t working, and waiting for external permission to change by a perceived authority figure. We think of permission as being something we need to kickstart an activity. Sometimes, though, we find ourselves waiting for permission to stop. I didn’t ride out with the gang that day, or any other day. Once I had permission to stop being the gangster I didn’t really want to be, my life started to change.

I’ll tell you more about how that change happened in the next chapter. For now, let’s fast forward. At the age of 21, in my second year of university and after a few failures and successes in the world of business, I founded a company called Fanbytes. Fanbytes was an influencer marketing agency that helped brands like Nike, Samsung and even the UK Government win the hearts of Gen Z. In six years, I took the company from

zero to 80 people and a highly publicized eight-figure acquisition. It meant I became rich beyond my wildest dreams before I’d even reached the age of 30. Huffington Post named me their Entrepreneur of the Year. I became the face of Forbes 30 under 30. I travelled the world speaking on global stages to the likes of Goldman Sachs, Adobe and Dell about the new world of media. My content on social media, in which I offer advice for entrepreneurs, reached millions of people.

My path, though, could have been very different. If it hadn’t been for Miss Sobaki and the gangster who saved my life, who knows where I might have ended up? Even with their help, I certainly didn’t see people like me represented in business as I worked my way up. Kids from the Old Kent Road weren’t supposed to get rich. If it was going to happen, I’d have to figure it out for myself.

And that’s why I think you should listen to me.

I don’t know everything. It’s not like I’ve found the secret to life and, like everyone, I’m still learning. But the title of this book is What’s Stopping You? All too often, the answer is that in business – and in life – the elements that really move the needle are the things that more experienced people don’t tell you. Why would they, when it would give you an unfair advantage over them? I call these elements the cheatcodes. They’re programmed

in, but hidden under bland advice to pay your dues, wait your turn and stay in your lane. In other words: advice to hold you back.

I didn’t want to hold myself back, and I don’t think you should either. I don’t think you should let anything stop you, so I want to help you hack the system. That’s why I’m sharing the cheatcodes with you. I want to tell you everything I wish I’d known at the age of 21, to help you aim bigger, stand firm, fight for the life – and the wealth – you want and go all in.

These cheatcodes have been hard won from firsthand experience on the front line of entrepreneurship, and let me tell you: they are not quick fixes. A cheatcode is not an easy win or a shortcut. Success in business is almost always the result of hard work, determination and resilience. Don’t ever forget that. Too often, though, I find people hindered by a lack of self-belief – an ‘I can’t do it’ attitude – and it’s this that prevents them from starting in the first place. Perhaps you recognize that trait in yourself. Perhaps you believe you don’t know enough about business to take the first step. Perhaps you’re overwhelmed by the thought of pivoting in your career. Perhaps you don’t have the confidence to take the next step towards fulfilling your ambition, whatever it may be. If that’s the case, I hope you’ll find in the cheatcodes the

What’s s topping You?

key to unlocking the next stage in your journey. I hope they’ll be the kickstart you’ve been looking for.

There is a narrative that success in business is the domain of a certain type of person, and it’s very easy to accept that narrative. We need to challenge it if we are to democratize success, which leads us directly to our first cheatcode. It’s something I learned very early, not long after that gangster saved my life, and it is this: we are the stories we tell ourselves.

Cheatcode 1: We Are The Stories We Tell Ourselves

As a young teenager living with my dad, I always assumed that he worked in property management. I’d see letters around the flat from his employers, Southwark Homecare. It made sense to me that he should have a good, well-paying job. He had been to a high-achieving boys’ school in Ghana, and then on to university at the Sorbonne in Paris. Academia was the path to financial success, or so I thought. This was certainly the message I’d received in Ghana. So I assumed that even though we lived four flights up on a shitty council estate, we were OK financially.

Gradually, though, I started to doubt my assumption about my dad’s job. I heard him use phrases like ‘on call’, and talking about working extra hours. This didn’t seem to me like the language of a property management person. One afternoon, when I was 15 and sitting alone

in my bedroom, it hit me. My dad wasn’t in property management at all. He worked in social care. I knew that this was not a high- paying job. Suddenly our humble living circumstances made a lot more sense. Social work is a noble and important profession, no doubt, but I remember thinking that it was perhaps not the lucrative career my dad might have expected to enter, given his level of education. And I remember saying to myself that very afternoon: I am going to be the one who takes us to the next level, financially speaking.

We lived on the top floor of our council block, and the building had no lift so we had to climb the stairs, which was a bit of a drag. At times it felt dangerous, being a young Black boy coming home from school in winter, when it was dark outside and the stairwell was gloomy, and there were often undesirable characters hanging round the estate. Anything could happen. In retrospect, though, I’m pleased I was forced to climb those stairs. As I hurried up that stairwell, trying to avoid trouble, scared and a little bit disappointed by my environment, I repeated a mantra in my head with each step. I don’t belong here. I’m meant for more. I don’t belong here. I’m meant for more . . .

It became, I think, a mild form of OCD . I couldn’t climb that staircase without repeating the mantra. And

the more I repeated it, the more I altered my internal story. By repeatedly stating my mantra, I grew to believe it. The more I believed it, the more I lived it. In the quiet of my bedroom, I would open up my little Toshiba laptop and I would write motivating messages to myself. It’s OK, Timothy. One day all this will change, and you’ll be the catalyst for that change. I didn’t know what journalling was at the time, but I suppose this was my fledgling version of that. I turned the flickering cursor into the story I wanted to believe about myself.

And, little by little, I became that story.

It’s easy to imagine that everyone’s lives are merely a function of their external influences. That we are who we are because of the circumstances into which we were born and the cards that life deals us.

My experience suggests that this is not completely true.

Don’t get me wrong. A kid brought up in poverty might well encounter more difficulties than a kid brought up in privilege. There are factors of wealth, class, race, gender and opportunity that shape our lives and predict our outcomes.

But that’s not the whole story. It is not only external factors that define who we are.

As I discovered when I climbed the stairs of that

council block and sat in my bedroom with my little Toshiba laptop, we have the power to shape our internal monologues. We have the power to mould the way we think about ourselves in order to become the person we want to be and achieve the goals we dream of.

In short, we are the stories we tell ourselves. These stories, properly harnessed, are incredibly powerful. More powerful, I would argue, than factors of circumstance, because they literally allow us to become different people.

In this chapter, I’m going to tell you how I went from being that kid on the Old Kent Road with few prospects, to being the founder of a multi- millionpound company. I did this, in part, by harnessing the power of this cheatcode to alter the narrative of my life and consequently define its outcome. I hope that in sharing parts of my story, I’ll inspire you to shape the path of your own life in a way that is meaningful and impactful for you. And I hope that, along the way, you’ll pick up a few tips about how to adopt a mindset that is conducive to success in the world of business and entrepreneurship.

Retire at 21

I was only a teenager. I couldn’t yet change my physical surroundings, but I was beginning to understand that I could change my mental surroundings. Now that I was no longer associating so much with the Old Kent Road boys, I had time to read and research, to flesh out my story and my plans. I stumbled across a website called ‘Retire at 21’. It contained articles about all sorts of people who had built successful businesses and become financially independent at a young age. As I read about these founders and entrepreneurs, I realized that there was a world in which their stories were possible. I made it my mission to immerse myself in those stories. Every day when I got home from school, I’d log on to that website and others like it. I would read about people who had built their own businesses, familiarizing myself with a different category of person to those I saw around me in my daily life. I read and I read and I read, not only because I wanted to know about the entrepreneurship displayed by these people whose successes I aspired to emulate, but also because I wanted to normalize the idea of success in my mind. As I read, I thought to myself: I want to do that. I can do that.

Those men and women who have done it before are no different to me. That is the sort of person I am.

I think we readily accept the notion that negative internal narratives have a negative effect on our outlook and wellbeing. They make us act differently. The reverse is true for positive narratives, as I discovered. The story I told myself became reality. I gradually became the person I visualized, to the extent that now I am acquainted with many of the people I read about as a kid on those websites.

Repeating mantras to yourself is a powerful way to help you change the way you think. There is evidence to suggest that, as well as improving cognitive function, repeating mantras can lead to structural changes in the brain. They can be an effective shortcut to changing the stories we tell ourselves.

The £500 Mercedes

You never know when your journey into entrepreneurship will start. For me, it started with a bet when I was 14 years old.

I had a good friend called Kunal. We were walking home from school one day when we passed a fancy black Mercedes parked in the street. ‘How much do you think it’s worth?’ Kunal asked me.

I shrugged. ‘Five hundred pounds?’ Truth was, I didn’t really know, but £500 was a substantial sum to us at the time and felt like the right amount of money for such an object of desire.

‘I bet you,’ Kunal said, ‘that you’ll never have five hundred pounds in your pocket before you turn eighteen.’

I didn’t like the idea that this might be true. I was obsessed with stories of people who’d made far more than that in far shorter periods of time. I took the bet and went home to start planning how I could win it. I’ll explain what happened next later in this book, but I mention Kunal here because he also consolidated in my mind the idea that we are the stories we tell ourselves. I realized that, in normalizing the idea that I could be a successful entrepreneur, I had altered my response to the idea that I wasn’t the type of person who could make money. Kunal hadn’t done this. Don’t get me wrong: he was a very smart guy. Smarter than me. We would compete for grades, and he was the only person in the school who routinely scored higher than I did. Not only

was he off- the- charts brainy, he was also super hardworking. There is no doubt that he had the intellectual tools to make it in the world of business. From time to time over the years I would try to get him involved in my entrepreneurial schemes. But he had no real interest in that. He was not a risk-taker, whereas I had internalized the idea that I was exactly that. So Kunal went off to Imperial College London to study for a degree in physics. He saw himself as an academic, not an entrepreneur. That was the story he told himself, so that’s the person he became.

Many years later, when Kunal and I had lost touch, I was walking through a park in London. I saw a bench with a name inscribed on a plaque: Kunal Patel. I made enquiries and learned that he had recently died. Now, every time I walk or cycle past that park, I make a little nod in the direction of that bench, and I silently tell Kunal that I love him. His challenge that day was the kickstart I needed to start becoming the version of myself that I knew I could be.

Act like the person you want to become

I realized that changing my environment, albeit temporarily, would be an important tool when it came to changing my story. It’s difficult to keep telling yourself a story of success when you’re surrounded by the pound shops, fried-chicken joints and rain-streaked concrete of a south London council estate. I wanted to be a successful entrepreneur, but would a successful entrepreneur be working out of a steamy cafe? Would they be sitting on the edge of their bed in a dingy council estate flat? They would not. I decided I should act like the version of my future self that I hoped to be and find myself a more appropriate place to work.

I settled upon Claridge’s, one of the poshest hotels in the world, playground of the wealthy and successful. I picked out my best clothes. A horrendous pair of brown chinos from BHS . A white T- shirt from Sports Direct. A dark-blue blazer from Asda, by far the smartest garment I owned. Some blue loafers. Cheap tech- bro chic. These were not the threads of a poor boy from the Old Kent Road. Granted, nor were they the threads of a City millionaire. But they were the best I had, and by choosing them I achieved two objectives: I helped deal