INTRO: This is part two of my interview with Simone Vincenzi. If you have not yet listened to part one, I highly recommend going back and doing that first because it was a really good episode. And it also provides some very important context for this episode. That was #248. If you have already listened to episode 248, then please enjoy the conclusion of my interview with Simone Vincenzi.

Matt Bowles: Well, I also want to ask you about the role of podcasting in your business. You host the Expert to Authority podcast. You have more episodes than I do. I know you’ve been doing this for at least five years. And I’m curious how you selected that medium in particular of all the different mediums you could produce content on, why podcasting, and how specifically does the podcast fit into the overall business that you’ve described?

Simone Vincenzi: I think we have something in common here. We both love to chat. And I met some incredible people. And at that point, I said, well, let me start recording the conversations. And that’s how the podcast started. Then from there, I said, you know what? I really like this because I’m having conversations with people that I would never have a chance to have conversations with.

And that’s my primary reason to keep the podcast going. My business strategy is a different one. My business strategy is not to grow mainstream podcasts. That’s not what my podcasting strategy is right now. It is to meet interesting people, have interesting conversations, and which is now what has evolved in the last few years, build strategic partnerships.

I find my best partners that promote me through podcasting. So, if I find someone interesting and I want to have a conversation with them and I think that they can be a good affiliate for my product or services, instead of asking them, can you promote myself? You don’t know me, but do you want to promote myself?

Which answer is going to be either ignored or ‘No’. I say, “Hey, would you like to be a guest on my show? We can have an interesting conversation about this topic. And then we see how we click on the show. If we can have a conversation together. And then from there, we built the relationship. We will keep in touch.

I might make some introductions for them. They made some introductions for me. And then at that point, we say, hey, if I have something to promote, say, do you mind promoting it to your audience? I’ve got this new thing that is coming up, but now is a person that I had half an hour an hour conversation with.

We build rapport. And so, at the moment, my podcast is the number one way that I use to actually get partners on board that can become affiliates that can become strategic partners and is the relationship building and also a way to reciprocate that if they want to promote something, can get them on my show, promote them to my audience. And that’s how I’m using the podcast at the moment.

Matt Bowles: I agree. I think that is one of the least understood benefits of the podcast that if you want to have a conversation with somebody that might not necessarily just be willing to jump on a call and talk to you for an hour, but if you have a podcast, all of a sudden that person might be willing to jump on and talk to you for an hour.

And then at the conclusion of that conversation, there are a certain percentage of your guests that you will connect with on incredibly deep levels. Like I have become really close, personal friends with people that I never met before they appeared on my podcast. And just through the depth of the conversation and the connection that happened, we all of a sudden became really close personal friends from that moment on.

And another thing that’s incredible, you and I have a lot of friends in common, of course, and a number of them have been on The Maverick Show. And one of the very cool things also is sometimes it’s the start of a friendship, meaning I’ve never met this person before. I have them on the podcast and then we click, and we connect and now we’re very close friends.

But the other thing that’s been amazing is when you know somebody as a friend, you know, somebody that’s already in your ecosystem and then you have them on your podcast, all of a sudden you’re able to go so many levels deeper and ask them questions in that context that you’ve never asked them before, just when you’re out at the bar, having a glass of wine or something like that, and then all of a sudden it actually really deepens your connection with people that are already in your ecosystem in a totally different way.

And so, I think the long form conversations do incredible things. And I would agree it is the best form of both business and to be honest, social, personal networking connection that I know of. I mean, it’s been amazing.

Simone Vincenzi: It is. And that’s, and that’s why I keep going. Um, I think we’re now almost like 430 episodes in. And every week, religiously, one solo episode or episode with a guest is published sometimes twice a week, sometimes three times a week, depending on how many people I’m having conversations with, and there are some seasons that are busier than others, and that’s why I like it to keep it flexible, so I don’t have, you know, my podcast is just solo episodes.

My podcast is just interviews. A podcast is the way for me to express myself sometimes and other times to connect with people and people that are our clients, people that are on our mailing list, people that are following our journey, it becomes a great way to connect with them, entertain them because that’s what broadcasting is.

Broadcasting is entertainment. Very few times, unless you have a huge audience, you’ll make sales from podcasting, but podcast, direct sales. But broadcasting will also get someone to trust you more. So then when you make that call to action, then they already had you in their ears for hours. The relationship is there.

So, when you’re asking them, hey, buy this product or buy this service, uh, the trust is there. And that’s why I really like podcasting because from a conversion point of view, it will not get a lot of people to buy on the show. But what happens in your mailing list and social media from people who have listened, your conversion is higher.

Matt Bowles: Well, you’ve been in the entrepreneurial game for quite a while. And I want to ask you just a couple of entrepreneur-type questions. The first one is how you manage stress as a business owner when that entrepreneurial rollercoaster, which for every entrepreneur I’ve ever talked to goes up and boy, does it go down and when it goes down, how do you manage stress and deal with those moments in your business career.

Simone Vincenzi: Alcohol and weed.

Hahaha. No, actually it’s basketball is my outlet. It’s my outlet for everything. It’s that moment when people are talking about meditation, mindfulness. There is nothing that matters. In that moment when I’m playing, sometimes I play three, or four hours because that’s what I need to get the steam off too, to be calm, to be present.

And so, basketball is really my therapy. Walks with my wife. Whenever I’m stressed or my wife is stressed, we go for a long walk in nature, and is a way for us to reconnect, to put things in perspective, and get away from that moment. And in fact, I tell you, I had a really dark time after COVID. So, the first year of COVID, we had to move the 200 events a year that we were doing in person online.

Serve a community of about 200 clients that we were working with that they bought and purchased physical training. So, in person training, we had to move everything online. We had to do it in a way to give them a great customer experience while no one knew what was going on. So, the first year of COVID, I worked my ass off on these 200 people that we were working with only three canceled and everyone could turn around and say, this is not what I bought.

I want to, I want to cancel now only three out of 200. So, as a team, we did incredible work to keep and retain our clients to make sure that they had a great service. But then I worked also 12, 13 hours a day. And in a very small place, I had no social outlets. I’m a very social person, not basketball for a year.

The second year of COVID, I went into anxiety and depression, I couldn’t work, like, literally for six months at least, and I couldn’t do anything other than what was scheduled in my calendar. And that’s where, actually, we started traveling. So, I’ve not been a digital nomad for a long time. It’s literally been the year after COVID because that’s where I, for one, could travel.

With 200 events a year in London is one every three, every two days, or three days. I wasn’t traveling at all. And then my wife was pushing me. It’s like, hey, I’ve got this gig here in the south of France. I got this gig in Rome. Things started opening and I thought there was so much to travel. But then it was this first Bansko when we met in Bansko, that was me literally coming out of that dark period.

And in Bansko then, I met the people from Nomad Base, Dory from Nomad Base, who made me a recommendation. That’s where I started getting to know everyone in the Nomad community. And that’s where I came back to who I was. But take away basketball, take away social interactions, uh, these were my outlets to balance myself and get rid of stress.

So, taking them away was hard, but now this is, um, I’m coping with everything. Let me play basketball and everything is going to get done.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, that was such a great time in Bansko, man. I mean, Mavericks, your listeners also know Chris Reynolds, who had put together the lunch and the dinner where you and I were spending time.

And I remember. You know, he was bringing people like you into it. I was bringing people. That’s where I brought Santiago and Vicky. I said, oh, you guys haven’t met, you know, Chris Reynolds and Simone. You guys got to come and meet them. And then we all had dinner out there. It was just an amazing community.

So, I think that the community aspect is so important of it, but the travel as well. I mean, I’m curious in terms of that. You mentioned the South of France. I got to ask you about that, man. I mean, I’ve been to the South of France once and it was completely over the top. I mean, that place is really something else. What was your experience like in the South of France?

Simone Vincenzi: I had a great experience, man. So, let’s from the beginning, I fought my wife so hard. To go with her to this particular gig that she has. One of our clients is my Tennessee did an event called the word living soil in talking about the sustainability of soil part of that event once we were there was also a private event for the press to go around and see all the French vineyards in Provence because that’s where the event was.

And that wasn’t scheduled for us. So, she was invited at the last minute while I was there. I still was fighting her. I got a client call. I got this to do. And she was like, well, I’m going, we’re going around vineyards for three days, all paid. You’re on your own. I said, okay, let me cancel some calls. I’m coming.

Cancel my calls with clients and manage to rearrange. Everything went well on this trip. We were staying in places that will cost 2000 euros a night and that’s where they were hosting us. We were drinking bottles of wine of three, four hundred euros a bottle of wine and by drinking like on tap, it was just like, I was like, keep filling that glass, man.

It was never empty, that glass. And we met two other incredible people. One is a speaker around the soil and regenerative agriculture from Brazil, Felipe, and then another journalist from the U.S. I don’t remember exactly were, Chadner. And we were all around the same age. They were on the trip with us. We formed an incredible friendship in those moments.

And this is why that trip was very memorable. I think the lesson there is, uh, for everyone who is listening and wants to be a digital nomad and wants to travel. I was the person that was the most difficult to convince to travel. I love traveling, but after so many years, eight plus years of running my business in London, being tied to London, having an event after the other, just the thought of taking a plane somewhere else, unless it was an holiday, that wasn’t happening.

It wasn’t in my mind. How can I run my business? Because at that point we made investment. So, we had four more businesses we have invested in with our group. So, in my mind, I was like, how can I do this? I, that was the first time that proved to me that I could run my business. I can enjoy life and I can meet some incredible people.

And then from that trip, I followed Bansko. And that was another reconfirmation. Oh, I can do this. And then from there I took the bug. I mean, just this year, we traveled to 18 countries and it’s August.

Matt Bowles: So where did you land on the life balance thing? Because you’re obviously a hardworking dude, man. I mean, you put in time, and you put in effort and, you know, you really attend to your businesses. At the same time, you have an amazing wife, you love travel, you love community, socializing, basketball, all these different things. Where did you land on optimal lifestyle design?

Simone Vincenzi: I think that every period of life, like there are different seasons because for example, even though while I was building my business, I wasn’t traveling and all I was doing was working. I wasn’t traveling. I wasn’t playing basketball until 28, but I was happy. I was really happy because what I wanted to do was to build a dumb business and I was obsessed with it and I loved every single moment.

And so, for everyone on the outside, they might say. Well, there was no balance there. No, there was no balance for your idea of balance. But from my ideas, my priorities, and what I was excited about. And what gave me energy, because every time I was running an event, that’s my energy, that’s my kick, that’s what I love doing, and I was giving myself what I needed, even if I was working, even if I wasn’t taking days off, or I wasn’t traveling much, but also, I was a 23, 24, 25, I had all of energy to give and to spend and I didn’t care. That’s what I want to do I wanted to build a business and I wanted to experience what the business world could give me and that’s why we became so successful so young because we were working all the time and then things changed after I got married because a lot of this is very different.

Well, there’s always been someone putting her free time first, making sure that she does interesting things outside work. And when we met, actually, she was working full time and she was, she hadn’t started her business yet. She had a few businesses she was trying and so on, but it wasn’t full-time in the business.

That happened a few years after we got married. But that was her forcing me to take time off for the sake of our marriage. And I enjoyed that. And I arrived at a point where now my business grew that we have, I mean, in one business, in GTEx, I got 14 staff members, I’ve got in another business that we have, we have another 12 staff members in a recruitment agency that we have invested in.

So, it arrived in the natural phase, where I started thinking more about other parts of life, and that’s where travel came in. That’s where prioritizing basketball came in. So, in this phase of life, how I’m managing it is to put all the things that I want to do first before it was the opposite before business can always first.

Now my basketball comes first. My fitness comes first. My wife comes first. The child’s come first, and then I’m fitting business around it. But also, I can say that I have the infrastructure that allows me to run a fairly large business in this way that I put in over the years. Everyone will have different priorities at different stages of their lives and whatever for someone means Work life balance means something different for someone else.

Matt Bowles: I think that’s actually a really important and insightful distinction in terms of looking at those different phases of your life where what some outside person might say is, you know, workaholism and an unbalanced life back in your early 20s. Was actually at the time fulfilling for you and you weren’t deprived, you didn’t feel deprived of all these other things in an unhealthy way.

Whereas that year of COVID that you described, you did feel depressed and anxious and deprived of these things and all of that, you know, and it was a very different type of environment. And so, I think the self-awareness of being able to prioritize the things that are important to you at different points in your life is really important.

You know, that was before you were married and before you, you know, different things, and you were okay to not travel for this period of your life while you were focusing on this. And now at a different stage of your life, you have these other things that are really important and you’re restructuring those priorities.

And so, I feel like that’s important, like just on our journeys in life as humans to continually reassess what are. Our priorities, where do we feel an imbalance or a deprivation in certain ways, and then to recalibrate to make sure our lives are balanced in accordance with our own priorities, which is not an objective, universal forever scale. It’s what’s important to us now at this point in our life. So, I appreciate you sharing that, man. I think that’s a really important perspective.

Simone Vincenzi: I’m curious to know that from you, actually, what are the like-major priorities that you need to have in place to be happy?

Matt Bowles: Yeah. So, I think for me, the community aspect of it is a big one. And that’s actually been an interesting thing for me because I’ve been doing this nomad thing for longer than you, right? I’ve had no permanent base for 10 years. So, Los Angeles was my last base. And I left LA in 2013 and I’ve had no base since then. Right? And so that actually brings a lot of different pieces of the learning curve into the lifestyle, which is if you’re moving around and you’re, you’re not just an expat living in another country, you’re actually an itinerant nomad who’s living in a different country every month, maybe right at that pace.

So, then the question becomes, how do you build meaningful community and social connections with people if you are in that itinerant nomadic lifestyle? Right. And so that was something that I had to figure out, ’cause that’s very important to me, man.

I mean, I need to be getting hugs and love and support from people who actually really care about me. And how is it possible to do that? If you’re traveling around the world or this much as I have, I mean, I’ve spent time in, I don’t know, over 65 countries for sure in the last decade. And that’s something I need to figure out.

Because community is very important to me. And also, the travel experience was amazing. I mean, they’ve been amazing. And so, I’ve really, you know, once I was able to establish the location independence, that really became a priority for me to say, okay, how can I leverage my location independence to have amazing, enriching experiences through travel, right?

And so that’s been important, but of course, the answer, as you know, is that there’s tons of amazing people that do this lifestyle and there’s tons of amazing local people everywhere you go that you can meet if you make the effort and you can have then, in my opinion, what I see is I have not just a community in one place.

I have communities all over the world. I can go to places all over the world. And I have a community there and I can see people and sometimes it’s seeing other travelers and sometimes it’s seeing local people. But I think that it is important to constantly reassess the balance of things in your life because they do get uncalibrated fairly easily.

I find, you know, sometimes I’ll like to go a month or two. I’ll be like, wait a minute I have like not exercised in two months. Like what is even going on here? Why am I feeling so physically not good? It’s oh, I haven’t exercised in two months. What’s up with that? Right? Like get the gym membership, man, get it going, get back on track.

Or like, I have really not been eating healthy for the last month. And for that matter, you can neglect work and just party too much and do too much travel stuff. And all of a sudden, your income starts declining. You’re like, oh, what’s going on there? You don’t need to recalibrate that. Right. Or the opposite.

You’re working too much and you’re just like, dude, like I’m feeling kind of lonely. I haven’t been out very much doing stuff. I need to be around more people. Right. So, I think it’s just that self-awareness of what are all of the important pillars that all human beings need to be, you know, happy and fulfilled and joyful.

And then being very attentive to yours and seeing which ones start to slip. And which ones does this have to be a deficiency and then start to sort of recalibrate as you go along? So that’s kind of how I approach it.

Simone Vincenzi: Yeah. I don’t know if Santiago did it with you as well. The wheel of life.

Matt Bowles: Yes, exactly.

Simone Vincenzi: Exercise? We were in Puglia and it’s an exercise that I’ve done years ago. There is an app and we’re having dinner and, uh, Santiago. I’m sure everyone checks out actually the podcast episode here with Santiago because he’s awesome. He’s a great person to know. And he pulled out the phone during dinner and he said, now let’s have a deeper conversation.

There is this tool called the Wheel of Life where you can assess and score the different areas of your life from your health and fitness to your relationships. And then you see which part actually you need to focus on which one is the highest score which one is the lowest score you can see what’s in balance and what’s in balance and which means that then we did awareness you can work on it. You can see okay what’s missing in this area what can I do more of or what do I need to do less off, and I found that exercise in particular sharing with people that actually you care about being even more meaningful because everyone shares a part of them that they got to work on.

And every time in your new period of your life, it will change depending on where your priorities have shifted and what you’ve put more focused on or less focused on as well.

Matt Bowles: Yeah. And it’s very interesting too, because over the course of these 10 years, I have been a nomad in different contexts, in different scenarios.

So, for example, when I started my nomadic journey, I was in a relationship. So, I’ve been living with my relationship partner for four years in LA and we left LA together. We went to live for a year in Egypt because she was doing a PhD in Egyptian history and she needed to do her research in Cairo. So, we went to Cairo for a year and then we’re like, well, you got a year to write your dissertation.

Why don’t we just travel around the world and live in cool places while you’re writing it? And I can work remotely. And so, we did that for like two years and all, you know, and we eventually broke up, but you know that we traveled the world together for three years. And one of the things that I noticed there was like, okay I’m in a relationship.

But one of the things that did, incidentally, that I realized now looking back, is it actually created a crutch or an impediment in terms of building social community relationships. Because we were just like, okay, let’s just work. All day, work really hard. And then we’ll just go out to dinner together, or we’ll go out to like a nightclub together, or we’ll go explore the city together.

We’ll do work. And then, so you have someone to do it with. So, you’re not lonely and you’re in your relationship, but you’re not building a social community. And so, when we broke up Simone, I remember this very distinctly. It was 2016, it was on the Island of Cyprus. And we broke up and it had been a seven-year relationship at that point we broke up.

And I was just like, oh my gosh. I have no social community. I certainly don’t know anybody in the country of Cyprus. I don’t know anybody nearby. I don’t really have a community. I’ve been so isolated because I’ve just been focused on my relationship and travel experiences and work. That’s it. I was like, I need people, man.

You know, I need people around me. And so, what I did is I ended up joining a program called Remote Year, which travels the world with a community of 40-plus people. So, you get an immediate community that’s with you every day for an entire year, which was fantastic because nobody knew anybody at the beginning of that program.

We were all there to build a community. And that turned out to be an amazing transitionary thing for me to do right after the breakup, but you know, you just sort of realize, oh, I don’t have this, or I don’t have that, or this is getting very deficient in my life and I need to attend to it. And I think that’s what it’s all about.

It’s just paying very close attention to that, that those pillars that we all need in our life don’t get depleted. And if they start depleting, pay attention and try to refuel yourself there.

Simone Vincenzi: Talking about awareness, I think this conversation makes me reflect on the starting point and also comparisons.

Because someone that started traveling in a relationship, for example, I travel with my wife, and we are both very conscious of creating new friendships when we travel because we have a home base. So, we are not complete digital nomads. We’re just people that are flexible to travel. We have a home in London and that’s our basis.

We always come back and that’s where we have our stuff. When you’re traveling, I’m so focused on building relationships. We actually don’t spend much time together. So, we might be in a lot of different places and I’m building relations, building communities. She’s there with her friends and we don’t do things, just me and her.

That’s were really apparent after the last trip where we went away for six, seven days, went to Barcelona. Went to see, there was Santiago and Vicky there in Barcelona. There was also Chris and Anna and went there for a birthday and we did all the things with others, but it wasn’t a moment that we just spent doing something together.

It’s like, no, this is not right for us. We want to do something together. So now what we’re going to do is before we go somewhere is to schedule our time together first and something that we’re doing together first, because whatever is not scheduled is not getting done. So that has been after a year plus trial, about two years of traveling.

That’s what we came down to;, actually, we need to prioritize our time together because we will always find time for others. But we never find time for us, and it’s about having this conversation and reflecting on these things to then say, okay, what does it work for me? Or if you’re working, if you’re traveling for everyone who’s listening, traveling with a partner, what does it work for us?

Or if you’re meeting someone while you’re traveling, which is a different dynamic, and finding that way is so fascinating and complex at the same time.

Matt Bowles: I mean, this is one of the reasons I love doing the podcast, man, because I interview people that are in all these different scenarios. Like, I interviewed Santiago and Vicky separately on purpose.

I was like, okay, you guys are married. You have been married for over 10 years. You travel the world full time together and you’re business partners. I was like, I have to understand how that works. And I want your individual perspectives on separate conversations. The other person is not in the room. I just want to ask you from your perspective how it works.

And I interviewed each of them separately. And it was amazing because the thing about them that’s amazing, as you know because you spend time with them, is that they’re madly in love with each other. And their relationship is so happy and so joyful and so wonderful. And they’re so excited and they’re full-time nomads.

And they travel the world, and they crush it on the business side. And they do all of this stuff. And they are an inspiration to so many people. There are so many people that I interview that know them that are like, I want that like, you know, single people that are like, man if I could find a partner like that, you know, like that would be amazing.

Like, how do you guys do that? And so that’s why I love to have people like that on the podcast and ask them those questions. Like, how do you guys do that? You’re like, how does that work? How do you, you know, and then it’s the same thing, you know, what is the aspect of creating those date nights versus not getting too isolated where it’s just the two of you every night and having a social network too and doing this and doing that.

And how do you choose where to go? And what if you have different priorities in terms of some of those things and all that? So, I mean, The Maverick Show is a giant catalog of people either like that or it’s single people. And I’ll talk about dating in the nomad life. How does that work? How do you find love and partnership in a fully itinerant lifestyle when you don’t have a base? Like, how does that work?

Simone Vincenzi: And that’s so hard in particular, where people have different schedules because you might go somewhere, you meet someone, but then you have already your schedule travels and they have theirs. So even if there is the seed of a great relationship to start, there is not sometimes a time to let that relationship blossom and flower.

So, these dynamics that people that are not traveling, that they cannot understand, they cannot experience.

Matt Bowles: I mean, what I say to people, and as a single person now in my life, who is also a digital nomad, what I say to people is that my greatest, most amazing, incredible asset that works in my favor is my location independence for a couple of reasons.

One is that most people who live in a particular place, they’re not nomadic, they just live in a city, their dating universe is the human beings that are within driving distance of their house. Like, that’s literally your dating universe. And so, for me, my dating universe is the entire planet of Earth. So that’s one.

The other thing is that if the person that I am interested in being with does not have all of the location freedoms or independence or flexibility that I do, I have the ability to go wherever they need to go and be wherever they need to be if it’s my priority to be with that person. Right? So, to your point about, oh, what if people have different travel schedules and this and that?

It’s all about priority, man. I don’t have to have a travel schedule. I can change the travel schedule if a higher priority comes about. So, it’s like, you meet somebody on the dating app and they’re like a full-time digital nomad. Well, how is this going to work? And I’m like, well, it works in one of two ways, either A, you give me a reason to stay, or B, you pick up and we travel the world together and right off into the sunset and live happily ever after.

I mean, you know, one of those two scenarios, and either one is possible, right? And so, you just have so much flexibility because, like regular folks that live regular sedentary lives in a particular city, they might have both have jobs. And then sometimes one of the people in the, in the couple has to move for their job to another city and that causes a problem because then the spouses have two different jobs in two different cities and that’s a problem for their relationship. For me, that’s never a problem because if the person I want to be with has to move somewhere, I’ll just move wherever they have to go. Like I have no geographic restrictions, right? So that’s how I really see location independence. It’s not like purely the merits of being itinerant for the sake of being itinerant.

No, it’s the ability to have more choices to pursue the priorities in your life, understanding that their priorities could change tomorrow when you meet the love of your life. And when, if, and when that happens, you have the flexibility to change your travel schedule entirely.

Simone Vincenzi: That was the same reason why I decided not to restart the live events in London after COVID-19. Because my personal priorities have changed, and now my personal priorities are about traveling the world and experiencing different cultures and seeing different places, creating memories with my wife, creating adventures together, and playing on courts all over the world, that’s another priority, and building a global business instead of a local one.

And for all these reasons, then even when COVID, uh, when everything opened up and the events, uh, the industry started blooming again, then I said, no, we’re just going to stick with webinars and, uh, we’re going to build now a global business, which now allows me as well, the flexibility to travel the world and go wherever I want and just book one-way tickets for why not? And this is and this is special.

So, as you said, priorities change, and we always need to reassess our priorities. And what I think what people are want a lot of people want in life is stability and freedom. And it’s almost like having some sources of income that give you the stability that you need to experience the freedom that you want, whether it’s a business, whether it’s a remote job, whether it’s contracts, whatever you want.

But this becomes a dilemma because a lot of people see freedom as a lack of stability or stability as a lack of freedom, where I think the jackpot is when you hit both. It’s like, I’m stable enough to do whatever I want. This is the goal.

Matt Bowles: And it’s the definition of stability for you, right? Some people try to impose definitions of stability on you as things that you should be doing, or that they find comforting and stable, which are not necessarily the same for everyone, right?

So, one of the things that I will often ask my guests on this podcast, who are itinerant nomads and travel all over the world, is what types of stability anchors do they use in their life? As they move from place to place, since there’s so much change from month to month in terms of where they’re living, the city, the culture, the language, like all this stuff is changing, how do they create stability in their life?

And so, for different people, it might be, I remember one of my guests said, every new place that I go, as soon as I get there and check into my place, I go out and I buy a dozen eggs and I buy a bottle of red wine. And if the first night I’m in a place, I know that I can drink from a bottle of good red wine and I can wake up the next morning and make myself eggs.

That is a routine and a stability anchor for me that works. And I replicate it every single place that I go, and it’s a routine that I do and, you know, different people, there’s different things in terms of how you create that stability, but you’re also not taking traditional notions of stability and allowing them to be imposed upon you.

You can reinvent. What does it mean for you to feel stable? And then also to have a level of newness and change and excitement in your life and all of that. And those are things too that can, you know, change and evolve over time.

Simone Vincenzi: Whenever I travel, one of the reasons why I look for basketball courts is also for that level of stability, because it’s the one thing that I can do anywhere, everywhere, no matter what.

And it gives me that sense of, I feel home. When I’m on a basketball court, I feel very at home. So, I didn’t associate basketball with stability, but the more I think about it, actually, it’s true.

Matt Bowles: Yeah, because it grounds you in something that you love, and it makes you feel at home anywhere in the world.

I think that is an amazing place to end the main portion of this interview. And at this point, Simone, are you ready to move in to the lightning?

Simone Vincenzi: I am ready to rock and roll.

Matt Bowles: Let’s do it.

All right. What is one book that has impacted you over the years that you’d most recommend that people should read?

Simone Vincenzi: Essentialism by Greg McKeown is an incredible book about having less. And, uh, that was really eyeopening.

Matt Bowles: All right. Who is one person currently alive today that you’ve never met before? You’d most love to have dinner with just you and that person for an evening of dinner and conversation.

Simone Vincenzi: Allen Iverson, a historic basketball player, a small guy like me. Changed the culture of the basketball world on a global level.

It put on the map people that were my size that actually could play, but also is a very emotional person, is a very sensitive person and very intelligent at the same time. So, Allen Iverson.

Matt Bowles: All right, Simone, who’s your favorite basketball team?

Simone Vincenzi: Los Angeles Lakers. I know it’s a bit stereotypical, but I grew up with Kobe and Shaq. What can I say? I just fell in love with them. And since then, I’ve been a Laker.

Matt Bowles: And now you got LeBron, so pretty incredible lineage.

All right, Simone, knowing everything that you know now, if you could go back in time and give one piece of advice to your 18-year-old self, what would you say to 18-year-old Simone?

Simone Vincenzi: You’re doing the right thing. You’re making the right choice. At 18, I had a lot of fights with my family because they wanted me to study and go to university. And I wanted to work, and I wanted to work in catering. As I mentioned, I loved it. I was obsessed with it. And I tried university, but yeah, I was earning already a lot of money at 18.

I was making about maybe like $4000, a month on a good month at 18, which was more money than my parents. And I loved it. And I’ve been criticized a lot, but I made the right choice because that brought me to London. That brought me to sell my business. So, you’re doing the right thing.

Matt Bowles: All right, of all the places you’ve now traveled, what are three of your favorite destinations you’d most recommend other people should definitely check out?

Simone Vincenzi: Okay, I got to say two are in Italy, so I got to give you the Lake Garda and the Dolomites in Italy. So, in the north of Italy, the lake region and the mountains and the Alps and the Dolomites in particular are incredible. The second one in Italy is the Salento in Puglia, which we talked about earlier, the south part of Puglia.

And then the third one is here in the UK, which is the Scottish Highlands. It’s magical. Just came back from a trip there, and oh my God.

Matt Bowles: I have not been to any of those three, so you are going to be my consultant, my friend, as I start to plan those trips. Those are great recommendations.

All right, Simone, last question. What are your top three bucket list destinations, places you have not yet been, and the highest on your list you’d most love to see?

Simone Vincenzi: So one, Lovelda’s been there, but I’ve not been there yet, which is the Norwegian Fjords, which is like small rivers in Norway, which you can go in with a cruise, and I’ve seen some of the pictures and the landscapes, they are incredible, so I want to go there during the summer.

Then, Japan. I love animes, really love animes, and also, I’m fascinated about Japanese culture and understanding and seeing more about it.

And then the third one, and we got to blame Mujtaba, Argentina. He said that Argentina was his favorite place that he had ever visited, and he talked so much about Argentina that now I thought, okay, now he’s part of my bucket list.

Matt Bowles: I actually gave him a lot of tips for that. I’ve spent about six months in Argentina. I’ve been there a number of times. It was actually my very first destination. When I left LA in 2013, I went to Buenos Aires for three months and I’ve been back many times since it was a very, very special place. So yeah, when you’re ready to go there, hit me up.

Japan also, I’ve been to a few times. A magical place can definitely give you some tips on that one as well.

Simone, at this point, I want you to let folks know how they can find you, how they can follow you, how they can learn more about GTEx, and maybe talk a little bit about who your services are for and any ways you want people to come into your world.

Simone Vincenzi: For us, like anyone who has a business that they are selling services. And people need to know more information before they buy. So, there’s not an impulse purchase, but people need to understand who you are and know you need to understand how you work before making a purchasing decision. So, it’s a longer sales cycle.

These are the people that we work with because we are able to shorten the sales cycle and to increase the recurring revenues. So, these are the people that we work with. In terms of offers, you can see everything on our website. So, one point of content is gtex.org.uk. That’s where you can find our podcast, our free training, uh, free training on how to get 10 to 20 clients a month, which explains our methodology and how we work at the top of the page.

So, if you’re interested in seeing more, then you can look there or you can listen to this show. And um, I mean Matthew, I want to have you as a guest on my show. So, then you can definitely, everyone who’s listening, make sure you check the interview that we are going to do together.

Matt Bowles: I am looking forward to that, brother. We have to make sure we do it over wine as well when we turn the tables and jump on your show. But we are going to link everything up in the show notes, folks, so you can just go to one place. At themaverickshow.com, go to the show notes for this episode.  There you’re going to find the links to Simone’s website.

You’re going to find the links to his podcast anywhere. Anywhere you’re listening to this podcast, you can listen to his show and you’re going to find the links there and all the ways to contact him, follow him on social media and check out all the amazing stuff that he’s up to.

Simone, this was incredible, brother. Thank you for coming to the show.

Simone Vincenzi: Thank you for having me. A really interesting interview and talking about topics that I don’t normally talk about, which makes it even more special and more memorable. So, thank you.

Matt Bowles: Thank you for coming brother. And good night, everybody