From flat broke to London’s highest paid life coach

Michael Serwa is one of the most sought-after and highest paid life coaches in London. He coaches the elite using his signature no-bullshit approach. He has coached a huge variety of extraordinary individuals from presidential candidates, CEOs of multi-billion pound corporations, millionaire entrepreneurs, artists, bankers, traders, doctors, lawyers, designers – and everything in between.

He’s the author of a great book called ‘From Good To Amazing’  and will be taking part in, the world’s first full-length coaching documentary which is expected to be released in early 2017, called ‘The Coaching Movie’ (coachingmovie.com)

In this episode we talk about:

• How Michael’s dreams of becoming a Jazz trumpeter were shattered by one of the world’s greatest musicians.
• How he moved to London (from Poland) without a penny to his name and couldn’t even afford a plane ticket and has gone from flat broke working in a clothes shop, to becoming one of London’s highest paid life coaches in only 5 years, and now lives in a penthouse apartment in Mayfair
• Michael reveals the three most common traits he has seen in all the high achievers he has coached.
• He also tells us the questions we should ALL ask ourselves to find out what we really should be doing with our lives.

Read highlights of the interview here: LONDON’S HIGHEST PAID LIFE COACH: FLATBROKE TO MAYFAIR PENTHOUSE

• “I was born a fucking Rebel”
• “I have to follow my heart”
• “From the age of 17 I was making my own money”
• “I’ve always had this inner belief that I am destined for greatness”
• “I will work my arse off and work harder than everybody else… and I will become the best”
• “I live my life and if I want something, I’m gonna go and fucking get it”
• “Psychology was always a big interest of mine… I remember reading Sigmund Freud’s biography when I was seventeen”
• “What’s the point of making money if you’re not fucking happy with what you do on a daily basis”
• “You decide what your value is, not the client, not the customer”
• “Now when I sit in front of someone I can ask them for £20k per program”
• “Everything boils down to the happiness level”
• “I genuinely believe in people’s potential”
• “If you look for an excuse you will always find one… There are no shortage of stories you can tell yourself”
• “It’s never too late, whatever you want to do – come on live your life”
• “What would you do if you couldn’t fail and money wasn’t an issue? This is how you to find out what you should be doing”
• “Forget the 4 Hour Work Week, when you start you don’t fucking work for four hours. You can transition to that later”
• “I was working seven days a week for two and a half years. No holidays. No dates. No parties. No complaints.”
• “I wasn’t spending money on alcohol, I was putting money into my business. Why? Because I’m fucking serious about it”
• “You don’t need to be Einstein. I know I have more EQ than IQ”
• “The IQ, the education, the background, the skin colour, the gender, the height – are just the stories we keep telling ourselves to keep us away from what we can do”
• “Cut the bullshit, cut the story and spend every single waking hour of your life doing that very thing you would do if you knew you couldn’t fail – and I promise you the money will follow it”
• “At the beginning there is no money coming in. It’s the start up phase and it’s tough”
• “Nothing worth having comes easily”
• “It’s not fun making any amount of money unless you love what you do”
• “You need three things to be successful. Commitment, passion and hustle. It’s very hard to make it happen if one of these things is missing”
• “The only thing that scares me is to fall in love with the wrong person. In terms of career and in terms of the world in general – I’m fucking fearless”
• “Come to me with a fucking warrior attitude and I will help you smash it”
• “If you can’t make it in London you can’t make it anywhere”
• “Love everyone. Take shit from no-one”
• “I wake up and I work. What do I do before I go to sleep? I fucking work!”
• “We always figure the way out if we stick to something. There is always a solution to a problem.”
• “Education. It’s a waste of fucking  time for a lot of people. It shouldn’t be ingrained in our heads from a young age that we have to have a degree.”
• “I know SO many successful people without a degree”
• “Fuck the status quo”
• Do what your heart is telling you to do, not what society is telling you to do. Society is wrong about everything”
• The society reads the Daily Mail and The Sun. The Society gets fat in front of the TV. The society plays the lottery hoping that one day their life will change. So why would you listen to society, why would you listen to the mass – if the mass is not happy and successful
• “If you are lazy nothing will ever happen”
• “Work on your hustle muscle

Miles Davis  https://www.milesdavis.com/
Tomasz Stanko http://www.tomaszstanko.com/
Zara retail http://www.zara.com/uk/
Sigmund Freud biography https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmund_Freud
Jim Ron https://www.jimrohn.com/
Anthony Robbins https://www.tonyrobbins.com/
Zig Zglar https://www.ziglar.com/
Les Brown http://www.lesbrown.com/
Steve Hardison http://theultimatecoach.com/
Clate Mask (CEO and Co-Founder of Infusionsoft) www.infusionsoft.com
Chase Jarvis http://www.chasejarvis.com/
Creative Live https://www.creativelive.com/
Seth Godin http://www.sethgodin.com/sg/
Mark Cuban http://markcubancompanies.com/
Daniel Priestley http://www.danielpriestley.com/
Andrew Priestley http://andrewpriestley.com/
Gary Vaynerchuk http://www.garyvaynerchuk.com/

• 00:03:36   – Michael was always a leader from a young age, and found his rebellious streak at age of 13
• 00:03:54  – No one is indifferent about him, people like him or dislike him passionately
• 00:04:34   –  Quit school at 17, which is unheard of in Poland
• 00:06:32   –  Engaged in art, singing and music at school rather than grades
• 00:07:02   – Takes us back to the very moment he decided to quit school
• 00:09:06   – He and his and his parents always expected him to be a doctor or a lawyer
• 00:10:23  – From age of 17 he was making his own money in all sorts of different ways
• 00:11:25  – He came to England in 2005, and had to get the bus because he couldn’t afford the plane ticket!
• 00:13:04   – He always believed he was destined for greatness, and would find the platform or vehicle that would allow him to flourish. He was prepared to work his arse off to become the best.
• 00:13:24   – His early plan was to be the best jazz trumpet player in the world
• 00:14:00   – Couldn’t go and see Miles Davis to seek advice, so he instead went to see Tomasz Stanko, tracked him down and travelled across Poland to sit outside his house
• 00:16:45   – (It took him one and a half years to get a first date with someone he really liked!)
• 00:19:18   – Takes us back to the moment he met Tomasz Stanko, and he told him he would never become a world class trumpet player due to a physical problem with the shape of his lips
• 00:22:05   – He was devastated at first, but only 10 years later when he was 27 did he realise that that this all happened for a reason and was part of his path to finding coaching
• 00:24:13   –  When he first came to England (broke) he spent 5 years in fashion retail between 2005 and 2010
• 00:25:41   – Always been interested in psychology and personal development
• 00:26:21   –  Describes the powerful moment he decided to pursue life coaching
• 00:27:14   – The three most influential life coaches and personal development personalities for him are: 1. Jim Ron 2. Zig Ziglar 3. Les Brown
• 00:28:17   – But the best life coach in the world in Michael’s opinion is Steve Hardison, and Michael went to spend time with him in the States last year
• 00:29:33   – Talks about how well Infusionsoft treat their staff, they have 5 full time ‘Dream Managers’
• 00:31:49   – He needs to make £1million per year to be the highest paid life coach in UK, and he is well on track to doing this
• 00:32:15   – The money isn’t WHY he does it. He loves life coaching. He wouldn’t want to work in any other industry, even if he was offered 10x the amount of money   
• 00:33:12   – We discuss prices and how and why to pitch high
• 00:35:15   – At first he didn’t have the balls to ask for even the average amount he should be charging
• 00:36:00   – He started charging £20 per hour
• 00:36:30   – Stresses importance of not getting too greedy too early
• 00:36:45   – Now he can charge £20,000 per program   
• 00:36:58   – He currently charges £3k – £20k per program, and in one year he will charge between £5k – £50k
• 00:38:25   – Michael explains what life coaching is all about. He also talks about how his approach differs slightly to the normal people.
• 00:39:29   – He talks about the survey he gets every client of his to take in order to assess how ‘happy’ they are at his initial consultation
• 00:41:28   – Michael explains the difference between counselling (therapy), and Life Coaching. Counselling is about taking people from dysfunctional to function. Whereas Life Coaching takes people from functional to exceptional
• 00:44:50   – Talks about ‘positive brainwash’, and inspire people to work with him
• 00:45:53   – Michael uses his salesmanship to sell people on the idea that they are better than they think they are
• 00:46:22   – We talk about Seth Godin, and how he says that ‘People don’t understand how much power they have to make a change in the world’
• 00:51:05 –  The single most important question you can ask yourself to find out what you need – “What would you do if you couldn’t fail and money wasn’t an issue?”
• 00:51:59   – He was working seven days a week for two and a half years with no holidays, no dates, no parties.
• 00:53:00   – It’s not about intelligence level necessarily. Talks about the importance of EQ instead of IQ
• 00:53:43   – The money will come if you spend every hour working on your passion
• 00:53:56   – The power in becoming an authority in a NICHE, and creating a blog and a YouTube
• 00:54:29   – Talking about the sacrifice needed to get a business off the ground. Uses examples of his own clients who can barely afford train tickets, and Mark Cuban sleeping on sofas and eating pasta every day to get things off the ground
• 00:55:39   – Michael was £5,000 in debt on credit cards when he started his business. Couldn’t even afford to get a simple website built  
• 00:57:24   – The most common positive trait he see in successful people is commitment
• 00:57:54   – The three key elements in successful people are: commitment, passion and hustle
• 00:59:36   – Michael’s next goal is to make Life Coaching sexy and cool, and to become the face of the industry  
• 01:00:00   – Life Coaching originates from sport coaching
• 01:02:20   – the only thing that really scares Michael is related to love
• 01:03:01   – The key to his fearless attitude is the time he spent on his own personal development
• 01:04:31   – Michael admits he’s not always happy
• 01:04:51   – Fitness, sex and alcohol to help him get out of a negative slump
• 01:06:42   – Michael gives an example of a terrible idea he had for a directory for Life Coaches and how his business coach Daniel Priestley advised him against it
• 01:09:28   – Coming to London is the single most important decision he has made that has contributed to his success
• 01:11:14   – His approach to everything is – determination, not taking no for an answer, not giving up easy, having a vision for something, seeing it like it already happens and pursuing it no matter what. Nonetheless, we all need to know WHEN to quit and to identify the difference between quitting and strategically giving up.
• 01:12:47   – We discuss what success looks like for Michael
• 01:13:49   – Michaels morning routine. He gets up at 10am. (Doesn’t align himself with the 4am club)
• 01:14:55   – Breakfast is porridge, almond milk, healthy seeds, honey and berries. No meditation. No gratitude lists.
• 01:15:55   – Productivity hacks: leaving voice messages instead of typing and sending emails and texts.

If you could go back to any point in your life, and have 1 hour with your past self; what moment would it be and what would you tell yourself?
01:17:42 – I would go back to when I first came to London, before I started my business and tell the part of me that was scared – you’re going to be just fine. We always figure the way out if we stick to something. There is always a solution to a problem.

What’s the best piece of advice you ever received, who gave it to you, and how has it positively affected your career?
01:18:32  – A few years ago I was still charging per hour, and my business coach’s father (Andrew Priestley) told me to start charging per program, per result. I started charging up front. This was a great piece of advice I received at a very crucial moment of my career and it made me go from doing OK, to doing very well.

Who is the most disruptive, rebellious or revolutionary entrepreneur or creator of the last 2 years?
01:19:21 – Gary Vaynerchuk

What is the one generally agreed upon rule or conventional piece of wisdom, that you disagree with?
01:20:06 – Education. It’s a waste of fucking  time for a lot of people. It shouldn’t be ingrained in our heads from a young age that we have to have a degree.

What’s your definition of entrepreneurship?
01:21:38 – Doing something you love and getting paid for it.

What advice would you give to anyone listening to this who wants to become successful?
01:21:43 – Find something that you’re passionate about. Stop being lazy. Work on your hustle muscle.

Who do you nominate to be a guest on the Rebelhead Entrepreneurs podcast and can you sum them up in one word?
01:22:50 – Daniel Priestley. Genius.