The way of the Intelligent Rebel with Olivier Roland
Graham Allcott 0:06
My guest today is Olivier Roland. Olivier is a French blogger and entrepreneur and the author of the way of the intelligent rebel. The book has been a runaway hit in France. And now the new English language translation brings his ideas to a wider audience. So in this episode, we get geeky around learning how to develop your willpower, productivity and designing a lifestyle to get you beyond busy and change your relationship with the news.
This is Olivier Roland. Did I say that right? Yeah, absolutely. Cool. So welcome to be on Beyond Busy. And we're going to talk about your book The Way of the intelligent rebel. So where are you? Where are you? Where are you in the world right now? Let's start with where you're at.
Olivier Roland 1:33
So right now I'm in Paris, and I will take my flight back to Dubai, where I live tomorrow.
Graham Allcott 1:39
Okay, and I read somewhere that you you travel about six months of the year, is that right?
Olivier Roland 1:45
Yes. I have been doing that for like 11 years now. A little bit less than 2020? Obviously. Yeah,
Graham Allcott 1:51
yeah. And do you go back to the same places? Are you always somewhere new? Like, what's your approach to, to moving around.
Olivier Roland 1:59
So when I started to travel really a lot, I really wanted to explore as many places as possible. But after a while, I really started to fell in love with some places. And now I see myself coming back to these places. And more and more or two countries too. I always say if you say hey, I've been to look sambal you can say I've been to ExxonMobil if you say I've been to Brazil, or the US doesn't mean anything, because it's so big. You can go like 20 times to these countries and always see something different, right?
Graham Allcott 2:32
That's true. That's true. And where do you where do you find yourself falling in love with like, which are the places that your soul is happy
Olivier Roland 2:40
are quite a few places. I really love the Philippines and the island of Palawan. And on this island, there is a city called El Nido on the north. That is amazing. You know, it's like, you know, white sand beach and coconut trees and crystal clear water, these kind of things. You know, I really love also Jericoacoara in, in Brazil, it's one of the best posts to do best spots in the world to do kitesurf. And an amazing like, small village in the middle of natural reserve. It's really amazing. Quite a few places, actually. But also I love Portugal. I really love Lisbon. It's my favourite scene in Europe. Yeah, I mean, I could I could go to for a long time. I wouldn't say it's up to you know?
Graham Allcott 3:30
Well, it sounds like we're going to be firing up the jealousy receptors in everybody's brains as you talk about the coconut trees. And there's a lot of people, including myself, actually, I've not been on a plane since the pandemic started partly out of choice, because just the idea of having to navigate all the restrictions and bureaucracy Wherever like I just yeah, I've just sort of taking the decision that it's just easier to keep it simple until everything blows over. But I think there's a lot of people kind of really pining to move around and have that freedom, which I guess leads us nicely on to the way of the intelligent rebel. Because a lot of what you're talking about in that book, essentially, you know, it boils down to freedom. So shall we start with the backstory of it? So like, how can you ended up with this lifestyle where you're moving around and you're running your own thing? And like, how did all of that come about for you?
Olivier Roland 4:30
Sure, I will try to make you a short story. I dropped school at 18 to start my first company. It was an IT company. And it was a great, great adventure. But, you know, I had like the typical lifestyle of busy entrepreneur, meaning I was working 6070 hours a week, which was great at the beginning. You know at the beginning doesn't matter. You're just so excited about creating and growing your company that It's actually great. But after a few years, I wanted to have a bit more balance in my life. And I realised with a shock that this company I created to be, to have more freedom in my life was actually a jail I created for myself, because I couldn't see how to sell it, I couldn't see how to spend less time in the company, I couldn't see how to, you know, I couldn't stop it, because it was my only source of income. And I felt trapped in my own business. And it was not a good feeling to have, you know, and I look for solution for years. And I read a book in 2008, The Four Hour Workweek by Tim Ferriss, I'm sure you know about it, you know, and this book gave me like the goal, you know, because it's a book about, you know, how to create an internet business, that gives you a lot of freedom. And I decided to try these I started with blogs. And the sub blog I created actually was a successful blog, and I became a pro blogger, because of this blog. And gradually, I started to sell the assets of my first company, and I started to travel all around the world. And now, yeah, I have only an internet business. They are like, we are close to such people in the team. But we don't have any office. We don't have office hours, people work from from wherever they want, you know, all over the world. And I travel six months a year, which is awesome.
Graham Allcott 6:38
And that whole journey. So for anyone who's listening to this on podcast form, rather than watching this on YouTube, I mean, you're still quite a young guy, right? Like, so. How old are you now?
Olivier Roland 6:48
Can you guess?
Graham Allcott 6:52
I mean, I'd say you're still in your 20s. Oh,
Olivier Roland 6:55
I think? Actually, I just celebrated my 41 birthday. Yes, yes. I know, I look younger. Usually people say I'm like, switch fives, you know, but
Graham Allcott 7:07
I was gonna say you're like 2028 29. Wow.
Olivier Roland 7:10
Thank you. Thanks. Maybe it's the web go through? I don't know. But yeah, I really also I focus a lot of on my health, you know, and I tried to live the longest possible with the best health possible. So maybe. But yeah, so I started like, my entrepreneurship journey. 2023 years ago, we're 21 and a half. Yeah,
Graham Allcott 7:33
yeah. Wow, that's cool. Well, we'll come back to the health thing later. Because it's a subject close to my heart, I don't look anywhere near as young as you and I'm 43. So we'll come back to that later. So the book had a very different title in French, which is just really satisfying. So I have to get you to repeat the French title. And then we'll talk about what is an intelligent rebel. So in France, the title was
Olivier Roland 8:04
is to learn mode. Now power relations do have this is it really?
Graham Allcott 8:09
I mean, it just sounds like poetry to me. It's so nice. Yeah.
Olivier Roland 8:13
If you translate word for word, it's like, not everyone had the chance to fail at studies, you know, something like this. So in French, it's an amazing title. It's very hard for someone to see this title and not take the book to see what is it is about. But a lot of American and British friends, you know, said, well, in English, it's very bad. So we had to come up with with another title for English version.
Graham Allcott 8:42
And I just, I really liked the idea of the intelligent rebel. Partly because it sort of appeals to my own sense of contrarian rebellion, I guess. But do you want to just talk us through what is an intelligent rebel?
Olivier Roland 8:59
Sure. So it can be someone who has a lot of success, you know, like a great career and a good company. You know, a good job, a good family, a good spouse, a good house, a good car, everything, but this person feels that something is missing from the inside, you know, this person feels that if he continues like that, something is gonna be off in his life or her life. And usually, what the little voice is saying is to experiment, more creation in their life. And equals can also be someone who is in the school system and doesn't feel like really well integrated into it. You can feel like a misfit like someone that is not good. Because the court system is not designed for for this kind of person. We can get back to that after but basically, usually the intelligent trouble He wants to create something new, it cannot be satisfied only by following the path that society gives him, you know. So it can be artistic creation, you know, like writing a book or I don't know, like a script for for a theatre piece, it can be a question of an adventure, like doing a walkthrough for one year, for example, or it could be the question of his company. And in my book, I mean, my message is, first to tell the intelligent robots, maybe you are an intelligent trouble. So if you are good news, there is nothing wrong with you understand that the school system and the work system was not designed with your type of people in mind. Because when you look at the the story of the school system, in the Western world, it was more or less depending of the countries but more or less created at the end of the 19th century, with one goal in mind, it was to have productive people in industrial society, meaning good factory workers, good employees, good soldiers, you know, so people with the knowledge to operate in a society with machines, and you know, like very structured society, but also who was able to follow orders, and not to creative not to reveal us, because back in the days, these kinds of people could actually really create revolutions. In France, for example, in 1870, which was just a few years before school was made mandatory for for everyone. There was a revolution in Paris called like, communal, and it was a communist revolution that took Paris for like, a few months. And it was a very bloody, bloody thing. So at the time, governments and the system was very, very, like, cautious about people who were going a bit too much outside of a bath. So but today, so people who are creative, who are adventurous, who are rebels, can feel really bad in the system. And usually they will think something is wrong with them. And I'm just saying, hey, nothing is wrong with you. And it's actually a strength, if you know how to play your cards, right?
Graham Allcott 12:17
Yeah, and so you talk a lot in the book about the idea of lifelong learning and ways that we can think about educating ourselves. Almost like, despite the school system, we're in a very different way to the school system. So do you think there's, I mean, like some people obviously do very well at school. So do you think it's about personality type? Like, what what is it that distinguishes the people who really seem to gain a lot from being in that system and go through work as really good employees, versus the ones who struggle or feel constrained or trapped and that kind of thing? Yeah, so
Olivier Roland 12:59
I mean, so complex situation, you can be good at screw for a lot of reasons and bad also, for a lot of reasons. I mean, I do criticisms of this education system, but I'm not saying that it's completely bad, you know, and obviously, there are good things to take from it, I'm just saying that it's like a human system, and like, every human system is imperfect. And you need to be aware of the imperfections, because these schools, this education system is so big and slow, that any, you know, any evolution is going to be is going to take decades. So you cannot wait for the system to reform itself, you need to be aware of the problems and to, you know, overcome them by yourself. And one of the problems I liked in the book is that a lot of people, they leave the zero education system, and they don't have these habits of educating themselves regularly for the life and it's one of the biggest failure of the of the system, because I mean, in the 21st century, if you don't educate yourself all the time, you're gonna be left out at some point, because society is evolving so fast, that we there is no guarantee your job will exist in 30 years, you know, so you need to be aware of these you need to stay dry, you need to, you know, to become a better person every day, or at least try to do. So, people can be good at school, if they if they have like the avatar this system was designed for but also as I said, an intelligent robot can be a successful you know, it is just feels like something is missing. And you know, and you see plenty of people who were doing great in school, and some of them it was because they wanted to make their parents happy. Some of them it's because they really believe in the system, but in the end, they still feel something is missing. And some people can feel a bit cheated, actually. They they're like yeah, I followed everything the system.
Graham Allcott 14:58
I did what I was asked to do. Yeah, Yeah, and I have this great
Olivier Roland 15:01
diploma these great jobs is great everything but sorry, I'm not happy something is missing, you know? And so that's one of the mysteries of the book, like, maybe explore creation, what do you want to create in the world that will make you happy, and maybe we'll make you money and make make baby will give you some freedom to explore.
Graham Allcott 15:23
And there's just something inspiring about the way you talk about, you know, learning, learning on your own terms. And one of the things that I've always struggled with in my life is learning languages. I was never good at school. I've always in the years, since just whenever I visit anywhere, I just feel guilty that I don't really speak the language, I have a very basic, French and a very basic German from school. And that's, that's it. But your book kind of really inspired me to rethink that and look at learning languages. So do you want to talk about learning languages, and it feels like it's a really good example, or a really good sort of metaphor for just the general principle of continuous learning?
Olivier Roland 16:10
Sure. I mean, obviously, all the native English speakers are at a disadvantage here, because English is the lingua lingua franca of the world, right? So it's easy to be lazy, when you have a native English speaker, or the system is rigged. So you if you are lazy, it's fine. It's still fine, you can still travel and people will understand you. Even though I will say I would say as sometimes it's easier to be understood when you're not a native English speaker. Because when you speak a perfect British or American English for the people who speak a broken English, sometimes it's harder to get, you know, but yeah, so one of the, I think, language learning is not only about the ability to communicate, when you travel, which is very important, and also to educate yourself. It's also another way of thinking about the world. Language is an interface between your thoughts and reality. And, I mean, I'm a native French speaker, I speak good English, even though I still have a strong French accent. And when sometimes I think in English, and when I think in English, I don't think the same way. As in French, you know, some things are different. And sometimes, you know, when I speak in French, the the words that come to me sometimes is they are in English first. Because sometimes, you know, there is nuance, these little things that is a little bit more connect well connected to reality in English and in French. And vice versa. Of course, if sometimes the word in French are also better. So for example, the word accountability in English, it's not so easy to translate in French, you need a whole sentence to convey the meaning. So that's one of the things you know, in French, there are other words that are hard to translate in English. I don't have anyone in mind any in mind right now. But yeah. So it's an it's another way of thinking it also open your mind. And I mean, when you learn a new language to the point, when where you are able to read in the other language, you realise that a lot of content of books are not translated, you know, and you open yourself to whole new world of culture, education and things to learn. So, I mean, I think everyone should try to learn at least one foreign language. Obviously, the biggest factor, I think, is motivation. And you mentioned you learn some French and German at school. I mean, it's very common story of people learning a language at school and forgetting everything, because first, maybe they don't have the motivation, they don't see why they need to learn these in the first place. And then they don't practice. So my advice would be choose the language that you have the most chance to use really in your life. Maybe because you like the country, or the culture, or you have these, I don't know, this ability to travel there quite often. So beside French and English, I'm also learning a Portuguese, because I love as I mentioned, I love Portugal, I love Brazil. And I mean, it's also easy, because it's close to the French language, you know, and I really love it. And there are a lot of studies that show that people who learn who can speak in neutral language, they are, you know, more open minded, a little bit more flexible in their way of thinking. And also it can be your protection against some disease like Alzheimer's, you know, so yeah, I think it's a great way. And there are some tools today that make it a bit more fun that what was, you know, the method of learning in school 20 years ago, I advise about some of these tools in my work.
Graham Allcott 19:50
Yeah, so let's just talk about real quickly there. So if someone was feeling motivated, like IMF to read in the book, where do they start as what are the tools that you'd recommend? places to start?
Olivier Roland 20:01
Well, first, you need to have a basic vocabulary, right? So for these, I recommend to use a software that follows what is called the spaced repetition system. It's like a proven, scientifically proven method that is very effective for you to learn for the long term. And there is an app for this called Moza. lingua was the lingua maybe I can show it on my on my, on my on my phone. So this is this app, you know, and it works with flashcards, you know. So here I see the word in French. And it's like blue, so I need to remember to recall, okay, what is the word in Portuguese? So it's a US, US, okay, I made a mistake, or Sukkot. So I click I put okay. See, again, you know, so you have four, four different difficulties, you have a see again, difficult, yeah, I remember it well, and I remember it perfectly. Okay. Don't don't really expect it goes to it's dangerous. Barely goes up. So here, I remember it perfectly. So what happens with these, you will have immediately like a selection of the cards, all the cards that remember perfectly, maybe we'll see them in one month, all the cards that you remember where you will see them in one week. And also cards that you don't remember. So well, you will see them tomorrow or today. So very fast. You see more often the words that you have trouble to remember, which is very effective, you know, because then you you see them often so you can remember more efficiently. And then software try does like
Graham Allcott 21:38
a game, right? Like, it's most interesting about that, to me is that it doesn't have that same kind of air of sort of dryness or boringness, that language is at school hat. It's like, oh, cool, I've got a nice app and playing a game, like it's a fun thing to do rather than a chore.
Olivier Roland 21:57
It is I mean, you can use these apps throughout your day very easily, you know, when you are waiting in line, when you are waiting at the restaurant for like a coffee, when when you like the toilet, you know, you can use it like a few minutes, it's way better than scrolling on Facebook, you know, randomly you you just can learn a language like these with a few minutes per day, I learned 5000 cuts of Portuguese with these. And jet This is enough for me to have a good conversation is in Portuguese. So with these kinds of apps, you can learn the vocabulary, you will not speak with a perfect grammar, but it's it will be enough for you to be understood. Then you I advise you meet a lot of as many people as you can who speak these languages easy, especially in big cities to go to meetup of speakers of a language. You watch movies in this language with first with subtitles in you to English if English is your mother tongue, and then in the in the language of the language you want to learn. And then you travel, you know, and you try to practice as much as possible. And it's a great game. It's great, it's fun, it's a great way to entertain yourself and you are waiting, so there is no reason to not try to do it.
Graham Allcott 23:09
Yeah, and I love that thing, that it's like an interface between your thoughts and the world and just how it helps you to see. Just see yourself in different ways as well. Let's, uh, one thing I want to talk about from the education bit as well as media diets, I think this is something that's on people's minds a lot. So you talk about just being very conscious of how you consume media. Do you want to just talk about your own media diet? Sure.
Olivier Roland 23:37
So I mean, I compare people, like most people, they just consume media without really thinking, is it necessary? Is it helpful? Is it a good thing in my life? Let's just do it. Because, I mean, it's a habit, everyone is doing it. And there is also his assumption that to be a good citizen, you need to follow the news, you know? And well, that's one of the things that challenge in my book, I ask people, Hey, are you really sure it's a good thing for you to follow the news? When you think about it? Most of the news are about events that take place maybe 1000s of kilometres from your place. I mean, okay, you know about them, but what actions can you do that will make a difference? Can you make a difference at all? If not, why is it necessary for you to learn about this? So obviously, right now, we are in a very special moment, you know, with a war in Ukraine. So I will say it's a kind of an exception, because it's I think it's a bit normal to be worried about that. But most of the time, when you really take a hard look at what is the advantage of following news, you will see that most of the news, you forget them after two weeks, you didn't do anything about them, and it just waste of time and waste of mental bondage and I compare these A mindless consumption of news as going to the McDonald's every day. And having, you know, bad bad burgers as your normal diet, it's fine to take to to eat a burger from time to time, but you need to be careful about what you eat most of the time, because, you know, the output is determined by the input, right. So if you eat really bad food all the time, you're gonna be fat and not have energy, and maybe you will be in a bad mood. And it's the same with content, if you put bad content in your mind all the time, what what, what the output will be, you know, and there is a bias in the human mind, that makes us really more aware of the negative news and the positive news. That's why the newspaper and the news industries is always focusing on bad stuff, because that's what gets our attention. And of course, it can be explained, because back in the days, when we were in the jungle, it was very important for us to be aware of the tiger, you know, that was about to eat us, but nowadays is not so important. So I give a challenge, very simple challenge in my book for people who want to try it out. Because I mean, when I speak about this, more often than not, I meet, I met with a lot of skepticisms. So I tell people, hey, this sceptic is fine. But please be a good sceptic. Try it to see if really, it's important for you or not, you know, so for seven days, don't follow the news at all. And use this time to do something more useful for your brand. So learn the language, read the book, et cetera, et cetera. And see, after seven days first, did you die? So go D? Do you feel any difference in your life? And so did you learn something useful that you're gonna remember, in a few years compared to us, you will be, you will forget in a few weeks. And I mean, usually people will do the experiments, they see that it's working very well, then I advise to extend the experiment to 30 days and see what happens. And then if it works well for you do it for the rest of your life. And one of the funny things is when you do that you transform all the other people who are not doing a media diet in assistant that because all the very important news people will tell you about automatically. So it's amazing to see the words the need transforming into like an assistant to filter the news for you.
Graham Allcott 27:34
And what about like other? So I have a similar approach around news myself, but like, what? What about the other bits of information that sort of infect our brain? So social media and other stuff on your phone? Like, what's your what's your approach around that stuff?
Olivier Roland 27:52
Well, yeah, it's harder and harder to become insulated. From that, you know, I will say, be careful about what you follow. On social media, you can create, like, for example, on Instagram, I follow really inspiring people, you know, like amazing entrepreneurs, artists, and this kind of stuff, I try to have a bubble of positivity and inspiration. It doesn't mean that I'm like an ostrich and putting my head in the sand just means I want to focus on my circle of influence. You know, there is this concept in the book, The Seven Habits of influential people. No, I don't remember. Different people very, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, it's an amazing concept is like you have two circles, you have the circles of influence, where you can really have an influence on things and the circle of breaker patients where you are, you have a patient about something, but you cannot do anything about it. Either. You want to focus your attention on your, your circle of influence. So if you are saying, Hey, I'm following the news on the social medias, because I want to be a better citizen. Well, great. What about like improving the world locally where you are, and maybe try to focus on the local news to see if you can make a difference, you know, these kind of things. So they just can be tricky. I would say try also maybe to have different profiles. Because for example, for me, I need I use social media for my for my business too. But maybe create another profile for for your personal use too.
Graham Allcott 29:26
Yeah, I have a real sort of on off relationship with stuff like Instagram. So at the moment, my assistant Emilie is the one who posts stuff on my Instagram and I just I just don't want it on my phone. I just find that like once I'm on there, it becomes this kind of mindless scrolling very quickly. So I kind of have it on there for three days. Get some get some enjoyment out of it. And then and then delete it when I need to do some work. And I use freedom, a quite a lot of the app freedom to just kind of block out a lot of that stuff as well. Which feels like quite good segue into the subject of willpower. which you cover in the book. So willpower and habits. So it turns out that willpower is something that you can treat as a muscle, and you can learn and train your brain to have more willpower.
Olivier Roland 30:16
Yes, so it's like a scientific studies that came out in like the year 2000s. So, so it's an evolving field, you know, there was some studies that were that criticise these, like a few months ago. So it's evolving all the time. But basically, the idea is, you can train your willpower. And then you can use exercise, like you go to the gym to exercise your body, you can exercise your willpower to one of the exercise, and I think it's very fun exercise to do, you know, it's very interesting, and everyone can do it, you buy, like, you know, a suite that you really like, can be chocolate or anything, you know, like a sweet that, usually when you see it, you really want to eat it right now. So you buy one or a few ones, you know, and you put it in a very prominent place in your home, or it can be at your office too, it can be close to your computer, like somewhere where you will see it, you know, and the goal is to not eat it for quite a long time. So you can start with two days, if it's very hard for you, you can start with one week, you can start with two weeks depends of what you think will be the challenge for you
Graham Allcott 31:28
can I start with two hours,
Olivier Roland 31:29
you can if you want, I mean, it's baby steps. If you can't do more than two hours, start with two hours, you know, and then try to improve all the time. So after after the time, you can eat it if you want, or you can give it it's up to you, you don't have to stop, maybe eat it, it's like the gift because you did the challenge. And then try to to improve these, and it's gonna be good training for you, too, you know, you will still feel the not the need the world to eat it. But you will respect this feeling less, you will be like, Okay, I feel I want to eat that so that I don't have to act on it. You know, just the feeling, I don't care. And I think it's really, really good training that is, is gonna give you a lot of benefits in your life. I also, I think it's also transferred to fear. Because fear is also signal. And a lot of people are paralysed by fear. And you can learn to respect less the signal of fear. And to be like, Okay, I'm afraid, so that I can be afraid and still do it anyway. You know, and then it opens a whole new world of possibilities.
Graham Allcott 32:45
That's really interesting. And you talk in the book about habits as well, and how you can review your habits and then plan to create better ones you want to just talk about. I'd love to just hear like some examples from you know, from your own life like what, what do you what have you done that's really worked well for you in terms of reviewing habits and then replacing them with better ones?
Olivier Roland 33:06
Sure. So I mean, it's an ongoing battle, you know, it's not because you manage to replace a bad habit by a good one that you are you it's a win forever for the rest of your life, you need to always be aware of your trends, you know. And so, yeah, one of the things I mean, before these media died, I was consuming a lot of news like everyone and it was so amazing for me to replace these by the fact of reading books and learning a language. I mean, the Portuguese, now I can speak very good, good poetry is not very good, good Portuguese. And it just took some time that I will have taken to consume the news. So it's such a great way in when you think about it, and there's so many things like these you know, so I advise people to make a list of the bad habits they had in their life. I mean by bad it can be you know, it depends on what you what are your goals, you know, but for example, I don't know in the UK, but in France people watch TV, like four hours a day on average, it's crazy when when they say TV can be also like me on Netflix and it's kind of stuff which is which is so high when you think about it I'm sure in the UK is close to these you know, I don't know, but maybe if you watch TV for three hours or four hours a day, try to lower it by 30 minutes. And instead of doing these read for 30 minutes, you know, it doesn't have to be a one zero you can just you know adjust a little bit the threshold. You can also I mean, if you smoke, maybe try to lower the amount of cigarettes for smoke every day I usually you you stop to smoke. If you if when you come back from from home work from home from the work and you just crash on your bed. Maybe try to you give yourself like 10 minutes of being a potential coach, and then go to do some sport for five minutes, you know, I give in my book, The Seven minutes workout, or share it, which is a great way to do sport without taking much time is really take seven minutes a day. So try to do this at least once a week, when you start, then twice a week, and you know very fast, you can just replace a bit of bad habits by good habits and he's gonna make, he's gonna make a hell of a difference in your life. You know, it's also the concept of his book, what is the name, you know, that like small changes, after a while, it creates a world of difference, if you replace just one part of pizza you eat every week, by your salad. After a few years, it can make a big difference in your health, how you look your energy, etc, etc.
Graham Allcott 35:49
And there's something really appealing about that, too, isn't there because if you, let's say someone is watching three or four hours of TV every evening, it's like, the chances are I mean, some of that is people watch TV, because it's the easiest thing. But often it's like, that's the highlight of somebody's day, isn't it, it's like watching the Netflix series or whatever. So going from four hours to zero hours, just feels, you know, it feels almost like cruel, it feels too much of a big change. And so I think the idea of just the small changes, there's that book where it talks about the remember the title of the book, but it's like, the idea is like 1% incremental change, if you just everyday just get better by 1%, then, you know, over the course of a year, that's an x exponential change. But at the time, it always feels small. So I really like that approach, you know, just take half an hour of that TV time and turn it into a book or, you know, five minutes of exercise, like making these things really easy for yourself in the beginning, and then you've got something to build on. It's just like, it's such a good approach, isn't it to that kind of stuff?
Olivier Roland 36:53
Yeah, and, you know, make it an experiment, make it fun, you know, and you can make your whole life and experiment. I think it's very exciting to do it, you know, I'm always looking for new experiments to do in my life, for example, for example. So it's been like three years and half, I'm doing the intermittent fasting, so I skipped breakfast. And but like, last year, I was like, Hey, is being curious, in half, I'm doing these, what about I do Saturday challenge, where I will eat a breakfast every morning to see if it is there is a difference, you know, so sometimes you can do a reverse test also to see if it's good for you to continue your habit. And this year, I'm doing a challenge of doing two days in half fast every quarter. And to do a four or five days fast in the year. So it's actually a
Graham Allcott 37:43
half days with no like continuously with no food.
Olivier Roland 37:47
No food. Yeah. Water, I can drink water. I'm not supposed to drink coffee. But usually I drink coffee is Michael little, you know, cheat, but coffee without sugar at all. And yeah, you know, fasting is a great example a lot of people think it's super hard to do. And lots of people have misconceptions about it, you know, they think like, if they don't eat for two days, they're gonna, you know, be sleep all day long. But it's not like these, you know, it's very easy for everyone to try too fast for 24 hours. Super easy. I think anyone can try it. And obviously not some people with some disease, you know, so maybe check with your doctor first. But yeah, that's something that's an example of like, something that most people are afraid to do, or they don't think they can do it. And when they try the season, it's just such a big deal.
Graham Allcott 38:35
Yeah, and the easy version of fasting is to go back to so the word breakfast is, you know, the idea is breaking fast, right. And so the original idea was that you would have like a 12 hour fast before you eat breakfast. So basically, if you have breakfast breakfast at 7am, the last thing you eat should be 7pm. And then you have that 12 hours. And so that's one of the things that so I read this book with Colette Hennigan who's a nutritionist here how to have the energy and one of the things about energy was you know, if you have that 12 hour fast every 24 it just allows for that like recovery in your digestive systems and stuff. So there's the there's the kind of easier way that everybody can do it. If doing it for 24 hours kind of feels like it's a bit too much. Shall we just move on, I want to talk about the idea of happiness. So I like I'm really interested in the kind of interface between sort of productivity and happiness and work life balance. And we talk a lot about that on the podcast. And one of your things around happiness is to be in control of your own destiny and coming back to that freedom thing again. But do you think everybody do you think to be happy you have to have your own business?
Olivier Roland 39:56
I mean, it depends for me. I think I will be It would be hard for me to be these happy without a business, you know, but of course, it's not the case for everyone. So no, you don't need to have a business to be happy. But it depends some for I think, for some kind of people, you will be always less happy than you could be if you don't work for yourself, you know, if you don't create something that you are proud of. So, yeah, it's not mandatory, but I think in a lot of cases, it can really increase it. But okay, also, don't get me wrong. Most people when they quit their company, and they grow it, they're doing it the wrong way, they become the slave of the business. And it can be a great way to be unhappy. I mean, I lived it, you know, so I can speak from experience. So, yeah, a lot of entrepreneurs say the they are, at the end, they are just burnt out. And they want to exit stuff as fast as possible. So you need to be careful, obviously, it's not like a magic trick, right. But if you do it the right way, I think it's possible to have a business that is in service of your life, if you can have these, you have so much more freedom than the average person that you don't know you have more time and opportunities to explore what you love to know yourself better. And to find something that fulfils you from the inside now, I'm sure you've heard of the Japanese concept of IKI. Guy, right?
Graham Allcott 41:26
Do you know with the guy were you talking about in the book, right?
Olivier Roland 41:29
Yeah, yeah, very fast. I mean, it's like interesting Japanese concept. It's like at the cross path of four things. So you find your ETA you can you can translate by, I don't know, infectious race vessel that uses that English to write reason that like, yeah, reason to leave basically to be you reasonably stuck to that one. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Yeah. So, you find it, if you have four things, if you do something that you're passionate about, that makes you money that you are skillful about, and that is your mission in life. Mission is life is what Gandhi said, you know, be the change you want to see in the world. If you have a business, or it can be a carrier, or whatever, you know, that these four things you find your ikigai your vision to be. And it's not easy to find middle
Graham Allcott 42:20
of the Venn diagram, like you have to Yeah, it's like, exactly, this is the way it's often expressed, isn't it?
Olivier Roland 42:26
Absolutely. I think if you find your ego, it's so much easier to be happy. Right? Because I mean, everything is aligned. I think actually, there is something something missing in this concept is time. Because you can be passionate about I don't know, like surfing, if you do it 10 hours a week. But if you do such hours a week, you just hate the thing, you know. So there is also this concept of balance. And also time, on the long, you know, term like, maybe after 10 years, you want to do something else, you know, so you also want to have these in mind. But yeah, I think the iki guy is a great like, Northern Star to have like, like his goal to try to reach my first business was not an icky guy, I was passionate about computers, I was good with them. I was making money with them. But it was not my mission in life. I was not feeling like super connected to the idea, okay, let's make the world a better place by making the computer of people better. You know, it was not, I was not so excited about this. Now I have many key guy because I'm helping people to create and grow their business and be more free and everything is aligned. And it took me 10 years to find it. So it's fine. If your first business idea or your first adventure, or creation is not your ego, you know, but to have these in mind is, I think a great, great way to try to improve your happiness in the long term.
Graham Allcott 43:53
Yeah. And it's interesting, isn't it? Because often people are. Often people ask themselves that question, you know, am I living to work or working to live? And it sounds like, you might answer both. With that question, would that be right?
Olivier Roland 44:12
Yeah. Yeah, I mean, you know, there is a very famous Confucius quote, that says, hey, if you find a work you love, you will never work for the rest of your life. And you can hear that a lot. I mean, a lot of people are talking about it. But when you look around you, and you ask yourself, Okay, how many people I know are really passionate about what they are doing. You see, most of them are not so passionate about about their job, unfortunately. And when you look at the stats, you know, there was a bigger poll robot with a 200,000 people all over the world. And I don't remember the numbers, but it's at the at the beginning of my book, it's like, maybe 15% of people are passionate about the job on average, which is very bad when you think about it, and maybe it's 15 also be But who hate their job? Which is also bad? I mean, and there is a middle who Yeah, I don't hate it. I don't love it, it's fine. You know, it's good. Okay, why not? You know, which I don't think it's a good place to be. I mean, it's comfortable. And I speak about concrete sleepers in my book. I don't know if you remember it. But other people have these concrete slippers, they are comfortable. But it's also paralysing, and they feel something is off, you know, because they are like stuck in this comfortable life. And they are a bit afraid, or very afraid to, to disrupt it.
Graham Allcott 45:33
Yeah, the concrete slippers things interesting. And I suppose this is like, it's a seat, because you talk about the four hour workweek and the effect that that has had on you. I read that a similar time, you know, when that first came out, and I think I'd already read the the E Myth, Michael Jervis book, which is just a very influential book around setting up a business and essentially his, you know, his main sort of messaging that I took from that book anyways is about, like how you define the roles in your business so that you can delegate stuff out, and then that allows you to grow and scale. And you have that mindset of a sort of, sort of franchisee as you're doing it. But like, it sort of strikes me that the with the concrete slippers. And with all of that, it's easier, it's easier to do that. The younger you are and like the less sort of, like, the more ability, you have to have energy to put loads of hours in the less, I think you can say at one point in the book, like, you know, the less dependencies you have, like, if you've got kids and a mortgage, and you know, partner, and so on. Like, it's just harder to do that kind of stuff. So what do you say to those people? You know, I was kind of lucky myself to be able to do a lot of what you're talking about in the book, at a younger age, but if I was starting now I just, it would just feel, you know, irresponsible to be taking those kind of risks. So like, what do you think about someone who's listening to this? who maybe is slightly later in life? How do they start?
Olivier Roland 47:06
Yeah, it's a great question. I mean, I think it's true, in most cases, that the longer you wait, the harder it is, we but it doesn't mean it's impossible. And it doesn't mean you can't do it. I mean, I started very young at 18. So yes, I didn't have a lot of things to lose, you know, but also, I didn't have any money. I didn't have any experience. I was very naive, you know, I was a teenager. And I didn't have any network. I didn't know anyone. So in a way, it was harder to start at 18 than at 40. So you, yes, I had less to lose. But also, I didn't know anything about life, you know. And if like a teenager, I didn't know how to dress. Well, I had this geek with big glasses, you know, this geek, look, I was so shy, I couldn't talk to girls. So if a shy teenager can create consumer groups could create his company so young, I'm sure you have way more advantages than him. So I'm sure you can do something too. But what I advise you know, that basically two big schools of thought in entrepreneurship, about the risk taking method, the other people that say, Hey, you need to burn your ships. So you have only two options. Either you succeed, or you die, you know, basically all you end up in the street with with no money. And people who advise these methods, they say, if you do this, you will be very motivated to succeed, which is true. But also, I think, I don't like this approach, because I think it's too risky. The second approach that I advise that I use in my life is to take measured risk, okay, small risk, and risk that are not going to disrupt your life. So it can seem crazy, to drop school at 18 to start your first company, but I didn't do it. Like like this. I didn't wake up one morning and said, Okay, I will do up school today, I did an experiment to see if my idea of having an IT business was a good one. We had this idea with a friend because we saw that a lot of people were asking us to solve their computer problems. And we were solving it like these, you know, very easily. And we didn't say okay, let's drop school. Do you know a business plan and start a company? No, we were like, Okay, how can we be sure we can make money with this idea? So we did a very simple experiment. We paid like a 10 euros for small ad in a local newspaper. And we try to do some advertising for for all our services. And in one month, we made 800 euros, which is not so much but at the time we were teenagers, we had maybe 10 euros of pocket money every every every week. So for us it was crazy. And we so it was profitable. We saw the customers were happy with our services, they were giving us money, and we saw we had the skills to do that. And I will never have DWeb school so young without this experiment, these experiments gave me the confidence that I could do it. And that's why I advise people to do, what experiment can you do in your life that will give you confidence to move forward. You know, an idiot leads this experiment, it should not take so much time, energy and money to do. And nowadays with the internet, you can you can do so many experiments, I did the same thing. When I switch my focus from my IT business to my internet business, I didn't stop or sell my IT business like these, you know, I always like, okay, maybe these are where business is a good idea, maybe not, what I will do is create these blocks. At the same time, I'm still managing the company. And of course, I did that I need to do some sacrifice, you know, because I was already already working a lot in my company. But you know, I didn't disrupt my life, I didn't stop what I was doing. I just added a small experiment to see if it was working. And it worked. And when he started to work, then I started to sell the first company, piece by piece. And, you know, I did things very gradually. That's what I advise people to do the same thing as what we talked about, previously, about habits start small, you know, it's too scary and overwhelming to change, like bad habits, like four hours of TV per day, like suddenly, you know, start small and build on these.
Graham Allcott 51:33
It's really true, isn't it? And then Elizabeth Gilbert has a lovely analogy, where, when she's talking to people about their careers and choices and stuff, she says, Don't ask, What do you want to do? Ask, what do you want to do that you're prepared to eat the shit sandwich that goes with it? And so it's like, if you are Yeah, I want to be a lawyer. Okay, do you want to work 90 hours a week for the next 20 years? Well, no, not really. I want to be the circus performer. Yeah, but do you want to risk getting injured, you know, so it's finding the thing that you're prepared to, sort of live with whatever sacrifice goes with it. And like, often when I'm talking to people, you know, in their 40s 50s, and it's like, they're in, you know, an employment wage job. And they're sort of looking and exploring about the idea of a business, like, often the first place I start when I'm talking to them is to say, you know, how, like, how cheaply Can you live for the next couple of years? And, you know, is that something that you're prepared to do to make this happen? Because I often think like, that's really the the key test, isn't it? Like, I'm gonna think you say it in the book for yourself. And it's true for me, that you don't really pay yourself a lot in the first couple of years as you're getting stuff going. So you have to kind of, you have to sort of give yourself that that sort of cushion in a way that minimises the risk, right?
Olivier Roland 52:52
Absolutely. Yeah. You I mean, when you start, you put your knife between your teeth, you know, and you you, you try to put all your, your, your churches with you, I mean, like to, to have better odds, you know, so yeah, don't give yourself a good salary. At the start, you have to work a lot, you know, then you will, when you start to work, well, you can think about how to have a better balance between your professional life and your personal life, etc, etc.
Graham Allcott 53:20
Yeah, for sure. And then the final question, I was gonna ask you, just before we finish the book is the way of the intelligent rebel. And when you wrote it in French, that was five years ago. So I just wanted to know, what have you learned about business or about your own life in that five years, so that when you came to do the translated version, like, what, what's new in there that you wouldn't have known five years ago?
Olivier Roland 53:46
So I did a second edition of the French book in 2019. So, you know, I updated some things. And the English version was also I adapted a lot of things. So it's based on the 2020 manuscript, so it's not so you know, so old. And, you know, I mean, for for a long time, I have been in a very awesome place, because, since 2020 12, I make more money than I can spend, I inspire 1000s of people every month, I travel all over the world, I have this freedom, that people who makes more money than me, don't, don't have, and I feel very blessed about it. And still, my business is growing, you know? And, you know, I mean, I'm learning a lot of things, but I don't feel the need so much to do it. Because I mean, I'm a continuous learner. So it's kind of habit for me anyway. But one of the things I learned in five years is to delegate even more I know I talk a lot about delegation in in my book but when I first wrote it, I didn't have a right arm you know, I didn't have like, how do you say in English like to see you, you know, and now I have one and it's such a game changer. And actually, she lives in London. I live in London for three years. Yes, I live in London for three years. We liked it, actually. And I met her in London. And she's, she's great. She, she's a, she's a French, but living in London, she has been new for 20 years. And she's also perfectly bilingual which I like, you know. So just to have a CEO, now, she managed the team, she recruits people, we are more or less such people right now, I told you, not everyone works full time. So you know, if I, I would aggregate everyone into full time person, maybe to be 15 Something like this. And yeah, it's just so much better to have a general manager in your in your company that manage people for you. Before I could procrastinate for month, I knew I needed someone in my team. And I would procrastinate for a month the recruitment because I just hate the process of recruiting people you know, of doing the talks and stuff. And now I just say Add to Elizabeth Haley's about wait is profit. Can you recruit someone, please? And she does it in this
Graham Allcott 56:10
amazing delegation. And if that's something that's available to you do more of it. I think that's a really good lesson if you're in that situation. Olivia, thank you so much for being on beyond busy. Where do people connect with you and find out more? I know, you've got lots of stuff out there online like, would you want to sort of point people towards
Olivier Roland 56:31
so for English speakers. I mean, I have a small YouTube channel called Olivier overlong English. So and of course, there is my book, The Way of the intelligent Rebel, and fall for people who speak French, you can easily find a lot of resources, if you type my name in Google.
Graham Allcott 56:47
Amazing, thank you so much for being on beyond busy.
Olivier Roland 56:50
Thank you, Graham, it was a blast.
Graham Allcott 56:52
So you go Olivier Roland. And it was really nice to just kind of reconnect with the some of the ideas, obviously, from Olivia's work. But you know, that whole conversation that we had around around Tim Ferriss and the four hour workweek, which I've sort of had a bit of a love hate relationship with, I really enjoyed it, when it first came out, then I could start to see a lot of people taking it in quieter, sort of, let's say, quite sort of Posey or douchey sort of direction, it just felt very like, Oh, look at me, I can cheat a tango and, and stuff. And yeah, it didn't feel very authentic. And it's like, well, isn't the whole point to do work that you really love and that you feel makes a contribution rather than just phoning it in. And, you know, lying on a beach, I think that becomes pretty meaningless pretty quickly, as it has to be said also that, you know, Tim Ferriss own perspectives on a lot of that stuff, I sort of stopped following him or stopped really kind of, you know, reading or listening to any of his stuff for a long time. I didn't like his early podcasts as well. I thought he was just a very clunky interviewer. But his recent podcasts have been phenomenal. And I think his his output in the last few years has just got so much more thoughtful and introspective. And I think he's just a really interesting guy. So he said, I'd love to have on this podcast, I'd love to sit down with Tim Ferriss at some point. So yeah, maybe we'll keep that one in the in the backburner as one to do. But yeah, really nice just to reconnect with some of those ideas and the 8020 rule and and I'm genuinely contemplating, when am I going to do some total immersion and go learn a language because those apps that Olivia talks about, and just, I'm someone who, as you're saying there, you know, when you're English, you're kind of at a bit of a disadvantage when it comes to learning languages, especially, and I didn't say this in the episode. But, you know, when you go to Paris, and you try and speak French, and like, all the French people there, just look at you and there's like, really condescending way. And they're like, they just reply in English. And you're like, I'm just trying, I'm in the blue luxury. I'm doing my best. It's like, it isn't easy sometimes when you're that bad at languages to do that sort of total immersion stuff. But yeah, really got me excited with them. Just listening to the enthusiasm with which Olivier talked about learning languages. So definitely something I'm thinking about over the next few months as well.
So yeah, I really enjoyed that episode. And as ever, we're sponsored by Think Productive. And I just want to shout out and say a big thank you to my producer Pavel on the podcast and Emilie, who keeps everything ticking over behind the scenes in terms of guests and keeping everyone happy and the production schedule and everything else. So yeah, really grateful to have such a good team working on this podcast, and our incredible sponsors which are Think Productive. So if you're interested in workshops and coaching if you have learning and development needs with in your organisation, then think productive can help. We specialise and our kind of origins were in productivity. So things like getting your Inbox Zero, helping you to work in a hybrid team, helping to fix your meetings. But we now go far beyond that. So project management, leadership, anything else you can think of really, that will just enhance your team and help your people to do their best work. So drop us a line, think productive.com And you'll find your local office around the world from that page. So think productive.com Cool. We're back in two weeks with another episode. So I hope you're keeping well you're enjoying the sunshine, and we'll see you in two weeks time So until then, take care bye for now.
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