(stirring blues music)
- I am here with George Toumasiou,
recent graduate of the Life Accelerator.
George, tell us a bit about you.
- Okay, so, my name's George Toumasiou.
I discovered London Real about two years ago
when I was living in Cyprus,
and I've gotta say that you've got me questioning
a lot of things in my life,
as to where I was, what I was doing,
and you got me to come out of my comfort zone,
I've gotta admit, and I moved back to London,
started my life again in my thirties,
leaving behind my wife and child
until I managed to set up shop out here.
And yeah, all the guests and what they say
kept me pushing forward,
but then slowly, slowly, as my life started to develop,
I found that I started settling back into my comfort zone,
and still watching, keeping up with the podcasts,
and just thinking to myself,
right, I get what these people are saying,
and I understand the theory behind it,
but it's hard to just keep implementing these things
in your life, and then, once you did that promo video,
and you clearly spotted it and pointed out
that these people are no different to us.
They're the same, just like you and I,
they have the same 24 hours their day,
but they keep extraordinary habits.
And I know what these habits are
'cause they talk about them in all the podcasts,
but implementing them and, you know,
making them part of your character
is where I was struggling.
So that's why, when you did that promo video
and you said sign up, sell yourself,
I thought, I've gotta do this, no excuses, so I've done it.
- And you were struggling inside,
just trying to implement things.
Was it just trying to get things done?
- Yeah, well, you do it, but you have your good days
and you have your bad days,
so it's just staying consistent,
and staying, you know, focused all the time.
It's not an easy task to do.
It takes accountability, is what I've realised
from being on the course
and having everyone else, mind-like people,
just wanting to be on the same page.
It was weird, when everyone posted their introduction videos
and you sit there and you're watching it,
this guy's in Columbia,
this guy is in Ecuador, this guy is in America,
this girl is in the States,
and you're thinking, why do I feel
like I'm cut from the same cloth as these people?
It's uncanny, but I loved it from the word go.
- Tell me about your peer group before you joined,
like externally,
who were the kind of people you were hanging out with,
listening to, that kind of thing?
- I'm fortunate, I've got good friends around me.
They're the ones who introduced me to London Real
in the first place.
We don't discuss other people, like you say.
We discuss ideas, and it's good,
but again, it breaks down to that theoricizing
as opposed to actually doing.
So that's where this is a little bit different.
You know, when you try and keep a friend accountable,
they can get a little bit on the defensive,
and vice versa.
But with this lot, they know not to be like that,
because that's what we're here to do.
So, that's the difference.
- How did you first hear about London Real?
- Good friend of mine who's out here,
he told me about it.
He's like oh, you gotta check out this podcast.
It's this guy called Brian Rose, he's this American guy.
I checked you out, in these combat jeans,
you had this fluffy thing on your face.
You're interviewing these people,
and then I think it was,
Dan Pena was one of the first episodes I think I saw,
and that was it, that was it.
He had me questioning everything in my life,
and that's when I realised, you know what?
I need to find myself a mentor.
I need to get on this, I know I'm not made for mediocrity.
I know I'm destined to do better things,
so that's why I stepped out of my comfort zone
and came back out here.
- What made you actually pull the trigger?
It was in December, you would've seen the pitch,
but then you had to make an investment
to jump on this Life Accelerator.
I think you were on a live call that I did,
and I think you had to make a call after that,
and some people on the call, I remember they were saying,
yeah, I don't know if I should do this.
What made you make the call?
- You released the Business Accelerator the year before,
when I first moved back to London,
and I was like, oh, this is something I've gotta do,
because I was shortlisted for The Apprentice,
and I never made it on the show.
So then, then you released the Business Accelerator,
but at this point, I was living in my wife's uncle's house.
I hadn't, my wife and son are still over there
to justify the money, so I had a lot of excuses.
This time, now, I've got a good job,
I've got my wife and kid here, I'm in a house now.
What's my excuse?
And I was talking with some of my friends,
and like, do it!
You've got the money sitting there, do it.
What are you waiting for?
So I thought, no more more excuses, I've gotta do this,
and it's been the best thing I've done.
- Tell me about the first impressions.
You get into that Facebook group,
you see these people from around the world.
You start taking those modules, first week, two weeks.
What do you remember?
- You're watching all these people
and a lot of them are introverts.
I was as well, but some people more than me,
and they're shy, you can see that they're really struggling
in front of the camera,
and initially, when you tell us the idea,
even before we see the videos, I'm thinking,
what are we gonna do here now?
Are we just gonna sit here posting videos
and tease each other, like, pick each other up and so forth?
But, as the weeks progressed,
or even within the first few days,
you realise, yeah, this is working,
and then you, at the end of it,
when you look at each person's video, and then you go back
and look at their first couple of videos,
like, that one girl, you see her, and you think,
ah, she's gonna struggle with it.
She's gonna struggle with this.
But at the end, she's a lioness,
and you go back and you look
at her first little, timid video.
You struggle to think it's the same person.
You can't believe it, it's shocking.
- What was your first big aha moment
where you were like, man, this is working for me,
or something just happened here,
where I see things differently or I'm having some success?
- I'd say from the second week with the mindset module,
'cause at this point,
you've already been doing the meditation,
you've already been keeping the gratitude diary,
and now, you're looking at your affirmations.
You're looking at your goals, where you wanna be,
you're asking why with each goal, maybe four, five times,
to see if this is really what you wanna be doing,
and you get that direction,
and now you've got this laser beam focus,
and you're running for it, and there's nothing stopping you.
- What was difficult for you?
What did you struggle with in the course?
- I'd say the relationships, like a lot of people.
Contacting people that you haven't spoken to in five years
that you left things a little bit rocky with.
Going back, looking back into that Pandora's Box,
it's not an easy task, you've gotta dig deep.
So, yeah, you do it, and you feel better for it.
It might not change anything,
but at least you know you've done your part.
- Yeah.
What's something that you can tell people,
that'll teach them about something
they can do in their life?
'Cause you've just gone through this six-week process.
You picked up a lot of amazing practises and habits,
but if there's one thing
that the life accelerator taught you,
that you can be like, you know what?
If someone listening here, do this,
and it'll change their game, what is it?
- I'd say, habits become your character,
so, and you gotta be consistent with them
in order for them to be embedded in you.
If you do it sporadically, it's not gonna become you.
Your thoughts need to become actions.
Your actions need to become your character,
and then it will become part of you,
so if you know what you need to be doing,
if you have a morning ritual that you do every morning,
you wake up an hour early just to get it done,
or two hours early,
if you're gonna put your movement practise
into that as well,
keep doing it, and keep at it,
because only over time will you see the results.
You're not gonna see it after the first day, the second day.
Life's not about epiphanies and having a moment of clarity
and your life's gonna change.
You're not gonna sit and watch one podcast,
and you're gonna think, right, that's it.
This is gonna be me from here on.
Doesn't work like that.
It takes time and consistency
and focus in order to get there.
- You're a special guy in this course,
because, like you said, you see all these people inside,
making all these wins and gains,
and these people start timid, and they end up,
like you said, lionesses and lions.
But you took a special interest into certain people
in this course, and there's two guys
that probably wouldn't be in London this weekend
if it wasn't for you.
Can you talk about what you did, why you did it,
and a little bit more about the people you met?
- Okay, so, you set us up to make an affirmation
for different aspects of different facets of our life,
and one of them was spiritual,
so I was really struggling with this,
and then I decided to just jump on the bandwagon
of London Real and become a really good advocate
for the programme.
And I just thought, you know what?
There's a couple of guys here.
They're in their 20s, these guys,
they're the ones to watch, really,
because joining this course at the age of 20,
if I had this when I was 20 years old, I don't think,
I think I'd be miles ahead of where I am right now.
So they're the ones to watch, and I thought,
if these guys can get here as well with us,
it's just gonna be the icing on the cake.
And when I saw you jumping in that Hampstead Heath lake,
and I actually commented, I was like, watch this space.
I'm gonna do it, but then I thought,
it's hard, it's hard.
I needed a little bit more motivation,
and I thought, right, if I can get sponsored,
if I can get a couple of other crazy guys to do this with me
and we raise, if everyone puts in, I figured,
if everyone puts in around 25 bucks,
we can get these guys out here,
and posted the three-minute video, before you know it,
people are sending money in,
and we got these two kids out here, and it's amazing.
That's what's gonna actually make me jump in that lake,
to where otherwise, I think I would've pussied out, sort of.
- (laughing) Well, that's special.
That's never been done in any of our accelerators,
so that's super special.
You met all these people last night.
Describe what it's like. - It's amazing.
You're seeing these people on a 2-D screen
for the last six weeks,
and then you meet them for the first time,
and you feel like you've known them your entire life.
If someone told me a year ago this is how I'd be feeling
and this is what's gonna happen,
I'd be thinking that they're exaggerating
or just telling fibs, but it's not.
It's deep,
and it's heart-filling, it really is.
- Yeah.
New Year's, this year, you posted a video
of who you're gonna be on New Year's,
that's 10 months from now,
and I think we're all gonna do a live call
on New Year's Eve, which sounds crazy,
but everything we do in Life Accelerator is crazy fun.
Who are you gonna be, then?
- I think I'm gonna bite the bullet and start my own Real.
But being that I'm already in London,
I can't make a London Real Number Two,
and being that I'm an estate agent,
I think I'm gonna make London Real Estate,
and I'm gonna be posting videos
of estate agency in general,
people that have made money through estate agency,
or made money through property development, if anything,
and building up portfolios, seeing how they've done it,
how a lot of them have done it
without even using their own money,
and eventually, what I want my end goal to be,
and I doubt I'll achieve this this year,
but let's say the five-year plan would be
to accomplish what I initially came out here to do,
when I wanted to go on The Apprentice,
and that's to start a crowdfunding estate agency
where people can actually put in their money
and tangibly own a piece of real estate,
as opposed to giving it to a hedge fund
and letting them run amok with it.
So, if you can get a thousand people to invest,
say three, five thousand dollars, or pounds, in this case,
into a property that they own a piece of,
and they recuperate the rent, it's not much,
but it's a lot better than what your other options are
of putting it in the bank, and then eventually,
once that property's increased in value
to a certain percentage, you cash out,
and everyone takes their piece.
So, obviously, it's gonna take time.
You've gotta build up your following,
you've gotta get your thousand dedicated fans,
and once you get there,
then they'll maybe find the confidence
in backing you up and doing this, so we'll see.
- I love it.
Let's say we walked out on the street right now
and you bumped into the George that didn't take this course.
What's he like?
- He's lost, he's lost.
He wants to find himself,
he wants to have this laser beam focus all the time
that he can sometimes tap into,
but then resistance comes along and it sways him off,
and he's just, like, not sure about himself,
and that's who he was, and I feel sorry for him now,
to be honest with you.
It's kind of, I have empathy for him.
- (laughing) Someone watching this right now,
they're on the fence, not sure if they should join
one of our accelerator programmes or not.
What do you tell them?
- I tell them that if you've been watching the podcast,
and you believe everything that's being said,
I mean, all they gotta do is just look at you, Brian.
Look at the person you've become, that's what I did.
I saw you, you've become this person, it's real.
It's absolutely real.
If you wanna be part of that,
if you wanna have this sort of change,
and it be implemented and be instilled in you,
then you're gonna have to embark on this journey,
and the things you take out of it,
and the people you have for the rest of your life,
it's priceless.
You wouldn't sell your family,
you wouldn't sell your friends, and you can't buy friends.
But paying in this course,
you get people that are with you for life,
whether they're future business associates
or just really good friends.
You can't put a price on something like that,
and you can't put a price
on what you get out of it personally, as a person, either.
So, that's all I'd say.
- George, it's been an honour to have you on this course
and seriously a privilege.
You're like,
you make it a joy to be a part of this accelerator, for me,
and you know, we get so much out of this,
but this class, it is a family,
and it's our new family, and you're every part of that.
Your energy's always pumped up.
You're doing these crazy videos.
You got your son on your back,
talking about all sorts of great stuff,
and it's just been amazing to have you,
so I just wanna thank you for making this thing so awesome,
for flying two guys in from Ecuador and Texas,
into London, they're so excited to be here,
and you're a big part of this energy, so thanks so much.
- Pleasure's all mine, honestly.
- Cool, man, I can't wait to see you on New Year's,
and to see you in the next few years
just absolutely killing it. - Thanks.
- Deal? - Deal.
- Cool, man.
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